But the race could not last long now. The Dutch border guard had spread out, and seemed to be ready to do some threatening with their guns.
“I only hope they don’t mean to shoot at us,” Giraffe was heard to say when he noticed this; “if only we had a big enough flag for them to see they’d know we were Americans, and friends. I wonder how it would do for me to shout out that word as we come up?”
“It would do no harm, Giraffe!” Allan told him.
Accordingly the tall scout began to make frantic gestures as he stood there, trying to balance himself in the swaying car. He had an idea that he was using his arms to denote their peaceful intentions; but possibly the puzzled Dutch soldiers might imagine him stark crazy.
“Americans! We’re American boys!” he kept shouting.
Bumpus tried to pull him down.
“They’re shooting at us back there, Giraffe!” he pleaded, “and you might get hit.”
It seemed that the Uhlans were using their weapons, though when going at that wild pace they could not have had much hope of doing any execution, unless by some accident.
A dozen seconds more of suspense followed, every one of which must have seemed an eternity to the fleeing scouts. Then they reached the line of the Dutch border guard and were thrilled to know they had actually left German soil behind them.
Thad immediately shut off power, and applied the brake, for he had seen that one of the guard made a motion easily interpreted. Giraffe was dancing about in the car, though Bumpus after having his toes trodden on several times promptly shoved him out.