There was not a sign of the enemy as they neared the bridge, one of those covered affairs so common a few years ago in country districts. The countryside was serene and undisturbed.
"This doesn't look much like war," said Jack. "But I guess Gettysburg itself looked just as peaceful a few days before the big battle in 1863. You can't always tell by appearances. We'll go pretty easy here, anyhow, until we're certain that it's all right."
But the most careful investigation failed to reveal a trace of hostile occupation or passage. At the end of the bridge Jack got out of the car, leaving Tom Binns at the wheel, and ready to start at an instant's notice should there be a sudden attack.
"The tracks here don't show anything much," he said, looking up to Tom with a puzzled face. "I don't believe anything but a couple of farm wagons have passed this way to-day. If General Bliss thought this was his only line of advance, he'd have been certain to have had a few pickets here—or at least one of his scout cars. And I'll swear that nothing of that sort has happened here to-day. They'd have been bound to leave all sorts of traces, that's certain!"
"What do you think it means, Jack?"
"That there's something cooking and on the stove that we don't know about or suspect, even," said Jack. "I guess that General Bliss gets as good information as we do, and he must have figured out that he wouldn't be able to get here in time. If he went this way, anyhow, he'd have to leave Hardport in our possession behind him. And somehow I don't believe he'd do that."
"Say, Jack," called Tom Binns, suddenly, "I just saw a flash over there behind you—upon that hillock."
Jack began whistling indifferently. He strolled around, as if he were interested only in the view. Gradually he worked over closer to Tom and the big car, and then, and only then, he turned so that he could follow Tom's eyes with his own.
"I don't want anyone that's around here to think I'm looking at them," he said in a low tone to Tom. "What does it seem like to you, Tom? Scouts?"
"I think so, Jack. I caught just a glimpse, after I called to you, of something that looked like a Scout uniform. I think that they're watching us."
"That's much better," said Jack, greatly relieved. "It didn't seem natural, somehow, to find this place so deserted. Say, Tom, you can run the car, can't you?"
"Yes, if I don't have to go too fast."
"All right. I'm going to climb in. Then pull the hood pretty well over and run her slowly through the bridge. It's covered, you see, and they can't see us after we're on it. Then, as soon as we're under cover, I'm going to drop out. They can't see how many of us there are in the car. I'll stay behind, and you run on around the bend, drop out of the car, quietly, and leave it at the side of the road."
"Will that be safe, Jack? Couldn't anyone who came along run off with it?"
"Not if you take the spark plug out and put it in your pocket. That cripples the car absolutely, and you ought always to do that, even if you just leave a car outside a store for a couple of minutes when you go in to buy something. This car is great, too, because you don't have to crank it. It has a self-starting device, so that you can start the motor automatically without leaving your seat."
"All right, Jack. What am I to do after I leave the car?"
"Work up quietly into the woods there. When you get up a way, scout down easily, and try to trail them. You'll find traces of them up there on the ridge, I'm sure, if they're really up there. I'll do the same thing from the other side here. I think we've got a good chance to break one of their signalling relays, don't you see?"
"I'll take my flags along, shall I, Jack?"
"Good idea! No telling what we'll be able to find out and do here. All right—I'm going to drop out now!"
The car slowed down and he dropped off silently, and laughed as he saw Tom Binns guide the big machine off into the light beyond the covered bridge again. Then, the laughter gone from his face, he slipped cautiously back in the opposite direction, and at the entrance to the bridge dropped down to the bed of the creek. The season had been dry, and the water in the creek was very shallow. His plan was definite in his own mind, and he had had enough experience in scouting to know that there was at least a good chance of success in his enterprise, although a difficult one.
His destination was the ridge where Tom Binns had seen the flashing of red and white signal flags. Step by step now, climbing slowly and carefully, he made his way up the bank, sure that even if whoever was on the ridge had guessed the ruse of the way in which he had left the automobile, they would not be looking for an attack from the direction in which he was making his stealthy, Indian-like advance. Another reason for slow and deliberate progress was to give Tom Binns time to reach the ridge, and take up a position favorable for the playing of his part in the scheme.
Before him now, as he moved on, he could hear sounds of quiet and stealthy movement, and at last, standing before him, as he peeped through a small opening in the thick undergrowth, he could see a Boy Scout, standing stiff and straight, and working his signal flags. He had to stand on a high spot and in a clearing to do this, as otherwise, of course, his flags could not have been seen at any distance. Jack measured the place with his eyes. His whole plan would collapse if the body of the signalling Scout were visible from the next relay stations, but he quickly decided that only the flags would show.
From behind the Scout with the flags now came the call of a crow—caw, caw, caw!
Jack grinned as he answered it. For a moment a look of suspicious alertness showed on the face of the Blue Scout. He whirled around to face the sound behind him, and in the moment that his back was turned Jack sprang on him.
The Blue Scout put up a fine struggle, but he was helpless against the combined attack of Jack Danby and Tom Binns, who sprang to his comrade's aid as soon as he saw what Jack had done.
"Two to one isn't fair," gasped Jack as he sat on his prisoner's chest, "but we had to do it. This is war, you see, and they say all's fair in love and war. Who are you?"
