s that. What do you say?"

"You know more about it than I do," said Tom. "I followed the brook up.
It's pretty bad in some places."

"There's only two of us," said Roscoe, "and you've no rifle. Safety
first."

"I suppose there's a lot of places they could hide along the brook; the
brush is pretty thick all the way up," Tom added.

Roscoe whistled softly in indecision. "I like the open better," said he.

"I guess so," Tom agreed, "when there's only two of us."

"There's three of us, though," said Roscoe, "and _Tommy_ here likes the
open better. I'd toss up a coin only with these blamed French coins you
can't tell which is heads and which is tails."

Roscoe was right about the Germans having withdrawn beyond the road
north of the woods. Whether he was right about its being safer to go
around the edge of the forest remained to be determined.

This wood, in which they had passed the day, extended north of the
village (see map) and thinned out upon the eastern side so that one
following the eastern edge would emerge from the wood a little east of
the main settlement. Here was the by-path which Roscoe had mentioned,
and which led down into the main road.

Running east and west across the northern extremity of the woods was a
road, and the Germans, driven first from their trenches, then out of the
village, and then out of the woods, were establishing their lines north
of this road.

If the boys had followed the brook down they would have reached the
village by a much shorter course, but Roscoe preferred the open country
where they could keep a better lookout. Whether his decision was a wise
one, we shall see.

[Illustration: SHOWING PATH TAKEN BY TOM AND ROSCOE THROUGH THE WOODS]

Leaving the scene of their "complete annihilation of the crack poison
division," as Roscoe said, they followed the ragged edge of the woods
where it thinned out to the north, verging around with it until they
were headed in a southerly direction.

"There's a house on that path," said Roscoe, "and we ought to be able to
see a light there pretty soon."

"There's a little piece of woods ahead of us," said Tom; "when we get
past that we'll see it, I guess. We'll cut through there, hey?"

"Wait a minute," said Roscoe, pausing and peering about in the half
darkness. "I'm all twisted. There's the house now."

He pointed to a dim light in the opposite direction to that which they
had taken.

"That's north," said Tom in his usual dull man