“Is that between the lines?” asked Joe.

“Just about, yes, though there aren’t any of our trenches, or theirs either, near there now.  What trenches there were have been knocked into smithereens.  That’s No Man’s Land down there.  It belongs to whoever can keep it, but just now nobody seems to want it.  I’m here to report if there’s any movement on the part of Fritz to take up his station there again.”

“As it is now, could we go down there?” asked Joe eagerly.

“Well, if you wanted to take a chance, I s’pose you could,” answered the sentry slowly.  “I wouldn’t stop you.  You don’t belong to the army, anyhow, and we’ve been instructed that you’re sort of privileged characters.  All the same, it might be a bit dangerous.  But don’t let me stop you.”

“Come on!” exclaimed Joe, starting down the slope that led across the bullet-scarred and shell-pitted ground.

“Where are you going?” asked Charles Anderson.

“Across No Man’s Land,” answered Joe grimly.  “I’m going to see if we can get back those stolen army films.  If they were ours, I wouldn’t be so anxious about them.  But they belong to Uncle Sam.  He hired us to take them, and it was our fault they were lost.”

“Not exactly our fault,” put in Blake.  “We couldn’t help being gassed.”

“No, but excuses in war don’t go.  We’ve got to get back those films!”

“That’s right!” exclaimed Charlie.  “I’m with you!”

“Oh, for the matter of fact, so am I,” said Blake quickly.  “I feel, as you do, Joe, that it’s up to us to do all we can to get back those films.  I’m only trying to think out the best plan for getting them.”

“Go right down there and make that traitor Secor, and that submarine Dutchman, give ’em back!” cried Charlie.

“Yes, and perhaps make such a row that there’ll be a general engagement,” said Blake.  “No; we’ve got to go at this a little differently from that.  I’m in favor of getting the films away from those fellows, if they have them, but I think we’d better try to sneak up there first and see what the situation is.  If we march down there in the open we’ll probably be fired on—­or gassed, and that’s worse.”

“Now you’ve said it, Buddy!” exclaimed the sentry.  “I’ve had both happen to me, and getting shot, say in a soft place, ain’t half as bad as the gas.  Whew!  I don’t want any more!  So, if I was you, I’d wait until after dark to make a trip across No Man’s Land.  You’ll stand a better chance then of coming back alive.”

“That’s what I think,” returned Blake, and though Joe and Charlie were eager for action, they admitted that their chum’s plan was best.

“We’ll have to make some preparations,” Blake went on; “though I don’t know that we need say anything to Captain Black about what we are going to do.”

“He might stop us,” said Charlie.

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t do that,” Joe assured their assistant.