Motor Boat Boys Down the Danube; or, Four Chums Abroad

Jack went a step further, after the boy, first pointing to his map, smote his own chest proudly and smiled, as if to proclaim that he belonged in that country. By various gestures he tried to ask the other what he was doing here in a hostile land.

The other watched his every gesture and seemed to be reading even the expression on Jack’s face. It is surprising how much can be learned that way. Whole conversations may be carried on by instinct and intelligence. One who does not know a single word of Italian may be able to sense the general meaning of many paragraphs in a newspaper war item by the similarity of words. Try it, and you will see that this is really so.

By slow and laborious degrees Jack began to pick up something of what the other was trying to tell him. The further he proceeded the more intense did the boy seem to become. Buster, glancing that way from time to time, filled with curiosity, considered that they were using their hands almost as cleverly as a couple of mutes did whom he had once watched talking in the sign language.

Of course, Josh had before then managed to whisper to each of the other two what a “mare’s nest” he believed he had unearthed, so that both George and Buster had begun to look on the intruder in the light of a dangerous fellow. George kept caressing a stout cudgel of which he had become possessed, as though determined not to be caught entirely defenseless in case of a sudden raid.

“Do you suppose Jack’s really finding out anything?” Buster whispered to Josh when the other leaned down as if to ascertain how the supper was coming on.

“Sure he is,” replied the other, “though chances are the cub’s giving him taffy just to keep him quiet.”

“But Jack seems to be interested a whole lot,” objected Buster.

“I think Jack means to join us presently, from the way he nodded to me just then,” Josh went on to say hastily, “so don’t hurry on the supper more than you can help. For all we know we may have to share it with four instead of one.”

It proved to be just as Josh had predicted, for presently Jack left the side of the dark-faced young stranger and come over to the fire.

“Well, how did you manage to get on with him?” asked Josh impetuously.

“It grew easier as we went on,” said Jack. “He knows just a little bit of English, after all. When that failed he resorted to the paper and pencil, or else made gestures. When I shook my head to tell him it was all a mystery to me, he would try again in a different way, and we always succeeded in getting there by one means or another.”

“Did he own up in the end, Jack?” asked Josh.

“If you mean about being one of the four Serbian youths we thought he might be, he denied it absolutely,” came the reply.

“H’m! What else could you expect, since their game had been knocked on the head by the breaking out of the war and they found themselves being hunted like rats in a hostile territory, afraid to ask for anything to eat because they’d like as not be grabbed? No wonder he looks hungry, say I.”

Jack looked at the other and shook his head.

“This time you’re away off, old fellow,” he told Josh. “He didn’t come up into Austria-Hungary on an errand of blood, but one of mercy.”

“As how, Jack?” asked Buster, already deeply interested.

“He has a little sister,” the other went on to say. “She seems to be just so high,” and he held his hand about three feet from the ground, “from which I’d judge she might be something like six or seven years old.”

“A sister, eh?” George remarked skeptically.

“Listen, fellows,” continued Jack, “here’s the story he told me as near as I was able to make it out, for lots of times I had to just guess at things; but it ran fairly smooth, after all. He lived in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. There was his mother, a widow with some means, and one little sister. This girl, it seems, was blind and the pet of everybody who knew her.”

“Gee! that sounds interesting,” muttered Josh.

“Some time ago the mother learned of a celebrated surgeon up in Budapest who had performed wonderful cures with people afflicted just as the little child was. It was determined to take the girl to him, and an appointment was made; but just then the mother had the misfortune to sprain her ankle and could not walk a step.”

“Tough luck,” said Buster, “and I can see what the boy did. He looks like he had the grit to carry anything like that out, sure he does.”

Apparently Buster was taking stock in Jack’s story and changing his opinion again with regard to the dark-faced young stranger.

“Yes, there was nothing for it but that the boy go to Budapest with his little sister and stay there while the operation went on. From what he tells me he was in the Hungarian capital nearly a month. The surgeon operated, and the thing turned out a splendid success. You ought to have seen how his face lighted up when he told me in sign language that she could see now just as well as any one.”

