they
themselves were still in the car, they prayed that he might find
either safety from the Germans, or that better thing than captivity,
death.

As for Captain Prescott, he had slipped into a field beyond.
When he halted to peer about he was perhaps sixty feet from the
train. Moving cautiously he made the distance another hundred
feet. Yet he did not dare to go far at present, nor rapidly.

"I'm out of the car, if nothing more," Dick reflected, inhaling
a deep breath of the foggy air. "I shall always feel grateful
to that German engineer. His blowing off steam made noise enough
so that my jump and my footsteps weren't heard."

One of Dick's feet, moving exploringly, touched a stone. Bending
over and groping, he found three fair-sized stones.

"Good enough!" he thought, picking them up. "Sooner or later,
to-night, wandering around in an American uniform, I'm going to
be heard and halted. I'll throw these stones at the sentry who
tries to halt me, and then he'll fire. After he shoots there'll
be no German prison ahead for me!"

This wasn't exactly a thought in the cheerful class, yet Prescott
smiled. More contented with his prospects he moved softly away.

For the first hundred feet from the embankment his shoes touched
grass. Then he came to the edge of a ploughed field. Here he
felt that he must proceed with even greater caution, for now most
of the train noises had ceased and he feared to slip or stumble,
and thus make a noise that might be carried on the still night
air to the ears of the train guard.

However, he soon struck a smooth path leading through the ploughed
ground, and now moved along a little faster.

"This is just where caution ought to pay big dividends," he told
himself. "A path is usually made to lead to where human beings
live and congregate. I'll stop every few feet and listen."

The first sound that came to his ears from out of the veiled distance
ahead made the young American officer almost laugh aloud. It was
the crowing of a rooster.

"If you know how hungry I am, my bird, I doubt if you'd make any
noise to draw me your way."

However, the crowing had given him a valuable clew, for he reasoned
that the barnyard home of Mr. Rooster must be near the general
buildings of a farm. These buildings he decided to avoid. So,
when he came to a fork in the path he chose the direction that
led him further from what he believed to be the location of the
farm buildings.

By