“It does beat all creation,” declared the circus fugitive, “how you boys manage to go around doing good to others. I owe you a big debt just as that aviator does, and I warrant you there are many others, only you’re too modest to mention the fact.”
“Oh! that’s all in the game!” said Giraffe, making out to look upon such things with a feeling bordering on contempt, although being human he must have liked to hear his praises sung.
“To tell the truth,” ventured Thad, “we are the ones who feel under obligations, because we get much more benefit out of these happenings than the other fellow. Everybody does who believes in the old saying that it’s more blessed to give than to receive. Besides, we are only obeying the rules of the organization that we’re proud to say we belong to.”
As they went on their way the man who had traveled to the uttermost corners of the world entertained them with still further stories connected with his strange experiences. Thus they hardly noticed the lapse of time, and when Thad told them they had passed the seventh mile the eagle eye of Giraffe began to get busy with the task of locating the guard station that would mark the border line.
A short time afterwards he pointed it out to them, and they discovered one of the same white posts that had marked the division of territory at the time they were chased by the German cavalrymen, and found refuge over the line with the soldiers of Queen Wilhelmina.
Of course they were stopped, but at this early stage in the war the Dutch guard along the border had no orders to keep any one out of Holland. Questions were put to them by an officer who was summoned by the privates. These of course Thad could answer truthfully, and besides, the manly bearing of the lads must have had an influence in determining the officer to admit the party.
He did look rather doubtfully at the circus freak, but having been told just who Kaiser was, and seen something of his wonderful adornment, he did not think himself justified in turning him back.
So it came the four scouts left Belgium territory again. They had been through some pretty warm experiences since first striking the soil of the buffer state, many of which would never be forgotten.
Somehow all of them seemed to breathe easily after they had started along the road that would take them to the nearest railroad town. Thad knew it had all been a mistake, their trying to break past the struggling armed hosts, and that they would have shown wisdom had they come this way in the beginning.
At the same time he did not feel very sorry. They had been given a wonderful experience, and would certainly never forget some of the things that had happened to them. Particularly would they have reason to remember that terrible battle for the bridge head, when the German hosts fought their way through a storm of shot, only to see the bridge blown up with dynamite before they could secure it.