ROB MAKES UP HIS MIND
“Whew, but that’s doubly tough, I should say!” ejaculated Andy, when he
heard this astounding declaration on the part of the boy whose cause
they were about to champion.
Rob, too, was deeply concerned.
“Then it’s easy to understand why you were so wild to get there in time
to stop this horrible act,” he told Donald. “It might be bad enough for
the wretches to do something to cripple the railway services, so as to
stop the flow of munitions; but it means a whole lot more to it when
it’s your own father whose life is placed in danger.”
“Yes, and a fayther like mine, in the bargain,” said Donald, so proudly
that it was plain to be seen that the engineer was not without honor and
love in his own family.
“If you hadn’t thought that you possibly could get help here at the old
logging camp,” said Rob, “and cut across this way to see if the hunting
party was still there, I suppose you’d have taken a different route?”
“Oh, ay,” promptly answered the other.
“In that case you wouldn’t have found yourself caught in that trap?”
asked the leader of the Eagle Patrol, as the quartette hastened toward
camp.
“I couldnae well be ketched in the auld bear trap set by me cousin
Archie if it was half a mile awa’ I ran, ye ken,” Donald asserted
naïvely.
“Well, we will be at the camp in a few minutes now,” Rob went on to say,
thinking to further encourage the poor chap, whom he knew to be
suffering more mentally than he was physically. “Once we make it, we
needn’t be detained very long. I’m going to depend a whole lot on you to
take us across the boundary by the shortest route possible.”
“Ye can wager your last bawbee that I’m capable o’ doin’ it,” came the
reply, in such a tone of positive conviction that if Rob had been
entertaining any doubts on that score they were quickly put to rest.
“If you need any extra pilotin’,” spoke up Big Zeb, “count on this
chicken to do his best to kerry ye through.”
“Then you mean to keep with us, do you, Zeb?” asked the scout master.
“I sartin do; that is, if ye want me along,” the guide replied. “I’m an
American born, and p’raps haven’t had as much friendly feelin’ for the
Canucks ’cross the line as I might in times past, but, sir, when I hears
how they are volunteerin’ by the tens of thousands an’ goin’ away ’cross
the ocean to fight ’ginst the Kaiser, I begins to change my idees
consarnin’ _that_ brood. Now I thinks they air all to the good, an’ I
takes off my hat to them. Yes, an’ arter hearin’ what meanness this ’ere
batch o’ schemers is up to, I’d walk all the way to Labrador to upset
their ugly game; that’s me, Zeb Crooks, Maine woods guide.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Zeb,” said Rob heartily. “If you’d seen
the terrible sights we did in Belgium and northern France, you’d feel
that there was need for sympathy for those who are risking their lives
to crush all military spirit and prevent a world war like this from ever
happening again as long as men people the earth. That’s what’s taking
these Canadian boys away from their homes, nearly four hundred thousand
of them. It isn’t alone that the empire they belong to is in danger, but
the whole world is on fire, and the conflagration must be quenched. They
believe it can be done only in one way, which is by winning this war. Of
course, the Germans and their allies say it’s just the opposite and that
they are fighting for their very existence. Well, there’s the camp!”
They could just glimpse delicate lances of light which managed to escape
through the cracks or chinks between the logs that had not been fully
filled afresh when the hunting party took possession of the bunk-house.
A minute afterward Andy was pounding at the door, but there was little
necessity for this summons, because the listening scout within had heard
the murmur of their voices and was already fumbling with the bar. So the
friendly door was quickly flung wide open, and Donald found himself
ushered into a warm and hospitable interior.
He and Tubby stared at each other, and with reason. Donald on his part
may have thought that never before had he run across so fat a youth as
Tubby Hopkins, who seemed to be fairly bursting his khaki clothes with
plumpness. On his part, Tubby was naturally consumed with a burning
curiosity concerning this young stranger—who he could be; what had
happened to make him have such a perceptible limp; and, above all, why
were Rob and Andy seeming to be in such a stupendous hurry?
“Sit right down here, Donald,” said the scout master, indicating a rude
bark chair close to the cheery blaze, “and I’ll look up that magical
salve. I know where I put it away in my pack. I give you my word you’ll
find it just the thing to soothe that bruised leg of yours. Andy, tell
Tubby what’s happened, and about our plan of campaign for invading
Canada this very night.”
“W-w-what?” gasped the other, his face the picture of both amazement and
consternation.
“Oh, that’s nothing, Tubby!” remarked Andy airily. “Now don’t go to
suspecting that we’re meaning to do anything that’s wrong. Just the
other way, for the boot’s on the other foot, since this is going to be
an errand of mercy and meant to keep Uncle Sam from being accused of a
grave breach of neutrality by the folks up in Ottawa.”
“For pity’s sake, what do you mean, Andy?” cried poor bewildered Tubby.
“Please be good and explain it all in a jiffy. I’ll certainly burst if
you don’t, I’m that keyed up now.”
“I believe you will, sure enough, for I can hear the hoops of the tub
creaking under the strain right now,” chuckled the other; and then
making a fresh start, he went on to say: “This is our jolly chum, Tubby
Hopkins, Donald. We call him our Friar Tuck when we play at Robin Hood
of the Greenwood Forest, you know. It is his uncle who has been hunting
here and making his headquarters in this old logging camp, though just
now he’s up at the Tucker Pond trying for the big bull moose. Donald
McGuffey, Tubby, a Canadian boy who belongs to the scouts in his town
across the line and who’s been visiting a cousin on our side.”
