leaning a cauldron.'

'With sand,' said Dicky.

'That's most convincing,' said the Colonel, and I did not like the way
he said it.

'I say,' Oswald said, 'let's get to the top corner of the ambush--the
wood, I mean. You can see the crossroads from there.'

We did, and quickly, for the crackling of branches no longer dismayed
our almost despairing spirits.

We came to the edge of the wood, and Oswald's patriotic heart really did
give a jump, and he cried, 'There they are, on the Dover Road.'

Our miscellaneous signboard had done its work.

'By Jove, young un, you're right! And in quarter column, too! We've got
em on toast--on toast--egad!' I never heard anyone not in a book say
'egad' before, so I saw something really out of the way was indeed up.

The Colonel was a man of prompt and decisive action. He sent the orderly
to tell the Major to advance two companies on the left flank and take
cover. Then we led him back through the wood the nearest way, because he
said he must rejoin the main body at once. We found the main body very
friendly with Noel and H. O. and the others, and Alice was talking to
the Cocked-Hatted One as if she had known him all her life.

'I think he's a general in disguise,' Noel said. 'He's been giving us
chocolate out of a pocket in his saddle.'

Oswald thought about the roast rabbit then--and he is not ashamed to own
it--yet he did not say a word. But Alice is really not a bad sort. She
had saved two bars of chocolate for him and Dicky. Even in war girls can
sometimes be useful in their humble way.

The Colonel fussed about and said, 'Take cover there!' and everybody hid
in the ditch, and the horses and the Cocked Hat, with Alice, retreated
down the road out of sight. We were in the ditch too. It was muddy--but
nobody thought of their boots in that perilous moment. It seemed a long
time we were crouching there. Oswald began to feel the water squelching
in his boots, so we held our breath and listened. Oswald laid his ear to
the road like a Red Indian. You would not do this in time of peace, but
when your country is in danger you care but little about keeping your
ears clean. His backwoods' strategy was successful. He rose and dusted
himself and said--'They're coming!'

It was true. The footsteps of the approaching foe were now to be heard
quite audibly, even by ears in their natural position. The wicked enemy
approached. They were marching with a careless swaggeringness that
showed h