Part 17 (1/2)

Onward they came, until when close to the gate where the three men lay in waiting, one of the latter flashed a bright light into the face of the old man who was driving the waggon, and shouted:

”Stop! _Stop_!”

The driver pulled up in surprise, dazzled by the light, but the next second another man had flung into his face a mixture of cayenne pepper and chemicals by which, in an instant, he had become blinded and stupefied, falling back into his seat inert and helpless.

Then Ella and Kennedy, creeping up unnoticed by the three in their excitement, saw that they had mounted into the waggon, which was loaded with milk-churns--the waggon driven nightly from Furze Down Farm to the great camp at B--, carrying the milk for the morning.

Upon these chums the three set swiftly to work, opening each, dropping in one of those soluble bombs, and closing them. The bombs they took from the two kit-bags they had carried from the car.

They were engaged in carrying out one of the most dastardly plots ever conceived by Drost and his friends--infecting the milk supply of the great training-camp!

Kennedy was itching to get at them and prevent them, but he saw that, by knowledge gained, he would be in a position to act more effectively than if he suddenly alarmed them. Therefore the pair stood by until they had finished their hideous work of filling each chum with the most deadly and infectious malady known to medical science.

Presently, when they had finished, the old driver, still insensible, was lifted from his seat, carried into the wood, and there left, while one of the conspirators--who they could now see was dressed as a farm-hand, and would no doubt pose as a new labourer from Furze Down--took his place and drove on as though nothing had happened, leaving the other two to make their way back to the car.

When the red rear-light of the waggon was receding, Kennedy and Ella followed it, for it did not proceed at much more than walking pace.

They walked along in silence till they saw the two men re-enter the car, leaving their companion to deliver the milk at the camp. Evidently a fourth man had been waiting in the car for, as soon as they were in, the man who drove turned the car, which went back in the direction it had come, evidently intending to meet the second waggon, which was due to come up an hour afterwards. No doubt the same programme would be repeated, and the fourth man would drive the second car to the adjacent camp.

As soon, however, as the car had got clear away, Kennedy and his well-beloved ran to their motorcycles, mounted them, and in a short time had pa.s.sed in front of the milk-waggon ere it could get down into s.h.i.+pborne village.

Putting their motors against a fence, they waited until the waggon came up, when Kennedy stepped into the road, and flas.h.i.+ng an electric lamp on to the driver's face, at the same time fired a revolver point-blank at him.

This gave the fellow such a sudden and unexpected scare that he leaped down from the waggon and, next moment, had disappeared into the darkness, while Ella rushed to the horses' heads and stopped them.

”That's all right!” laughed Kennedy. ”Have you got your thick gloves on?”

”Yes, dear.”

”Well, be careful that not a drop of milk goes over your hands or feet.

There's lots of time to pitch it all out on the roadway.”

Then climbing into the waggon the pair, by a pre-arranged plan, began to open the chums and turn their contents out of the waggon until the whole wet roadway was white with milk, which soaked into the ground and ran into the gutters and down the drains: for, fortunately, being near s.h.i.+pborne, the footpaths on either side were drained, and by that any chance of infection later would, they knew, be minimised.