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“Mein Gott!” Von Beitz had seen it.
“It looks”—Duquesne had come up behind them—“like a snuffing dog.”
“A dog—as big as that?”
Duquesne shrugged, and murmured to Tony: “It comes this way on the road. We must meet it. Perhaps it is an infernal machine. An enemy scout.”
Tony reached into the front compartment of the truck and brought out two rifles. Then he stuffed three grenades into his pocket. He turned to the trailer.
“Vanderbilt!” he whispered.
“Yes, Tony!”
“Something’s coming toward us on the road. We’re going up to meet it. You’re in charge here. If I fire—one, two, one—that means try to rush through on full power—without stopping for us.”
“Right. Bing—bing-bing—bing—and we lunge.”
Tony, Duquesne and Von Beitz began to hurry along the road.
They went to a point about three hundred yards from the trailers. There they waited. The ululation was louder now.
“Sounds like an animal,” Von Beitz whispered nervously.
“I hope to God it is!” Duquesne murmured reverently.
Then it topped a nearer hill. It was a bulk in the dark. It wavered along the road at the pace of a man running.
“Machinery!” Tony said softly.
“An engine!” Duquesne murmured simultaneously.
“Ready!” Tony said. “I’ll challenge it when its gets near. If it goes on, we’ll bomb it.”
They waited.
Slowly, along the road toward them, the thing came. They knew presently that it was a vehicle—a vehicle slowly and crazily driven. It loomed out of the night, and Tony stood up at the roadside.
“Stop or we’ll blow you up!”
He yelled the words.
At the same time he took the pin of a bomb between his teeth.
The bulk slewed, swerved, slowed. There was a click, and the curious engine-sound ceased.
“I’ll give up!” It was a woman’s voice.
Tony shot a flashlight-beam at the object. It was one of the large vans the Bronson Betans had used in their cities. Its strange sound was explained by its condenser-battery-run motor.
From it stepped a girl.
Duquesne switched on another light. There was no one else in the van.
“Sacré nom!” he said.
The girl was in breeches and a leather coat. She began to speak.
“You can’t blame me for trying—anyway.”
