A DISAPPEARANCE
"Halt!"
It was the ringing voice of one of the officers speaking, and so sharp
was the tone that even Professor Snodgrass paused in his movement
toward the black box.
"Don't go any further," went on the officer, who stood dominating the
scene. "Some one secure that man, and then we'll dispose of the box.
Take good care of him!" and he pointed to the scientist.
Ned Slade, Bob Baker, and Jerry Hopkins looked in astonishment at one
another. What could it all mean?
"Zere must be some mistake," said the French officer who had escorted
the professor to headquarters.
"Mistake? No!" exclaimed the American officer who had ordered a halt
in the proceedings. "But it would be a mistake if we let him get near
that black box. I heard all that was said. If that is a bomb the best
way to let him carry out his plan would be to set it going, even if
he destroyed himself. Some spies are capable of that."
"Spy!" cried Jerry, instinctively, forgetting that he was speaking to
a superior officer. "Professor Snodgrass isn't a spy!"
"No, I am sure he is not!"
This was another officer speaking, one well known to the professor,
and who knew him. In fact, it was this officer who had summoned the
former instructor of Boxwood Hall to headquarters.
"Don't arrest the professor," went on the latter officer. "As for his
black box, handle it just as he tells you."
"But, Colonel Lacombe," protested the officer who had interfered in
the proceedings. "Surely you----"
"I understand it perfectly, Major Dustan," was the smiling reply. "I'm
sure you'll find it all a mistake when I explain, or rather, when
Professor Snodgrass explains. That is why I sent for him. Will you
come this way, if you please, Professor? And bring the black box----"
At that instant the little scientist, who appeared to have recovered
his composure on the appearance of his friend, the colonel, pointed to
the black box which, all this while, had remained on the ground in
front of the group of headquarters buildings.
"Look out!" shouted Professor Snodgrass. "The box has been opened by
mistake. They're coming out! Run, everybody!"
Turning, he caught hold of Bob, who was nearest him, and began pulling
him along.
The flight of the professor was contagious. Every one near turned and
fled, and Jerry, looking over his shoulder, saw what seemed to be a
black cloud of smoke coming from the black box.
The heart of the tall, young soldier seemed to fail him. After all,
had a mistake been made? Was it possible that a spy was using the
innocent and sometimes absent-minded professor for some base and
terrible end? Could there have been a substitution made, and one of
the harmless boxes of the scientist exchanged for a deadly bomb which
he had, unwittingly, introduced at headquarters, so that, exploding,
it might kill a number of valuable officers?
These thoughts flashed through Jerry's mind as he ran along beside
Ned. The black cloud from the box was becoming more dense.
"Maybe it's only a smoke bomb," thought Jerry. "Or perhaps the powder,
or whatever is in it, has become wet, because of so much rain, and is
only burning instead of exploding. I hope so."
Then came a yell from some one. It was followed by several other cries
of physical distress.
"Maybe it's a new kind of poison gas the Germans have taken this means
to set off," mused Jerry as he leaped along. "But I don't smell
anything. Could it be possible that spies have played this trick on
the professor?"
Jerry well knew that even with all his absent-mindedness and his blind
devotion to science, that Professor Snodgrass would never, willingly,
do anything to harm the Allied cause.
And yet----
More yells came from the soldiers that had been gathered around the
black box and who fled when Professor Snodgrass gave the alarm. And
the yells began to come from some of the officers, too. They were not
above giving vent to either pain or surprise.
And then suddenly Jerry felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck. At
first he thought it might have come from some missile, discharged
noiselessly from the black box. He clapped his hand to the seat of the
pain and at once became aware that he had struck and crushed some
small insect. It came away in his hand, twisting and curling in its
death agony, and the pain in Jerry's neck increased.
"Why!" he cried as he saw the bug. "Why, it's a wasp! A wasp!"
"Of course it is!" said Professor Snodgrass, flapping his arms about
his head, and Jerry now saw the reason. A number of vicious wasps
were buzzing about them.
"They're wasps, with the worst stings of any I ever saw!" yelled the
professor. "That's why I want to get away. I was stung by one of them
once, and I'll never forget it. Look out! Here come more of 'em!"
There was a cloud of the wasps flying about Bob, Jerry, and the
professor now, and the tall lad noted that the insects were also
hovering around other soldiers and officers. There was a black cloud
of them near the small case that had caused such a scare.
