CHAPTER III.
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE ROAD.
The four boys stood there on the dusty road in the twilight of thatwindy November day, and for a full minute seemed unable to express thesense of bewilderment that had overwhelmed them all. Alongside was thewhite horse attached to the empty wagon; and from the docile manner inwhich the animal had come to a sudden halt and stood there, he was notat all averse to having a resting spell after having been whipped sosteadily that he was in a sweat.
"Well, I'll be jiggered, if that don't beat the Dutch!" Merritt burstout, he being apparently the first to recover his breath.
"Why, they're gone!" ejaculated Tubby. "And say, they went and lefttheir rig with us, don't you see? Well, I must say they are awfullypolite. This is more'n we ever expected, isn't it, fellers?"
Rob was laughing, as though secretly amused at the hasty flight of thetwo men who had been in the wagon.
"Chances are, now, they took us for hoboes meaning to hold 'em up; andthat's why they jumped for it!" Andy suggested.
"Well," remarked Rob, "I couldn't say that I'd blame them for thinkinganything after hearing all that racket you three scouts made giving theEagle cry. Most people would jump at the conclusion that a lot oflunatics had broken loose from that asylum down at Amityville. Youshould have let me say my little say without that heathen noise. It'sall very well for a scout in the bush to let another know what patrol hebelongs to when he sees another approaching; but ordinary people hardlyunderstand what that racket means."
"But, Rob, do you believe they took us for desperate yeggmen wanting tohold 'em up on the road here, and rob 'em?" asked Andy.
"No, I don't," replied the patrol leader readily. "In the first place,even if it is getting dusk right now, it's still light enough foranybody with eyes to see that we don't happen to be a ragged lot liketramps are pretty much all of the time."
"Then why should they skoot like that, I want to know?" Tubby inquired.
"Like as not they saw our scout uniforms," suggested Merritt at ahazard.
"That's just what they did," Rob hastened to add with emphasis; "andfrom the shock the sight of the same gave the parties, I'm thinking theymust have guessed we were soldiers who meant to arrest a couple of mendriving a white nag!"
"Oh! I wonder now if that would explain the queer stunt?" Tubby venturedto say.
"Sounds pretty good to me, Rob," was what the corporal of the troopremarked as he stood there and stared at the spot where the pair ofalarmed men had left the road and plunged into the thicket. "And maybesome of the rest of you noticed as I did that the taller one of the pairlimped, as though he might have a bad leg or a sprained ankle."
"Yes, I noticed that, Merritt, and was waiting to see if any of the restof you had used your eyes to advantage," Rob told him.
"I did, cross my heart if I didn't!" reported Tubby.
"And I would have seen the same only the rest of you happened to be inmy way," the fourth scout struck in, not wanting to have it appear thathe was the only fellow to be so dazed by what had happened that he hadfailed in his duty as a scout to observe every little detail.
"And I want all of you to take notice," continued the patrol leader,"that just where they left the road and disappeared from our sight,there happens to be growing a white birch tree that hangs out at anangle of twenty-five degrees. Birches are not so plentiful around herebut what we could easily find that same one again in case we wanted totry and follow up the tracks of the men."
"To give 'em back their rig, you mean, Rob?" hinted Tubby.
"Either that or for some other reason," replied the other shortly.
"Well, I don't hear any scrambling now," remarked Andy. "Probably theyare so far away the sounds don't carry."
"But how about that ride to town?" demanded Tubby anxiously. "Do we getcheated out of that just because a pair of sillies chose to get coldfeet at sight of scout uniforms, and skedaddled like a dog with a tincan tied to his tail?"
"Yes, how about it, Rob?" continued Merritt. "Do we leave this horse andwagon on the road here, doing no good at all, while we trudge alongover two miles of ground, carrying this heavy sack of shellfish? If youasked me now, I would say let's borrow the outfit, and give thanks!"
"Ditto here!" exclaimed Tubby eagerly.
"Count me in," said Andy, "and that makes it three affirmatives; how doyou vote, Rob? Say 'yes,' and make it unanimous, won't you?"
The patrol leader laughed again at the appeal, and glanced around at thefaces of his three chums.
"Well, it would be like looking a gift horse in the mouth to let thisfine chance slip past us," he went on to say, much to the delight of hiscompanions; for Tubby immediately threw up his campaign hat to signifyhis joy, while the others nodded their heads and looked pleased.
"Good for you, Rob," Merritt said, as he proceeded without more ado topick up the sack of oysters, and, stepping over to the tail end of thewagon, toss them aboard. "So far as I can see, I don't believe we'llhave any trouble about taking the rig, even if the men turn out to behonest, which I'm right sure they won't. We can say they abandoned it onthe road, and we thought we ought to fetch it into town to turn it overto the police; which we mean to do, remember, fellows."