“Then why didn’t he start home right away, knowing how anxious his mother must be?” asked George incredulously.

“First the surgeon would not allow it for a certain time after the bandages were taken off. Then, as luck would have it, just when they were about to start, a thief broke into their apartment and stole every dollar, or whatever money the Serbians use.”

“Oh, how tough that was!” exclaimed Buster sympathetically.

“A likely story, I call it,” muttered George.

“On top of it all the war broke out, and he knew that unless they hurried off from Budapest the Hungarian authorities might arrest them. So they sold a few of their things and get enough money together to carry them part of the way to the Serbian border. Then they had to leave the train and start to tramp the rest of the way. Neither of them have had a bite this whole day. Seeing us land, he became desperate and determined to appeal to us to help him, if we looked as if we were kind people. Then I chanced to run across him. That’s what he told me, as near as I could make it out.”

Jack saw that while Buster and Josh were disposed to believe the young stranger, George still hung back.

“It makes a pretty interesting story, that’s right,” was what George said, “but there’s a fishy part to it. That little sister sounds like an invention to get our sympathy. Where is she at, I’d like to know; let him produce the kid, say I.”

CHAPTER XIV

FRIENDS IN TIME OF NEED

“That’s so, Jack; unless he can produce the little sister we’ve got to believe his fine yarn is all a fraud,” Josh observed seriously.

“Did you say as much to him, Jack?” questioned George.

“I did,” came the ready reply.

“And what was his reply to that?” asked Buster.

“I gathered from his gestures and actions,” explained Jack, “that he stood ready, yes, and anxious, to go into the woods near by and get his sister, if only we gave him permission. So I thought I’d put it up to the rest of you first.”

“Oh, tell him to go and fetch her along,” sneered George. “If he really has got a little sister, and she’s hungry, why, I’d be willing to go on half rations myself to help out. I may be suspicious of him, but there isn’t a stingy bone in my whole body.”

“We know that, George,” Jack told him quickly, “and since you seem willing I’ll let the poor fellow know about it right away. You can see how eagerly he’s watching us now, because he understands what I’m telling you.”

“Tell him supper’s about ready, and that he ought to hurry,” explained Buster.

Jack had another short interview with the young Serbian. Then the other sprang hastily to his feet and ran off, looking back once or twice, and smiling as he waved his hand toward Jack.

“Good-by!” called out George derisively, and then, turning to the others, he added: “Because I hardly expect to see him again, unless he comes back with the other three. Chances are he knew we’d got on to his game, and means to slip away now so he couldn’t be nabbed by the authorities.”

“Shame on you, George, you old unbeliever!” cried Buster.

“Wait and see who’s right,” warned the other sturdily, for George always clung to his belief until convinced that he was wrong, when he would frankly confess his error of judgment.

A minute, two of them, passed, and still the boy did not return. It would really seem as though he had had time to go to where he left his sister concealed at the time he crept toward the landing spot of the cruising party in the motorboat, and come back again.

George was grinning with that important air of his, which, being interpreted, meant the usual “I told you so.”

Then Josh, whose sharp eyes had detected a moving figure in the semi-gloom, exclaimed:

“There they come over yonder, I do believe!”

“Two or four?” questioned Buster.

“It’s all right, boys,” Josh continued, for he was standing on a stump, and in this position could see what was invisible to the others.

“Then he’s got his little sister along with him, has he?” asked Buster.

“Sure thing,” reported Josh, “and as for you, old croaker George, it’d be doing the right thing for you to beg everybody’s pardon, and especially the boy’s, for thinking such mean things about him.”

“Who was the first to guess that he must be one of that band of desperate Serbian youths, tell me?” demanded George. “I was wrong, I’ll admit, but an ounce of prevention is always better than a whole pound of cure.”

With that he threw away the club which he had been gripping, as though in company with it went all his suspicions.

