because when we look for things we generally find 'em."
"What hurts me," said Porky, "is not carrying weapons of any sort. It's
a good safe rule for the Boy Scouts, but I'd be glad of some little
thing like a sling shot or a putty blower."
"I don't need anything," said Beany, "I've got the neatest thing you
ever _did_ see." Quite suddenly he drew something from his hip pocket
and shoved it under his brother's nose. Porky side-stepped.
"Ha!" said Beany. "It works!" He showed Porky his weapon. It was a
monkey wrench from the auto tool chest. In his hand it looked like a
revolver.
"Pretty neat," said Porky. "Is there another one in the box?"
"Yes, I saw another," said Beany. "I don't see any harm in this. Any
one might carry a monkey wrench," and replaced it carefully in his
pocket.
"Sure thing," said Porky, making for the car, followed by his brother.
"Didn't the Reverend Hannibal Butts get up to preach one Sunday, and dig
for a clean handky to wipe his face with and come up with a bunch of
waste and use it before he saw what he was doing?"
"I remember that," said Beany. "I thought I'd die! And so did
everybody else. It 'most broke up the meeting."
"Well, when you flashed that monkey wrench I thought it was a revolver
sure enough. But it was only an innocent little wrench, and here is the
mate to it!" He pocketed the tool, and slipping cautiously out of sight
of the group of officers, they went scrambling noiselessly down the
steep trail into the valley. Reaching the foot of the hill, they struck
cautiously out toward the entanglements, dropping on their faces
whenever a flare went up. Presently Beany, a little in the rear, pulled
his brother's leg. Porky stopped, and waited for Beany to wriggle up.
He muttered, "What?" but did not turn his face. He knew too well that a
face turned upwards in the darkness can be seen by an observant watcher
overhead in some prowling plane.
"Men whispering over toward the right," said Beany of the marvelous
ears.
"No business for any one to be there," said Porky, listening intently.
"We are well on our side yet."
"It's over there on that little hillock," said Beany positively, "and I
think they are whispering in German."
"Why, they _can't_ be, Bean," said Porky. "We are away inside our
lines, and we wouldn't have men out there and, besides, they wouldn't be
whispering German or anything else. When our men are supposed to keep
still, they _keep still_!"
"I can't help it," said Beany. "They are whispering in German."
"All right," said Porky, reluctantly turning toward the spot indicated
by Beany. "We'll go over and see what it is, and if there are any
Germans holed up around here, we'll sick on a few troops."
They did not stand up again, but slowly and with the greatest caution
approached a small hillock that stood slightly away from the steeper
hills. It was not wooded enough to afford any shelter, nor was it high
enough to be a good spot for a gun. For that or for some other reason,
the enemy had failed to shell it.
On the side toward the Allies a pile of high boulders was tumbled. The
rest was grass grown. Beany, whispering softly in his brother's ear,
insisted that the voices came from this place.
"Then they are underground," whispered Porky in his turn.
Slowly, ever so slowly they crept up to the little hill and lay in the
darkness, listening. Certainly through the grass and stones of the
mound came the muffled sound of cautious voices. If they had been
speaking English, it is probable that even Beany's wizard ears would not
have caught the sound. But the harsh guttural German, even when
whispered, seemed to carry far.
"I don't see how you heard 'em," breathed Porky. "It's hard enough to
believe now. What do you suppose it all means!"
"Search me!" Beany breathed in return.
"What they doing over on our side?" wondered Porky.
"It's a good place all right," said Beany against his brother's ear as
they lay close to the grass.
They were silent for a while, when the unbelievable happened. It was so
amazing, so stunning, that both boys at first could not believe that
they heard aright. They heard a sound like a windlass or crank turning,
a few clods tumbled down on them, and a voice once more whispered
hoarsely three words:
"Gee, it's hot!"
"_Gee, it's hot!_" said the German voice and the simple words seemed to
the astounded boys to ring across the valley! On the contrary, they
were spoken in a low whisper.
Another voice replied. "He won't like it if you speak English, you
know."
"I can't help it," said the first speaker. "We are two to one anyhow,
and I am tired of talking that lingo. I'm a good German all right, but
I wasn't brought up to _speak_ German and it comes hard. And this is
the hottest place I ever did get in. I don't like it. Do you know what
will happen about to-morrow? I'll tell you. We will find ourselves
miles behind the Allies' lines, and then what do you propose to do,
Peter?"
