Thad shook his head as though he did not like the situation.
“You see,” he explained, “if he had any suspicion before about us, it must have doubled when he saw me following his tracks, and then watched us come along this road. He knows now all that talk about Grevenbroich was hot air, and that we’re making for the Dutch border.”
“Yes, and going lickety-split at that!” added Giraffe, contemptuously, as the engine emitted several sounds as closely approaching groans of protest as any inanimate object could produce.
“Well, what’s to be done about it?” asked Bumpus, uneasily, looking behind him, as though half anticipating seeing a squad of Uhlans with their bedecked lances chasing headlong after the suspicious car.
“Nothing,” replied Thad. “All we can do is to keep pushing on, trusting both to luck and our sagacity to pull us through.”
“There’s one comfort about it, boys,” Allan told them; “every rod we cover means we’re just that much nearer safety. If we can only get within a mile or so of the border, and the cranky old motor holds out we’ll give them all the laugh, even if it means a hot chase at the end.”
“I wonder if the old tub would be equal to showing a clean pair of heels if you hit up the pace for all it was worth,” questioned Giraffe. “I’d be afraid we’d all go up in a cloud of smoke and fire. These sort of machines are always balking or else exploding.”
“Oh! now you’re just saying that to bother me, Giraffe,” complained Bumpus; “but I’ve got too much confidence in our pilot to be afraid of trouble. It may stop on us, that’d be the worst that could happen.”
“Now you notice we’re coming to a place where it’s well settled, for you can see fields on every side, and gardens, too. Yonder are some women and boys getting in the harvest; and here comes an old man, his cart loaded down with some kind of roots or potatoes. I hope there isn’t a town ahead of us, where we’d find that the officer had telephoned about us.”
It was Giraffe who said this. When making out to be tormenting Bumpus he was evidently only voicing his own fears.