irection."

It was only solid sense, British sense, horse sense as they term it in
America, and, hearing him speak, Henri realized that fact immediately.

"Splendid!" he exclaimed enthusiastically, for he had a great opinion
of the Englishman; "of course that's the thing to do. Well then, I've
noticed that there's a road which turns away from this one a little
distance ahead, and no doubt there'll be another one breaking away from
that one. Let's sprint. A good fast run after life in a camp will be
no disadvantage."

As a matter of fact, they were not in such soft condition as one might
have anticipated, seeing that they had been confined within the
barbed-wire entanglements about Ruhleben for many months past. The
keenness and energy of youth, the fact that they had many companions,
had helped them to keep their muscles in tolerable order, for games had
been possible and football was quite a favourite. Hence a sprint along
that road was not beyond them, and, doubling their arms and setting off
at a good steady pace, they had soon contrived to put a mile between
them and their late prison; then, slowing down a little till they
discovered the other road, they turned into it and continued to run,
and in a little while were well away from Ruhleben. Half an hour later
they turned sharply to their left again, and, alternately running and
walking, covered some fifteen miles before the morning dawned. Waiting
till they had gained the top of a wooded hill, they plunged into a
thick copse which offered cover, and there, as the light came, they lay
down on its edge, able to survey the country all about them, feeling
tolerably secure, and, let us add, amazingly hungry.

CHAPTER IV

The Heart of Germany

"A farm, I think, and a big one by the look of it. There should be
food, and plenty of it, down there," said Jules, moistening his lips
and springing eagerly out from the cover into the open.

Indeed, down below them, on that side of the hill where the copse was
situated, a scene was spread out than which there could have been none
more pleasant in France or in old England, or indeed in any other part
of the world. A smiling, wooded landscape stretched into the far
distance, broken into plots of neatly tilled fields, and intersected at
one point by a river, which, winding between the hills and flowing
sluggishly through forest country, disappeared in the distance,
carrying on one of its banks the broad track