do it now, too. No use waiting any longer than we have
to."

They slipped out quietly, within ten minutes of the time when they were
put in the guard tent. Quietly still, and using every bit of Scout craft
that they knew, they made their way to the shelter of the woods,
wondering every minute why some alarm was not raised. But a dead silence
still prevailed behind them when they crept into the sheltering shadow
of the trees, and, once there, they straightened up and began to more
fast.

First they went some distance into the woods, so as to lessen the danger
of discovery should their absence from the tent be discovered, and then
they struck out boldly in the direction which they had traveled only a
short time before, making their way back toward the place where they had
left Tom and the grey scout car.

"Gee," said Pete, drawing a long breath, "that certainly was easy! You
were right, Jack. I thought they must be setting some sort of a trap for
us. It didn't really seem as if they could be going to leave things
fixed so nicely for us. Why, they might better have turned us loose at
once! Then someone with more sense might have picked us up and really
held on to us before we could get out."

"They ought to be licked for being so careless," said Jack. "I'll put
everything that happened in the camp into my report. I'll bet the next
time they get prisoners, they'll look after them all right! It makes me
sore, because they're supposed to be learning how to act in case of a
real war just as much as we are, and it shows that there's an awful lot
of things they don't know at all."

In the east now the first faint stirrings of the light of the coming
moon that would soon make the country light began to show.

"I'm glad we got through so soon, anyhow," said Jack, then. "For Tom
Binns' sake, mostly. It must have been scary work for him, just sitting
there in the dark, waiting for us."

"He won't have to wait much longer, Jack. He's certainly a plucky one! I
know that waiting that way scares him half to death, but you never hear
a peep out of him. He just does as he's told, and never whimpers at
all."

"He's got what's really the highest courage of all, though he doesn't
know it himself, Pete. He's got the pluck to do things when he's deadly
afraid of doing them. There are a lot of people like that who are
accused of being cowards, when they're really heroes for trying to do
things they're afraid of. I've got much more res