Rob came hurrying up bearing a small zinc box such as salve is often
kept in. He was down on his knees without asking questions and assisting
the injured lad to roll up his trousers leg to the knee. It seemed that
Donald had a wise and careful mother, for he was wearing, in addition to
the corduroy trousers, a pair of extra thick drawers.
“You’re lucky, Donald,” Rob told the other, “for these corduroys would
serve as a mighty good buffer; and, besides, you’ve had a pad in the
other garment. Bad as your leg may be bruised, it would have been a
whole lot worse only for these shields.”
By this time he had bared the lower part of Donald’s limb. The boy had
his teeth clenched tightly together, as though necessarily there was
more or less acute pain connected with this business; but it could not
make him even wince, such was his astonishing grit. Andy surveyed him
with renewed admiration, for if there was one thing that he liked to see
it was this quality in a fellow. Andy himself was in the habit of also
setting his teeth grimly when in pain and suppressing all groans.
As for Tubby, he stared as though he half believed he might be asleep
and dreaming all this. He saw a dark black-and-blue bruise on the white
skin of the boy’s leg, halfway up to the knee. Doubtless there was
another just like it on the opposite side. Tubby knew it must hurt like
anything. He also wondered greatly what could have given such strange
bruises. Then Rob, speaking, excited his curiosity still further.
“You see,” said the scout master, as he started to gently rub some of
the soothing salve on the leg of the Canadian boy, “if the springs of
that trap had been new and vigorous instead of rusted out and weak, they
might have broken the bone here. As it was, they just gripped you and
held tight enough to keep you from breaking away, seeing that you
couldn’t possibly manage to get around so as to press down one of the
springs.”
“Trap!” ejaculated Tubby. “Oh, why don’t you hurry up and explain it all
to me, Andy Bowles? Rob, you tell me, won’t you? What sort of a trap was
this poor fellow caught in?”
“It was an old bear trap, you see, that his own cousin had set a while
ago, thinking to make use of it, as he had seen the tracks of a big
black bear over this way,” Andy hastened to say. “Donald was hurrying
along through the woods, never thinking about anything of this kind,
when all at once he found himself caught. He’s been held fast there for
more than an hour, calling out for help as loudly as he could. He was in
a desperate hurry to get across the line, because by accident he
overheard some rascals scheming to blow up the railway bridge this very
night.”
“Great thunder!” was all Tubby could gasp, but the look on his face
spoke volumes.
“That’s pretty lively stuff, of course, Tubby,” continued Andy, with the
skill of a diplomat, “but the worst is yet to come; for, do you know,
Donald’s father is an engineer in the employ of the Canadian railway,
and it happens that he pulls the munition train this very night, that
these fiends are planning to destroy along with the bridge!”
Tubby was fairly holding his breath as he drank in all these amazing
details. His round face began to grow furiously red with a riot of
emotions that made his heart beat twice as fast as was its wont. Then,
as if he dimly suspected that Andy, given to practical jokes, might be
taking advantage of his confiding nature, Tubby turned toward the scout
master and implored him to corroborate the story.
“Oh, _is_ it all true, Rob?” he asked tremulously. “Would Andy be so
mean as to deceive a trusting comrade in khaki? Please tell me, Rob!”
“Every word is just as he tells you, Tubby,” said the other, still
engaged in gently, but more vigorously than before, rubbing the
discolored leg of the boy; and, singularly enough, it did not seem to
hurt quite as much as at first, from which Donald must be inclined to
believe there was considerable virtue in that “magical compound” as a
pain remover and a balm in time of trouble.
“And are we going to stand by him, Rob, and try to break up the
dastardly game of those criminal plotters?” continued Tubby.
“You give them a pretty hard name,” laughed Rob. “I reckon they’d deny
anything of that sort indignantly, saying anything is fair in war time.
All the same, _we_ believe they deserve to be called scoundrels. Yes, we
mean to stand back of Donald, if that’s what you mean, Tubby. We settled
all that on the way here.”
“Going over into Canada, and warn the bridge guards, you mean, Rob?”
“Nothing more or less,” he was informed steadily. “Our only fear is that
we may not get there in time to save the bridge.”
“’Course we’re all in this, Rob?” asked Tubby. “You wouldn’t dream of
asking _me_ to stay behind, when anything of this sort was being pulled
off? I’ve never balked when ordered to obey by a superior officer, but
in such a case as this—well, you wouldn’t treat me so mean as that, I
just know it, Rob.”
“Make yourself easy on that score,” said Rob, wishing to relieve the
strain of suspense under which he knew only too well Tubby was laboring.
“We’re all going, all but Wolf here, and we’ll leave him behind to guard
the cabin, with plenty of grub to keep him alive for a week. I hope that
satisfies you, Tubby.”
“Thank you, Rob; I’m more than glad to hear you say that. I never would
have gotten over it if I’d been left in the lurch when this glorious
stunt was being pulled off. I promise you that I’ll keep up with the
procession. Surely I can walk as fast as poor injured Donald here, who
has such a game leg. Yes, I’m satisfied.”