It did not take Barney long to gather his scattered wits--in an instant he was wide awake. He glanced about. He was the only occupant of the shed. Rising, he approached a small window that looked out upon the court. All was life and movement. A dozen military cars either stood about or moved in and out of the wide gates at the opposite end of the enclosure. Officers and soldiers moved briskly through a doorway that led into a large building that flanked the court upon one side. While Barney slept the headquarters of an Austrian army corps had moved in and taken possession of the building, the back of which abutted upon the court where lay his modest little shed.
Barney took it all in at a single glance, but his eyes hung long and greedily upon the great, high-powered machines that chugged or purred about him.
Gad! If he could but be behind the wheel of such a car for an hour! The frontier could not be over fifty miles to the south, of that he was quite positive; and what would fifty miles be to one of those machines?
Barney sighed as a great, gray-painted car whizzed into the courtyard and pulled up before the doorway. Two offi-cers jumped out and ran up the steps. The driver, a young man in a uniform not unlike that which Barney wore, drew the car around to the end of the courtyard close beside Barney's shed. Here he left it and entered the building into which his passengers had gone. By reaching through the window Barney could have touched the fender of the ma-chine. A few seconds' start in that and it would take more than an Austrian army corps to stop him this side of the border. Thus mused Barney, knowing already that the mad scheme that had been born within his brain would be put to action before he was many minutes older.
There were many soldiers on guard about the courtyard.
The greatest danger lay in arousing the suspicions of one of these should he chance to see Barney emerge from the shed and enter the car.
"The proper thing," thought Barney, "is to come from the building into which everyone seems to pass, and the only way to be seen coming out of it is to get into it; but how the devil am I to get into it?"The longer he thought the more convinced he became that utter recklessness and boldness would be his only sal-vation. Briskly he walked from the shed out into the court-yard beneath the eyes of the sentries, the officers, the sol-diers, and the military drivers. He moved straight among them toward the doorway of the headquarters as though bent upon important business--which, indeed, he was. At least it was quite the most important business to Barney Custer that that young gentleman could recall having ven-tured upon for some time.
No one paid the slightest attention to him. He had left his gun in the shed for he noticed that only the men on guard carried them. Without an instant's hesitation he ran briskly up the short flight of steps and entered the head-quarters building. Inside was another sentry who barred his way questioningly. Evidently one must state one's business to this person before going farther. Barney, without any loss of time or composure, stepped up to the guard.
"Has General Kampf passed in this morning?" he asked blithely. Barney had never heard of any "General Kampf,"nor had the sentry, since there was no such person in the Austrian army. But he did know, however, that there were altogether too many generals for any one soldier to know the names of them all.
"I do not know the general by sight," replied the sentry.