AT THE COVERED BRIDGE
There was not a sign of the enemy as they neared the bridge, one of
those covered affairs so common a few years ago in country districts.
The countryside was serene and undisturbed.
"This doesn't look much like war," said Jack. "But I guess Gettysburg
itself looked just as peaceful a few days before the big battle in 1863.
You can't always tell by appearances. We'll go pretty easy here, anyhow,
until we're certain that it's all right."
But the most careful investigation failed to reveal a trace of hostile
occupation or passage. At the end of the bridge Jack got out of the car,
leaving Tom Binns at the wheel, and ready to start at an instant's
notice should there be a sudden attack.
"The tracks here don't show anything much," he said, looking up to Tom
with a puzzled face. "I don't believe anything but a couple of farm
wagons have passed this way to-day. If General Bliss thought this was
his only line of advance, he'd have been certain to have had a few
pickets here--or at least one of his scout cars. And I'll swear that
nothing of that sort has happened here to-day. They'd have been bound to
leave all sorts of traces, that's certain!"
"What do you think it means, Jack?"
"That there's something cooking and on the stove that we don't know
about or suspect, even," said Jack. "I guess that General Bliss gets as
good information as we do, and he must have figured out that he wouldn't
be able to get here in time. If he went this way, anyhow, he'd have to
leave Hardport in our possession behind him. And somehow I don't believe
he'd do that."
"Say, Jack," called Tom Binns, suddenly, "I just saw a flash over there
behind you--upon that hillock."
Jack began whistling indifferently. He strolled around, as if he were
interested only in the view. Gradually he worked over closer to Tom and
the big car, and then, and only then, he turned so that he could follow
Tom's eyes with his own.
"I don't want anyone that's around here to think I'm looking at them,"
he said in a low tone to Tom. "What does it seem like to you, Tom?
Scouts?"
"I think so, Jack. I caught just a glimpse, after I called to you, of
something that looked like a Scout uniform. I think that they're
watching us."
"That's much better," said Jack, greatly relieved. "It didn't seem
natural, somehow, to find this place so deserted. Say, Tom, you can run
the car, can't you?"
"Yes, if I don't have to go too fast."
"All right. I'm going to climb in. Then pull the hood pretty well over
and run her slowly through the bridge. It's covered, you see, and they
can't see us after we're on it. Then, as soon as we're under cover, I'm
going to drop out. They can't see how many of us there are in the car.
I'll stay behind, and you run on around the bend, drop out of the car,
quietly, and leave it at the side of the road."
"Will that be safe, Jack? Couldn't anyone who came along run off with
it?"
"Not if you take the spark plug out and put it in your pocket. That
cripples the car absolutely, and you ought always to do that, even if
you just leave a car outside a store for a couple of minutes when you go
in to buy something. This car is great, too, because you don't have to
crank it. It has a self-starting device, so that you can start the motor
automatically without leaving your seat."
"All right, Jack. What am I to do after I leave the car?"
"Work up quietly into the woods there. When you get up a way, scout down
easily, and try to trail them. You'll find traces of them up there on
the ridge, I'm sure, if they're really up there. I'll do the same thing
from the other side here. I think we've got a good chance to break one
of their signalling relays, don't you see?"
"I'll take my flags along, shall I, Jack?"
"Good idea! No telling what we'll be able to find out and do here. All
right--I'm going to drop out now!"
The car slowed down and he dropped off silently, and laughed as he saw
Tom Binns guide the big machine off into the light beyond the covered
bridge again. Then, the laughter gone from his face, he slipped
cautiously back in the opposite direction, and at the entrance to the
bridge dropped down to the bed of the creek. The season had been dry,
and the water in the creek was very shallow. His plan was definite in
his own mind, and he had had enough experience in scouting to know that
there was at least a good chance of success in his enterprise, although
a difficult one.
His destination was the ridge where Tom Binns had seen the flashing of
red and white signal flags. Step by step now, climbing slowly and
carefully, he made his way up the bank, sure that even if whoever was on
the ridge had guessed the ruse of the way in which he had left the
automobile, they would not be looking for an attack from the direction
in which he was making his stealthy, Indian-like advance. Another reason
for slow and deliberate progress was to give Tom Binns time to reach the
ridge, and take up a position favorable for the playing of his part in
the scheme.
Before him now, as he moved on, he could hear sounds of quiet and
stealthy movement, and at last, standing before him, as he peeped
through a small opening in the thick undergrowth, he could see a Boy
Scout, standing stiff and straight, and working his signal flags. He had
to stand on a high spot and in a clearing to do this, as otherwise, of
course, his flags could not have been seen at any distance. Jack
measured the place with his eyes. His whole plan would collapse if the
body of the signalling Scout were visible from the next relay stations,
but he quickly decided that only the flags would show.
From behind the Scout with the flags now came the call of a crow--caw,
caw, caw!
Jack grinned as he answered it. For a moment a look of suspicious
alertness showed on the face of the Blue Scout. He whirled around to
face the sound behind him, and in the moment that his back was turned
Jack sprang on him.
The Blue Scout put up a fine struggle, but he was helpless against the
combined attack of Jack Danby and Tom Binns, who sprang to his comrade's
aid as soon as he saw what Jack had done.
"Two to one isn't fair," gasped Jack as he sat on his prisoner's chest,
"but we had to do it. This is war, you see, and they say all's fair in
love and war. Who are you?"
