Santa Benicia Acadamee.”
Hadn’t Hike heard him, then, after all?
He saw the guard in front look into the cabin, and heard him sneer, “Call that singing? I’d kill my dog, if he howled that way.” The guard strolled still farther out from the cabin.
Hike sang on, through two verses, mumbling the words badly. Poodle started, as he made out words among the mumblings. He listened intently, and got this message out of what sounded like nonsense:
“To-night. Meeting here. Heard Jolls. Heard him talking. In front of cabin. Captain Welch will be here. Have him arrested. Come in Hustle. God bless you, old Poodle!”
“I’ll be here,” whispered Poodle. As the guard, passing the back of the cabin, turned the corner, Poodle slipped out of his rubbish heap, and crept toward the nearest bushes.
Running, stumbling, hurrying till his panting heart pained him, he rushed down the hill, toward the marsh, bound for Washington.
CHAPTER XIV
AIR-PILOT POODLE
Poodle had ridden seven miles behind the Jolls automobile, but he had to walk twelve, for it was five miles from the hill where he had left his own car to “the next town,” where he had told his chauffeur to wait for him.
Twelve miles of hard, fast walking, while the Virginia August sun made his head ache till every snapping farmhouse dog that ran out seemed like a dragon, and he could scarcely see the glaring fields, smelling of jimson and milkweed. The dust, the endless deep dust of the road, got into his throat and caked on his wet feet and legs. But he never stopped, and found his chauffeur waiting him, well on in the afternoon.