CHAPTER XIII A THRILLING DISCOVERY
The light of Rob’s lantern showed them a boy of about their own age. Hewas half on his knees, and seemed to be caught in some way so that hecould not get away.
“Why, he’s got his leg in a trap, don’t you see, Rob?” gasped Andy,filled with horror at the very idea, for it seemed to portend the mostserious consequences.
“It does look like an old rusty bear trap!” Rob admitted as they hurriedon; Zeb instantly corroborated what he said by exclaiming:
“Jest what she are, an’ no mistake. Jingo! I sartin sure hopes as howthe boy ain’t bad hurted. I’ve seen men that was lamed fur life arterbeing ketched by the jaws o’ a bar trap. But this un seems old like, andmebbe the springs are weak.”
All the same the unlucky victim of the trap had apparently not been ableto free himself.
“I’m right glad ye’ve come!” called out the boy, showing a wonderfulamount of nerve. “I shouted till I could hardly call above a whisper,and I was nearly crazy with fear that I’d have to stay here tillmornin’, when I heard you answer.
“Hurry, please, and get this old thing off me. Ye see I couldn’t reachthe second spring nohow, try as hard as I might. It hurt somethingfierce whenever I twisted around that way.”
They were all bending down now. The first thing Rob noticed with a greatfeeling of relief, when he brought his lantern close to the prisoner ofthe rusty old bear trap, was that there were no signs of blood. Thisgave him fresh hope that the misfortune might not turn out to be quiteso serious as he had at first anticipated; and also it proved that Zeb,a trapper of long experience himself, had hit the nail on the head whenhe said that the trap looked as if it might be old, and the springs weakin their action.
Apparently it had enough power to snap shut and hold fairly firm. Couldthe boy have borne heavily on both springs, he might have succeeded ineffecting his release in the beginning.
Zeb immediately put his weight on the obstreperous spring. Andy priedback the unwilling jaws; whereupon Rob was able to take out the boy’sleg from the trap.
The boy rubbed his hand tenderly up and down his leg at the point whereit had been seized. He gritted his teeth, and winced a little, butquickly exclaimed as if in deepest gratitude:
“Hurts some, but the bone wasn’t broken, and I’m unco’ lucky. What’s ablack and blue bruise anyway? I can stand it, ye ken.”
With Rob’s help he managed to get on his feet, after which heimmediately began to limp around, muttering to himself as he went, asthough controlled by a mixture of emotions—thankfulness that it was noworse, gratitude because of the coming of these rescuers, and chagrin athaving been caught in such a ridiculous situation.
Zeb meanwhile was examining the trap with the eye of an expert.
“Jest about worn out,” he was saying, “an’ she never’d hev held a bar inthe wide world. Now, I wonder who put that no-good thing thar—no trapperas knowed his business, I’d say. Looks more like a kid’s work thananything else.”
“Yes, it was a boy,” explained the late victim, “and the funny part ofit all is that I should have happened on to the trap my cousin Archietold me he’d kept set for a month, over near the old logging camp.”
“Archie was the lad’s name, was it?” demanded Zeb quickly. “I rememberthat Cameron, the guide I used to pull with, and who came up this waylast summer to settle, had a lad by that name.”
“Well, Archie Cameron is my full cousin,” explained the stranger. “I’mDonald McGuffey, ye ken, and I live over the line in a Canadian village.I’d been visitin’ my relatives, and was on my way back home when thishappened. Now I’m lame, and perhaps I can never get there in time tosave them.”
“What’s that?” asked Rob suspiciously. “Are your folks in any danger?Did you get word that they were sick? Tell us what you mean, Donald, andif we can be of any further assistance to you we stand ready to do allwe can, for we’re scouts, you know, and it’s our duty to hold out ahelping hand every time.”
“Oh! but that’s fine of you!” cried the Canadian boy, shaking withemotion, which, of course, none of the others could as yet begin tounderstand. “Why, I’m a scout, too, though now I haven’t got my uniformon. But, oh! I wonder if you would dare take it upon yourselves ascomrades to stand by me through this terrible thing?”
“Terrible thing, what, Donald?” almost shouted the aroused Andy. “Speakup and let’s know what it’s all about. Why should we hesitate abouthelping you out? Who’s going to hurt us for sticking to a comrade that’sin distress?”
“Those awful men—they would be furious if they knew any one meant tointerfere. Yes, they would even do muckle mair than tie ye up. Ibelieve, in my bones, they are that wrapped up in their diabolicalscheme they’d murder anyone who tried to break it up!”
“Speak plainer, Donald,” snapped Rob. “We are wasting precious timewhile you throw out hints in that way. Tell us everything!”
The Canadian boy stopped limping around. He seemed to straighten up hisfigure, and they could now see that he was a tall and spare lad, as wiryas they make them over in the country beyond the border.
“It’s just this, ye ken,” he said earnestly. “They mean to blow up thebridge this verra nicht, in time to trap the regular munition freightthat goes over at two in the mornin’!”
