"First rate! But that's not the idea, at all. They're all over in the other direction, nearer Bremerton, and east of Hardport. The trouble Colonel Abbey encountered seems to indicate that it's their plan to cross in force near Bremerton. That's why holding Newville would be so important to them."
Now Jack threw in the high speed again. And at once, almost, as the car sped on, something about the song of the throbbing engine bothered Jack. In a moment he had shifted his gears, and in another, the car, coughing and rattling, came to a sudden stop.
"Good thing I heard that," said Jack, a few moments later, "or we'd have been stuck properly a few miles further on. Won't take me five minutes to fix it now."
As he tinkered on the machine, his ears were busy, and he and Tom heard the sound of approaching horses in the same instant. At once Jack leaped to his driver's seat, and ran the car through an open fence into a field beside the road.
"I want to see what's doing here," he said. "That doesn't sound very good to me."
The trouble with his engine had been providential, for ten minutes later he realized that had he gone on at full speed he would have encountered the advance guard of at least a full division of the enemy.
Quietly and steadily the Blue troops were marching on. There was purpose in the look of them, and a grim earnestness that made Jack whistle.
"Tom," he whispered, "you certainly hit it! They're setting a trap all right. They're going to cross at Mardean and swing around to cut off our troops from Bremerton. They've got a nice plan—just to steal our position, and make us fight on our ground—but with positions reversed."