"Bosh!" said the man called Peter. "You think because a handful of
Americans are here that the tide has turned. Be careful what you think.
I tell you _no_. What can a few hundred of these fellows do against the
perfect, trained millions of the Fatherland?"
"You don't know them," said Fritz.
"Yes, I do," said the man Peter. "Now let me tell you. For years I was
in England; sent there to study those foolish bull-headed people and to
create all the unrest I could. It was _so_ easy. I saw these Americans
there, crazy, loud-mouthed, boasting, always boasting. They talked
fight, they told wild tales about the bad men of their west, always
boasting. So I tried them. I am a big man, Fritz, and strong; I was
not afraid of a little fight, me, myself. I tried them. I slurred
their government, sneered at their president, laughed at their
institutions. What think you? They laughed. They _laughed_! Quite as
if I said the most kindly things. I said, 'What I say is true, is it
not?' and they said, 'Perhaps, but it is so funny!' That is what they
said, '_so funny_!' They should have slain me where I stood."
"They don't care what you say or what the rest of the world says,"
whispered Fritz. "They are too big. Their country is too big. When
they fight.... Wait until you have seen them fight! They fight with
grunts and gasps and bared teeth. They do not need trenches, they will
go over the top with a shout. You will see, friend Peter. They are back
there in the darkness now. I feel them!"
"A few of them, only a few," said Peter. "This little castle of sod and
stone is getting on your nerves, my friend. Look you! Do you think the
Highest would deceive us? Never, never! There is nothing to this talk
of the Americans coming over here. To be sure, they have declared war,
but what of it? They are no good. They have no army. All their boasted
possessions, all their harbors, all their wealth, yet they have no army.
No army! That shows how inefficient they are. Never fear, my Fritz.
Not a hundred thousand will reach this soil. I have it from our
commanding officer himself."
"Then here's hoping for a quick release from this hole," said Fritz
bitterly.
"To-morrow," said Peter; "to-morrow our hosts will sweep across this
valley, and we will be with our own again."
"Oh, I hope for some release. It's the hardest duty I have ever been
given."
"But think how we have been able to guide our guns, talking as we can to
the airplanes through the clever arrangement of our three little trees
on top of our delightful little hill." He laughed. "How clever it all
is! And no one will ever suspect!" He paused again to chuckle, and
Porky quite suddenly shoved a sharp elbow into Beany's ribs.
"Well, I'm sick of it," said Fritz still in his low, hoarse whisper, and
seemed to move away from the side of the hill where he had been
standing.
The boys with the greatest caution wriggled away.
"Now what do you think of _that_?" said Porky when they were in a
position where they could talk in safety. "_What do you think of
that?_"
"Anyhow," said Beany, "they aren't spies. I'm sort of fed up on spies.
I can stand for most anything else."
"No, they are not spies. I can't make out just what their little game
is. It's important, though; you can see that. And we have got to stop
it somehow."
"That ought to be easy enough. Just go back and get the bunch and a few
soldiers, and take 'em."
"What's the time, anyhow?" asked Porky. He answered his own question by
fishing his wrist watch out of his pocket. He had put it there for fear
the luminous dial might be seen.
"Only eleven," he said. "Plenty of time." He sat staring into the
darkness. There were very few flares now, although the night was
usually kept bright with them.
"Wonder why that is," Porky said.
"Something to do with our little mud house, don't you think so?" said
Beany.
"Yes, I do," answered his brother, "I wish I could make it out. Give us
time, give us time!"
"Well, come on! I want to get some one on. the job," said Beany. "I
feel fidgety."
"Sit still," said Porky. "I want to think."
"What you got in your head now?" said Beany. His voice sounded anxious.
"We are going to take those men prisoners with our own little wrenches
and just by our two selves."
"Three of them?" gasped Beany.
"Three of them!" said Porky. "Come on!"
*CHAPTER XII*
*TAKING THREE PRISONERS*
"Come nothing!" said Beany slangily. "You stay right here until we can
talk this thing over, and make some sort of a plan. I don't propose to
go into something we can't get out of."
