“Of course,” Allan said, in trying to excuse this want of neatness, “we have all sorts of people come over to us, and they bring their habits along with them. Some are as careful about keeping their places clean as these Germans, while others never knew a thing about thrift in the native lands, and have to be taught. But on the whole we seem to get along pretty well.”
“How goes the mad whirl now, Allan?” asked Giraffe.
“Not more than two miles away from the border, my map says,” came the reply.
“That sounds good to me,” Bumpus assured them, rubbing his hands together much as a miser is supposed to do when gloating over his gold; “huh! two little miles oughtn’t to keep us long on the way.”
“Not when you’re navigating the roads in such a whiz-cart as this,” chuckled Giraffe, as he started to get partly out of his seat to look around him, so as to discover anything new worth calling his companions’ attention to.
“Why, hello—we didn’t make all that dust back there, did we?” the others heard him saying, as he shaded his hand to look, and then almost immediately went on to exclaim: “as sure as you live it’s a little squad of horsemen, and they’re coming along at a fast gallop! What’s that they’re holding so that the sun glints from the ends like it does when you use a glass in heliographing a message? Boys, I do believe they must be lances!”
“Lances!” burst out Bumpus, in sudden alarm; “why, that would mean they are the German rough riders they call the Uhlans; and Thad, if they’re coming after us they’ll overhaul this old pony go-cart as easy as falling off a log!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE COUNTRY OF WINDMILLS.
Of course everybody became tremendously excited; at least everybody but Thad, who somehow seemed to be able to retain his coolness in the presence of peril better than any of his comrades.
“There are four of them!” announced Giraffe, immediately, “and they’re digging their spurs into their nags for all that’s out. I guess they know we’re meaning to cross over into little old Holland, and they want to nab us before we can get over the border line!”