Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line Part 30

"Don't arrest the professor," went on the latter officer. "As for his black box, handle it just as he tells you."

"But, Colonel Lacombe," protested the officer who had interfered in the proceedings. "Surely you----"

"I understand it perfectly, Major Dustan," was the smiling reply. "I'm sure you'll find it all a mistake when I explain, or rather, when Professor Snodgra.s.s explains. That is why I sent for him. Will you come this way, if you please, Professor? And bring the black box----"

At that instant the little scientist, who appeared to have recovered his composure on the appearance of his friend, the colonel, pointed to the black box which, all this while, had remained on the ground in front of the group of headquarters buildings.

"Look out!" shouted Professor Snodgra.s.s. "The box has been opened by mistake. They're coming out! Run, everybody!"

Turning, he caught hold of Bob, who was nearest him, and began pulling him along.

The flight of the professor was contagious. Every one near turned and fled, and Jerry, looking over his shoulder, saw what seemed to be a black cloud of smoke coming from the black box.

The heart of the tall, young soldier seemed to fail him. After all, had a mistake been made? Was it possible that a spy was using the innocent and sometimes absent-minded professor for some base and terrible end? Could there have been a subst.i.tution made, and one of the harmless boxes of the scientist exchanged for a deadly bomb which he had, unwittingly, introduced at headquarters, so that, exploding, it might kill a number of valuable officers?

These thoughts flashed through Jerry's mind as he ran along beside Ned. The black cloud from the box was becoming more dense.

"Maybe it's only a smoke bomb," thought Jerry. "Or perhaps the powder, or whatever is in it, has become wet, because of so much rain, and is only burning instead of exploding. I hope so."

Then came a yell from some one. It was followed by several other cries of physical distress.

"Maybe it's a new kind of poison gas the Germans have taken this means to set off," mused Jerry as he leaped along. "But I don't smell anything. Could it be possible that spies have played this trick on the professor?"

Jerry well knew that even with all his absent-mindedness and his blind devotion to science, that Professor Snodgra.s.s would never, willingly, do anything to harm the Allied cause.

And yet----

More yells came from the soldiers that had been gathered around the black box and who fled when Professor Snodgra.s.s gave the alarm. And the yells began to come from some of the officers, too. They were not above giving vent to either pain or surprise.

And then suddenly Jerry felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck. At first he thought it might have come from some missile, discharged noiselessly from the black box. He clapped his hand to the seat of the pain and at once became aware that he had struck and crushed some small insect. It came away in his hand, twisting and curling in its death agony, and the pain in Jerry's neck increased.

"Why!" he cried as he saw the bug. "Why, it's a wasp! A wasp!"

"Of course it is!" said Professor Snodgra.s.s, flapping his arms about his head, and Jerry now saw the reason. A number of vicious wasps were buzzing about them.

"They're wasps, with the worst stings of any I ever saw!" yelled the professor. "That's why I want to get away. I was stung by one of them once, and I'll never forget it. Look out! Here come more of 'em!"

There was a cloud of the wasps flying about Bob, Jerry, and the professor now, and the tall lad noted that the insects were also hovering around other soldiers and officers. There was a black cloud of them near the small case that had caused such a scare.

"Was that what was in the black box?" asked Jerry, as he dodged a wasp that seemed about to alight on his nose.

"Yes. Wasps," a.s.serted the scientist. "The most war-like wasps I have been able to discover in this part of Europe. They are a cross breed of the _Vespidae Polistes_, _Eumenes_, and _Odynerus_, and for stings are not to be equalled."

"Wasps!" cried Jerry, as he swung and swatted at some still buzzing around him. "What in the world did you expect to do with them, Professor Snodgra.s.s? And why did you have them in the black box?"

"I had them to show to one of the headquarters officers," was the answer. "But I think I had better postpone the explanation until we get rid of our pursuers. Let's go under those bushes. I think we shall be safe then," and the professor unceremoniously dived under a clump of shrubbery, an example followed by Jerry and some of the others.

Ned and Bob, who had managed to accompany the professor and their tall chum, were stung several times before they, also, found shelter beneath the thick leaves, and howls of pain from a number of soldiers indicated that they, too, felt the stings of the insects.

For a while there was as bad a rout of the headquarters staff as if the Germans had overwhelmed it. But finally the insects were dispersed, most of them flying off to the woods, while those that remained were beaten off, so that the officers and men began to drift back again. The professor and the Motor Boys came out of hiding, and then curious looks began to be cast at the scientist and the black box, which was now empty. The displaced cover showed how the wasps had gotten out.

"Is this the new weapon for causing a German retreat that you promised to show me?" asked the colonel of the professor, trying not to smile as he put the question.

"Yes," answered Professor Snodgra.s.s, "it is. I am sorry, but I am afraid there are no specimens left to show you. Some one must have tampered with the fastening of the case, and the insects came out."

"I can offer personal testimony that they came out," said the colonel, trying not to squirm. "They came, they saw, and they conquered. And all I have to say is that I thank you for your interest in the matter, but that we shall have to decline to add your new and very efficient, but uncontrollable, weapon to the Allied armament."

"Does that mean you can't use the wasps?" asked the professor.

"I'm afraid it does," said the colonel. "You see they are too uncertain--like the poison gas the Germans first used. It came back on them. The wasps might do that to us."

"Yes," agreed the little scientist, "they might."

And then, as the last of the insects disappeared, and the headquarters staff came back from various places of refuge, Professor Snodgra.s.s explained.

He had long wanted to do something to help the Allied cause, and thought perhaps it might be along the line of his studies of insects.

Then the idea of wasps had come to him. He knew the vicious nature of the insects, and how fearlessly they would attack anything in their way. It was his idea that many thousands of the wasps might be propagated in artificial nests and loosed on the German armies preceding an attack by the Allies. The wasps would certainly cause disorder, if not a rout, he thought, and so he had communicated his idea to his friend, the colonel.

That is, he had communicated the fact that he had the idea, but he had not disclosed the nature of the "new weapon," as he called it in a note. Always willing to test anything new, the colonel had sent for the professor, inviting him to bring a model of the "new weapon" with him. The officer supposed the "weapon" might be a gun, projectile or powder.

"The idea was a good one in theory," said Jerry, as he and his chums went back with the professor, who carried the now empty black box.

"And it worked out all right in practice," declared Ned. "I never saw a quicker retreat."

"The only thing that spoils it, as the colonel said," added Bob, "is the inability of a wasp to distinguish between a friend and a foe. If they could be trained, now----"

"We'll delegate that to you," put in Ned.

"No, thanks! I'm stung badly enough as it is."

And the professor, sadly shaking his head over the failure of his scheme, went back to work further on his plan of making moving pictures of insects hopping about under the stimulus of the noise of big guns.

But for many a day the story of the wasps at headquarters was told up and down the firing line.

It was about a week after this, when preparations for the big attack had almost reached completion, that the three chums, having an hour or so to spare, thought to call on Professor Snodgra.s.s. They went to the little house in the French village where he had been staying, and inquired for him.

"He has disappeared, Messieurs," answered the old woman who looked after the place.

"Disappeared!" echoed the boys blankly.

"Yes, Messieurs. He went out yesterday morning without his hat to chase after a b.u.t.terfly he saw in the garden, and he did not come back. He has disappeared. I am sorry, for he was a nice man, though a trifle queer at times."

"Well, what do you know about that?" gasped Jerry, while his chums looked at him in wondering amazement.

CHAPTER XXVII