“Yes, even that! Anything! But here now, don’t you go and start anything rash. Better wait until the detectives and police get on the job. I’m too busy now to—”
“All right. See you later, Dad.”
Slipping away in the darkness, the boys began talking in low tones, and made for the Galaville road, laying plans as they went. Don offered the principal suggestions and Clem, lacking definite ideas of proceeding, was fair enough to comply. They approached the Shultz farmhouse with keen caution, making a wide detour and coming from back of the barn. A dog barked near the house and that was the only sign of life. But there was a method of bestirring the inmates, and the boys believed that the miscreants would show themselves to render hasty aid to a fellow countryman in gratitude for the shelter and care they had received from Shultz.
Working like beavers the lads gathered a lot of loose cornstalks, tall straws, and barnyard litter of a most inflammable nature, and piled it all on the side of the barn opposite the house, and far enough away to be beyond danger. At half a dozen places almost at once they set fire to the pile and having selected positions of ambush they rushed into hiding, Clem behind the barn bridge, Don crouching in the shadow of the corn-crib. The signal of action was to be the sudden move of either.
The plan worked. No one could have turned in and slept at once after the noise of the explosion in the town, much less these people who, the lads felt assured, had been expecting it. If the farmhouse occupants had been in fear of showing themselves they would ignore that for the few minutes needed for saving the animals in a burning barn. That they would, on looking out, believe the barn was on fire there could be no question, as no view from the house could detect the exact location of the flames.
A door slammed; there was the sound of excited words, of commands, of hurrying feet. Could it be possible that only Shultz and his family would appear on the scene? Had the Germans of the train departed? Or was it, after all, merely a coincidence that those men had come here and had talked in the train in a way that led the boys to think they were up to some such tricks, and that others had caused the explosion? Might it not have been some workman who was a German sympathizer?
Such doubts filled the minds of the young adventurers as they waited, hidden, and wondering. But they were not long to remain in doubt for things began to happen. Fat Shultz was not the first to appear, for three figures rounded the corner of the barn ahead of his puffing form.
The dog was fleetest of foot; that half-mongrel dachshund bade fair to spoil the game for the boys, for he was far more interested in the presence of strangers than in a bonfire, no matter how high it blazed. Yaw-cub, or whatever the beast was called, began to bark at the corn-crib, but the followers of the elongated hound fortunately paid no attention to this. Close together came the next in line—Fraülein Shultz and a man, both plainly seen as they came within the zone of light from the fire. The woman turned the corner and stopped as though she had bumped against a post, her hands going to her bosom in relief and for want of breath. The man almost ran into her; then he let out a German remark, doubtless an oath, and wheeled about. Surprise number one had relieved, if disgusted, him; number two, which confronted him before he had taken two retracing steps, made him lift his arms as if trained in the art.