CHAPTER XXIV.
THE AMBUSCADE.
“Well, here’s a nice kettle of fish!” burst out Bumpus, fixing his eyes on the scout leader, as though mentally asking what Thad meant to do.
The actions of Giraffe spoke louder than words could have done. With a really wicked grin he reached down and took something in his hand which it seemed he had stowed away in the body of the car. It was a club almost the size of a baseball bat, one of those home-run kind boys talk about, and call “the old wagon-tongue.”
“Say, I had a sort of hunch this would come in handy sooner or later, and now I know it!” Giraffe muttered, with a shake of his head.
“But what do you suppose this means, Thad?” asked Allan, with a puzzled look on his face. “I always understood these Belgian boys were well-behaved chaps, and the last ones in the world to do a thing like this. If we were in some town across in our own country it wouldn’t seem so strange.”
“Stop and think for a minute what’s happening here in Belgium this very day,” said Thad. “A million Germans have overrun the country, and every Belgian capable of bearing arms is hurrying to the battle line. Of course the boys are worked up to fever heat. You all saw how they acted when that mob surrounded us. They’re not the same well-behaved boys they were two weeks ago. The excitement has settled in their brains.”
“But, Thad, that doesn’t mean we’ve got to hand them over the old car, does it?” asked Bumpus.
“Certainly not,” he was assured.
“Will we have to turn back again so as to keep from having a row?” continued the fat scout, anxiously.
“Well, I should hope not,” burst out Giraffe, angrily. “I’d be willing to turn back before the majesty of the whole German army, but I’ll be hanged if I want to knuckle down to a pack of kids. If you ask my opinion there it is, straight goods!”