CHASING A JACK-O'-LANTERN.
"I wish you could tell me we were nearly at that old village, Rob. Seems
to me we've been trudging along for hours, and I own up to feeling just
a little bit tired."
Tubby had a beseeching way about him that was hard to resist; and so Rob
really felt sorry that he could give him no joyful news.
"I would like to be able to tell in the worst way, Tubby," he told him,
"but you see we're making this turn only on hearsay. None of us knows a
single thing about it. There must be some sort of a place ahead of us,
because several times I've heard dogs barking, and I even thought I
could hear people calling."
"It's all right, Tubby," chimed in Merritt, "because there's a light,
yes,--two, three of the same kind. We'll soon be there, and I hope we'll
find some sort of a bunk, even if we have to drop in the hay."
"That's what I say," the fat scout declared energetically, bracing up,
now that it seemed the haven might be in sight. "I could sleep standing
up, I believe, if only you braced me on the sides."
"I believe you," remarked Merritt; and Tubby hardly knew whether he
ought to demand an explanation of that insinuation or not; he finally
concluded to change the subject.
They soon found they had arrived at another of those frequent little
Belgian hamlets where, in the past, thrift had held sway, but which were
rapidly becoming demoralized under the pressure of the war fever. Most
of the men were serving the colors, of course, those remaining being the
very aged or crippled, the women, and always the flocks of children.
"Seems to me they're carrying on kind of queer here, as if something
might be going on," Merritt hazarded while they were approaching the
border of the place.
"Gingersnaps and popguns!" exclaimed Tubby, "I hope there isn't a bunch
of those terrible Uhlans in town, smashing things, and threatening to
burn every house unless the wine and the ransom money are brought out!"
"Let's go slow till we can make sure about that," suggested Rob.
Their recent unpleasant experience was so fresh in their minds that they
did not care to have it duplicated. The next time they might not be so
fortunate about escaping from a burning inn, or avoiding capture at the
hands of raiding Uhlans.
"I don't seem to glimpse any cavalrymen around, do you, Rob?" Merritt
questioned, as they hovered on the outskirts of the place, ready to melt
away in the darkness should any peril arise.
"No, and it's safe for us to push on," the patrol leader announced.
"But there are a raft of people around," ventured the cautious Tubby,
who had been closely observing each and every soul, as though he
suspected that crafty Uhlans might be hidden under peasants' garb, or
in the clothes of the stout Belgian dames.
"Well, a lot of them are fugitives, the same as those we've been seeing
on the roads all day long," Rob explained. "Some of them have been
burned out of house and home; but in the main they're people who have
believed all these awful fairy stories about the terrible Germans, and
think that if they stay they'll be eaten up."
"This place must have escaped a visit from the Germans so far," Merritt
suggested, "and they are coming to believe it's a lucky town, which
would account for so many stopping here in their rush to get away."
"That's bad!" muttered Tubby.
"Why is it?" demanded Merritt.
"All the spare beds will be taken, you see," explained the other
dejectedly, "and those who come late, like we are doing, must sit up all
night, or else sleep in the dog kennel or the pigsty or the barn. Well,
I said before and I mean it, if I can have some hay under me to keep my
bones from the floor, I won't complain, or make a single kick. I'm
easily satisfied, you all know."
"That must be the village inn, over yonder, Rob," Merritt remarked,
pointing as he spoke. "Judging from the crowd in front we've got a poor
show to get beds for to-night."
"Everybody stares at us as if they thought we might be some kind of wild
animal," Tubby complained.
"Well, I can see that they've had some sort of circus here lately
because the showbills are still posted on the fences," Merritt observed
with a chuckle, "and can you blame them for thinking that the side shows
have bust up, with the freaks hiking all through the country, unable to
ride on the railroads, which are all taken over by the Government to
haul cannon, horses and soldiers? I'll pass for the Living Skeleton,
while you could stand for the Fat Boy, Tubby!"
Tubby was so used to having his friends joke at him on account of his
chubby build that as a rule he let such reminders pass by without
showing any ill feeling. In this instance he hardly noticed what Merritt
was saying, because so many other events were happening around them.
