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.
\nIt 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\u2014cow to you\u2014which 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\u2019s acquaintance.
\n\u201cWon\u2019t gimme a ride, huh?\u201d he mumbled, cutting the moorings of the moo specialist. \u201cYou would think I was reekin\u2019 with leper germs. Well, I\u2019ll git a ride. Come, bossy, that\u2019s a nice dame! Allez avec moi as you can help the Allied cause, Daisy. That\u2019s the old fight!\u201d
\nThe 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.
\nSQUE-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\u2019s 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.
\n\u201cBeat it, Butch,\u201d yelled one. \u201cWhat a break!\u201d
\nOur 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\u2014a Kraut bank note. The Boonetown hero\u2019s 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\u2014a fellow who wore the brassard of an M.P.
\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d Phineas gulped as if he did not know. \u201cBoys, them Frog vaches are tough when you nudge \u2018em, ain\u2019t they?\u201d
\nThe groggy M.P. was still speechless, but a stentorous voice behind Phineas made the miracle man\u2019s big ears flap. \u201cYou, damn it! You with the fan ears! That cow was tied there\u2014and, by gad, if you deliberately\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cH-huh?\u201d Phineas interrupted innocently. \u201cYou must still be gaga. Where would I git a cow? That is plain silly. I was walkin\u2019 along lookin\u2019 for a street car an\u2019\u2014tryin\u2019 to blame me, huh? Well\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cYou know what?\u201d the brass hat trumpeted. \u201cThose two doughs escaped. We caught \u2018em redhanded with a pile of marks. We\u2014where are the marks? Start searching for\u2014oh-h-h\u2014if we\u2019ve lost the evidence, too, we\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cWhat a shame!\u201d Phineas exclaimed
\nsympathetically. \u201cTsk! Tsk!\u201d
\nThe 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
\nGarrity\u2019s chief pain-in-the-neck cultivated a crop of goose pimples when an M.P. drew close to the hiding place.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re still cold, haw-w-w-w!\u201d the culprit stuttered. \u201cEr\u2014ah\u2014I mean it is cold of a night here in France, ain\u2019t it fellers?\u201d
\n\u201cThey must\u2019ve got away with \u2018em again,\u201d the brass hat groaned when he gave up the search and leaned against the fence in despair. \u201cWe\u2019ll get busted for this. You\u2019re an aviator, huh? Well, I bet you\u2019re a spy. An aviator with no plane, huh?\u201d
\n\u201cIf you saw an Eskimo in Paree,\u201d Phineas snorted, \u201cyou would say he was a fake if he wasn\u2019t draggin\u2019 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\u2019 around with no brakes. You have destroyed Frog property!\u201d he added severely.
\n\u201cSomethin\u2019s rotten here,\u201d the brass hat spouted. \u201cI only wish I could put my finger on what it is. Come on, men, we\u2019ve got to get a lift somewhere.\u201d
\n\u201cI been tryin\u2019 for hours,\u201d Phineas cracked. \u201cBut look! Just in time! here comes a great big truck. We\u2019ll get a ride or wreck the\u2014ugh\u2014Haww-w-w! It is a big truck, huh?\u201d
\nThe 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.\u2019s, 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.
\n\u201cThat is out of my way! What am I goin\u2019 to do, huh?\u201d
\n\u201cNow ain\u2019t that jus\u2019 too bad, Lootenant,\u201d the burly dough behind the wheel sopranoed. \u201cJust sit down by the road, make a wish, an\u2019 Cinderella\u2019ll be along with her coach an\u2019\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cFresh bum, huh?\u201d the intrepid Yank bridled. \u201cGimme your name as I am a superior officer and you can\u2019t insult me an\u2019 get away with it.\u201d
\n\u201cMarmaduke Q. Windermere,\u201d the dough trilled. \u201cTooti frutti, ol\u2019 custard!\u201d And the truck lumbered away. Phineas could hear the brass hat mumbling and swearing until it was out of sight.
\nThe 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\u2019s 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!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pulp-classics","category-uncategorized","tag-joe-archibald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}