igher
peaks.

Suddenly the heart within him seemed to stop beating.

Somewhere ahead of him, but seemingly upon a lower level of ground, men
were talking! And they were talking in German!

As though a bullet had struck him, Jerry dropped forward upon the
ground. Grasping the outstretched roots of a tree, he pulled himself up
within its heavy black shadow. There, scarcely daring to breathe for
fear of attracting attention, he lay and listened.

He thanked Brighton then for his understanding of the German language.

Slim Goodwin was a prisoner, and those men--how many there were of them
he could not tell--were questioning him! Slim was pretending not to
understand.

Jerry's brain worked rapidly. There was no use of his returning to the
wireless and attempting to summon help that way, for even if aid was
sent it would be hours before it could arrive, and, presuming that the
rescuers could find the spot, there was every likelihood that the
Germans would have departed with their prisoner before that time. No,
assuredly, if Slim was to be rescued, he, Jerry, must do it. But how?

As he lay there thinking, he heard the one who seemed to be the officer
in charge order another man to build a fire. As it crackled and began to
blaze up, the reflection of the flame gave Jerry their exact location.
Also it formed a curtain of light against which it would have been easy
for him to have seen any Boche sentinel or outpost, had there been one
between him and them.

Assuring himself that there was not, he crept cautiously forward, foot
by foot, until he was at the edge of the shelf of rock and could gaze
almost directly down upon them. The fire gave good illumination. There
was a young German lieutenant and four of his men. A short distance
away, in the shelter of some trees, five horses were tethered.

Slim finally had consented to talk--if what he was doing could be called
talking. And in what was purposely the most miserably broken German
imaginable, he was telling them that he got separated from his unit
several days ago (which was true), and that he had been wandering about
that part of the country for the last couple of days (which also was
true), and that he did not know where he was (which likewise was the
truth).

While this was going on Jerry had scribbled upon a piece of paper: "Am
near. Look lively if they sleep." This he wrapped around a small stone.
For a moment all the Germans turned toward the fire, where one