tree.
Got the line? Well, along there there's a line of men hidden.
Through the glass I can sometimes make out the flash of their rifles.
Take the glass yourself, and see."

Dave Fulsbee snatched the binoculars, making a rapid survey.

"Reade," he admitted, "you have surely located that crowd."

"Now, go after them with your patent hay rake," quivered Tom,
feeling the full excitement of the thing in this tantalizing cross
fire. Then the cub added, with a sheepish grin:

"I hope you'll scare 'em, instead of hitting 'em, Dave."

Fulsbee stepped over to his assistant. Between them they swung
the machine gun around, the assistant wrenching off the canvas
cover. Fulsbee rapidly sighted the piece for six hundred yards.
The assistant stood by to feed belts of cartridges, while Dave took
his post at the firing mechanism.

Cr-r-r-r-rack! sounded the machine gun, spitting forth a pelting
storm of lead. As the piece continued to disgorge bullets at
the rate of six hundred a minute, Dave, a grim smile on his lips,
swung the muzzle of the piece so as to spread the fire along the
entire line of the main ambush.

"Take the glass," Tom roared in Harry's ear, above the din. "See
how Fulsbee is throwing up dust and bits of rock all along that
rattled line."

Hazelton watched, his face showing an appreciative grin.

"It has the scoundrels scared and going!" Hazelton yelled back.

Fully fifteen hundred cartridges did the machine gun deliver up
and down that line.

Then, suddenly, Dave Fulsbee swung the gun around, delivering
a hailstorm of bullets against the bald knob rock and the bushes
to the right of it.

"There's the answer!" gleefully uttered Hazelton, who had just
handed the glass back to his chum.

The "answer" was a fluttering bit of white cloth tied to a rifle
and hoisted over the bushes at the right of the bald knob.

"Who do you suppose is holding the white cloth?" chuckled Tom.

"I can't guess," Harry confessed.

"Our old and dangerous friend Peter," Tom laughed.

"Bad Pete!"

"No; Scared Pete."

There was a sudden twinkle in Hazelton's eyes as he espied Dave
Fulsbee's rifle lying on the ground beside the machine gun.

In another instant Harry had that rifle and was back at Tom's
side.

Harry threw open the magazine, making sure that there were cartridges
in the weapon. Then he dropped to one knee, taking careful sight
in the direction of the white flag.

"You idiot---what are you doing?"