A THRILLING DISCOVERY
The light of Rob’s lantern showed them a boy of about their own age. He
was half on his knees, and seemed to be caught in some way so that he
could not get away.
“Why, he’s got his leg in a trap, don’t you see, Rob?” gasped Andy,
filled with horror at the very idea, for it seemed to portend the most
serious consequences.
“It does look like an old rusty bear trap!” Rob admitted as they hurried
on; Zeb instantly corroborated what he said by exclaiming:
“Jest what she are, an’ no mistake. Jingo! I sartin sure hopes as how
the boy ain’t bad hurted. I’ve seen men that was lamed fur life arter
being ketched by the jaws o’ a bar trap. But this un seems old like, and
mebbe the springs are weak.”
All the same the unlucky victim of the trap had apparently not been able
to free himself.
“I’m right glad ye’ve come!” called out the boy, showing a wonderful
amount of nerve. “I shouted till I could hardly call above a whisper,
and I was nearly crazy with fear that I’d have to stay here till
mornin’, when I heard you answer.
“Hurry, please, and get this old thing off me. Ye see I couldn’t reach
the second spring nohow, try as hard as I might. It hurt something
fierce whenever I twisted around that way.”
They were all bending down now. The first thing Rob noticed with a great
feeling of relief, when he brought his lantern close to the prisoner of
the rusty old bear trap, was that there were no signs of blood. This
gave him fresh hope that the misfortune might not turn out to be quite
so serious as he had at first anticipated; and also it proved that Zeb,
a trapper of long experience himself, had hit the nail on the head when
he said that the trap looked as if it might be old, and the springs weak
in their action.
Apparently it had enough power to snap shut and hold fairly firm. Could
the boy have borne heavily on both springs, he might have succeeded in
effecting his release in the beginning.
Zeb immediately put his weight on the obstreperous spring. Andy pried
back the unwilling jaws; whereupon Rob was able to take out the boy’s
leg from the trap.
The boy rubbed his hand tenderly up and down his leg at the point where
it had been seized. He gritted his teeth, and winced a little, but
quickly exclaimed as if in deepest gratitude:
“Hurts some, but the bone wasn’t broken, and I’m unco’ lucky. What’s a
black and blue bruise anyway? I can stand it, ye ken.”
With Rob’s help he managed to get on his feet, after which he
immediately began to limp around, muttering to himself as he went, as
though controlled by a mixture of emotions—thankfulness that it was no
worse, gratitude because of the coming of these rescuers, and chagrin at
having been caught in such a ridiculous situation.
Zeb meanwhile was examining the trap with the eye of an expert.
“Jest about worn out,” he was saying, “an’ she never’d hev held a bar in
the wide world. Now, I wonder who put that no-good thing thar—no trapper
as knowed his business, I’d say. Looks more like a kid’s work than
anything else.”
“Yes, it was a boy,” explained the late victim, “and the funny part of
it all is that I should have happened on to the trap my cousin Archie
told me he’d kept set for a month, over near the old logging camp.”
“Archie was the lad’s name, was it?” demanded Zeb quickly. “I remember
that Cameron, the guide I used to pull with, and who came up this way
last summer to settle, had a lad by that name.”
“Well, Archie Cameron is my full cousin,” explained the stranger. “I’m
Donald McGuffey, ye ken, and I live over the line in a Canadian village.
I’d been visitin’ my relatives, and was on my way back home when this
happened. Now I’m lame, and perhaps I can never get there in time to
save them.”
“What’s that?” asked Rob suspiciously. “Are your folks in any danger?
Did you get word that they were sick? Tell us what you mean, Donald, and
if we can be of any further assistance to you we stand ready to do all
we can, for we’re scouts, you know, and it’s our duty to hold out a
helping hand every time.”
“Oh! but that’s fine of you!” cried the Canadian boy, shaking with
emotion, which, of course, none of the others could as yet begin to
understand. “Why, I’m a scout, too, though now I haven’t got my uniform
on. But, oh! I wonder if you would dare take it upon yourselves as
comrades to stand by me through this terrible thing?”
“Terrible thing, what, Donald?” almost shouted the aroused Andy. “Speak
up and let’s know what it’s all about. Why should we hesitate about
helping you out? Who’s going to hurt us for sticking to a comrade that’s
in distress?”
“Those awful men—they would be furious if they knew any one meant to
interfere. Yes, they would even do muckle mair than tie ye up. I
believe, in my bones, they are that wrapped up in their diabolical
scheme they’d murder anyone who tried to break it up!”
“Speak plainer, Donald,” snapped Rob. “We are wasting precious time
while you throw out hints in that way. Tell us everything!”
The Canadian boy stopped limping around. He seemed to straighten up his
figure, and they could now see that he was a tall and spare lad, as wiry
as they make them over in the country beyond the border.
“It’s just this, ye ken,” he said earnestly. “They mean to blow up the
bridge this verra nicht, in time to trap the regular munition freight
that goes over at two in the mornin’!”