"Well," said Porky, "the only plan I have is so crazy that I'm sort of
afraid to tell you about it. But it would certainly be sort of nifty to
take those men ourselves instead of running back to the bunch for help.
It would kind of put a little gilt on things and would be something to
tell Bill and Peggy about when they grow up a little."
Beany was impressed. "I hadn't thought of that," he said. "Looks like
we haven't much to tell them about, nothing but the submarine and the
secret passage and that sort of thing."
"And the spies back home," added Porky. "No, we ought to wind up with
something else. Beside, if I don't get hold of a Hun or two after what
we saw and heard back at the Duval farm, I don't think I'll ever live."
"Well, I'm with you," agreed Beany. "Now let's plan. We sure have got
to get a prisoner or two our own selves. What's next?"
For twenty minutes the boys, heads close together, whispered rapidly.
Then they rose and went noiselessly toward the false hillock.
The last hundred yards they crept, lying flat and motionless whenever a
flare lit the sky. They were not frequent, however, and the boys made
good progress. When they reached the mound, Porky, who was the best
climber, crept to the top. He used the most infinite caution, and there
was not a sound to betray his slow, sure progress. Gaining the top, he
found what he had expected to find. A sodded opening, like a double
trap door, operated from the inside, was slightly opened for air. So
cleverly was it arranged with small bushes and grass growing on the trap
doors, that it would have been impossible to detect it. Porky felt
cautiously about the edges. Then he listened. From below came an
unmistakable sound--the noise of a couple of men snoring. The sound was
so muffled by the thick steel walls, the earth and stones and sod
outside them, that they were able to sleep without fear of detection.
Porky shook his head admiringly. He was forced to acknowledge that the
ingenuity of the foe seemed to know no bounds. Again he tried the trap
doors. They were balanced to a hair and moved upward at his touch. He
felt in his pocket, arranged something in either hand, then swung the
doors both upward.
It would be untrue to say that a flash of doubt did not pass over the
reckless boy at that instant. He thought of the General and of the way
in which that great man trusted them to do their part in keeping out of
trouble. He had surmised that there were three men below. There was
room for a dozen. He had taken it for granted that he and Beany could
pull off a stunt that instead might end in their immediate death or
worse. But there he was, perched on the top, the heavy trap doors
swinging wide, and below in the dense darkness the sound of men snoring.
Porky took time to listen. There were snores from two, that was clear,
and still another man talked and muttered fretfully in his sleep. Porky
could hear no others.
He took a long breath, leaned over the opening, and turned a flashlight
below.
As though electrified; three big men sat up and blinked in the glare of
the flashlight.
Two of the men cried, "Kamarad!" and instantly held up their hands. The
third said calmly, "Thank the Lord! I surrender!" and stood up.
"Not so fast!" said Porky in his deepest tones. He fiddled with the
button on his flashlight. The light wavered. Porky kept his face to
the men and called back over his shoulder:
"Sergeant, something's wrong with my flash. Send up another!"
"Yes, sir!" answered Beany as gruffly as possible from below. He waited
a moment, then scrambling up passed his flash to his brother. Porky put
his in his pocket, and bent the light on the men below. An ax stood in
one corner with a coil of rope. In another corner was a rough table
loaded with strange instruments that Porky did not understand.
"Turn out your pockets!" he commanded, and three revolvers were tossed
up, one after the other.
"See that rope?" demanded Porky, pointing his flash directly at the man
who had spoken English. "You tell those other fellows to tie you up
quick, and tell them to make a good job of it!"
"I surrender," said the man Fritz. "Please don't tie me up, sir!"
"You hear!" said Porky grimly. He called back over his shoulder.
"Forward ten paces, Sergeant!"
"Yes, sir," said Beany, and Porky almost giggled as he heard his brother
scuffling violently around trying to sound like a squad. But he dared
not look away from the men below, who were hastily tying up the man
called Fritz. They did a good job, eager to make good with the unseen
and most unexpected captors. If the officer above with the boyish voice
wanted Fritz tied up, tied up he would be so he could not move. When
they finished, the bulky form looked like a mummy.
"Is that a door in the side?" Porky demanded of Fritz.
"Yes, sir," said Fritz.
Porky waited a little. The worst was coming now.
