I don't get rattled. You said that about the
Scouts just because you're mad. I'm not hunting for any light. I'm going
back to Cantigny and I know where I'm at. You can come if you want to or
you can go and get caught by the Germans if you want to. I went a
hundred miles through Germany and they didn't catch _me_--'cause I
always know where I'm at."

He went on for a few steps, Roscoe, after the first shock of surprise,
following silently behind him. He saw Tom stumble, struggle to regain
his balance, heard a crunching sound, and then, to his consternation,
saw him sink down and disappear before his very eyes.

In the same instant he was aware of a figure which was not Tom's
scrambling up out of the dark, leaf-covered hollow and of the muzzle of
a rifle pointed straight at him.

Evidently Tom Slade had not known "where he was at" at all.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PRISONERS

Apparently some of the enemy had not yet withdrawn to the north, for in
less than five seconds Roscoe was surrounded by a group of German
soldiers, among whom towered a huge officer with an eye so fierce and
piercing that it was apparent even in the half darkness. He sported a
moustache more aggressively terrible than that of Kaiser Bill himself
and his demeanor was such as to make that of a roaring lion seem like a
docile lamb by comparison. An Iron Cross depended from a heavy chain
about his bull neck and his portly breast was so covered with the junk
of rank and commemoration that it seemed like one of those boards from
which street hawkers sell badges at a public celebration.

Poor Tom, who had been hauled out of the hole, stood dogged and sullen
in the clutch of a Boche soldier, and Roscoe, even in his surprise at
this singular turn of affairs, bestowed a look of withering scorn upon
him.

"I knew those branches were _broken_ off," Tom muttered, as if in
answer. "They're using them for camouflage. It's got nothing to do with
the other thing about which way we were going."

But Roscoe only looked at him with a sneer.

Wherever the wrong and right lay as to their direction, they had run
plunk into a machine-gun nest and Roscoe Bent, with all his diabolical
skill of aim, could not afford his fine indulgence of sneering, for as
an active combatant, which Tom was not, he should have known that these
nests were more likely to be found at the wood's edge than anywhere
else, where they could command the open country. The little spur of
wood