And so, as soon as they were well out of hearing, Fred scrambled out, leaving his dangerous coats and helmets behind, and began trudging boldly along the road.  He did not know the character of the wooded section through which the road now ran, and it seemed to him that he would be safer in the road than if he tried to walk under cover.

Fred was very tired.  And, now that the excitement was fading, he was beginning to realize that he had not escaped entirely scatheless from the wreck of the car.  Every bone and muscle in his body was sore and aching, and he wondered how many black and blue spots he would find when he got a chance to look for them.

By Ivan’s reckoning, he had something like two miles to go to reach the Russian outposts.  He was now in a sort of No Man’s Land that lay between the two armies.  And, indeed, before long, he saw fires twinkling ahead—­the fires of the Russians.  That was as he came to the crossroad of which Boris had spoken.  It seemed that his troubles must be nearly over.  And just then he heard a clatter of hoofs and saw, riding up the crossroad toward him, a troop of German Uhlans.  He began running.  But they had seen him and gave chase.  He dared not stop.  On he ran, hoping that the Russians were nearer than their fires.

CHAPTER XVII

AN OLD ENEMY

Suddenly over Fred’s head there was a peculiar whistling.  He had never heard that sound before, but somehow he knew by instinct what it was.  He was under fire!  Behind him were the shots, but the firing was wild and at random.  He plunged into the bushes now, for to do so was to choose the lesser of two evils.  He was fairly safe, so sheltered from the bullets, since if they could not see him, the Uhlans would not be likely to fire at him at all.  And while it was certain that they could follow him in and catch him if he stayed in the brush, he would delay them at least, and the Russians were so near that they might hear the firing and come up.

That came about even sooner than he had thought possible.  He stopped, panting.  The Uhlans were close on his trail by this time, and he heard them coming up.  But then came a sudden shouting of orders, and, a moment later, a furious fusillade that was answered from the Russian side.  Over the rattle of the firing, too, came a sound he remembered well, though he had heard it only once before—­the yelling of charging Cossacks.  For the second time the wild Russian horsemen had come to his rescue in the nick of time!

But this time there was more of a fight, since the two little bodies of horsemen were far more evenly matched than had been the case when General Suvaroff had led his daring raid behind the German lines in the effort to capture von Hindenburg.  For five minutes the fighting was fast and furious.  Fred could hear the clash of steel against steel and the spiteful spitting of revolvers and automatic pistols.  Then the wild Russian shout of victory arose, and he heard sounds of galloping fast dying away.  Even though he could see nothing, he knew which side had won.