Being satisfied at last that they were in no apparent danger from
concealed Uhlans, Tubby felt his spirits rise once more.
At the inn Rob entered into a brief conversation with the proprietor. As
this worthy knew very little French, and Rob next to nothing of Flemish,
the "confab," as Tubby called it, had to be conducted mostly through a
series of shrugs and gestures.
"What luck, Rob?" asked Tubby, when the other chum turned to them again.
"He's cram full of sleepers to-night, and couldn't give us even a cot,"
explained Rob. "When I said we'd put up with the hay, he gave me to
understand we could pick out any place found unoccupied."
"Gee whiz! 'unoccupied,' you said, didn't you, Rob?" cried Tubby
hastily. "Now, does that mean the place is apt to be _swarming_ with
these peasant women and children, and shall we have to listen to babies
bawling all night long, not to speak of roosters crowing, dogs barking,
horses neighing, pigs grunting and cows mooing?"
"'Beggars should never be choosers,' they say," Merritt warned him.
"And, after all, let's hope it won't be quite so bad as all that," said
Rob.
They sought the stable. It was in the rear of the inn, and a rather
decent looking structure in the bargain.
"Why, this isn't half bad," admitted Tubby, as they entered and found
that the kind proprietor of the house had hung up a lighted lantern, by
means of which it was possible for the boys to see the stack of hay.
"It smells like a sweet new crop," Rob remarked, glad to find something
to commend when surrounded by such dismal prospects.
"And so far as I can see we're the only barn guests," Tubby announced
jubilantly as he started to burrow in the hay.
He had hardly made much progress before he came backing out in a hurry.
"There's a great big dog sleeping in there!" he declared excitedly.
"What makes you think so?" asked Rob, who could hardly believe it
possible.
"I tell you he tried to bite me," urged Tubby, holding up one finger of
his right hand, and on which a tiny speck of blood was visible.
"Shucks! you only stuck it on a thorn, that's all!" protested the
unbelieving Merritt, "and I'll prove it by crawling in the same hole."
"Look out, now!" warned Tubby, anxious, and yet with some eagerness, for
he hoped to have his words proved in a fashion even Merritt could not
doubt.
Immediately there was more or less excitement in the hay; and then came
the unmistakable scolding of a setting hen. Merritt backed out,
laughing.
"There's your ferocious bulldog!" he told Tubby; "but we'll leave old
Biddy to her eggs, and try another place. Plenty of room in this hotel
without chucking the other guests out of their nests."
After a while they made themselves comfortable. Tubby, before turning
in, had prowled around a little. He told the others that as a true scout
he was only taking an inventory of his surroundings, so that if there
should happen to come a sudden midnight alarm he at least would know
what to do in order to lead the way out of the barn by a rear exit.
"Smart boy, Tubby," Merritt told him, when he heard him say this; and it
always pleased the fat scout to receive a word of praise, possibly
because the occasions when he deserved any were few and far between.
They lay in the sweet hay, and talked in low tones. No one else seemed
to be pushed so hard for a place to sleep as to come to the barn, for
which all of the chums professed to be very grateful.
In the course of the conversation, which had more or less bearing on
their strange mission abroad, the subject of the precious paper came to
the front. Perhaps it was Merritt himself who mentioned it, because the
matter was frequently in his thoughts, and he seemed to be growing more
and more anxious, the nearer they drew to the place where he anticipated
finding Steven Meredith.
"You've never really told us who this man is, Merritt, and how he comes
to be wandering around the world with a paper belonging to your
grandfather hidden away under the lining of the case containing his
field-glasses," Rob remarked while Tubby, who had just been yawning, sat
up and seemed to be wide awake again.
"That's a fact, Merritt," he chimed in. "If you don't object, why, we'd
like to be told."
"The fact of the matter is," replied Merritt, "I don't know a great deal
more than you do, come to think of it. Grandfather Crawford comes from
old Scotch stock, so he's a canny sort of an old gentleman. No use of my
telling you about the way he treated my father when he was a young man
and married against the wishes of his parents, because that you already
know. It's about the paper, also of Steven Meredith you're curious to
hear?"
