e had settled over the battlefield, extending
across the trenches on both sides.

"I wonder what they are going to do with us," said Joe, in a low voice,
to Blake.

"Hard to tell," was the quiet answer. "They're marching us toward their
lines, though."

This was indeed true, the advance being toward a section of the field
beyond the German trenches whence, not long before, had come the
searchlights and the hail of shrapnel.

"Well, things didn't exactly turn out the way we expected," said
Charlie. "I guess we'll have to make a re-take in getting back our
films," he added, with grim humor. "How do you figure it out, Blake?"

The talk of the boys was not rebuked by their German captors, and indeed
the captain seemed to be deep in some conversation with Secor and
Labenstein.

"I don't know how it happened," Blake answered, "unless they saw us go
into that hut and crept up on us."

"They crept up, all right," muttered Joe. "I never heard a sound until
they called on us to surrender," he added.

"Maybe Secor and Labenstein saw us and never let on, and then sent a
signal telling the others to come and get us," suggested Charlie.

"I hardly think that," replied Blake. "The Frenchman and his fellow
German plotter seemed to be as much surprised as we were. You could see
that."

"I guess you're right," admitted Joe. "But what does it all mean,
anyhow?"

"Well, as nearly as I can figure it out," responded Blake, as he and his
chums marched onward in the darkness, "Secor and Labenstein must have
hidden the films in the hut after they stole them from the place where
we went down under the gas attack. For some reason they did not at once
turn them over to the German command."

"Maybe they wanted to hold them out and get the best offer they could
for our property," suggested Charlie.

"Maybe," assented Blake. "Whatever their game was," and he spoke in a
low tone which could not carry to the two plotters who were walking
ahead with the German captain, "they went to the hut to get the films
they had left there. And as luck would have it, we came on the scene at
the same time."

"I wish we'd been a little ahead of time," complained Macaroni. "Then we
might have gotten back with our films."

"No use crying over a broken milk bottle," remarked Joe.

"That's right," Blake said. "Anyhow, there we were and there Secor and
his German friend were when the others came and----"

"Here we are now!" finished Joe grimly.

An