"Sure, we'll only be doing the right thing to deliver the outfit to theChief," Tubby went on record as saying. "My Uncle Mark was telling meabout something that happened to him as near like this as two peas; andit turned out that the men in the rig were a pair of desperate bankburglars, making off with the stuff they'd hooked from a town not faraway. That was how he got his first thousand dollars, he says, thatstarted him along the road to success, years and years ago. And Merritt,did you take a good look to see if there is any mysterious littlepackage in that same wagon? Wouldn't it be a queer thing now if historytook to repeating itself, and this time Uncle Mark's nephew was one ofthe bunch that recovered the stolen plunder? Anything doing, Merritt?"
"Well, you'll have to make up your mind to being disappointed this time,Tubby," observed the corporal. "This wagon hasn't a thing in it except ahandful of hay, and I've pulled that around to make sure it didn't hideanything. But we didn't calculate to discover any jewelry or bankfunds; the best we asked for was a chance to ride to Hampton; and we'vegot it. Pile in, fellows. This horse has come some way, and has beenmade to travel right lively, too. Why, he's reeking with sweat! Somebodymust have been in a hurry!"
They lost no time in clambering into the wagon. Tubby, being the slowestto get up, found the seat fully occupied.
"Where do I come in?" he asked rather plaintively, after the fashion ofthe unfortunate one who was usually being left out.
"Plenty of room back there in the wagon, Tubby!" chuckled Rob.
"Use the sack of oysters for a seat if you want to!" added Andy.
"Can't you move over and make room for one more?" pleaded the fat scout.
"We might if it was for a Living Skeleton, but not for the Fat Boy ofthe Side Show," was Merritt's reply. And so Tubby was compelled to climbinto the body of the wagon, and sit down as best he could on the hardbed.
"Please don't make the nag gallop, boys," he asked as a particularfavor; "because if you do he'll swing the wagon around every-which-way,and there's no telling what would happen to me. I guess I've gotfeelings, if I do happen to measure a little more around the waist thananybody else present."
"A little!" jeered Andy. "You must mean as much as the whole three of usput together, don't you, Tubby?"
"Forget it," mumbled the other; for already the vehicle had begun tomove. As Merritt whipped the tired horse, it gave a jump forward thatcaused Tubby to roll over on his back the first thing, and then clutchwildly at the sides of the wagon, as though in mortal terror lest he betossed out and left there on the road to walk home.
"This is something like a treat, after tramping along for a whole mile,and with that heavy sack into the bargain," Rob declared, as they beganto make fair progress in the direction of the home town.
"Talk to m
e about your good luck," ventured Andy, who sat on the otherend of the seat from the driver, "it seems to me the Eagles are alwayshaving things happen to them that never would come to other fellows."
"But not all of the same are favors by a long sight, Andy," Merrittreminded him. "Don't forget how we had that boat spring a leak; and ifthe accident had occurred when we were out in the middle of the bay,chances are we'd have had to swim for the shore. The good luck came inits happening near land."
"Well, that's what I mean, of course," persisted the other. "If we dohave to run up against a snag, why something always turns up to help usout. Look back at lots of things that have come our way, and you'll sayI'm right. And you three fellows especially have had luck chase afteryou more than a few times."
"I guess that is about right," sang out Tubby from the rear; showingthat although he might be having the time of his life holding on to thesides of the wagon as it clattered along the road, all the same he kepthis ears wide open.
"Well," remarked Rob, with a laugh, "any lot of scouts who can have arig like this handed to them without the asking, when they have severalmiles over a dusty road to tramp, ought not to complain. We're on whatthey call 'Easy Street' right now. And who knows but there may be a fewdollars' reward offered for the recovery of a stolen outfit? Itwouldn't surprise me very much; because the way those men scuttled atsight of our suits makes me believe they couldn't have been strictlyhonest. No decent party need fear the khaki uniform, whether of asoldier or a Boy Scout!"
"Look! what was it that flashed ahead there in the bushes?" suddenlyexclaimed Andy. Half unconsciously, Merritt at the same time started topull at the reins, so that the horse no longer galloped headlong asbefore, much to the relief of poor knocked-about Tubby.
The boy in the back of the wagon was just about to try and scramble tohis knees in order to look beyond his mates on the seat, when, withoutthe slightest warning, a very gruff voice full of authority called out:
"Pull in there and throw up your hands, every one of you, d'ye hear?You're all under arrest!"
Moving figures sprang out upon the white road, and the horse, findinghis forward progress blocked, gladly came to a full stop. The occupantsof the wagon sat there, hardly knowing what to make of this newhappening.
One man caught the horse close to the bits, and two others hastened toadvance to the wagon, as if to make sure that none of those who occupiedthe vehicle made a flying leap from the back and took to their heels.