Rob and Andy exchanged horrified looks. Their worst fears were
confirmed. Only for their having seen the evolutions of that spying
aeroplane that crossed the line and hovered above the railroad
embankment near where the trestle leading to the bridge lay, they might
have been at a loss to comprehend what these startling words meant. But
that much was very plain to them; in fact, as we have seen, Rob at least
had been confident that the terrible plot had only been delayed, and not
given up.
How had this Canadian boy learned of the truth? Plainly there was more
for him to explain, though Rob could now understand the fearful mental
suffering he must have endured, as well as the physical pain, on finding
himself detained in that astounding fashion, when he was undoubtedly
hastening as fast as he could go to carry his news to those guarding the
threatened railroad.
“Come, tell us as quick as you can how you learned this, Donald,” said
Rob. “Two days ago we saw an aeroplane cross over, and we guessed then
that perhaps the pilot was spying out the land, for there has been some
talk of plotters here in the States in sympathy with Germany, who were
trying to blow up munition plants in Canada, or doing something just as
dreadful.”
“Aweel, they’ve settled on destroying the long bridge across which so
many loaded trains pass every twenty-four hours,” said the other
hurriedly, and with bated breath, owing to his increasing excitement. “I
happened to overhear them talking while on my way to the river, after
saying good-bye to my cousin, who was sick abed. I knew they were up to
something, for I saw that they had a small German flag, which each one
of them kissed as they sat around the fire. So I crept close up and
listened, oh! with my heart nearly in my mouth. I soon learned that they
were sure enough enemies of my country, and that they meant to strike a
blow against the Allies before another morning, that for weeks and weeks
would paralyze all traffic flowin’ to the sea by this railway line.”
“It was a brave act in your crawling up and listening,” said the
admiring Andy, as he laid a hand on the arm of the Canadian lad. “And
make up your mind we’re going to stand by you through thick and thin,
Donald. Scouts should help each other, and that, you know, means just
what it says.”
“Go on and tell us the rest, please!” urged Rob.
“Why, after I had learned what they were scheming to do,” continued the
other promptly, greatly pleased at hearing those generous words spoken
by impetuous Andy, “I knew I must get alang, if I wanted to be ahead o’
the gillies. Ye ken I remembered hearing my cousin say he believed a
Yankee sportsman and his guides would be over at the old logging camp;
and sae I changed me course a bit, meanin’ to drap in and see if they
would nae helpit me carry the news across the line. Then, bad luck to it
all, I had to deliberately step into the auld bear trap my cousin Archie
had tawld me that he put out here a wheen o’ time back.”
“It was doubly unfortunate,” said Rob, his voice full of sympathy.
“It made me verra mad, I assure ye,” confessed Donald frankly. “Try as I
would I could nae get me leg free, nor could I yet reach the spring to
bear down on the same. I stood the pain the best I was able whenever I
reached out, but it was a’ no gude. And only for the luck o’ ye hearing
my shouts there I must ha’ remained till the day came, and then it would
ha’ been far too late. But now I hae telled ye a’ I must be on me way
again, no matter how I hae to limp it.”
“Hold on, Donald, not so fast,” said Rob. “We are going with you!”
“Across the border, do you mean, Rob?” exclaimed Andy gleefully, for
being of an adventurous spirit, nothing could have pleased him more than
this.
“There seems to be no other way to foil those desperate conspirators.
The Canadian authorities are none too friendly to us right now on
account of numerous things that have happened and which they lay to
German sympathizers crossing over secretly from our side. Yes, we must
try to help our fellow scout do his duty to his country, which he loves
just as much as we do our own native land.”
“Oh, it makes my heart fairly jump to hear ye say that! It’s braw lads
ye air, baith o’ ye, and I’ll never forget it, never! My leg hurts, but
I think it will get better after I use it a while. No matter how it
pains me, I shall go on and on, even if I have to crawl and drag it
after me, for I must carry the news to the guards. I would gie ten years
o’ life if only there was a way to flash it across the border to them
richt now.”
“First we must go back to the cabin,” said Rob.
“Is it necessary, then?” asked Donald anxiously, as though fairly wild
to be on his way.
“Yes, because there are several reasons,” he was told. “We have a chum
there who would never forgive us if we started on such a glorious
expedition and left him behind. Then again, I have some salve that,
rubbed on your leg, would do a lot of good and relieve the pain
considerably. So let’s start.”
Donald may have had a good Scotch will of his own, but as he too was a
scout, he had also learned to yield to those in authority. He seemed to
guess intuitively that Rob _must_ be a leader, perhaps from his positive
way of saying things and possibly from Andy’s deferring to his opinion.
They were soon hurrying along, Donald suppressing any groan as he
continued to limp more or less.
“I hae not tauld ye all,” he was saying. “I learned from what I heard
them say while I hid in the bushes that they expected to set a mine
under the trestle and connect it with a battery by a long wire. Then
from a distance they could destroy the bridge just when the heavy
freight train was passing over. Ye can understand what I suffered when I
tell ye that my fayther is an engineer in the employ of that same
railway and that he pulls the munition freight this verra nicht!”