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 goldenrod, 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
tiptoe 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 the eyes smiled, and slowly, as though his neck were stiff, but
still smiling, the stranger turned his head. When he saw the boy, his
smile was swept away in waves of surprise, amazement, and disbelief.
These were followed instantly by an expression of the most acute alarm.

"Don't point that thing at me!" shouted the stranger. "Is it loaded?"
With his cheek pressed to the stock and his eye squinted down the length
of the brown barrel, Jimmie nodded. The stranger flung up his open
palms. They accented his expression of amazed incredulity. He seemed to
be exclaiming, "Can such things be?"

"Get up!" commanded Jimmie.

With alacrity the stranger rose.

"Walk over there," ordered the scout. "Walk backward. Stop! Take off
those field-glasses and throw them to me." Without removing his eyes
from the gun the stranger lifted the binoculars from his neck and tossed
them to the stone wall.

"See here!" he pleaded, "if you'll only point that damned blunderbuss
the other way, you can have the glasses, and my watch, and clothes, an