"Was that what was in the black box?" asked Jerry, as he dodged a wasp
that seemed about to alight on his nose.
"Yes. Wasps," asserted the scientist. "The most war-like wasps I have
been able to discover in this part of Europe. They are a cross breed
of the _Vespidæ Polistes_, _Eumenes_, and _Odynerus_, and for stings
are not to be equalled."
"Wasps!" cried Jerry, as he swung and swatted at some still buzzing
around him. "What in the world did you expect to do with them,
Professor Snodgrass? And why did you have them in the black box?"
"I had them to show to one of the headquarters officers," was the
answer. "But I think I had better postpone the explanation until we
get rid of our pursuers. Let's go under those bushes. I think we
shall be safe then," and the professor unceremoniously dived under a
clump of shrubbery, an example followed by Jerry and some of the
others.
Ned and Bob, who had managed to accompany the professor and their tall
chum, were stung several times before they, also, found shelter
beneath the thick leaves, and howls of pain from a number of soldiers
indicated that they, too, felt the stings of the insects.
For a while there was as bad a rout of the headquarters staff as if
the Germans had overwhelmed it. But finally the insects were
dispersed, most of them flying off to the woods, while those that
remained were beaten off, so that the officers and men began to drift
back again. The professor and the Motor Boys came out of hiding, and
then curious looks began to be cast at the scientist and the black
box, which was now empty. The displaced cover showed how the wasps had
gotten out.
"Is this the new weapon for causing a German retreat that you promised
to show me?" asked the colonel of the professor, trying not to smile
as he put the question.
"Yes," answered Professor Snodgrass, "it is. I am sorry, but I am
afraid there are no specimens left to show you. Some one must have
tampered with the fastening of the case, and the insects came out."
"I can offer personal testimony that they came out," said the colonel,
trying not to squirm. "They came, they saw, and they conquered. And
all I have to say is that I thank you for your interest in the matter,
but that we shall have to decline to add your new and very efficient,
but uncontrollable, weapon to the Allied armament."
"Does that mean you can't use the wasps?" asked the professor.
"I'm afraid it does," said the colonel. "You see they are too
uncertain--like the poison gas the Germans first used. It came back on
them. The wasps might do that to us."
"Yes," agreed the little scientist, "they might."
And then, as the last of the insects disappeared, and the headquarters
staff came back from various places of refuge, Professor Snodgrass
explained.
He had long wanted to do something to help the Allied cause, and
thought perhaps it might be along the line of his studies of insects.
Then the idea of wasps had come to him. He knew the vicious nature of
the insects, and how fearlessly they would attack anything in their
way. It was his idea that many thousands of the wasps might be
propagated in artificial nests and loosed on the German armies
preceding an attack by the Allies. The wasps would certainly cause
disorder, if not a rout, he thought, and so he had communicated his
idea to his friend, the colonel.
That is, he had communicated the fact that he had the idea, but he had
not disclosed the nature of the "new weapon," as he called it in a
note. Always willing to test anything new, the colonel had sent for
the professor, inviting him to bring a model of the "new weapon" with
him. The officer supposed the "weapon" might be a gun, projectile or
powder.
"The idea was a good one in theory," said Jerry, as he and his chums
went back with the professor, who carried the now empty black box.
"And it worked out all right in practice," declared Ned. "I never saw
a quicker retreat."
"The only thing that spoils it, as the colonel said," added Bob, "is
the inability of a wasp to distinguish between a friend and a foe. If
they could be trained, now----"
"We'll delegate that to you," put in Ned.
"No, thanks! I'm stung badly enough as it is."
And the professor, sadly shaking his head over the failure of his
scheme, went back to work further on his plan of making moving
pictures of insects hopping about under the stimulus of the noise of
big guns.
But for many a day the story of the wasps at headquarters was told up
and down the firing line.
It was about a week after this, when preparations for the big attack
had almost reached completion, that the three chums, having an hour or
so to spare, thought to call on Professor Snodgrass. They went to the
little house in the French village where he had been staying, and
inquired for him.
"He has disappeared, Messieurs," answered the old woman who looked
after the place.
"Disappeared!" echoed the boys blankly.
"Yes, Messieurs. He went out yesterday morning without his hat to
chase after a butterfly he saw in the garden, and he did not come
back. He has disappeared. I am sorry, for he was a nice man, though a
trifle queer at times."
"Well, what do you know about that?" gasped Jerry, while his chums
looked at him in wondering amazement.