At length, coming upon a small brook beside the road, they stopped to quench their thirst.  Hal had risen to his feet and was waiting for Chester when from the rear once more came the faint “chug-chug” of a motorcycle, or motorcycles, the boys were unable to tell which.

Chester sprang to his feet.

“Here they come again,” he cried.  “We were right.  It is the traitor Dersi who has put them on our trail.  Hustle!”

Side by side the two lads sprinted for a clump of trees almost directly ahead.  They reached their friendly shelter just before the glare of a searchlight down the road gave evidence of the approach of their pursuers.

Once among the trees the boys dropped to the ground and became absolutely silent.  A moment later and the band of Germans flashed by at terrific speed.

The boys arose to their feet and continued on their way, keeping in among the trees.

“We must be very careful,” Hal warned Chester.  “When they fail to overtake us they are sure to return.  When we hear them coming we’ll climb up a tree, or hunt a hole, or something.  But we might as well go ahead as far as we can.”

“That seems the best way to me,” Chester agreed.

They continued their journey for perhaps an hour without hearing a sound of the Germans, and then, suddenly, they were made aware of the presence of the enemy.

Chester’s cap seemed suddenly to jump from his head.  Both lads heard the hum of a bullet and the crack of a rifle.  Immediately they both dropped to the ground.

They had not detected from which direction the bullet had come, and for that reason were at a great disadvantage.  Crouched close to the ground they waited, ears strained for a sound by which they could locate the man who had fired.

But a sound came not.  Nothing but silence.  Crouched close to the ground as they were, the silence soon became stifling.  Hal endured the suspense as long as he could, and then whispered to Chester: 

“We can’t stay here.  I’ll wriggle my way to that tree,” pointing, “and you creep behind that one,” pointing again, this time to a tree perhaps a hundred yards distant from the first.

“All right,” Chester whispered back.

Hal had hardly taken his position behind the tree he had selected for his own cover when a second sharp crack of a rifle broke the stillness of the night, and there was a flash of fire hardly fifty feet from him.

In the darkness Hal made out the form of a man, his gun pointed toward Chester, who at that moment succeeded in wriggling behind a tree.

“The dog!” said Hal angrily to himself.  “I’ll fix him.”

Both lads were without weapons, their arms having been confiscated when they were captured by the Germans.

On hands and knees Hal made a short detour and approached his enemy from behind.  Now he was hardly ten feet from the man, who loomed up like a giant in the darkness.  Hal rose suddenly to his feet, and, as he did so, he stepped on the fallen limb of a tree.