“P’r’aps some of those Tommies in khaki would be only too glad of a chance to step in and collar the spy?” suggested Pudge.
“But there are three of us here,” objected Billy, “and I don’t see why we should want to call on the soldiers for such a little thing. After we’ve grabbed Mr. Spy and have got him tied up it will be time enough to figure on handing him over to the authorities.”
“That’s what’s worrying me,” admitted Frank.
“About handing him over, do you mean?” Billy demanded.
“Well, you know what the fate of a spy always is,” the other said. “We are supposed to be neutral in this war business. No matter whether our sympathy lies with Belgium, Germany, or France, we’ve got to try and treat them as much alike as we can. Our company has been negotiating with the French Government for a long time, now, over this contract, and so, of course, we have to favor them if anybody; but boys, not one of us would like to feel that we were the cause of a spy being shot or hanged.”
“Oh well, we could kick him off the place after we got him out, Frank,” suggested Pudge so aggressively that Billy chuckled, and started to smooth the fat chum down the back, just as one might a pugnacious rooster who was boiling with a desire to plunge into carnage.
“That sounds all right,” Frank told him; “but you forget the one important thing. He has some knowledge of this raid, and if we let him go it may mean a great disaster to the fleet of seaplanes taking part in the dash up the coast.”
“Whew! looks like we might be what my father would say was between the upper and the nether millstones,” remarked Billy.
“Gatling guns and grasshoppers,” Pudge added, “my father would go further than that, I guess, and say we were between the devil and the deep sea. But Frank, you’re the one to decide that question. What shall we do?”
“There is a way,” Frank announced, “by which we could settle it so the man wouldn’t fall into the hands of the military authorities, who would execute him, and at the same time he could be kept from betraying what he may have learned.”