Almost at the last moment Scout-Master Durland, or Captain Durland, as he was again for this week, had decided not to send Jack Danby on his trip into the enemy's country alone. Seated beside Jack, therefore, under the protective hood of the scout car, was little Tom Binns.
"Keep your eye on your watch, Tom," said Jack. "We don't want to make any mistake and cross the line too soon—but we don't want to be late, either. This job is too important to run any risks of bungling it. I'd hate to think that I'd been trusted with something really big for the first time and then fallen down on it."
"Where will you cross the line, Jack?" asked Tom. "I should think it would be pretty hard to tell just where the boundary was."
Jack pointed to a road map, on a slightly smaller scale than the one from which Captain Durland had given him his course, which was pasted right before his eyes on the metal dashboard of the car.
"I can't lose my way with that, Tom," he said. "See, there's a road that we're getting pretty near to now. It crosses the State line about six miles east of Bremerton, if you'll notice the map, at a little village called Mardean. That's all on this side of the line. They may be watching the road there, so what we want to do is to get where we can't be seen, and then, about a minute before noon, go ahead as fast as the car will carry us. That ought to take us through all right, even if they've got a guard on duty. Then we can circle around in a big sweep and come down to Hardport from behind. The country people ought to be able to tell us part of what we want to know, and we can confirm what they tell us by what we can see ourselves."
"They wouldn't lie to us, would they, Jack?"
"You couldn't call it regular lying if they gave us false information about their own army, Tom. Remember that this is supposed to be like a real war, and in a war the invading army wouldn't expect to get correct information from the people along the roads. On the contrary, they'd do their best to delay the enemy, and make all the trouble they could, and they'd be patriotic. So we've got to be mighty careful this next week about how we take any information we pick up in that fashion. If the people on the farms take the game seriously, and enter into the spirit of it, they'll do all they can to harass us and bother us."
Jack drove his car well and carefully, but made no great attempt to get high speed out of it, though it was, as he knew, capable of going three or four times as fast as he was driving it. But there is always a certain danger in driving an automobile at high speed, and Jack saw no use in taking any risk that was not necessary.
"You can go a lot faster than this, can't you, Jack?" asked Tom, as they bowled along easily, at little more than fifteen miles an hour.
"What's the use, Tom? We'll get to Mardean before we can cross the line, anyhow. I'll go fast enough then for a spell, if you're anxious for speed. Don't be impatient! We'll get all the speed you want before very long."
Jack was a true prophet, as one ought to be when he has the means of fulfilling the prophecy in his own hands. At Mardean, just out of sight of the line, they waited while the minutes dragged slowly by.
"One minute more!" cried Tom Binns, breathless with excitement and suspense.
"All right," said Jack, quietly. "Hold tight now, Tom! I'm going to let her out a bit."
Swiftly the grey car gathered speed. In a rush of dust, with horn blowing and exhaust sputtering behind them, the car shot over the line, and, just as a whistle boomed out the twelve o'clock dinner signal, Jack was in hostile territory. The war was on!
Behind them there was a confused shouting. The car was built so that it was easy to look behind.
"There was an outpost there," said Tom, as he looked back. "They're kicking up a tremendous fuss, Jack. I guess we rather put one over on them that time."
"We've got to put another one over on them in a hurry, then," said Jack, "or they'll put one over on us. Let me know as soon as that outpost is well out of sight, Tom. And keep your eyes skinned for any sign that they're after us with a motorcycle or anything like that, will you?"
"They're out of sight now—and there's nothing on the road. Hey, Jack, where are you going?"
For Jack, after a swift glance at his map, had run deliberately off the road, reducing speed considerably as he did so, but not so much that the car did not rattle around considerably as it left the smooth roadbed and plunged into a field that had not long since been ploughed.
"They'll telephone ahead of us, and they'll be waiting," Jack explained. "I've got to cut through the fields here, so that we can get on another road where they won't be looking for us. Otherwise I'm afraid we wouldn't get very far before we ran into a trap that all our armor and all our speed wouldn't get us out of without capture. You don't want to lose this car on its first trip, do you, Tom?"
"Not by a good deal!" yelled Tom, who was beginning to feel the exhilaration of the wild, bumping ride over the furrows of the field. "It was sort of sudden, that's all, Jack; I wasn't expecting it, you see."
"I meant to tell you we'd do that, but I forgot. I had it all doped out. See, we're coming to another road, now. This is a pretty big field, and it was marked accurately on that map. This whole section was surveyed and mapped especially for this war game."
"Say, if they do many things like that, it must cost something," said Tom.
"War's the most expensive thing in the world, Tom, and the next most expensive, I guess, is getting ready for it, and having such a strong army and navy that no one will want to fight you. But it pays to be ready for war, no matter how much it costs, for the country that isn't ready is always the one that has to fight when it least expects it. And fighting when you're not ready is the most expensive of all. It costs money and lives."
Then, with a sickening bump, the car took the road again, and Jack was heading straight for Hardport.
"Those wheels worked splendidly," he said. "And the car, too. An ordinary car would have bumped itself to pieces a mile or so back, and this one is running just as easily as when we started. I suppose it cost a lot, but it was certainly worth it."
