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.