Presently the Serbian boy came into camp, holding by the hand a pretty dark-eyed little maid of about seven. The boys were immediately smitten with her charms, and no longer wondered that her brother had so openly boasted she was the prettiest little girl in all Belgrade.

Apparently that noted surgeon had done a splendid job, for never had they looked into brighter and more roguish eyes than she possessed. If they had been dulled by cataracts, as Jack suspected was the case, then the curtains had been skillfully removed.

Buster immediately announced that supper was all ready, and would be spoiled by any further waiting; so they sat down, places being prepared for the guests of honor.

While they ate the boys kept up a conversation among themselves. Jack from time to time would hold communication with the Serbian youth, whose appetite proved the truth of his assertion that no food had passed his lips during the whole of the preceding day.

Later on Buster amused himself trying to talk with the little girl and teach her a few words in English. Jack and Josh and George got their heads together, being desirous of settling on what they ought to do with regard to the pair cast adrift in a strange and hostile land.

“They can stay with us all night, anyway, and have breakfast in the morning,” suggested Josh.

“And we could make up a little purse among us,” added the now penitent George, “enough to carry them across the border and into their own country.”

“That’s fine of you to mention that, George,” Jack told him, “but you are forgetting something. Serbia is at war with Austria, and so you see no trains can be running to the border that would allow a Serbian young fellow to pass. If he ever gets across the river to Belgrade it must be with our help.”

“You’ve got a plan fixed, I guess, Jack?”

“I’ve been thinking it over, and wanted to hear what your ideas might be before I mentioned it,” the other explained. “But, now that you ask me, I’ll tell you what I’d like to do. We can find room for them aboard the boat when we start in the morning. Unless we are overhauled on the way there’d be little danger on account of our having Serbians with us, a boy and a child at that.”

“I agree with you there, Jack,” said George, now evidently seeking to make all amends possible for having allowed himself to believe the stranger a desperate character, when in truth he was only a kind and protecting big brother.

“Ditto here,” added Josh glibly, as though he were a parrot.

“We will have to tie up by the time another night comes along,” continued Jack, “and if it’s cloudy we can hope to try and pass the hostile batteries by keeping in the middle of the river and just floating with the current, never showing a single light. But before that we might make a landing on the Serbian side and put the brother and sister ashore.”

Josh and George exchanged looks, nodding their heads as if in approval.

“Now, I call that a good scheme, if you want to know it,” declared the former.

“And as Buster is always ready to agree to anything Jack says,” George remarked, “I move we call it unanimous.”

The readiness of his chums to fall in with his proposition, of course, pleased Jack. He always made it a point to invite the fullest discussion when offering any plan of campaign, because it was better that all of them should feel that they had a hand in engineering matters.

So it was settled, later on Buster being told the arrangements. As George had prophesied, the fat boy had not the slightest objection to make; indeed, he was enthusiastic over the idea of helping the little Serbian girl get back home to her anxious mother.

Arrangements for sleeping were soon effected. As their guests had no blankets, George and Buster insisted on loaning them one each. They said they could go without easily enough; though Jack finally induced George to share his covers, while Josh compelled the fat chum to crawl under with him.

The night passed without anything occurring to disturb them. Everybody slept after a fashion, though doubtless the boys were not as comfortable as though each possessed his own blanket.

It made them feel that they were suffering in a good cause, however, when they saw how happy both the boy and his sister seemed in the morning. The dark clouds that had of late been hanging over their heads had apparently taken flight, and with the rising sun they smiled, and seemed contented with having found such good friends.

After breakfast they started down the river again. It might prove to be the last day of peace for them for some time, since Jack figured that by another sunset they would very likely have reached the scene of hostilities, when danger might be lying in wait for them at every turn.

Of course, all of them were more or less concerned about the prospect of being held up again by some Austrian river war vessel. The presence of Serbians aboard the motorboat would look suspicious in those trying days, and might get the boys into trouble. Nevertheless, not one of them so much as hinted at any desire to be rid of their guests.

The little girl was so winsome that she had captured all their hearts by storm, and they could not do too much for her.

