ly and under his breath, so that they
could scarcely hear him. "Those verflutchen boys! If I knew that they
were the ones who stole my papers!"

In the middle of the road he paused and rubbed his eyes. He reeled a
little as he stood; it was plain that the man was in the last stages of
exhaustion. The two scouts, even without knowing in detail what the
duties of a spy in wartime might be, could understand Ridder's
exhaustion. They could guess how much he must have done since they had
last seen him.

As they crouched, watching him, he dropped his head, like a dog looking
for a scent suddenly vanished, and seemed to hesitate, wondering which
way to go. He circled around, apparently looking for something to
guide him. The road was hard, and baked dry. There had been no rain
for a good many days, and so their footprints did not show. Ridder
tossed his head at last in decision. The two scouts began to breathe
again in a more normal fashion when he turned down the road and went
along, still muttering. He swayed from side to side as he walked.

"Poor chap!" said Paul, finally. "I feel sorry for him! And I'm
certainly glad he was so tired! I wouldn't give much for our chances
if he had caught us. He knows by this time, you can be sure, what we
did with those plans."

"I don't feel sorry for him--he's a spy!" said Arthur.

"We're spies, too," said Paul, soberly. "And a good many Belgians will
be spies, and Frenchmen, too, before this war has been going on very
long. It's not nice work. There isn't the glory and the excitement
about it that there is for the soldiers who are doing the fighting.
But a spy does more for his country, if he succeeds in getting some
really important information, than a whole regiment of men who do
nothing but fight."

"I suppose so," admitted Arthur, grudgingly. "It's safe to go on now,
isn't it?"

"Yes. I don't think we'll find our friend Ridder in the next field!
And I hope we won't run into any more Germans of any sort."

As they walked along, the searchlights still flashed to their right and
at intervals sounds of heavy firing came to them from the same
direction. But the steady, ceaseless cannonading was over, and there
had been no renewal of the sounds that indicated fighting at close
quarters. Liege, it was easy to understand, was holding out.

Their course across the fields finally brought them to the river road,
where they felt themselves at home. This road the