The temptation was very strong for a brief time. Alec hardly breathed, and had observers been watching the boy they would have seen that his hands opened and shut many times almost fiercely. In fact it was one of the greatest crises that would ever come into his young life; and much depended on the result.
Perhaps his better nature arose to denounce any such treacherous action for which he could find no excuse whatever. Possibly, too, he looked back to that time when Hugh and he had been up on the side of old Stormberg Mountain, and he sprained his ankle so that he could not walk; when instead of deserting him, that loyal comrade had taken him on his back and carried him much of the way, until he could limp along with his arm around Hugh’s neck.
Then and there the victory was won. Alec gritted his teeth hard together and his eyes flashed fire. With the resolution to do his full duty as a true blue scout, he crept over to where Hugh lay, and communicated his important discovery to the other. Of course after that, the four boys, together with the raw recruit, Bige Quick, found places of concealment. The two officers sat down on the rocks not twenty feet away, discussing all manner of matters of interest connected with the occupation of the fort and their readiness to anticipate any attack, not once up to the time they moved off suspecting that enemies hovered near by.
CHAPTER XII.
WITH THE BATTLESHIP SQUADRON.
“No sign of the jackies yet, Chief?” asked Don Miller when another half hour had crept by and the afternoon was well on its way.
The boys had emerged from their places of concealment after the artillery officers departed, and from time to time the scout master made good use of his glasses, either to observe what was going on around the fort or else to scrutinize the shore to the south.
“I was just going to tell you,” began Hugh, “that there’s some reason to believe they’re coming right now. I caught a flash from the next station, and you remember the boys had orders to signal us in case the force from the cruiser came along. Hold out for another half hour and perhaps something will happen.”
“Whee! I’m glad to hear you say so, Chief,” whispered Monkey Stallings, who was evidently having a harder time keeping quiet than any of his chums because of his restless nature.
Slowly the minutes dragged along. Occasionally one of the boys would believe he had caught some slight motion in the bushes below. Imagination, however, must have magnified the movements of a rabbit or some other small animal into the cautious advance of a human being, for none of them really saw any one until there came creeping toward them from the nearby bushes a figure that they recognized as belonging to Sam Winter.
Behind him came a second scout in khaki, none other than Walter Osborne, and as Hugh saw still a third, who turned out to be Billy, he understood that the column from the cruiser must be at hand.