Half a dozen
plans for misleading them came to him. But none seemed practicable.
Frank was intensely dogged in his determination to accomplish anything
he had set out to do. The idea of giving up now, even to mislead his
pursuers and so save Captain Greene from capture, was repugnant to him.
He wanted to foil the men behind him--unless, as was possible, he only
imagined that they were behind him--and still do what he had set out to
do, which was in this instance to refill that empty petrol tank on the
monoplane.

It was the purely accidental movement of putting his hand into his
pocket to dry it off that gave him the idea. It met the pocket
flashlight Captain Greene had given him, and at once he remembered a use
for it of which the aviator had told him. To follow the plan did not
mean that it would succeed, but it represented a chance, anyhow. And so
when he came to the fence which he remembered climbing on his way from
the monoplane, he stopped on the top rail, having pushed his can of
petrol through first. In the field now immediately in front of him, but
far away still, on the other side of the field, lay the monoplane. He
could not see it in the driving rain but he knew that it was there.

There too would be Greene, waiting for him, and in all probability at
this moment straining his eyes watching for his return. On that
depended his chance of success in the plan that had come to him. On
that, and on Greene's presence of mind and quick-wittedness.

So, still astride of the top rail, he began signalling with his pocket
flashlight. He spelled out his message in Morse code, using a long
pressure of the releasing switch for the dash and a short one for the
dot. Word by word he spelled out his message, telling that he suspected
that at least two Germans were trailing him. And at the end he signalled
a request that if he had understood, Greene should wait a half minute
and then imitate an owl's cry. He chose an owl because he had heard one
or two earlier in the night. And he added that if he got the signal he
would keep on heading for the monoplane. He suggested nothing to Greene;
the rest was decidedly up to the aviator. Frank had done his share.

If there were Germans actually within sight of him, they did not attempt
to interfere with him while he was flashing his message. But he had
reckoned confidently that they would not. He was sure that he had not
betrayed the fact that he knew he was being followed, and they