ng. I don't even get on
the casualty list, on account of you. You see what we're both up against
now, through that bump of locality you're so proud of. Edwards' Grove[1]
is where _you_ belong. I'm not blaming you, though--I'm blaming myself
for listening to a dispatch kid!"

The Germans, not understanding, paid no attention, and Roscoe went on,
reminding Tom of the old, flippant, cheaply cynical Roscoe, who had
stolen his employer's time to smoke cigarettes in the Temple Camp
office, trying to arouse the stenographer's mirth by ridiculing the Boy
Scouts.

"I'm not thinking about what you're saying," he said bluntly, after a few
minutes. "I'm remembering how you saved my life and named your gun after
me."

"Hey, Fritzie, have they got any Boy Scouts in Germany?" Roscoe asked,
ignoring Tom, but speaking apparently at him. The nearest Boche gave a
glowering look at the word _Fritzie_, but otherwise paid no attention.

"We were on our way to German headquarters, anyway," Roscoe added,
addressing himself indifferently to the soldiers, "but we're glad of
your company. The more, the merrier. Young Daniel Boone here was leading
the way."

The Germans, of course, did not understand, but Tom felt ashamed of his
companion's cynical bravado. The insults to himself he did not mind. His
thoughts were fixed on something else.

On they went, into a marshy area where Tom looked more apprehensively at
the officer than before, as if he feared the character of the ground
might arouse the suspicion of his captors. But they passed through here
without pause or question and soon were near enough to the flickering
light to see that it burned in a house.

Again Roscoe looked perplexedly behind him, but the light there was not
visible at all now. Again the officer stopped and, as Tom watched him
fearfully, he glanced about and then looked again at the compass.

For one brief moment the huge figure stood there, outlined in the
darkness as if doubting. And Tom, looking impassive and dogged, held his
breath in an agony of suspense.

It was nothing and they moved on again, Roscoe, in complete repudiation
of his better self, indulging his sullen anger and making Tom and the
Scouts (as if they had anything to do with it) the victims of his
cutting shafts.

And still again the big, medal-bespangled officer paused to look at the
compass, glanced, suspiciously, Tom thought, at the faint shadow of a
road ahead of them, and moved on, his medal