“I—­I guess you’re right,” agreed Bob, slowly.  “It’s tough, but it has to be done!”

“If we get the chance!” added Roger.

“Of course!  If we get the chance,” agreed Jimmy.  “Mind, I don’t say that we actually have to give him up, or capture him,” he added.  “That would be too much.  But it’s our duty to tell what we have seen.”

The others nodded their heads.

“We haven’t a chance to capture him now.”  Jimmy resumed.  “He’s armed, and we’re not.  Besides, even if we three could overpower him, he might signal to the Germans who were just here.  No, all we can do is to wait and see what happens.  And the first thing we’d better do is to get out of this neighborhood.  It isn’t healthy!”

They looked once more in the direction of “Captain Frank Dickerson,” as he had called himself.  He had folded up his papers and was about to rise from the log.

“Duck, fellows!  He’s looking this way!” hoarsely whispered Bob, and the boys dropped behind a fallen tree.

The officer in the German uniform did, indeed, look toward the woods, but he made no advance that way, and presently walked off in the direction taken by the searching party which had been so close to the three former captives, evidently without knowing it.

“And now we’ll make tracks the other way,” decided Jimmy, and they put some distance between themselves and the man they believed a spy before they halted to eat.

“I’m glad I didn’t have my five thousand francs with me when we fell into the hands of the Germans,” said Sergeant Jimmy, as they sat and rested after the rather meager meal.

“Why?” asked Bob.  “Maybe you could have bought some food, by bribing a guard.”

“Not a chance!” was the answer.  “The Huns would have taken every cent.  No, I don’t mind Maxwell having it—­even if he’s skipped with it, or if he’s missing with it in his pockets.  That’s better than having German jailers take it.  But I guess we’ll never see the sergeant or the money again.”

“It doesn’t look so,” agreed Roger.  “Well, it’s the fortune of war, I reckon.  But have we any chance of seeing our friends again?”

“We’ll make a big try,” declared Jimmy.

Of the miseries of the next two days the Khaki Boys never like to talk afterward.  They ate all their food, and were still hungry.  They managed to find some raw turnips which they devoured, declaring, in their hunger, that they were the best meal they had ever eaten.  Fortunately they managed to find water, though they had to drink it by stealth for they were like hunted animals, making their way through a country held and devastated by a cruel foe.  They hid most of the day and traveled by night, not knowing whether or not they were going in the right direction.

But they kept moving, though, at times, Bob, who seemed worse off than either of his chums, said he must give up.  But Jimmy and Roger fairly dragged him on.