FAST TRAVELING.
The sound of firing was now much closer. Frightened faces were peering
from behind shuttered windows. All traffic appeared to have stopped, and
the only life beyond the few persons abroad, whose curiosity was
stronger than their fear of the big German guns, was when an occasional
body of troops would rush through the streets.
The beautiful Hotel de Ville and the fine old cathedral, so soon
destined to be damaged by fire and bullets, attracted the attention of
the boys and gained a hearty expression of admiration from them both.
All at once there was a whirr and the snort of a horn, and an armored
war-automobile, carrying a machine gun, and painted a business-like
gray, dashed around a corner and sped on. Another car came close behind
it.
The second machine carried an American and a Red Cross flag. It was
coming fast and contained two occupants. Both were youths, and one
carried a camera over his shoulder by a broad strap. But the other
attracted Jack's notice, for in him he recognized instantly the lad they
were in search of, Tom Jukes, the millionaire's son.
"Hey, Tom Jukes!" he hailed.
The car slowed up and the young driver turned questioningly in his seat.
"Well, by all that's wonderful, it's Jack Ready and Bill Raynor!" he
exclaimed, as the two lads came up to the car. "What in the world are
you doing here?"
"We've been sent to ask you that same question," responded Jack, who, it
will be recalled, became well acquainted with Tom Jukes when the young
wireless man was in the hospital in New York following his battle with
the desperate tobacco smugglers he was instrumental in sending to
prison.
"What do you mean?" asked Tom with wide-open eyes.
"Why, your father hadn't heard from you and----"
"Hadn't heard from me! Why, I've written several letters," declared Tom.
"I'd have cabled, but they've stopped all that for the present, at
least. I declare, that's too bad. And so the governor sent you on a
searching expedition, eh?"
"Well, it was to be a combination of that and a vacation," laughed Jack,
and he told something of their adventures on board the "Gold Ship."
"My word, you fellows are always having adventures," said Tom, with a
smile on his good-looking face. "The fact is, I guess reading of your
exploits made me stay over here when this row started to see if I
couldn't have some of my own. I'm staying with Belgian friends, about
half a mile from here, and so far I haven't done much but get ready to
help in Red Cross work and so on. But now I guess it's up to me to get
back to the U. S. A."
"If we can," said Jack. "I don't know where the ship we came over on,
the _St. Mark_, has been sent to. London and Paris are overrun with
American refugees. When we were there, hundreds of them were unable to
get passage, or even change their money."
"Oh, the whole world seems to have been shuffled in this thing," frowned
Tom, "but let me introduce my friend, Philander Pottle. He's a
photographer for a New York newspaper."
The boys shook hands with Pottle, a dark young fellow who talked as
explosively as a machine gun.
"Glad to meet you--fine fight--be here soon--great pictures--snap!
bang!--action--that's the stuff!"
"We're going out toward the front, that is, if we can get by," declared
Tom; "want to come along?"
The boys looked rather dubious.
"I don't know what your father----" began Jack doubtfully.
Tom interrupted him impulsively.
"Oh, there's no danger so long as we don't get in any of the scrimmages
ourselves," he declared, "and then the American flag and the Red Cross
emblem will keep us out of trouble."
Both boys were anxious to go, so that it did not take much more
persuasion to make them get in.
"Now then off we go--bang! biff!--big guns!"
Outside the city lay an open country. Far off they could see a great
cloud-like mass of smoke which, no doubt, marked the place where the
fight was taking place.
"We'll make a detour to the north," declared Tom. "There's rising ground
there and we can look down without danger of getting hit."
"Not want to get hit--cannon ball--gee whizz, off goes your head--much
better keep it on," said Pottle, in his firecracker way.
"He talks as fast as a photographic shutter moves," chuckled Bill to
Jack in a low voice and the other could not but agree. As they rode on,
they passed groups of soldiers and artillery. Now and then a lumbering
wagon, bringing back wounded men lying on piles of straw, jolted by,
bearing mute testimony of the havoc going on at the front.
The boys began to feel sick and queer and even Tom sobered down at these
sights. They were stopped several times by small skirmishing bands and
made to show their papers, for a few days before German spies had been
captured in a car flying an American flag. The car sped up a hill and
then started swiftly down on the other side of the acclivity.
At the foot of the hill, a long and steep one, was a wooden bridge. Tom
was driving fast, when suddenly there was a sharp, snapping sound and
the car leaped forward. Tom's foot was on the brake in a jiffy, but
there was no diminution in the speed of the machine. Instead, it
appeared to gain momentum every moment.
"Bother it all," muttered Tom; "brakes bust. I can't slow down till we
get to the bottom of the hill."
"I hope we don't meet anything," cried Jack.
"If we do grand bust--smash--crash--no chance--wow!" exploded the
photographer.
But there was nothing in sight, and beyond the bridge was another up
grade where Tom hoped to gain control of the runaway machine. But within
a few hundred feet of the bridge some soldiers suddenly appeared,
running from the bridge as if they were in haste to leave the vicinity.
As the car came in sight they waved it frantically back. One even
leveled a rifle.
"Can't stop," shouted Tom Jukes, "brakes bust."
They flashed by the men who looked mere blurs at the pace the car was
now going.
Bang! came a shot behind them, but the bullet whistled by, making them
involuntarily crouch low in the madly racing car. Behind them came
shouts and yells. They could catch something about Germans.
"They think we're German spies," gasped Bill, as the car thundered
across the bridge.
Hardly had it flashed across than there came a terrific explosion and
looking back they saw the whole bridge blown skyward. Their lives had
been saved by a miracle.
"Those soldiers must have mined that bridge and set the fuse just before
we appeared," declared Jack, looking rather white and dismayed.
"We weren't a second too soon. If we'd been going slower we'd have been
wiped off the map," added Bill soberly.
"I'm going to keep running at this speed till we're out of this
neighborhood," cried Tom Jukes. "It's not healthy."