"Canfield, Tiger Patrol, Twenty-first Troop, Hampton's Scouts," said the
prisoner. "Detailed for Scout service with the Blue army. You got me
fair and square. We caught one of your fellows near Mardean, we heard,
soon after the war began. Sorry--but it's all in the game.
"How on earth did you get to me so quietly? I was watching you in the
road by the bridge, and I thought you'd gone off in your car. You
certainly fooled me to the queen's taste."
"Fortune of war," said Jack. "The car gave us a big advantage. You're
not to blame a bit. I guess you'll be exchanged pretty soon, too. We'll
give you for Warner, you see. He's the one of our Troop who was caught.
And a fair exchange isn't any robbery."
"Have we got to tie him up?" asked Tom Binns.
"Not if he'll give his parole not to escape or accept a rescue," said
Jack. "How about that, Canfield? Will you give me your word of honor?
I'm Jack Danby, Assistant Patrol Leader of the Crow Patrol of Durland's
Troop, and ranking as a corporal for the maneuvers in the Red army."
"I'll give you my parole all right," said Canfield. He saluted stiffly.
"Glad to meet you, Corporal Danby. Sorry the tables aren't turned,
though. We've got a special dinner for our prisoners to-night--but we
haven't caught many prisoners yet, worse luck!"
"All right! See if the flags are just the same, Tom."
Tom Binns compared the flags captured from Canfield with those he
himself carried.
"They're exactly the same," he said. "We can use either his or ours. It
doesn't make any difference."
"That's good. Stand up there now, Tom, and see what's coming. Can you
see the next stations on both sides?"
"Sure I can, Jack. They're wig-wagging like the very dickens now, asking
Canfield here why he doesn't answer."
"Signal that he was watching a grey scout car of the Red army, going
north," said Jack, with a laugh.
Canfield heard the laugh with a rueful smile.
"You're certainly going to mess things up!" he said. "I ought to be
court-martialled for letting you break up our signal chain this way."
Meanwhile Tom Binns was working his flags frantically.
"O. K.," he reported to Jack. "Message coming!"
Jack sprang to his side, and together the two Red Scouts watched the
flags flashing in the distance. Jack showed a good deal of excitement.
"Gee," he said, "this is all to the good! That's a message from General
Bliss himself, I'll bet! See, Tom? He's sending orders to General Brown,
who commands his right wing. They're going to swing around back toward
Hardport in a big half-circle, of which this place where we are now is
pretty nearly the centre. And it's the Newville road that's the line of
their march, and not this road over the creek at all. That's nerve for
you, if you like, because the Newville pike is right in our lines, and
if we move fast we can turn that right wing right in on their center."
For half an hour they stayed there, realizing more and more with every
passing minute that the whole Blue army was developing a great and
sweeping attack on Hardport, and in a direction entirely different from
that being taken by General Bean. The information so far obtained by
General Harkness obviously was entirely misleading, and in sending
General Bean to Cripple Creek, as he had, he had simply deprived himself
of a brigade, and, as he would learn in the morning, when the attack
would most certainly begin, weakened a vital part of his lines. Bean was
moving directly away from the spot where the attack would be
concentrated, and the enemy would be able, unless something were quickly
done, to strike at the unprotected center of the Red line, drive right
through it, and throw the main portion of his army, like a great wedge,
between the two sections of the Red forces.
Jack's face grew grave as message after message confirmed his fears. He
looked at his watch.
"We've got to get word of this to General Harkness," he said. "Tom, I'm
afraid you'll have to stay here and take chances on being caught. I've
got to get back to headquarters and tell General Harkness what we've
learned here. And if we both go, and leave the relay broken here,
they'll smell a rat at once, and investigate. There's enough of a trail
here to show a blind man, much less a bunch of Scouts who are just as
good in their State as we're supposed to be in our own, just what's
happened. So you stay here, and I'll take Canfield along with me in the
car and make my way back to headquarters. You'll be able to leave pretty
soon, anyhow, because it will be too dark for effective long-range
signalling less than an hour from now. You can do it all right, can't
you?"
"Yes," said Tom Binns, pluckily. It was plain that he didn't like the
prospect of staying there alone, but he could see the necessity as
easily as Jack himself, and that there was no other way of meeting the
circumstance that had arisen.
"Do your best, of course, to avoid being captured," said Jack, as he
turned to go, with Canfield at his side. "But it will be no reflection
on you if you are made a prisoner, and we won't need to feel that
they've put one over on us if they catch you. We've got more than a fair
return for the loss of even a First Class Scout in the information that
they've unknowingly given us. It may mean the difference between the
success and failure of the whole campaign."
"You're a wonder, Danby," said Canfield, as they made their way down to
the car. Being on parole, of course, and, as a Boy Scout should always
be, honorable and incapable of breaking his given word, Canfield made no
attempt to escape or hamper Jack in any way. "I've heard a lot about
you, and I'm glad to see you at work, even if it does make it bad for
me. You seem to be able to tell just about what's going on around here.
I couldn't do that. I didn't think about the larger meaning of the
orders I was passing on."
"I may be wrong, you know," said Jack, as he waited for Canfield to step
into the car before climbing into the driver's seat. "I'm really only
making a guess, but I think it's a pretty good one. And, anyhow, with
the notes I've got for him, General Harkness ought to be able to get a
pretty good line on what's doing."
"He ought to be," admitted Canfield, regretfully, but smiling at the
same time. "You're certainly one jim-dandy as a Scout! I'd hate to be
against you in a real war. If you can handle things always the way
you've done this time, you'd be a pretty hard proposition in a real
honest-to-goodness fight."