"Yes, go along, please," begged Tubby.
"The paper is a little scrap, he told me, on which are marked certain
directions as how to find a certain rich gold mine out in our Southwest
country. Grandfather has one-half his paper, and the other half is
lodged in the cover of that field-glass case--if the man is still
carrying it with him."
"That gets more and more queer, I must say," grumbled Tubby, looking as
though he could not untangle the knot that was presented to him.
"Yes, if anybody had told it to me," admitted Merritt, "I'd have made up
my mind right away he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes with a
silly yarn. And yet there was Grandfather Crawford just as sober as you
ever saw anyone, and vouching for every word of it as true."
"Well, how on earth did the half of the map or the directions happen to
get in that field-glass case, without Steven Meredith, who carries the
same, knowing a thing about it?" asked Rob.
"This deposit was discovered by an old miner who never worked it, but
had samples of wonderfully rich ore, which he showed my grandfather at
the time he was rescued by my relative from being tortured by a couple
of halfbreeds who wanted to get the miner's secret. He gave grandfather
the half of the map, and directions he had on his person, and told him
where he would find the other half."
"Now it's beginning to look understandable," Tubby admitted. "The old
miner did that so if anybody got hold of him they wouldn't be able to
locate the secret mine--wasn't that it, Merritt?"
"Just what he had in mind," the other told him, "and of course the
injuries received in the fight carried the miner off eventually, leaving
my grandfather as his sole heir, if he could only lay hands on the other
half of that valuable little paper, for neither portion alone made any
sense.
"Gee! this is getting real interesting--if true!" ventured Tubby.
"Oh! it's a straight yarn, never fear," retorted Merritt without any
trace of ill feeling, however, for no one ever could quarrel with Tubby.
"And just about here is where this man Steven Meredith, as he calls
himself, breaks into the story. The old miner had told my grandfather
that for security he kept the other half of the chart, and the
directions how to find the treasure, hidden in the lining of the case
holding a pair of field-glasses that he had carried for years, as they
were of a special make and considered extra fine."
"And when your esteemed relative came to make a hunt for the said
glasses," remarked Tubby, anxious to show that he was following the
narrative closely, "why of course he found that Steve had got away with
them--is that the stuff, Merritt?"
"Great head, Tubby," chuckled the other, as if amused at this unexpected
smartness on the part of the stout boy. "You've said it, after a
fashion; for that was what really happened. The glasses were supposed,
along with other things owned by the old miner, to be in the charge of
an old and invalid sister in a small town. To that place my grandfather
went, armed with a paper which would give him possession of the traps of
the dead man, including the case with the glasses. And that was where he
came up against a staggering disappointment.
"It seemed that this sister of the miner was a little queer in her head.
When a visitor chanced to examine the glasses, and offered her a pretty
fine sum for them, she, not knowing how her brother valued them because
of their association with his prospecting life, thought it a good
chance to dispose of some useless property.
"And so the wonderful half of the chart was gone. My grandfather took
enough interest in the matter to learn that a man by the name of Steven
Meredith possessed the glasses. He even started a search for him,
thinking that he might be able to buy the glasses back, so as to satisfy
his mind about the worth of the chart.
"Later on he learned that some valuable ore had been struck in the
region where the secret mine of the dead prospector was said to be
located. This kept making him take more and more interest in the finding
of Steven and the lost paper. He became absorbed in the hunt, and in the
end had three men on the track.
"They traced Meredith across the ocean. All sorts of strange rumors came
back as to what he really was. Once it was even said that he was
secretly in the pay of the German Government. Anyway, he went to Berlin,
and was known to meet with certain men high up in the Secret Service
there.
"Just a little while ago my grandfather received positive word from one
of his agents that Steven Meredith was stationed in a Belgian town,
though what his business there could be was a mystery. This little town
was an obscure one near Brussels, where he could keep in the background.
Its name is Sempst; and that's where we are headed now."
"But just explain one queer thing, won't you, please, Merritt?" asked
Tubby.