Rob and Andy exchanged horrified looks. Their worst fears wereconfirmed. Only for their having seen the evolutions of that spyingaeroplane that crossed the line and hovered above the railroadembankment near where the trestle leading to the bridge lay, they mighthave been at a loss to comprehend what these startling words meant. Butthat much was very plain to them; in fact, as we have seen, Rob at leasthad been confident that the terrible plot had only been delayed, and notgiven up.
How had this Canadian boy learned of the truth? Plainly there was morefor him to explain, though Rob could now understand the fearful mentalsuffering he must have endured, as well as the physical pain, on findinghimself detained in that astounding fashion, when he was undoubtedlyhastening as fast as he could go to carry his news to those guarding thethreatened railroad.
“Come, tell us as quick as you can how you learned this, Donald,” saidRob. “Two days ago we saw an aeroplane cross over, and we guessed thenthat perhaps the pilot was spying out the land, for there has been sometalk of plotters here in the States in sympathy with Germany, who weretrying to blow up munition plants in Canada, or doing something just asdreadful.”
“Aweel, they’ve settled on destroying the long bridge across which somany loaded trains pass every twenty-four hours,” said the otherhurriedly, and with bated breath, owing to his increasing excitement. “Ihappened to overhear them talking while on my way to the river, aftersaying good-bye to my cousin, who was sick abed. I knew they were up tosomething, for I saw that they had a small German flag, which each oneof them kissed as they sat around the fire. So I crept close up andlistened, oh! with my heart nearly in my mouth. I soon learned that theywere sure enough enemies of my country, and that they meant to strike ablow against the Allies before another morning, that for weeks and weekswould paralyze all traffic flowin’ to the sea by this railway line.”
“It was a brave act in your crawling up and listening,” said theadmiring Andy, as he laid a hand on the arm of the Canadian lad. “Andmake up your mind we’re going to stand by you through thick and thin,Donald. Scouts should help each other, and that, you know, means justwhat it says.”
“Go on and tell us the rest, please!” urged Rob.
“Why, after I had learned what they were scheming to do,” continued theother promptly, greatly pleased at hearing those generous words spokenby impetuous Andy, “I knew I must get alang, if I wanted to be ahead o’the gillies. Ye ken I remembered hearing my cousin say he believed aYankee sportsman and his guides would be over at the old logging camp;and sae I changed me course a bit, meanin’ to drap in and see if theywould nae helpit me carry the news across the l
ine. Then, bad luck to itall, I had to deliberately step into the auld bear trap my cousin Archiehad tawld me that he put out here a wheen o’ time back.”
“It was doubly unfortunate,” said Rob, his voice full of sympathy.
“It made me verra mad, I assure ye,” confessed Donald frankly. “Try as Iwould I could nae get me leg free, nor could I yet reach the spring tobear down on the same. I stood the pain the best I was able whenever Ireached out, but it was a’ no gude. And only for the luck o’ ye hearingmy shouts there I must ha’ remained till the day came, and then it wouldha’ been far too late. But now I hae telled ye a’ I must be on me wayagain, no matter how I hae to limp it.”
“Hold on, Donald, not so fast,” said Rob. “We are going with you!”
“Across the border, do you mean, Rob?” exclaimed Andy gleefully, forbeing of an adventurous spirit, nothing could have pleased him more thanthis.
“There seems to be no other way to foil those desperate conspirators.The Canadian authorities are none too friendly to us right now onaccount of numerous things that have happened and which they lay toGerman sympathizers crossing over secretly from our side. Yes, we musttry to help our fellow scout do his duty to his country, which he lovesjust as much as we do our own native land.”
“Oh, it makes my heart fairly jump to hear ye say that! It’s braw ladsye air, baith o’ ye, and I’ll never forget it, never! My leg hurts, butI think it will get better after I use it a while. No matter how itpains me, I shall go on and on, even if I have to crawl and drag itafter me, for I must carry the news to the guards. I would gie ten yearso’ life if only there was a way to flash it across the border to themricht now.”
“First we must go back to the cabin,” said Rob.
“Is it necessary, then?” asked Donald anxiously, as though fairly wildto be on his way.
“Yes, because there are several reasons,” he was told. “We have a chumthere who would never forgive us if we started on such a gloriousexpedition and left him behind. Then again, I have some salve that,rubbed on your leg, would do a lot of good and relieve the painconsiderably. So let’s start.”
Donald may have had a good Scotch will of his own, but as he too was ascout, he had also learned to yield to those in authority. He seemed toguess intuitively that Rob _must_ be a leader, perhaps from his positiveway of saying things and possibly from Andy’s deferring to his opinion.
They were soon hurrying along, Donald suppressing any groan as hecontinued to limp more or less.
“I hae not tauld ye all,” he was saying. “I learned from what I heardthem say while I hid in the bushes that they expected to set a mineunder the trestle and connect it with a battery by a long wire. Thenfrom a distance they could destroy the bridge just when the heavyfreight train was passing over. Ye can understand what I suffered when Itell ye that my fayther is an engineer in the employ of that samerailway and that he pulls the munition freight this verra nicht!”