The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields Part 16

"And, after all, let's hope it won't be quite so bad as all that," said Rob.

They sought the stable. It was in the rear of the inn, and a rather decent looking structure in the bargain.

"Why, this isn't half bad," admitted Tubby, as they entered and found that the kind proprietor of the house had hung up a lighted lantern, by means of which it was possible for the boys to see the stack of hay.

"It smells like a sweet new crop," Rob remarked, glad to find something to commend when surrounded by such dismal prospects.

"And so far as I can see we're the only barn guests," Tubby announced jubilantly as he started to burrow in the hay.

He had hardly made much progress before he came backing out in a hurry.

"There's a great big dog sleeping in there!" he declared excitedly.

"What makes you think so?" asked Rob, who could hardly believe it possible.

"I tell you he tried to bite me," urged Tubby, holding up one finger of his right hand, and on which a tiny speck of blood was visible.

"Shucks! you only stuck it on a thorn, that's all!" protested the unbelieving Merritt, "and I'll prove it by crawling in the same hole."

"Look out, now!" warned Tubby, anxious, and yet with some eagerness, for he hoped to have his words proved in a fashion even Merritt could not doubt.

Immediately there was more or less excitement in the hay; and then came the unmistakable scolding of a setting hen. Merritt backed out, laughing.

"There's your ferocious bulldog!" he told Tubby; "but we'll leave old Biddy to her eggs, and try another place. Plenty of room in this hotel without chucking the other guests out of their nests."

After a while they made themselves comfortable. Tubby, before turning in, had prowled around a little. He told the others that as a true scout he was only taking an inventory of his surroundings, so that if there should happen to come a sudden midnight alarm he at least would know what to do in order to lead the way out of the barn by a rear exit.

"Smart boy, Tubby," Merritt told him, when he heard him say this; and it always pleased the fat scout to receive a word of praise, possibly because the occasions when he deserved any were few and far between.

They lay in the sweet hay, and talked in low tones. No one else seemed to be pushed so hard for a place to sleep as to come to the barn, for which all of the chums professed to be very grateful.

In the course of the conversation, which had more or less bearing on their strange mission abroad, the subject of the precious paper came to the front. Perhaps it was Merritt himself who mentioned it, because the matter was frequently in his thoughts, and he seemed to be growing more and more anxious, the nearer they drew to the place where he antic.i.p.ated finding Steven Meredith.

"You've never really told us who this man is, Merritt, and how he comes to be wandering around the world with a paper belonging to your grandfather hidden away under the lining of the case containing his field-gla.s.ses," Rob remarked while Tubby, who had just been yawning, sat up and seemed to be wide awake again.

"That's a fact, Merritt," he chimed in. "If you don't object, why, we'd like to be told."

"The fact of the matter is," replied Merritt, "I don't know a great deal more than you do, come to think of it. Grandfather Crawford comes from old Scotch stock, so he's a canny sort of an old gentleman. No use of my telling you about the way he treated my father when he was a young man and married against the wishes of his parents, because that you already know. It's about the paper, also of Steven Meredith you're curious to hear?"

"Yes, go along, please," begged Tubby.

"The paper is a little sc.r.a.p, he told me, on which are marked certain directions as how to find a certain rich gold mine out in our Southwest country. Grandfather has one-half his paper, and the other half is lodged in the cover of that field-gla.s.s case--if the man is still carrying it with him."

"That gets more and more queer, I must say," grumbled Tubby, looking as though he could not untangle the knot that was presented to him.

"Yes, if anybody had told it to me," admitted Merritt, "I'd have made up my mind right away he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes with a silly yarn. And yet there was Grandfather Crawford just as sober as you ever saw anyone, and vouching for every word of it as true."

"Well, how on earth did the half of the map or the directions happen to get in that field-gla.s.s case, without Steven Meredith, who carries the same, knowing a thing about it?" asked Rob.

"This deposit was discovered by an old miner who never worked it, but had samples of wonderfully rich ore, which he showed my grandfather at the time he was rescued by my relative from being tortured by a couple of halfbreeds who wanted to get the miner's secret. He gave grandfather the half of the map, and directions he had on his person, and told him where he would find the other half."

"Now it's beginning to look understandable," Tubby admitted. "The old miner did that so if anybody got hold of him they wouldn't be able to locate the secret mine--wasn't that it, Merritt?"

"Just what he had in mind," the other told him, "and of course the injuries received in the fight carried the miner off eventually, leaving my grandfather as his sole heir, if he could only lay hands on the other half of that valuable little paper, for neither portion alone made any sense.

"Gee! this is getting real interesting--if true!" ventured Tubby.

