Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/337

 Kalanke. The donkey-engine was mounted in a trice, and the big crates containing the mowing-machines were yanked out on deck. By that time the carpenters had put a raft together, and the clippers were soon ashore with a bevy of mechanics impatiently waiting to get in their work. When the different parts of the machines had been assembled and joined each to his neighbor, some half-crazed draught-horses came through the surf and were promptly rounded up. Then boxes of harness were ripped open, and there we were, as gay a cluster of charioteers as ever you would meet outside of a star production of 'Ben Hur.'

"Tib, as the head Mazeppa, jumped onto the first auto and tested the gearing. Then with his hat tipped jauntily over his right ear he reminded the captain that the crew was to loiter not too far in the rear, but always out of sight of the enemy, until we gave the signal to advance—three pistol-shots. Then he cried, 'Cutter-bars up!' and away we clanked around the base of a low hill.

"We had received tips as to the course to take from the four sailors, and it would have done your heart good, sir, could you have seen us in that bringing-in-the-sheaves effect. We only needed wide-brimmed straw hats, with handkerchiefs knotted carelessly about our throats, to be the village heroes in the average rural melodrama.