As the afternoon began to pass Jack looked earnestly ahead many times. He wondered what awaited them in that mysterious region whence they were headed. All sorts of strange things might crop up to confront them as they proceeded on their dangerous course; still, no one even gave the idea of turning back a thought.

He had managed to let the Serbian boy know what they meant to do about getting his sister and himself on his native soil. How those black eyes snapped as the plan was unfolded to him! Jack fancied he could see unshed tears there also, showing how their generosity must have affected the other. He could not express his gratitude by repeating that one word “thank” again, but he did display it by almost fiercely seizing Jack’s hand and actually kissing it, an act that made the American boy feel exceedingly queer, because he was not accustomed to such things.

They kept, as a rule, closer to the right bank of the river, for that would in time prove to be the one on which the Serbian capital was located. Besides, Jack believed it would answer their purposes better in case circumstances forced them to make a hurried landing, so that their passengers might conceal themselves in the brush.

The sun was hot again, and as the afternoon began to wear along they found that the breeze created by their own swift passage was the only invigorating thing to be met with.

“But it’s beginning to cloud up, you can see,” Josh remarked, when Buster complained that he was melting away with the heat; “and once the old sun gets out of sight it’ll be a whole lot more comfy.”

“I’ve been watching those clouds,” remarked Jack, “and they please me a whole lot, because we must have a cloudy night if we’re ever going to run past the batteries on both sides of the river.”

“Whew! that sounds as if we might be away back in the civil war, trying to pass Memphis on a gunboat, with the Confeds whanging away at us to beat the band. But, of course, you don’t expect to have any real trouble getting by, do you, Jack?”

“So far as I can see, there’s no reason why we should meet up with any,” the skipper informed him.

“And once we’re well by Belgrade the worst will be over,” cheerily observed Josh. “You see, the railroad runs down through Serbia from the capital, and any invasion must, of course, follow the Morava River, because Serbia is a mountainous country, and there are passes through which troops have to go if ever they hope to reach Nisch down near the middle of the nation.”

“Seems like you’ve been reading up on Serbia, Josh,” ventured George.

“I have, all about the last war between the Balkan States,” Josh admitted. “And let me tell you right here, if the Austrians and the Germans ever try to invade that little country of born fighters they’ll find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. The Serbians know every foot of ground, and can lay in ambush on the heights, dropping rocks down on the enemy, and using all sorts of quick-firing guns to cut them down in windrows.”

“If only all these Balkan countries were agreed on a single policy,” said Jack, “they could snap their fingers at the Teuton alliance, for no force could ever be brought to bear against them that would smash their defenses. But petty jealousies keep them apart, and may be their undoing in the end.”

The sun vanished about this time, the clouds having risen far enough to cover his blazing face.

“That feels a heap better,” announced the panting Buster; “and it looks like we mightn’t glimpse old Sol again to-day. For one I’m glad. Sunshine is all very well in winter time, but when it’s hot summer I prefer the shade.”

The others laughed at his odd way of putting it, for Buster often expressed himself in a peculiar fashion. Josh said he “mixed his metaphors,” though Buster was never able to get him to explain what he meant by saying that.

Just then something came stealing to their ears that caused the boys to exchange meaning glances. It was a distant grumbling that died away almost as soon as it reached them, a sort of complaining, reverberating boom that brought a thrill with it.

CHAPTER XV

THE BOOMING OF BIG GUNS

“Another storm coming, worse luck!” grumbled George.

“Going to spoil all our fine plans in the bargain,” added Josh; “for if it turns out to be anything as bad as that other whooper, excuse me from wanting to be out on the river in the middle of the night.”

“Listen again!” said Jack, with a meaning in his manner.

“There she goes, and I must say it’s kind of queer thunder, after all,” Buster advanced; “each growl is separate and distinct, and not like anything I ever heard before.”

“Sure enough,” continued Josh; and then, as though a sudden light had dawned upon him, he turned to Jack to add: “Say, you don’t imagine now, do you, that can be the booming of big guns we are listening to?”

Jack nodded his head in the affirmative.

