the very perfection
of clock-work German discipline, as if to give each point of the compass
its allotted moment of attention.

Tom strained his eyes, trying to discover whether that lonely sentinel
were standing in a path or where two paths crossed or where some favored
view might be had of something far off in the country below. But he
could make out nothing.

Suddenly he noticed something large and black among the trees. Its
outline was barely discernible against the less solid blackness of the
night, and it was obscured by the dark tree branches. But as he looked
he thought he could see that it terminated in a little dome, like the
police telephone booths on the street corners away home in Bridgeboro. A
tiny guardhouse, possibly, or shelter for the solitary sentinel.
Perhaps, he thought, this was, after all, a strategic spot which they
had unconsciously stumbled into; a secret path to the frontier, maybe.

He remembered now the talk he had heard in the prison camp, of Germany's
building roads through obscure places in the direction of the Swiss
border for the violation of Swiss neutrality if that should be thought
necessary. These roads were shrouded in mystery, but he had heard about
them and the thought occurred to him that perhaps these poor Alsatian
people--women and children--were being taken to work on these avenues of
betrayal and dishonor.

But try as he would, he could discern no suggestion of path, nor any
other sign of landmark which might explain the presence of this remote
station in the desolate uplands of Alsace. He believed that if they had
taken five steps more they would have been discovered and challenged.
How to withdraw out of the very jaws of this peril was now the question.
He feared that Archer might make an incautious move and end all hope of
escape.

Tom watched the solitary figure through the heavy darkness. And he
marvelled, as he had marvelled before, at the machine-like perfection of
these minions of the Iron Hand. Even in the face of their awful danger
and amid the solemnity of the black night, the odd thought came to him
that this stiff form turning about like a faithful and tireless
weathercock to peer into the darkness roundabout, might be indeed a huge
carved toy fresh from the quaint handworkers of the Black Forest.

As he gazed he was sure that this lonely watcher danced a step or two.
No laughter or sign of merriment accompanied the grim jig, but he was
sure that the soli