What do you suppose is the matter with him?" demanded Chester.

"I don't know," replied Hal. "Evidently he scents some kind of danger."
He turned to the dog. "What is it, Marquis?" he demanded.

Marquis' only answer was a series of deep growls.

"Germans?" asked Hal.

Marquis uttered a short bark.

"That's what's the matter," said Hal, quietly.

At that moment there came riding down a nearby road a troop of German
cavalry.

"Quick! down on the ground!" cried Hal. "Perhaps they won't see us!"

He suited the action to the word, and Chester and Alexis followed his
example.

But it was too late. The Germans had espied them and now came toward
them at a gallop. Alexis rose to his feet and stretched.

"Another fight," he said. "Good!"

"Fight nothing!" exclaimed Hal. "It's impossible. They have us. That's
all there is about it. We shall have to submit."

The Germans came to a sudden halt a few feet away, and rifles were
brought to bear upon the three friends.

"You are our prisoners!" called the German commander.

CHAPTER VII.

GERMANY'S NAPOLEON.

Hal raised his hands in token of surrender.

"There is no help for it," he said to his two friends in an undertone.

The German commander motioned the three to approach. They did so.

"You will each climb up behind one of my men," ordered the German
leader.

Hal and Chester did as ordered, but when Alexis approached one of the
German horsemen the latter eyed him dubiously.

"Man!" he exclaimed. "You can't ride with me. You would break this horse
in two."

The officer turned to the soldier.

"Give your horse to the prisoner," he commanded, "and you climb up
behind the man nearest you."

The soldier did as commanded, and a moment later Alexis also was in the
saddle. Then the little troop got under way again, headed for the German
lines.

There was no conversation as the little troop rode along, and at length
they were well inside the German trenches. Here, after some delay, the
three prisoners were conducted before General von Hindenburg, the Teuton
commander in the East, a man of kindly face and courteous bearing, the
man whose successes, brief though they were, earned him the name of "The
German Napoleon."

"How comes it," asked General von Hindenburg of Hal, "that you two
American lads are fighting with the Russians? How comes it that two lads
born and reared in a civilized country have espoused the cause of the
barbarians?"

"In the fi