Rushing at a rapid pace along the road it quickly reached the car and sped past. The staring scouts heard loud voices, and even saw waving hands over the top of the barricade. Then it was lost to view in the cloud of dust.
“Whew! That’s going some!” gasped Giraffe.
Bumpus was coughing from the dust he had inhaled, but he managed to give expression to his astonishment in a few jerky sentences:
“Oh! whatever was that! I thought a goods van had skipped off the railroad track and was raging along the road. Thad, can you guess it? Please enlighten me. Schew!” and he ended up in a tremendous sneeze.
“Yes, I think I know, though I never saw anything like it before,” Thad obligingly told him. “I remember reading that some Belgian had been experimenting with what he called an armored motor-car, and which it was claimed would be a terror in war times. I think that must have been it.”
“Well,” admitted Giraffe, scratching his head, “it was all of that, let me tell you. And Thad, there was a hole in the armor plating on our side. That must be where they use the quick-firing gun that mows things down, just as the farmer cuts the wheat with his machine.”
“If that war engine struck a regiment of the enemy it would make holes in their ranks, all right,” Allan remarked, with a shake of his head.
“I’m glad I saw it,” ventured Bumpus, “but they’re sure a reckless lot aboard, from the way they rushed along this road.”
“It takes that sort of men to use an armored car, I should think,” said Thad. “They expect to drop down on the enemy wherever they can find him, and never stop to count heads, but just run the gantlet, firing as they go. If they’re lucky, and get through without an accident, they go back home laughing over a good day’s hunt.”
“This war is bound to show up some queer freaks,” remarked Allan. “Now, d’ye know that armored car makes me think of the war chariots the ancient Romans used, with sharp knives fastened to the wheels, and as they dashed through the crowded ranks of the Goths and Vandals these mowed them down. This scheme is only a little more up to date, that’s all.”