"Tell those men to open that door, and step outside, and if they value
their lives, to keep their hands up."
Fritz spoke rapidly in German. What he said was, "These are Americans,
you fools! The officer says to step outside, and keep your hands up.
You had better do it, if you want to live. They would rather shoot than
eat. I know them! Obey, no matter what they tell you."
When he had finished, one of the men, lowering one hand and keeping the
other well up in the air, pressed a long lever and a narrow door opened,
dislodging a little shower of stones and earth as it moved outward.
"Vorwarts zwei!" cried Porky, making a wild stab at German.
It was understood however. Fear makes men quick, and the two walked
briskly out and stood side by side. One of them had stepped through a
loop of the rope, and it came trailing after him.
"Tie those men's hands and tie them together. Sergeant," said Porky. He
watched, cold with a fright he would never have felt for himself, while
Beany, keeping as much out of the light as possible, tied the men, and
sawed off the end of the rope.
"Close the door!" demanded Porky.
Beany did so.
"Don't leave me here, sir," cried the man below suddenly. "If the
Germans find that we have allowed this spot to be discovered, they will
shoot me. If the enemy comes I shall be shot. I will come quietly. I
am glad to surrender."
"That's all right," growled Porky. "You are safe for a while. I am
leaving a guard here. We want a few English-speaking prisoners, so you
are quite safe for a while."
"One of those men outside speaks English also," cried Fritz.
"All right," said Porky. "I advise you to keep still. Sergeant, detail
a guard for this place with orders to shoot him at the first outcry."
"Yes, sir," said Beany. He retreated under cover of the darkness,
thoughtfully going around the corner of the mound as a flare brightened
the sky, and he remembered, in the nick of time, that it wouldn't do to
let the two men, carefully bound as they were, see him roaring
directions at an imaginary squad. He returned in a minute and saluted,
although his form was only a darker shadow in the darkness of the night.
Above, Porky closed the trap doors, and as he did so, cut the ropes by
which they were opened and closed. Not even with his teeth could the
trussed up prisoner below open them.
Beany had already shut the door in the side and wedged it with a broken
piece of gun-carriage.
"Come with me, Sergeant," said Porky, for the benefit of the
English-speaking prisoner. "Vorwarts!"
It was a strange group that gave the password a half hour later and
advanced to the General's tent. The tent, hidden from observation by
blankets and thick masses of boughs, was brightly lighted. General
Pershing seemed to scorn sleep. Surrounded by his staff and a group of
officers from the lines below, he sat puzzling over the reports they had
made. Information was steadily leaking across. Every move they made
was reported correctly. Only that very night as soon as it was
definitely decided that no attack would be made, the flares from the
enemy's lines almost ceased and their guns were silenced, as though they
were glad to be assured of a few hours of peace. The positions of the
American guns, no matter how cleverly camouflaged, were speedily
discovered and gun fire trained on them.
The thing had assumed a very serious look. Losses were piling up. The
General listened in worried and puzzled silence.
It was at this moment that the flap of the tent was suddenly opened, and
two Germans, their hands tightly bound, stumbled blinkingly into the
light. Behind them stood the two boys. There was a moment of surprised
silence broken by the older prisoner, as he accustomed his eyes to the
light. He glanced about the group, then his eyes rested curiously on
his captors.
A look of fury and amazement crossed his face.
"Kinder, kleine kinder!" he muttered scornfully.
The other man was silent.
General Pershing gave a sigh.
"Those twins again!" he said. The boys saluted. "Where shall we leave
these, sir?" said Porky respectfully. "We left another back there." He
waved into space. _Back there_ might have been anywhere on the
continent, as far as his direction showed. "It's sort of a queer place,
sir, and we would like some one to see it, because we can't tell what
it's all for, and we don't know that we could make the other fellow
tell. He speaks English."
Rapidly the General gave the necessary orders. The two men were led off
a short distance and placed under close guard. An escort, with a couple
of captains and an expert electrician, was named for the boys, and
without a question from the General, who knew how to bide his time, the
little party filed out of the tent and went back down the trail.
When they were out of hearing, the General laughed and spoke.
