ing manner, was a keenness of
observation sometimes almost uncanny, it seemed that these men were not
the regular crew which had been stationed here, but had themselves
somehow chanced upon the deserted nest in the course of their withdrawal
from the village.

For one thing, it seemed to him that this imperious officer was a
personage of high rank, who would not ordinarily have been stationed in
one of these machine gun pits. And for another thing, there was
something (he could not tell exactly what) about the general demeanor of
their captors, their way of removing the gun and their apparent
unfamiliarity with the spot, which made him think that they had stumbled
into it in the course of their wanderings just as he and Roscoe had
done. They talked in German and he could not understand them, but he
noticed particularly; that the two who went into the pit to gather the
more valuable portion of the paraphernalia appeared not to be familiar
with the place, and he thought that the officer inquired of them whether
there were two or more guns.

When he lifted his share of the burden, Roscoe noticed how he watched
the officer with a kind of apprehension, almost terror, in his furtive
glance, and kept his eyes upon him as they started away in the darkness.

Roscoe was in a mood to think ill of Tom, whom he considered the
bungling, stubborn author of their predicament. It pleased him now to
believe that Tom was afraid and losing his nerve. He remembered that he
had said they would be crucified as a result of Tom's pin-headed error.
And he was rather glad to believe that Tom was thinking of that now.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SHADES OF ARCHIBALD ARCHER

After a minute the officer paused and consulted with one of his men;
then another was summoned to the confab, the three of them reminding Tom
of a newspaper picture he had seen of the Kaiser standing in a field
with two officers and gazing fiercely at a map.

One of the soldiers waved a hand toward the distance, while Tom watched
sharply. And Roscoe, who accepted their predicament with a kind of
reckless bravado, sneered slightly at Tom's evident apprehension.

Then the officer produced something, holding it in his hand while the
others peered over his shoulder. And Tom watched them with lowering
brows, breathing hurriedly. No one knew it, but in that little pause Tom
Slade lived a whole life of nervous suspense. It was not, however, the
nervousness and suspense which h