“It must be,” he said positively.

“Sounds just like blasts,” continued Josh, “up in the quarry near our town, when they let the same off by electricity at noon, when the men are all out of the workings. Boom! boom! boom! boom! Let me tell you they must be making things hum over there now, with all that firing going on.”

“What do you suppose they’re doing, Jack?” asked George.

“For one thing sending shells into Belgrade,” came the reply.

“Look, the Serbian boy has caught on as well as the rest of us,” said Josh, “and it frets him a whole lot, too, you can see by his face. Now he’s talking with the little sister, and pointing, as if he might be explaining what that sound means.”

“Well, can you blame him for feeling that way?” burst out Buster; “when you must remember that their mother is somewhere in Belgrade, and with those shells bursting in the city they may get home only to find that they have been left orphans. I guess war is all that General Sherman said it was.”

“Oh, shucks! We haven’t seen hardly anything of its horrors yet. Wait till you read what is happening in Belgium about this time, and then it’ll be time to talk,” George told him.

“But why didn’t we hear the cannonading before?” asked Buster; “it seemed to hit us all of a sudden.”

“Because there was a shift of the wind,” explained Jack. “You know it was on our right before, and since then has changed, so that now it seems to be coming straight from the south.”

As they kept on down the river the sounds, reaching their ears every once in so often, increased gradually in volume.

Every time the suggestive sound came to their ears it could be seen that the two young Serbians would start and listen eagerly. Undoubtedly their thoughts must be centered on the home they had left in Belgrade, and they were wondering if the latest shell could have dropped anywhere near that dearly loved spot.

“Honest, now,” said Josh presently, “after that last shot I could hear a second fainter crash, which I take it may have been the shell exploding in or over the city.”

“It may have been a Serbian gun, after all,” George asserted, “and if so, then the shoe was on the other foot, and the shell burst in the fortifications on the Austrian side of the Danube, perhaps scattering guns and soldiers around as if they were so many logs.”

“That’s what our friend here is hoping deep down in his heart, you can be sure,” Jack mentioned, with a glance toward the boy passenger.

“Look away down yonder and tell me if that isn’t one of those monitors like my cousin Captain Stanislaus commands,” said George just then.

Josh tested his eagle eye and admitted that, while the surface of the river was misty, which fact made seeing difficult, he believed the other was right, and that the object they were looking at did resemble a “cheese-box on a raft” in marine architecture.

“Then we can’t be so very far above Belgrade,” Jack concluded.

“You mean the monitor may have been doing some of that shelling, do you?” questioned Buster.

“I don’t know about that, for none of us have seen any sign of firing aboard the boat; but she’s evidently anchored there to take part in protecting the Austrian troops that will soon be attempting to cross to hostile territory. So we must expect to haul in somewhere along here and wait for night to settle down.”

“It would be too risky to try and pass the monitor, I reckon you mean?” George asked.

“You remember how we were brought up with a round turn the other time,” he was reminded; “and if we refused to obey the summons to come alongside a second shot would sink us like a stone.”

“Whee! if one of those big shells ever struck this chip of a boat there wouldn’t be enough of her left for firewood,” asserted Josh. “So I say just as you do, Jack; we mustn’t be too brash and take chances. We can’t expect to fight the whole Austrian navy on the Danube. The word for us is diplomacy, remember that. We’ve got to play the Napoleon style of strategy if we hope to win out in this game.”

Jack allowed the boat to continue on her course for some little time longer. He did not mean to take unnecessary chances, but at the same time the further they were down the river before night set in the better, since it would shorten the time they expected to be in the danger zone.

He kept a wary eye on the anchored monitor, for all of them could by this time plainly see that it was one of those strange looking vessels, believed by Austria to be just suited to the waters of the Danube for offense and defense.

When not employed in this fashion Jack was watching the near-by shore for a favorable landing spot. They could proceed to make a fire and act as though fully intending to spend the night there. If by accident they had visitors from the monitor early in the evening they could arrange it so that nothing suspicious would be seen.