"Canfield, Tiger Patrol, Twenty-first Troop, Hampton's Scouts," said the prisoner. "Detailed for Scout service with the Blue army. You got me fair and square. We caught one of your fellows near Mardean, we heard, soon after the war began. Sorry—but it's all in the game.
"How on earth did you get to me so quietly? I was watching you in the road by the bridge, and I thought you'd gone off in your car. You certainly fooled me to the queen's taste."
"Fortune of war," said Jack. "The car gave us a big advantage. You're not to blame a bit. I guess you'll be exchanged pretty soon, too. We'll give you for Warner, you see. He's the one of our Troop who was caught. And a fair exchange isn't any robbery."
"Have we got to tie him up?" asked Tom Binns.
"Not if he'll give his parole not to escape or accept a rescue," said Jack. "How about that, Canfield? Will you give me your word of honor? I'm Jack Danby, Assistant Patrol Leader of the Crow Patrol of Durland's Troop, and ranking as a corporal for the maneuvers in the Red army."
"I'll give you my parole all right," said Canfield. He saluted stiffly. "Glad to meet you, Corporal Danby. Sorry the tables aren't turned, though. We've got a special dinner for our prisoners to-night—but we haven't caught many prisoners yet, worse luck!"
"All right! See if the flags are just the same, Tom."
Tom Binns compared the flags captured from Canfield with those he himself carried.
"They're exactly the same," he said. "We can use either his or ours. It doesn't make any difference."
"That's good. Stand up there now, Tom, and see what's coming. Can you see the next stations on both sides?"
"Sure I can, Jack. They're wig-wagging like the very dickens now, asking Canfield here why he doesn't answer."
"Signal that he was watching a grey scout car of the Red army, going north," said Jack, with a laugh.
Canfield heard the laugh with a rueful smile.
"You're certainly going to mess things up!" he said. "I ought to be court-martialled for letting you break up our signal chain this way."
Meanwhile Tom Binns was working his flags frantically.
"O. K.," he reported to Jack. "Message coming!"
Jack sprang to his side, and together the two Red Scouts watched the flags flashing in the distance. Jack showed a good deal of excitement.
"Gee," he said, "this is all to the good! That's a message from General Bliss himself, I'll bet! See, Tom? He's sending orders to General Brown, who commands his right wing. They're going to swing around back toward Hardport in a big half-circle, of which this place where we are now is pretty nearly the centre. And it's the Newville road that's the line of their march, and not this road over the creek at all. That's nerve for you, if you like, because the Newville pike is right in our lines, and if we move fast we can turn that right wing right in on their center."
For half an hour they stayed there, realizing more and more with every passing minute that the whole Blue army was developing a great and sweeping attack on Hardport, and in a direction entirely different from that being taken by General Bean. The information so far obtained by General Harkness obviously was entirely misleading, and in sending General Bean to Cripple Creek, as he had, he had simply deprived himself of a brigade, and, as he would learn in the morning, when the attack would most certainly begin, weakened a vital part of his lines. Bean was moving directly away from the spot where the attack would be concentrated, and the enemy would be able, unless something were quickly done, to strike at the unprotected center of the Red line, drive right through it, and throw the main portion of his army, like a great wedge, between the two sections of the Red forces.
Jack's face grew grave as message after message confirmed his fears. He looked at his watch.
"We've got to get word of this to General Harkness," he said. "Tom, I'm afraid you'll have to stay here and take chances on being caught. I've got to get back to headquarters and tell General Harkness what we've learned here. And if we both go, and leave the relay broken here, they'll smell a rat at once, and investigate. There's enough of a trail here to show a blind man, much less a bunch of Scouts who are just as good in their State as we're supposed to be in our own, just what's happened. So you stay here, and I'll take Canfield along with me in the car and make my way back to headquarters. You'll be able to leave pretty soon, anyhow, because it will be too dark for effective long-range signalling less than an hour from now. You can do it all right, can't you?"
"Yes," said Tom Binns, pluckily. It was plain that he didn't like the prospect of staying there alone, but he could see the necessity as easily as Jack himself, and that there was no other way of meeting the circumstance that had arisen.
"Do your best, of course, to avoid being captured," said Jack, as he turned to go, with Canfield at his side. "But it will be no reflection on you if you are made a prisoner, and we won't need to feel that they've put one over on us if they catch you. We've got more than a fair return for the loss of even a First Class Scout in the information that they've unknowingly given us. It may mean the difference between the success and failure of the whole campaign."
"You're a wonder, Danby," said Canfield, as they made their way down to the car. Being on parole, of course, and, as a Boy Scout should always be, honorable and incapable of breaking his given word, Canfield made no attempt to escape or hamper Jack in any way. "I've heard a lot about you, and I'm glad to see you at work, even if it does make it bad for me. You seem to be able to tell just about what's going on around here. I couldn't do that. I didn't think about the larger meaning of the orders I was passing on."
"I may be wrong, you know," said Jack, as he waited for Canfield to step into the car before climbing into the driver's seat. "I'm really only making a guess, but I think it's a pretty good one. And, anyhow, with the notes I've got for him, General Harkness ought to be able to get a pretty good line on what's doing."
"He ought to be," admitted Canfield, regretfully, but smiling at the same time. "You're certainly one jim-dandy as a Scout! I'd hate to be against you in a real war. If you can handle things always the way you've done this time, you'd be a pretty hard proposition in a real honest-to-goodness fight."