"I know what you're going to say," replied the other. "Of course you're
wondering why my relative didn't wire his agent about the glasses, and
offer him a good sum to get them, with the case. Well, the fact is he
didn't have as much faith in his agents as all that."
"You mean that if the man knew he valued the article so much he would
begin to smell a rat, and perhaps examine the lining of the case
himself, after he had managed to steal or buy the glasses?" suggested
Rob.
"That's what he had in mind," Merritt continued. "So he hardly knew what
to do, or whom to trust, until I asked him to send me, and let me have
you along. They didn't like the idea of us boys starting over here when
things were so upset; but grandfather believes Boy Scouts can do almost
anything. So it came about. And in a nutshell that's the strange story."
"Gee! you'd think it a page from the _Arabian Nights_," Tubby declared.
"But queer things can happen to-day just as much as ever. I only hope
that if we do manage to rake in that old field-glass case, and the paper
is still nestling underneath the lining, it doesn't turn out to be a
pipe dream--something that old miner just hatched up to make himself
feel he was as rich as a Vanderbilt."
"We'll have to chance that," said Rob. "Our part of the business will be
done when we carry the case back to Merritt's grandfather. It's up to
him for the rest. But don't you think we'd better try and get to sleep,
for it's growing late?"
They determined that this was a wise suggestion, and shortly afterward
not only Tubby and Merritt, but Rob as well had lost all realization of
trouble and stress in sound slumber.
The night passed, and with the coming of dawn the boys were astir.
Nothing had apparently happened during the night to disturb them.
In the morning hens were beginning to cackle, and cows to low, as the
boys awoke and crawled from the hay. A few minutes later, at a nearby
pump, they washed the last bit of drowsiness from their eyes; after
which they began to think, from the pleasant odors in the air, that it
was nearly time for breakfast.
"I dreamed about that grand paper hunt you told us about, Merritt,"
Tubby announced, as with his chums he sauntered over to the inn to see
what chance there was for getting something to eat. "And talk to me
about your will-o'-the-wisps, or what they call jack-o'-lanterns, such
as flit around graveyards or damp places nights, that certainly did beat
the record. Lots of times I was just stretching out my hand to grab it
when I'd hear a laugh, and Steve, he'd snatch the old field-glass case
away. I woke up still on the trail, and as set as ever to win out."
"Let's hope that will prove to be the case with us," ventured Rob
cheerily.
They found that they were to be given breakfast; and as all of the boys
had a ferocious appetite they soon did justice to the meal set before
them.
It was while they were finishing that they suddenly became aware of the
fact that something along the line of a battle had broken out not a
great ways off. The first intimation they had of this was the
deep-throated sound of a heavy gun. It made them jump; and the entire
village seemed to become aroused at once, as people began to run this
way and that, chattering like magpies, some of their faces turning white
with apprehension of what was to come.
They had heard of the fate of Louvain, and dreaded the hour when the
German army should come sweeping with irresistible force across that
section of the country.
Quick on the heels of that opening gun came other sounds--the long roll
of rifle firing in volleys, and the faint cheers of charging men. The
boys even fancied they could hear amidst all the confusion the loud
singing that was said to mark the advance of the German legions as they
went into battle chanting the "Watch on the Rhine." Rob could well
believe it, for he knew singing was to the Teuton mind what the bagpipes
meant to Scotch Highlanders, or cheers to American boys in khaki.
It was evident that the gallant little Belgian army, determined to
resist to the uttermost the passage of the Germans across their
territory in the direction of Antwerp and Ghent, had again given battle
to overwhelming numbers.
Of course the boys had rushed out of the inn and immediately sought the
best position from which they could see something of what was going on.
Many of the villagers were clustered there, gazing with deepest concern
at the section where the smoke of battle was beginning to spread like a
pall over the country.
"Oh! what is that up there, and heading this way?" Tubby suddenly
exclaimed.
No sooner had Rob turned his gaze aloft than he was able to give the
desired information.
"That is one of the famous German Zeppelins, hovering over the
battlefield," he told Tubby.