t after carrying so far.

Dick, lying face down, his back to the river, and within a few paces of
Steve, lifted his head a little, and looked about him. He saw that a
little way back from the water's edge the ground began to rise quite
sharply, culminating in what was almost a bluff, but was still easily to
be climbed. And where the ground began to rise, there was a sturdy
growth of bushes and young trees, too, that would afford good shelter.
If they could only get so far! It was easy to see. The searchlight from
the monitor was playing all over and around them, making the scene weird
in the extreme but serving them, in a way, by making their path as clear
as it would have been in broad daylight.

Then the searchlight winked out and swung away for a moment. In that
instant the man who had given the first order rose and began running
toward the shrubbery.

"Come on!" he cried, turning and stopping, while he waved his hands.
"The light will be back in a moment!"

They obeyed willingly, and swept up the slope in a wild rush. The
searchlight swung back again, and now a shell burst high in the air
above them. In a moment there was a curious tearing sound, and then a
pitapat on the ground about them. Dick guessed it was shrapnel, though
he had, of course, never been under shrapnel fire before. That was not
from the monitor, he knew. It meant that the Austrians on the other side
must have got a light field piece into action after some delay.

But he was not hit, and in a minute he was at the top of the rise,
panting. Steve Dushan came up to him.

"All right, Dick?" he cried. "I didn't have any idea of bringing you
into anything as hot as this. You might better have stayed and taken
your chance in Semlin! Perhaps your consul could have helped you."

"I don't care! We're all right now," said Dick. He laughed nervously.
"I'm not sorry a bit!" he declared. "It's the most exciting thing that
ever happened to me! Now that it's all over I--yes, I believe I have
enjoyed it!"

"So have I! I mean it, too, Dick! I'm not saying that just to make
myself think I'm brave, because I was awfully frightened all the time.
But now that it's over, it's something to look back at, isn't it? It
isn't everyone who's under fire, after all."

Then they heard Mischa calling.

"Captain!" he cried. "Captain Obrenovitch!"

There was no answer. And suddenly Dick knew that there would be none.
His mind recalled something that he had only half gra