“Poodle, my son, you are a jackass,” were Hike’s first words to his rescuer. “Hike, my child, you are a goat,” was Poodle’s retort; after which they solemnly shook hands again, stopped being boys for a while, and Poodle hastily led the way to the Lieutenant and his soldiers, where Hike was to wait and join the charge on the cabin. Poodle hastened back to his nook on the thatch. He was hardly in place, beside the hole through the roof, when excitement began in the dingy room beneath. CHAPTER XV CHARGE! “Those guards out of the way, all right? What’s that behind that pile of furniture?” Captain Welch was talking to P. J. Jolls, in the lonely cabin on the hill, while Poodle and General Thorne listened through a hole in the thatch. “You’re pretty nervous for an Army officer, strikes me. That’s a shadow behind that furniture, and that’s all. Of course if you want me to take it away, it would give me pleas—” Mr. P. J. Jolls voice was filled with contempt. “Well, you’ll get nervous if you don’t watch out. ’Fact, I think you will right now, Jolls, for it’s about time to tell you what I want before we go any farther. I want you to boost my seventy-five thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” “Whew!” commented the General, on the roof. “That might be almost called a bribe! So that’s why Welch wanted us to take Jolls’ aeroplanes!” “Whew!” Jolls was ejaculating below, like an echo. “Say, what do you think I’m made of? Why, even seventy-five thousand is too much. I won’t make a cent over a hundred thousand clear profit on the contract, even as it is, even if the Board grants a full million; and if you get seventy-five thousand, I’ll get only twenty-five. And a hundred and fifty thousand, why, that will just mean fifty thousand coming out of my pocket.” “Oh, cut that. You’re lying, and I know it, and you know I know it. I may be nervous but I’m not afraid of you or your hired thugs—private detectives, you like to call ’em; murderers I call ’em. I’m sorry I ever went into this fool business; even if I do need the money for that gambling debt, and even if I do hate those goody-goody fools like Jack Adeler and that old woman General Thorne—with his knitting.” (Just then this same General Thorne, not so very many feet away from Captain Welch, was clinching and unclinching his plump hands as though he had hold of some one’s throat. Poodle was busily stuffing his handkerchief into his mouth.)