where a masked battery is, and then our fellows can drop
their shells right among their guns. The gunners can't get the range
properly any other way. There isn't any powder smoke to help them any
more, you know. So I suppose that's where they are."

"Then I tell you what I think happened. I think they cut the railroad,
or, rather, they didn't cut it. I bet they ran those fellows down there
through on trains--right through our army."

"How could they do that?"

"Easily--no, not easily. It wouldn't be easy at all. But it's possible.
They've caught a lot of our men, haven't they? Well, couldn't they use
their uniforms so that it would look as if it was a French or an English
train? Let me have your field glass. It's better than mine."

They were sheltered now and safe from observation. They could,
nevertheless, see the German column strung out along the road. It seemed
to cover at least two or three miles of the road, and there was no way
of being sure that there were not more men.

"I think they've got pretty nearly five thousand men," Frank decided
finally. "They're in light marching order, for Germans, too. No camp
kitchens--nothing. Only what the men themselves are carrying. They're
making a forced march to get to some particular place. Queer to use
infantry, though, but I suppose they couldn't get horses through with
whatever trick it was they played."

"They're beginning to turn off," said Henri. "See, the head of the
column is slipping through that field over there. They must know this
country as well as I do or better. That's a short cut that will take
them to Hierville."

"I don't believe they're going to Hierville or any other village now,"
said Frank. "Tell me, are those woods I can see in front of them at all
thick?"

"Yes, they're old, too. They've been preserved for a long time. That's
the oldest part of the old park of the Chateau d'Avriere. It was one of
the castles that wasn't destroyed in the revolution."

"Well, they're going to take cover in those woods. This is all a part of
a mighty careful plan, Harry. I think they have turned a real trick. If
the French or the English knew that the Germans were in any such force
as this so far south and west as this they would be acting very
differently, I believe. Their aeroplanes have certainly failed them
here."

"They're on the line of retreat, if we were beaten again in that battle
we've been hearing all afternoon."

"I don't think it was a real