"Oh! it's a straight yarn, never fear," retorted Merritt without any trace of ill feeling, however, for no one ever could quarrel with Tubby.

"And just about here is where this man Steven Meredith, as he calls himself, breaks into the story. The old miner had told my grandfather that for security he kept the other half of the chart, and the directions how to find the treasure, hidden in the lining of the case holding a pair of field-gla.s.ses that he had carried for years, as they were of a special make and considered extra fine."

"And when your esteemed relative came to make a hunt for the said gla.s.ses," remarked Tubby, anxious to show that he was following the narrative closely, "why of course he found that Steve had got away with them--is that the stuff, Merritt?"

"Great head, Tubby," chuckled the other, as if amused at this unexpected smartness on the part of the stout boy. "You've said it, after a fashion; for that was what really happened. The gla.s.ses were supposed, along with other things owned by the old miner, to be in the charge of an old and invalid sister in a small town. To that place my grandfather went, armed with a paper which would give him possession of the traps of the dead man, including the case with the gla.s.ses. And that was where he came up against a staggering disappointment.

"It seemed that this sister of the miner was a little queer in her head.

When a visitor chanced to examine the gla.s.ses, and offered her a pretty fine sum for them, she, not knowing how her brother valued them because of their a.s.sociation with his prospecting life, thought it a good chance to dispose of some useless property.

"And so the wonderful half of the chart was gone. My grandfather took enough interest in the matter to learn that a man by the name of Steven Meredith possessed the gla.s.ses. He even started a search for him, thinking that he might be able to buy the gla.s.ses back, so as to satisfy his mind about the worth of the chart.

"Later on he learned that some valuable ore had been struck in the region where the secret mine of the dead prospector was said to be located. This kept making him take more and more interest in the finding of Steven and the lost paper. He became absorbed in the hunt, and in the end had three men on the track.

"They traced Meredith across the ocean. All sorts of strange rumors came back as to what he really was. Once it was even said that he was secretly in the pay of the German Government. Anyway, he went to Berlin, and was known to meet with certain men high up in the Secret Service there.

"Just a little while ago my grandfather received positive word from one of his agents that Steven Meredith was stationed in a Belgian town, though what his business there could be was a mystery. This little town was an obscure one near Brussels, where he could keep in the background.

Its name is Sempst; and that's where we are headed now."

"But just explain one queer thing, won't you, please, Merritt?" asked Tubby.

"I know what you're going to say," replied the other. "Of course you're wondering why my relative didn't wire his agent about the gla.s.ses, and offer him a good sum to get them, with the case. Well, the fact is he didn't have as much faith in his agents as all that."

"You mean that if the man knew he valued the article so much he would begin to smell a rat, and perhaps examine the lining of the case himself, after he had managed to steal or buy the gla.s.ses?" suggested Rob.

"That's what he had in mind," Merritt continued. "So he hardly knew what to do, or whom to trust, until I asked him to send me, and let me have you along. They didn't like the idea of us boys starting over here when things were so upset; but grandfather believes Boy Scouts can do almost anything. So it came about. And in a nutsh.e.l.l that's the strange story."

"Gee! you'd think it a page from the _Arabian Nights_," Tubby declared.

"But queer things can happen to-day just as much as ever. I only hope that if we do manage to rake in that old field-gla.s.s case, and the paper is still nestling underneath the lining, it doesn't turn out to be a pipe dream--something that old miner just hatched up to make himself feel he was as rich as a Vanderbilt."

"We'll have to chance that," said Rob. "Our part of the business will be done when we carry the case back to Merritt's grandfather. It's up to him for the rest. But don't you think we'd better try and get to sleep, for it's growing late?"

They determined that this was a wise suggestion, and shortly afterward not only Tubby and Merritt, but Rob as well had lost all realization of trouble and stress in sound slumber.

The night pa.s.sed, and with the coming of dawn the boys were astir.

Nothing had apparently happened during the night to disturb them.

In the morning hens were beginning to cackle, and cows to low, as the boys awoke and crawled from the hay. A few minutes later, at a nearby pump, they washed the last bit of drowsiness from their eyes; after which they began to think, from the pleasant odors in the air, that it was nearly time for breakfast.

"I dreamed about that grand paper hunt you told us about, Merritt,"

Tubby announced, as with his chums he sauntered over to the inn to see what chance there was for getting something to eat. "And talk to me about your will-o'-the-wisps, or what they call jack-o'-lanterns, such as flit around graveyards or damp places nights, that certainly did beat the record. Lots of times I was just stretching out my hand to grab it when I'd hear a laugh, and Steve, he'd s.n.a.t.c.h the old field-gla.s.s case away. I woke up still on the trail, and as set as ever to win out."