The pilot from Boonetown now wended his way in the general direction of Bar-le-Duc. But three quarters of a mile of pounding his puppies against the rough terra firma of France was enough for Phineas. And so he tried for a lift, but an assortment of Yankee rolling stock passed him by without a tumble. Deeply depressed by this lack of consideration, he seated himself by the roadside near Triaucourt and set about getting his cerebrum and cerebellum unscrambled.
It did not take long for his gray matter to start simmering and the result was productive of an agreeable change in the expression of the Pinkham map. A broad grin spread his freckles into new areas as his eyes lined up a Frog animal of the genus bos—cow to you—which was grazing under an apple tree not a hundred yards away. To see was to act. Phineas rose and went over to make the cow’s acquaintance.
“Won’t gimme a ride, huh?” he mumbled, cutting the moorings of the moo specialist. “You would think I was reekin’ with leper germs. Well, I’ll git a ride. Come, bossy, that’s a nice dame! Allez avec moi as you can help the Allied cause, Daisy. That’s the old fight!”
The wandering Yank got the cow into the road and tied its hempen necklace to a fence rail. Then he pulled succulent tufts of herbage from the roadside and tossed it to the moo maker. Subsequently he sat down to wait. Soon the headlights of a car cut through the Frog mist around a sharp curve to be followed by the car itself. Mistress cow lifted her head briefly, blinked, then went back to her belated supper.
SQUE-E-E-E-E-E-EK! HONK! HO-O-ONNK! Brakes and horn howled in unison, but the cow was adamant. Its stubborn nature brought it to disaster. The brakes of the Yankee boiler were none too good; Phineas could see that before the radiator merged with the cow’s empennage. The U.S. boiler swerved into the ditch, spilling its human cargo all over the soil of Sunny France, and the moo cow took a brief trip through the air and came to grief against the rail fence. Phineas then saw two men pick themselves up and start running.
“Beat it, Butch,” yelled one. “What a break!”
Our hero having observed the meeting of car and beef strolled over to where three more Yankee patriots were crawling about on their hands and knees. He picked up a bulky object that proved to be a trenchcoat tied up in a bundle. In the light from the headlamp of the wrecked machine Phineas spotted something protruding from the cloth. It was a bank note—a Kraut bank note. The Boonetown hero’s heart started thumping as he kicked the bundle of cloth out of sight into the bushes alongside of the sunken road. Then he turned his attention to helping a man to his feet—a fellow who wore the brassard of an M.P.
“What happened?” Phineas gulped as if he did not know. “Boys, them Frog vaches are tough when you nudge ‘em, ain’t they?”
The groggy M.P. was still speechless, but a stentorous voice behind Phineas made the miracle man’s big ears flap. “You, damn it! You with the fan ears! That cow was tied there—and, by gad, if you deliberately—”
“H-huh?” Phineas interrupted innocently. “You must still be gaga. Where would I git a cow? That is plain silly. I was walkin’ along lookin’ for a street car an’—tryin’ to blame me, huh? Well—”
“You know what?” the brass hat trumpeted. “Those two doughs escaped. We caught ‘em redhanded with a pile of marks. We—where are the marks? Start searching for—oh-h-h—if we’ve lost the evidence, too, we—”
“What a shame!” Phineas exclaimed
sympathetically. “Tsk! Tsk!”
The red tab and the two Yankee doughs hunted all over the road, but somehow they overlooked the depression in Frog real estate where Phineas had kicked the bundle. But
Garrity’s chief pain-in-the-neck cultivated a crop of goose pimples when an M.P. drew close to the hiding place.
“You’re still cold, haw-w-w-w!” the culprit stuttered. “Er—ah—I mean it is cold of a night here in France, ain’t it fellers?”
“They must’ve got away with ‘em again,” the brass hat groaned when he gave up the search and leaned against the fence in despair. “We’ll get busted for this. You’re an aviator, huh? Well, I bet you’re a spy. An aviator with no plane, huh?”
“If you saw an Eskimo in Paree,” Phineas snorted, “you would say he was a fake if he wasn’t draggin’ his igloo behind him, huh? I will demand satisfaction for this. Nobody can accuse an officer of the Ninth Pursuit Squadron of such a crime. It is a fine kettle of smelts, you drivin’ around with no brakes. You have destroyed Frog property!” he added severely.
“Somethin’s rotten here,” the brass hat spouted. “I only wish I could put my finger on what it is. Come on, men, we’ve got to get a lift somewhere.”
“I been tryin’ for hours,” Phineas cracked. “But look! Just in time! here comes a great big truck. We’ll get a ride or wreck the—ugh—Haww-w-w! It is a big truck, huh?”
The truck driver told the stranded ones that he was on his way to Commercy. The brass hat, climbing aboard along with the growling M.P.’s, gave a hint or two of his affiliation with U.S. Intelligence and nodded with satisfaction. Commercy was on the way to Chaumont. Phineas, however, waxed indignant.
“That is out of my way! What am I goin’ to do, huh?”
“Now ain’t that jus’ too bad, Lootenant,” the burly dough behind the wheel sopranoed. “Just sit down by the road, make a wish, an’ Cinderella’ll be along with her coach an’—”
“Fresh bum, huh?” the intrepid Yank bridled. “Gimme your name as I am a superior officer and you can’t insult me an’ get away with it.”
“Marmaduke Q. Windermere,” the dough trilled. “Tooti frutti, ol’ custard!” And the truck lumbered away. Phineas could hear the brass hat mumbling and swearing until it was out of sight.
The Pride of the Ninth then waited ten minutes before he retired to the bushes to pick up the evidence of Yankee dough connivery. Then he climbed over the fence with the bundle and made his way across the pasture to where an old dead sycamore tree stood. Before depositing the coat in a yawning hole in the tree’s ancient trunk, he made sure that it contained the legal tender that was to have sent two financial geniuses to the hoosegow. Yes, his exploring fingers told him, there was plenty of pay paper stuffed inside that trenchcoat!
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