ce spoke the word "Americains" in anything but a low tone.
A moment later, as they still waited for the door to open, a light
appeared in the next cottage, and another feminine voice repeated
the surprised ejaculation, "Les Americains!"

"Come on," said Dicky. "The sooner we get out of this the better.
That woman has raised the whole town."

The boys ran down the road quietly, but losing no time. Well it
was that they did so, for they had not gone far before several shots
were fired behind them, and one or two sinister bullets sang over
their heads. They started running in good earnest then. Fortunately
there was no pursuit. After a time they slowed down and again became
a prey to all their former fears of night noises. A large bird
flew close to Bob's head and gave him quite a scare. As they pressed
on along the roadway, the clatter of hoof-beats coming toward them
sent them to the roadside, where, a ditch offered welcome refuge.

Bob and Dicky jumped in, close together. At the bottom they hit
something soft, which turned beneath them and gave a whistling grunt
as their combined weight came down upon it. In an instant they
realized that they had jumped full on top of a man. Who he was
or what he was doing there was of no moment to the boys. A sound
from him might mean their capture. Bob grabbed the man, grappled
with him in the pitch dark, and choked him into unconsciousness,
Dicky lending a hand. A troop of German cavalry clattered up.
Just as the troop drew abreast, the order was given for them to
slow from a trot into a walk. The boys held their breath. Gradually
the horsemen drew past, then away. Bob waited until they were well
in the distance, and then examined the poor fellow underneath. If
the boys had been scared to have jumped on the man, the man had
been more than scared to have had them do so.

There was all-round relief when the boys found the victim to be an
elderly Belgian farmer; and the relief of the farmer himself as he
gathered his scattered wits, to find that the boys had no designs
further upon his welfare, was truly comic. The Germans, he said,
had imposed severe penalties on inhabitants who roamed about the
country-side between eight o'clock in the evening and daylight.
His quest remained unexplained, except in so far as a sack of
something the boys did not examine might have explained it. Bob
advised the old man to remain where he was till morning light, and
the boys press