I was lying on my stomach, looking and listening, and trying to make out which was south, but with neither moon or stars visible, I could only guess. I was in a quandary. It would not do to blunder, for fear of getting caught, which was likely enough with the country swarming with Boches. I finally made up my mind to reach the bridge once more, and get the points of the compass thereby. I walked for a long distance without seeing the bridge, which I had thought to be near me. Was it possible that they had removed it? I was lying in the grass thinking it over, when I heard the roar of wheels and the tramping of men on what I knew must be the bridge; but it was in a different direction from what I thought it to be. I waited an hour until the sounds died entirely away. Then I crept cautiously to the bridge to get my bearings. I had approached the bridge through the field, mostly on my hands and knees, and was about to get to my feet, when I saw--or did I only imagine it?--a dark figure slowly moving on the road, occasionally stopping as though to look or listen. I saw this figure so indistinctly that, as I have said, I at times questioned its reality. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud, and I no longer doubted. It was a man. And I had but little doubt that it was a German soldier who had been left behind to hunt me down. I moved cautiously, crouching in the short grass, observing the movements of the man, and dreading lest he had spied me out as I had him. Then he suddenly disappeared from view. I waited awhile; then, not seeing him, I began cautiously to move along the field parallel with the road, occasionally stopping to look and listen. At last, believing the course to be clear, I walked as fast as my feet could carry me, though still keenly observant with eyes and ears, of everything near me. Again I heard a rustling sound near by which sent me crouching to the ground again. But, seeing and hearing nothing more, I went forward again, and again dropped to the ground to listen. Then I heard a loud, hoarse whisper, which, but for the words distinctly enunciated, I should have mistaken for the wind in the tree tops: “Stark! Stark! David!” I did not trust my senses, for my imagination had deceived me more than once in my life when under excitement, and might again be deluding me. From the shadows again came the whisper--“Dave! Dave! Dave! Is it you?” I sprang up, and there stood erect a form I could mistake for no one else than my comrade, Gordon. In another moment we had clasped hands. So deep had been my emotions of fear and hope during that short interval of suspense, that I could only thank God for that which had seemed to be peril, was the reverse. “It won’t do to talk here,” he said; “let us get back into the field.” CHAPTER XXIV LOOSE AMONG THE BOCHES