re a road ran up-hill, a splash
of white, that quivered in the heat. The storm of the night before had
washed the air. Each leaf stood by itself. Nothing stirred; and in the
glare of the August sun every detail of the landscape was as distinct as
those in a colored photograph; and as still.

In his excitement the scout was trembling.

"If he moves," he sighed happily, "I've got him!"

Opposite, across a little valley was the hill at the base of which
he had found the car. The slope toward him was bare, but the top was
crowned with a thick wood; and along its crest, as though establishing
an ancient boundary, ran a stone wall, moss-covered and wrapped in
poison-ivy. In places, the branches of the trees, reaching out to the
sun, overhung the wall and hid it in black shadows. Jimmie divided the
hill into sectors. He began at the right, and slowly followed the wall.
With his eyes he took it apart, stone by stone. Had a chipmunk raised
his head, Jimmie would have seen him. So, when from the stone wall, like
the reflection of the sun upon a window-pane, something flashed, Jimmie
knew he had found his spy. A pair of binoculars had betrayed him.
Jimmie now saw him clearly. He sat on the ground at the top of the hill
opposite, in the deep shadow of an oak, his back against the stone wall.
With the binoculars to his eyes he had leaned too far forward, and upon
the glass the sun had flashed a warning.

Jimmie appreciated that his attack must be made from the rear. Backward,
like a crab he wriggled free of the golden-rod, and hidden by the
contour of the hill, raced down it and into the woods on the hill
opposite. When he came to within twenty feet of the oak beneath which
he had seen the stranger, he stood erect, and as though avoiding a live
wire, stepped on tip-toe to the wall. The stranger still sat against it.
The binoculars hung from a cord around his neck. Across his knees was
spread a map. He was marking it with a pencil, and as he worked, he
hummed a tune.

Jimmie knelt, and resting the gun on the top of the wall, covered him.

"Throw up your hands!" he commanded.

The stranger did not start. Except that he raised his eyes he gave no
sign that he had heard. His eyes stared across the little sun-filled
valley. They were half closed as though in study, as though perplexed
by some deep and intricate problem. They appeared to see beyond the
sun-filled valley some place of greater moment, some place far distant.

Then