The Sergeant stopped his engine. "I'll go with you," he said kindly.

It seemed a hopeless task. They did not know where to look, but first tried all the seats around the bandstand and the settees on the great porches behind the pillars of the Administration and Fine Arts Building.

Then they drove the car over to the greenhouse, but all was quiet and deserted there. At the suggestion of the Sergeant, they went to the Hospital but no boy had been brought in. Once more they approached the gate, and again they left the car, And looked silently about in the darkness.

Beany was trembling with fear; fear for the brother whom he loved.

He placed his fingers to his lips and gave a shrill, clear whistle. Three times he repeated the call that sounded like some night bird's song.

Then, as they listened, it was repeated. It was a m.u.f.fled sound, yet close. Once more Beany gave the signal, this time with a leaping heart, and the answer came clear and keen, as though a lid had been taken off.

Beany ran in the direction of the sound. As he pa.s.sed the flower-house, Porky hailed him.

"Hey!" he said. "Got a knife?"

Guided by Porky's voice, Beany and the Sergeant raced across the gra.s.s.

"Here I am!" said Porky, c.o.c.ky as you please. "Say, I wish you could see this knot! I have worked about all night over it, and it gets tighter and tighter."

The Sergeant whipped out a knife and cut the cord.

"Who tied you up?" he asked.

"A couple of fellows," said Porky, stamping the feeling into his feet and ankles. "Couldn't see who they were."

"You can see one of them any time now, I'll bet," said the Sergeant. "Your brother here did for him in the neatest way you ever saw." He repeated the meeting on Salina Street, while Porky walked up and down the drive between the Sergeant and his brother.

"Yes, sir, he keeled right over and gosh, how he did flop around!

It was a fit all right. I bet he died, too, because he went limp all at once. He acted like he'd seen a ghost. He yelled, 'What did you give him?' to the other fellow. What did he call him?"

he asked Beany. "I heard him call some name."

Porky's elbow went sharply into Beany's ribs.

"Didn't catch it," said he, obeying the warning for silence.

CHAPTER VI

ORDERS FROM THE COLONEL

Over in the Hospital, the dimply nurse laid compresses on the swollen ankle of Captain DuCha.s.sis. She found her patient wakeful, and worn with pain. The leg was badly wrenched, it seemed. The dimply nurse talked pleasantly with her distinguished guest, and to amuse him told him a small joke. It was an amusing little joke to her. A boy had dropped in during the afternoon, and had asked for the Captain. He seemed most anxious to know just how he was getting, along; and when she had told him that he could not leave the Hospital for another day, the boy had said, "I wish I could help take care of the Captain.

Say, nurse, what have you done with his boots?"

"My boots?" said the Captain blankly. "My boots?"

"Wasn't it funny?" said the nurse. "I suppose he is so crazy over you, boy-like, that he wanted to see your tall boots. Don't you suppose so?"

"Probably," said the Captain. He put a hand over the side of the bed, and felt to see if his boots were there. Then he grew so quiet that the nurse slipped softly away, thinking him asleep.

When she had gone he did a strange thing. He took those boots, dusty as they were and, placing them under the pillow, went to sleep. But in the morning, although the nurse came in very early, the boots were under the bed.

"If he comes in this morning, send him up here, won't you?" he begged. "It would amuse me so; and I don't want to get up until afternoon. I would be so charmed to meet that funny little boy.

My boots! How droll!"

About ten o'clock two boys strolled into the office and pa.s.sed the nurses' sitting-room. The dimply nurse seized on one of them.

"I am so glad you have come!" she said.

"Captain DuCha.s.sis wants to see you. I told him how you came in and asked for him yesterday."

She went on. "I can't go up for another hour; so you can both go up and amuse him. I am sure he will tell you wonderful things about the other side. Through the office and upstairs, boys."

She shooed them out and Beany and Asa stopped outside the door and consulted.

Asa was a good boy but about as progressive as a potato, and something the color of a peeled one. No amount of sun tanned him. It made his eye-lashes whiter if anything, and his lips paler.

"Were you here at all yesterday?" demanded Beany.

"Oh, yes," said Asa. "Twice."

"Well, then, listen here. I want you should go up there, and when he says are you the boy who was here yesterday, you say yes, and don't say anything else if you can help it. See?"

"Oh, yes," said Asa, who did not see at all, but who did not let that bother lot that bother him in the least.

"Mind!" said Beany sternly. "I don't want him to know about me or Porky at all. There are reasons; Scout reasons, Asa, so you mind out. Got that through your nut?"

"Oh, yes," said Asa, blinking his white lashes.

"You ain't afraid of him, are you?" asked Beany, remembering the Wolf's keen eye.

"Oh, no," said Asa.

When Asa came down in a few minutes, he seemed rather upset--for Asa. He blinked rapidly, and there was something so worried in his open smile that Beany felt conscience-stricken to think he had sent him on such an errand. He rose, and they walked rapidly away, for Asa seemed to be thinking deeply.

When they reached the seats around the bandstand, deserted so early in the morning, Beany sat down.

"Well, let's have it," he demanded.

"That's a funny guy," said Asa, twirling his Scout hat rapidly in his pale bands. "I did just what you said. I went in, and I said, 'Morning!' at all. He just looked at me until I felt like I wasn't there at all; and he smiled softer than anything I ever see except, some one--I can't think who it was. Well, I did what you said, and he said--"

"What did you do that I said?" said Beany anxiously.

"Why, nothing," said Asa. "Just stood; and he said, 'Come here, boy,' and I went closer and he said, 'So you were here yesterday,' and I said, 'Oh, yes.' And then he says, 'Well, what do you think of a Swiss Captain's uniform--pretty fine, eh?" I says, 'Oh, yes,' and he says, ''Specially the boots?' and gimlets his eyes right into me. I wanted to say I'd never seen no Swiss Captain's boots, but I remembered what you told me, so I looked back at him and didn't say anything. And then he laughed and said, 'All that scare for nothing! My boy, you are a refreshing draught. Thank you for coming. I am so glad to know just what you are like that I will tell you a great truth. Remember it.

It is this: all women are fools."