and with only one mishap they
reached the frontier. This mishap took place while the party was
crossing a high road. Scouts had reported all clear, and all had crossed
except the men at the rear, who were helping the wounded along. These
were in the middle of the road, when a motorcar, moving at high speed,
turned a corner a short distance away and ran rapidly down upon them.

The powerful headlights of the motor of course revealed the little group
of men in the roadway. Brakes were applied, and the machine came to a
standstill a yard or two away.

"Who are you? What do you here?" came in the deep peremptory tones of a
man who was evidently a German officer.

For the moment the party in the road, half-blinded by the powerful
lights, stopped stupidly where they were. None of them understood what
was said, and none made a move either to fly or to resist capture.

Max, the instant he saw the headlights approaching, ran back to the
roadway and was just in time to hear the officer's demand. It was too
late for flight--too late for anything but attack--and, calling to the
men nearest him, he sprang towards the car.

Two revolvers flashed in the darkness. One of the bullets cut through
the side of his jacket and grazed his side. The other missed altogether.
In another moment he was alongside the car and using the rifle and
bayonet he carried with hearty goodwill.

The car contained four German officers and a soldier chauffeur. For a
fraction of a second Max attacked them single-handed. Then other men
sprang to his assistance, and from both sides of the car the Germans
were assaulted with an energy they doubtless had never experienced
before. It was quickly over. All the men were bayoneted, and left for
dead, and, without waiting to do more than dash out the headlights and
overturn the car in a ditch, Max again led the band forward to the
frontier.

Day was breaking as the band neared the frontier, at a point where it
was crossed by a railway. In a little copse at the side of the track Max
halted his men and allowed them a short rest while he went with Shaw to
reconnoitre and determine the best means of making the actual crossing.
They found, of course, the line well guarded, and with a strong post at
the frontier to watch the gap necessarily left in the great barbed-wire
fence. The post consisted of about thirty men of the Landwehr, and the
band of British and French fugitives could have rushed and destroyed it
with t