"I often wonder," he said, "how those two boys pass the time in their
own home. I don't mind trying to run an army, but running those twins
is a bigger task than I like to tackle. I am glad they don't know just
how glad I will be to hear the story they will tell us when they get the
job finished. Three prisoners, and they want an escort of officers and
an electrician! Well, they are on the trail of something, I'll be
bound! I would like to question those prisoners but I won't spoil the
boys' innocent pleasure in what they are doing. But I must say that I
want one of you to keep an eye on them every second now until we return
to headquarters. They are to be shipped home from there with a special
passport, and I will be able to sleep better."
"They came with General Bright, did they not?" asked a Captain.
"Yes, and when he was called to Paris, I foolishly offered to let them
stay at headquarters. I thought they would play around and kill time
until Bright came back. That's what I get for overlooking their
records. Things are bound to happen wherever they go."
"All boys are like that more or less, but this is a lively pair," said
the Captain. "They seem to want to know everything. They are studying
all my books on the French and English guns now, and I heard one of them
say the other day that he had some good ideas on airplanes."
"I hope he takes them home then," said the General. "They are good
youngsters, and I'll be glad to get a receipt from their parents for
them. They are perfectly obedient, and strict as any old regular about
discipline, but no matter _what_ good care we try to take of them, they
are always getting into tight places."
"Their coming over here seems a strange thing," said one of the
officers. "Sort of irregular."
"There is a reason," said the General. "They don't know it themselves.
They were sent across because it seemed a good thing to have a boy's
point of view for the boys over there of things over here. When I say
they were sent, I do not mean that their expenses were paid. The
Potters are amply able to spend money, but it was a good and patriotic
thing for them to risk the lives of a fine pair like Porky and Beany. I
don't even know their real names. Not that it matters. They would make
themselves felt if they were called Percy and Willie. They are that
sort."
Talk drifted to other things and time passed until a stir and footsteps
outside made it evident that the expedition had returned. The door flap
opened and the party filed in, the remaining prisoner in their midst.
The General glanced at him, then bent a steady, steely look on the man's
face.
"You!" he said. "A German prisoner, you--"
The man's face lighted.
He stood erect and made an effort to salute with his bound hands.
"Yes, sir," he said in a low tone. "If I'm to be shot, sir, won't you
let me tell you how it all happened?"
The General glanced at his wrist watch.
"It is three o'clock," he said. He nodded toward the sergeant. "Take
this man in charge. To-morrow at seven o'clock bring him to my tent and
I will talk with him."
He turned away and did not glance again at the prisoner as he was led
away.
"He knew you," said a Captain.
"He worked for me four years on my apple ranch in Oregon. The foreman
wrote me that he and seven others had left suddenly soon after the
beginning of the war. I think we will get some very interesting
information out of that young man. In the meantime," he turned to the
two boys standing as stiffly at attention as their fagged out bodies
would permit, "in the meantime, boys, can you tell your little story in
half an hour? It is very late, and we have a hard day before us
to-morrow."
"It won't take that long," said Porky. "We just went down a little
ways, inside our own lines, General, so you wouldn't worry, and Beany,
he hears things just like a cat, and there was a little hill, with these
men inside, and I climbed on top and talked to them through the trap
door, and Beany made believe he was a squad."
"And Porky had two of 'em tie up that Fritz fellow," interrupted Beany,
"and made 'em come out the door, and we just made 'em think the squad
was guarding the hill, and we brought 'em up here, and they came too
easy. And we didn't try to carry arms, General, we just had a couple of
monkey wrenches, and say, Porky, I've lost mine! That chauffeur will
murder me!"
"A few details missing, however," said the General. "However, that will
do for to-night. In the morning, if you like, you may be present when I
see the prisoner. Good-night!"
*CHAPTER XIII*
*THE PRISONER'S STORY*
Some three minutes later (so the boys thought), some one shook them
awake. It was morning.
"Six o'clock!" said their tormentor, prodding them viciously. It was
the driver of their car. "Say, did youse have my monkey wrench!" he
demanded of both boys.
"Sure!" said Porky quickly. "Here it is!" He handed out his wrench,
while Beany tried to pretend to sleep again. The chauffeur looked it
over.
"Naw, that ain't me wrench," he declared. "Same size and shape but it
ain't me wrench!"
"Why not?" asked Porky. "One of us took your wrench last night, and if
this is the same size and shape, why isn't it the same wrench?"