glint disappeared.

"Is he there?" Archer whispered.

"Shh! No, he's gone around the end."

"He won't go all the way round; he'll turn back when he gets to the
gate. Go on, make a break----"

"Shh!" said Tom, straining his eyes in all directions.

For one moment of awful suspense he waited, his thumping heart almost
choking him. Then he moved silently out into the night, and paused
again, holding a deterring hand up to keep his companion back until he
knew the way was clear.

Then he moved his hand.

"Come on," he whispered, his whole frame trembling with suspense. "Let's
get away from the fence. Don't speak."

There was something of the old stalking and trailing stealth about his
movements now as he hurried across the field adjacent to the camp.
"Follow me," he whispered, "and do just what I do. What's that you've
got in your hand?"

"Nothin'. Where you goin'? The road ain't over there."

"Shhh!"

Silently Tom stole across the field.

"You're goin' out of your way," whispered Archer again.

"I don't want the road, I only want to know where it is," Tom answered;
"I know what I'm doing."

He had never dreamed that his tracking and trailing lore would one day
serve him in far-off Germany and help him in so desperate a flight.
Never before had he such need of all his wit--and such an incentive.

Archer followed silently. Presently Tom paused and listened.

"Anybody comin'?"

"No, I was listenin' for--it's down there."

He turned suddenly and grabbing Archer around the waist, lifted him off
his feet and ran swiftly down a little slope and into the brook which in
its meanderings crossed an end of the prison grounds. Then he let Archer
down.

"They'll never track us here," he panted, and felt for his precious
button to make sure that Archer's body had not pulled it off. "They'll
think only one came this way, maybe, and they won't know which way to
go--Shh!"

Archer held his breath. There was no sound except that of the water
rippling at their feet.

"Is that upstream?" Tom asked. "It ought to be shallow all the way. Keep
in the water."

"Step on that shore and you're in Alsace," said Archer.

"Don't step on it," said Tom. "Shores are tell-tales. Which is the
hill?"

"That one with the windmill on it."

"That black thing?"

"The road runs around that," said Archer, "the other side."

"We'll follow the road," said Tom, "but we'll keep in the brook till we
get about a couple of hundred feet