g. After a
few moments he paused as if perplexed and moved farther up the stream.
And Tom, who had been crouching behind a bush at a safe distance, crept
silently to another one, greatly puzzled but watching him closely.

Selecting another spot, the Boche moved about among the bushes as
before, carefully examining each one which stood by itself. Tom expected
every minute to see some grim, gray-coated figure step out of his leafy
retreat to join his comrade, but why such a person should wait to be
discovered Tom could not comprehend, for he must have heard and probably
seen this beating through the bushes.

An especially symmetrical bush stood on the brink of the stream and
after poking about this as usual, the German stood upon tiptoe,
apparently looking down into it, then kneeled at its base while Tom
watched from his hiding-place.

Suddenly a sharp report rang out and the German jumped to his feet,
clutched frantically at the brush which seemed to furnish a substantial
support, then reeled away and fell headlong into the brook, where he lay
motionless.

The heedless current, adapting itself readily to this grim obstruction,
bubbled gaily around the gray, crumpled form, accelerating its cheery
progress in the narrow path and showing little glints of red in its
crystal, dancing ripples.

CHAPTER TEN

THE JERSEY SNIPE

Tom hurried to the prostrate figure and saw that the German was quite
dead. There was no other sign of human presence and not a sound to be
heard but the rippling of the clear water at his feet.

For a few moments he stood, surprised and silent, listening. Then he
fancied that he heard a rustling in the bushes some distance away and he
looked in that direction, standing motionless, alert for the slightest
stir.

Suddenly there emerged out of the undergrowth a hundred or more feet
distant a strange looking figure clad in a dull shade of green with a
green skull cap and a green scarf, like a scout scarf, loosely thrown
about his neck. Even the rifle which he carried jauntily over his
shoulder was green in color, so that he seemed to Tom to have that
general hue which things assume when seen through green spectacles. He
was lithe and agile, gliding through the bushes as if he were a part of
them, and he came straight toward Tom, with a nimbleness which almost
rivalled that of a squirrel.

There was something about his jaunty, light step which puzzled Tom and
he narrowed his eyes, watchin