other running bound forward, preferring to reserve his
fire until he could catch a good glimpse of the fellow's body.

"Back, you fool!" hissed the voice, followed by two more shots.

"Come out with your hands up, or I'll get you!" Hal retorted.

Instead, the unknown and unseen turned and ran some fifty feet.

Hal pursued, without shooting.

Crack! crack!

For an instant Hal felt almost dizzy with sudden dread, for those
flashes seemed almost to smite him in the face.

Yes, he was afraid, for a brief space. The coward is not the man who is
afraid, but the man who allows his fear to overmaster him.

"Fire again," yelled Hal, "and I'll know just where to send a bullet."

As he rushed onward he came out of the corn patch.

Fifty feet further on he saw the fugitive, just dropping to the ground
at the roots of a tree.

Crack! crack! crack!

Lying on the ground, his head hardly showing beyond the roots, the
fugitive was now in excellent position to stop the young sentry's rush.

Whizz--zz! whizz--zz! Click!

Two of the speeding bullets flew past Hal's head. The third struck and
glanced off the rifle butt just as Hal, dropping to one knee, was
raising the piece to his shoulder to sight.

Bang! That was Hal's rifle, again in action. He had aimed swiftly, but
deliberately, for the base of the tree.

Against the military rifle of to-day an ordinary tree offers no
protection. The American Army rifle, at short range, will send a bullet
through three feet of green oak.

"Wow!" yelled the other. Though Hal did not then know it, the bullet had
driven a handful of dirt into the fellow's mouth.

Hal could hear the rascal spitting, so he called:

"Come on out and surrender, and I won't fire again."

"You go to blazes!" yelled an angry voice.

Muffled as the voice was, it had a strangely familiar sound to the young
soldier.

Hal seized the chance to fill his magazine as he shot the bolt back. He
slipped another cartridge into the chamber.

From the sounds beyond he knew that his enemy was also reloading.

"Any time you want me to stop shooting," Hal coolly announced, "just
call out that you surrender."

Then he brought his piece to his shoulder.

Bang!

He could hear the bullet strike with a thud.

Had there been light Hal could have scored a hit, but all shooting in
the dark is mainly guesswork.

Crack! crack! The fugitive's pistol was also in action.

One of the bullets carried the young soldier's s