hing. Possibly this was because he
strained his eyes too much, but of course he was looking out into a
darkness so black that it seemed to swallow up everything. And
there was rain, too, a misty, drizzling rain, which alone would have
hampered vision. Then Jimmy closed his strained orbs, and when he
opened them again his vision was nearer normal.

"Do you see it yet?" whispered Bob. "Squint along my finger."

Jimmy did so.

"You have pretty good eyes to see anything in this blackness," he was
saying when he suddenly became aware of something moving out there
among the holes caused by the American shells.

It was more, he said afterward, as though part of the darkness itself
moved rather than that he actually saw something. But it was enough to
direct his attention to what Bob pointed out.

"It _is_ something," was Jimmy's cautious declaration. "And coming
this way!"

There was a movement on the part of Bob, and his chum knew he was
getting his rifle in readiness. Jimmy followed this example. They were
on the alert.

"Don't fire until you challenge," cautioned Jimmy. "It might be one of
our fellows, you know."

"One of our fellows--out there? How could it be!"

"Might have advanced too far, been wounded and have waited for
darkness to crawl back to our lines. Wait a second more until we see
what he's up to."

"It's a man, sure!" Bob whispered, "and he's crawling toward us on his
stomach."

"Let's do the same ourselves and crawl out to meet him," suggested
Jimmy. "If he has a grenade, or a bomb, and tries to throw it, we may
forestall him."

"Our orders were to stay here," decided Bob, and he was a great
stickler for obeying orders to the letter. Perhaps even his small
newspaper experience was responsible for this.

Suddenly the silence of the darkness was broken by an unmistakable
sneeze. True, the sneezer, if I may use such a term, tried to stifle
the explosion, but he was not altogether successful. It was a sneeze,
and nothing could disguise it.

"Did you hear--" began Bob.

And then, to the greater surprise of the two listeners, there came a
muttered exclamation in _German_.

"For the love of gas masks!" breathed Jimmy. "Take aim, Bob!"

And in another moment the fire of two rifles would have been
concentrated on that moving splotch of blackness, whence had come the
sneeze, except that the guttural German expletive was followed by a
tense whisper. And the words came in good English.

"Don't s