Once more they were moving along. How keenly they kept their eyes on the lookout for further trouble ahead could be detected by the manner in which all three forgot to observe the scenery around them, the dusty road monopolizing their attention.
As the minutes continued to slip past they had the satisfaction of knowing that they were putting the miles behind them. Five and more had been dropped since that last accident. Blake asked further questions concerning the probable distance over which they had now come, and as usual Hugh was able to give a conservative guess.
“All of twenty-five miles from Oakvale by now, I should say,” he announced. “If you want to know how I’m able to say that, let me explain. I have a rough map of the country up here. I copied it hastily from one they had at the recruiting tent, for you know the battery must have come along this same road we’re now on. A mile back we saw a crossroads. That was marked on the map with the figures twenty-four; so after all it was easy to add another mile to that score; and there you are.”
“Only for your long head in making a rough copy of that road map, Hugh,” declared the admiring Blake, “we would certainly be up against it now. Well, that leaves some fifteen or twenty more miles. Can we fetch it by sundown, do you believe, Bud?”
“Oh! easy going!” came the flippant reply, though accompanied by a side wink in the direction of Hugh, which was possibly intended to convey the meaning that the aforesaid result could be attained if they were fortunate, and met with no further mishaps such as had already delayed them on two occasions.
“I think we’re coming to some sort of village,” observed Hugh, later on, “for I can see a small house on one side of the road, with some chickens and a dog in the way. Slow up, Bud; we don’t want to race through here, and be hauled up for exceeding the speed limit; or else have to stop and pay for some silly hens that were bound to get under our wheels.”
Several cottages were passed. Then they came to a stretch of woodland, beyond which, doubtless, the town proper lay, for they could see signs of smoke rising, and there was also a sound as of an engine working in some sort of mill.
Suspecting no immediate trouble, the boys were running along quite smoothly when, without the slightest warning, they received a sudden shock. Again it came to them just around a bend in the road, though Bud had kept his word, and was moving slowly at the time.
A rope was stretched directly across from one tree to another. To make the hold-up even more positive, a log had been rolled out, and lay there, blocking the road, so that even should a swiftly-going car have broken the rope, it was bound to come to grief against that other obstacle.
“Pull up, Bud! quick!” almost shrieked Blake Merton, but he might just as well have spared himself the trouble of letting out this frantic appeal, for the driver had his car well under control, and was easily able to bring it to a halt some ten feet away from the obstructions.