e, although the case of the lads was apt to become
anything but a joke if their presence was discovered by the German
soldiers who were approaching at some distance down the road.

"Hurry, boys," cautioned Ned, laying aside his jovial air as he began
preparations for departure. "We mustn't get caught now."

"All right, Boss, we're with you every minute," declared Jack.

The boy was already in the fuselage of the Eagle. He reached an eager
hand to assist Harry with the gasoline. Harry climbed up to a
favorable position and was about to pour the gasoline into the fuel
tank while Ned, in his haste to be off, was priming the motors.

Suddenly all three were startled to hear a voice from the rear of the
machine they were occupying.

"Halt!" they heard. "Come out of that machine or I fire!"

"Who's that?" asked Jack, pausing in the operation of emptying the
fuel. "What do you want and how did you come there?"

"Give her the gas, Ned!" urged Harry. "We're all ready to go and he's
on the ground. He can't catch us in a million years."

"I can't make the engine go at all," almost sobbed Ned in his
excitement. "Somebody has been monkeying with the machinery."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the newcomer. "So the engine won't run, eh?"

"No, it won't!" snapped Ned as he turned a wrathful face toward the
rear of the Eagle to observe the stranger. "Did you do it?"

"Yah!" came the answer. "Mine comrade and myself, ve done tings mit
der wires. Dere is no current by der spark plugs alretty!"

"Good night!" was Ned's ejaculation of despair as he realized that the
words of the stranger were but too true. "No current!"

"Yah!" laughed the stranger. "But," he added, "we haf current in our
guns. Maybe you like dot ve show you. Und ve vill, too, aber you
don'd come out of dot machine, und do id quick!"

"I guess it's all up, boys," said Ned forlornly. "We might as well
unload. They have got the upper hand of us this time."

"I move we cut and run for it," proposed Jack with spirit. "We could
easily beat them in the darkness and amongst the trees."

"I don't think so," cautioned Harry. "They have got help coming up the
road, and we don't know how many of them are near here."

"No, boys," counseled Ned, "we'd better try some other stunt. If they
get angry at us they might do anything, and we can't stand it to get
shot to pieces just now. Remember, Jimmie and Dave need us."

"All right, then, Old Fox," was Jack's rep