before the moon appears. The country was thickly wooded here, which
worked to the advantage of Jack and his companion. Most of the country
in which Jack had been operating so far had been fairly open, which
would have increased the difficulty of their task very much if the scene
of operations had not been shifted eastward by the action near Newville
that morning.

"How far are we from their headquarters now, Jack?" asked Pete.

"About a mile and a half, I think, Pete. I can't be sure, of course, but
I think that's a pretty good guess. I could have run the car a little
nearer and probably still been safe, but I didn't want to take chances.
If we lose the car we can't get it back. If we're captured, why, they
can get someone else to run the car, but we wouldn't be any good if we
lost the machine."

"We'll want to be pretty careful, though, as we go along, Jack."

"Sure we will! But it won't be any harder than scouting the way we've
learned to do, Pete. These people aren't looking for us, and we've done
a lot of scouting when other fellows who were on the lookout for us knew
just about where we were."

The lay of the land favored the two Scouts decidedly as they made their
way onward. They were able to progress through the woods, but they did
not have to go so deep into them that they could not observe, as they
moved along, the situation in the open country that marched with the
woods. In these fields they saw the twinkling of numerous fires, and
they judged that the enemy was thick alongside, so to speak.

"They ought to watch these woods better than they do," whispered Jack.
"Gee, I can see how their whole camp is laid out! That's one thing
they're weak in--and it shows how important it is. They have fine
strategy, but they're weak on details, like guarding their camp. If they
don't watch these woods better when we start to make our get-away, we'll
have it pretty easy."

"That looks like headquarters, Jack. See, over there?"

"You're right, Pete. And I'll bet they're planning to move before
daylight, too. That's why 'Lights out!' was sounded so early. That was
the call we heard about three quarters of an hour ago."

A light still showed in one of two big, adjoining tents, however, and
the sound of voices came distinctly from it.

Jack waited until they were abreast of the tent.

"This will be a good place, Pete," he said. "There'll be a guard there.
We want to pretend to make a run for it. Come on, now--make