at exactly four o’clock the next morning the mole came into camp, and as the general had promised, his breakfast was ready. after the mole had eaten his grubs, he reported for work. the general showed the mole just where he wanted the tunnel to run and immediately the old fellow set to work. he burrowed his nose down into the soft ground and then pushed the loosened earth back with his powerful fore claws. he worked wonderfully fast and in less than a minute he had entirely disappeared into the ground.
all day long the mole worked, coming out only for a few minutes at noon to eat his lunch, and at half past five in the afternoon he again appeared to announce that the tunnel had been finished.
the general sent the sailor into the tunnel to measure it, for he wanted to be quite sure that it reached a point just under the wild men’s fort.
“it’s just exactly eight hundred and fifty-eight feet long,” announced the sailor when he crawled out of the tunnel a few minutes later. “i could hear the wild men walking on the ground above, so it must stop right in the middle of the fort.”
“’course it does,” snapped the mole. “don’t you suppose i know how to dig?”
when the mole had been paid for his work, he slipped off into the night without ever even thanking the teenie weenies for his pay.
“queer old surly fellow,” said the general as he watched the awkward mole waddle off.
“yes, but you have to admit that he is a wonderful engineer,” observed the old soldier.
“well, gentlemen,” said the general turning to his officers, “we have got to move our lines forward. you see, we are about eight hundred and fifty feet from the wild men’s fort and it is quite necessary that trenches be built forward so we will not have too great a distance to charge when we explode the mine under the enemy’s fort.”
the officers all agreed with the general and that very night several men were sent out, when it was quite dark, to start the work.
the little soldiers had gone but a short distance when they were seen by the wild men, who sent a shower of arrows at them, and gogo was slightly scratched on the arm, while one of the wild men’s arrows splintered the old soldier’s wooden leg, so the general ordered the work stopped for the time being.
the old soldier was quite an engineer and when he had whittled out a new wooden leg, he set to work trying to scheme out some way by which the men could dig the trenches without being hit by the wild men’s arrows.
“i have it,” he cried after he had puzzled over the matter for a time. “we can make a big screen out of sticks, one that is quite arrow-proof.”
“how are you going to move it?” asked the turk. “it will be too heavy for the men to carry.”
“that will be easy,” smiled the old soldier. “there’s a spool of thread among our supplies and all we have to do is to remove the thread and—”
“use the spool as a sort of wheel to roll the screen on,” put in the cook.
“right,” laughed the old soldier. “we can push it ahead of us on the spool and be quite safe from the wild men’s arrows.”
the general ordered the screen made and at once, under the watchful eye of the old soldier, the men set to work building it. in a remarkably short time the screen was finished and early the next morning the old soldier, with six chosen men, started to push it toward the wild men’s fort.
as soon as the wild men saw the screen coming toward them, they let fly a shower of arrows, but they either stuck fast in the screen or flew harmlessly over the soldier’s heads.
“great guns!” cried the old soldier when the little party had pushed the screen quite a ways toward the wild men’s fort. “we forgot to bring along the picks and shovels.”
“i’ll get ’em, captain,” said the dunce, saluting the old soldier and hardly waiting for the officer’s permission, the dunce ran for the trench which they had just left, as fast as his legs would carry him.
the dunce grabbed up three picks and with the help of the chinaman who volunteered to go along, the two brave teenie weenies ran for the screen amid the flying arrows which whizzed all about them.
all day long the men worked hard, pulling the screen along as they dug back toward the teenie weenie trench, and at night, six other soldiers took up the work where the rest left off. several days of hard labor finished the work and not one teenie weenie had been shot, thanks to the old soldier’s screen.
