“We’ve got to have a look in!” whispered Blake.  “Maybe the films are there, and maybe not; but some person is.”

“Probably Germans,” said Joe.

“Very likely.  But it may be that Frenchman.  If we could only capture him!”

“I’d like a chance at him!” exclaimed Charlie.

“Hush!” cautioned Blake.  The boys were now close to the hut, for that was all it was since the bombardment.  They tried on three sides of the place to look in, but without success.  Then, as they moved around to the side which faced the German lines, they saw a crack through which the light streamed in greater volume.

“Take a look, Blake,” advised Joe.

His chum did so, and, with an exclamation of surprise and satisfaction, turned away from the slot, motioning to the others to look for themselves.  And as Joe and Charlie looked they saw, seated on the ruins of a machine gun and other things that had been in the place, Secor and Labenstein.  The two plotters had between them boxes which the boys had no difficulty in recognizing as their missing war films.

Joe was about to utter an exclamation of delight when Blake softly put his hand over his chum’s mouth.

“Not a sound!” breathed Blake.

For a moment the boys stood looking in at the plotters and wondering how they could capture them, or at least get back the stolen films.

And then a door, or what had been a door, to the dugout swung open with a creak of its rusty hinges.

“What’s that?” cried Secor, in French, starting to his feet.

“Only the wind,” replied the German, in the tongue of his fellow-conspirator.  “Only the wind.”

“Ah!  I thought maybe it was——­”

“You thought perhaps it was the boys who own these films, but who will never see them again.  I know not how valuable they may be—­these films—­but I was told to get them, and I have.  Let the ones higher up decide on their value.  But we must get our price for them—­you and I. We must get a good price.  We have run a great risk.”

“Yes, a great risk,” murmured the Frenchman.

Blake motioned to his chums to follow him into the dugout.  They could see his gestures in the light of a lantern which formed the illumination of the ruins.

Cautiously the three went inside, the noise they made being covered by the rattling of the wind which had sprung up.

“We have them!  We have them!” exulted Joe, in a whisper.

They were silently considering how best to surprise and capture the two men, who were still unaware of the presence of the boys, when a sudden noise came from outside.  Blake and his chums, as well as the two men, started.

“That was not the wind!” exclaimed Secor.

“No, my friend.  It was not.  I think there is some one here besides ourselves.  We must look.  I——­”

And then came a guttural command in German: 

“Surrender—­all of you!  You are surrounded and are prisoners!  Surrender!”