"Every time we hit a new furrow I thought we were going to break down," confessed Tom. "I was scared at first. But I soon decided that we were all right. But I don't believe, even if I knew how to drive a car, that I'd have the nerve to take it through a ploughed field that way."
"Yes, you would, Tom, if you knew it was the only thing you could do. You couldn't be any worse scared than I was when we left the road—but I knew, you see, that there simply wasn't any other way out of it. When you have to do a thing, you can usually manage it. I've found that out."
"What's next?"
"The outskirts of Hardport. I want to skirt the railroad track. Their mobilization was at Smithville, back along the railroad about twenty miles, and if they've sent any force to Hardport, the railroad will show it. If they haven't, I'm going to mark the railroad cut."
"What do you mean, Jack?"
"In a real war, if people got a chance, this railroad would be cut. A lot of rails would be torn up and burnt. We don't want to interfere with regular traffic, so in this game we build a fire with spare ties, and mark as much rail as we'd have time to tear up, allowing ten minutes for each length of rail. Then if a troop train comes along and sees that signal, it is held to be delayed an hour for each torn up rail, as that is the time it would take the sappers to repair the damage."
They paused for thirty minutes, therefore, when they reached a spot about three miles and a half from the city line of Hardport.
"There," said Jack, when he had set his marks, "that will hold them up for three hours, and give General Bean a chance to occupy Hardport and destroy the railroad bridge. That will take a day to rebuild, without interference, and I guess it makes it pretty safe for us. Now we'll go on into town."
But they didn't go into the town. They did not have to, to discover that Hardport was occupied by a Blue regiment, which had outposts well scattered around the place, anticipating an attack, just as Captain Durland had said he thought would be the case.
"We'll do some more circling, now," said Jack, "and get around their outposts. I know a way we can do that. What they're planning is to let General Bean advance and walk into a trap. They've got enough men waiting for him along here to smash him on a frontal attack. What we've got to do is to get word to him in time to prevent him from doing that."
Twice, as the grey car sped along, now on the road, now in the fields, they saw parties of the enemy, but never were they near enough seriously to threaten the Boy Scouts with capture. And at last, striking into the main road for Bremerton, they saw a cloud of dust approaching, which they recognized as the signal of the coming of General Bean's brigade.
The soldiers cheered them as they recognized the scout car, and opened up a way for the big car to pass through them to the brigade commander himself.
"What's your name, eh?" asked the General, sharply. "Danby, eh? Excellent work, Scout Danby! I shall make it a point to report my appreciation to your Troop commander. You'd better come along in the rear now, and watch the rest of the operations. Thanks to you, I rather think they'll be worth watching."
And, touching the spurs to his speedy black horse, he cantered up to the front of the column, chuckling and laughing as he thought of how the enemy had been outwitted by his youthful Scout.
The direct forward march of the brigade was interrupted immediately. One regiment, indeed, continued along the straight road to Hardport, but the rest of the brigade was deployed at once.
"What will they do now, Jack?" asked Tom Binns.
"Well, I wouldn't be able to say for certain," replied Jack, with a smile, "but I rather think they'll manage to get behind the town in some fashion, and close in on the Blue troops in the garrison while the regiment in front here keeps them busy with a strong feint of an attack."
A colonel of regular cavalry, with a white badge on his arm to show he was serving as an umpire, drove past just then in a big white automobile.
"See, there's one of the umpires," said Jack. "He goes all about, and determines the result. I'm glad he's here—that means there can't be any dispute this time. General Bean has probably told him what he plans to do, and he will see how it comes out. Of course, he doesn't communicate in any way with the enemy, or tell them what we're planning to do."
"Of course not! That wouldn't be fair, Jack. I'm glad he's here, too. Do you suppose he's heard about the way we blocked the railroad?"
"I think he may have seen our signs and come this way just to find out what was doing."
"Listen!" cried Jack, suddenly. "There's firing ahead! Let's get on and find out what's going on."
There was heavy firing ahead of them for a few minutes, and then it became intermittent.
"Our attack is being repelled, I guess," said Jack. "That's the first engagement of the war, too. Well, we may seem to be beaten in that, but I guess we can afford to lose a skirmish, if we can capture Hardport and a whole Blue regiment."
Again, after the firing had almost ceased, a rattle of shots burst on the quiet air. Then, too, came the screaming of a shell, as it burst harmlessly above the city.
"Hooray!" cried Jack. "We've surrounded them! Come on!"
And this time there was no opposing the entry of the grey car into Hardport. The city had been surrounded and captured, just as Jack had predicted, and the Blue regiment that had been so completely outwitted, thanks to the cleverness of Jack Danby, was out of the war entirely. It was an important victory, in more ways than one. General Bliss could ill afford to lose so many men, and the capture of Hardport, moreover, was a crippling blow, since it interfered with the operation of the railroad which he had relied upon for bringing his troops across the State line in large numbers.
The umpires lost no time in telling General Bean of their decision, and in congratulating him on the strategy he had displayed.
"Cutting the railroad was a masterly stroke," said one of the umpires.
"That's what I say!" said the General, with enthusiasm. "And it was a little tike of a Boy Scout, in my grey scout car, who did it—and that without orders!"