rms and accoutrements made noise enough, perhaps, to
cover the sound of his voice.

"Did I hear what?" asked Jack.

"What that chap said. It was something about one of the German prison
camps having been burned by the prisoners, a lot of whom got away. The
rest were transferred to a place not far from here. Listen!"

And the Americans listened to the extent of their ability.

Then it was they blessed their lucky stars that they understood enough
of German to know what was being said, for it was then and there that
they got a clew to the whereabouts of Harry Leroy, from whom they had
heard not a word since the dropping of his glove by the German aviator.
They did not even know whether or not their packages had reached their
chum.

The talk of the Germans who had captured Tom and Jack was, indeed,
concerning the burning of one of the prison camps. As the boys learned
later, the prisoners, unable to stand the terrible treatment, had risen
and set fire to the place. Many of them perished in the blaze and by the
fire of German rifles. The others were transferred to a camp nearer the
battle line as a punishment, it being argued, perhaps, that they might
be killed by the fire of the guns of their own side.

"And there are some airmen, too, in the new prison camp," said one of
the Germans. "Our infantrymen claimed them as their meat, though our
airmen brought them down. But there was no room for them in the prison
camp with the other captured aviators, so The Butcher has them in his
charge."

Tom and Jack learned later that "The Butcher" was the title bestowed,
even by his own men, on a certain brutal German colonel who had charge
of this prison camp.

Then there came to Tom and Jack in the darkness a curious piece of
information, dropped by casual talk of the Huns. One of them said to
another:

"One of the transferred airmen tried to bribe me to-day."

"To bribe you? How and for what?"

"He is an accursed American pig, and when he heard we were opposite some
of them, he wanted me to throw a note from him over into the American
lines. He said I would be well paid, and he offered me a piece of gold
he had hidden in the sole of his shoe."

"Did you take it?"

"The gold? Of course I did! But I tore up the note he gave me to toss
into the American lines. First I looked at it, though. It was signed
with a French name, though the prisoner claimed to be from the United
States. It was the name Leroy which means, I have