Clem wondered at first whether the method would prove successful. It loomed up like a large undertaking, considering the distance. Would it not be better to just march right up on the spies and trade gun-fire with them, if need be? But the farther the boys progressed the more Clem became convinced that this was the only means of surprising the enemy. The nature of the ground was such that any one walking boldly up could have been seen first by the spies, and held up or shot. Fortunate, indeed, was it that this fellow Duncan was on the hill. Truly a wonderful chap when it came to this sort of thing. Slowly they went, on hands and knees, for another fifty feet or more, stopping every little while to listen, and Duncan made a soft twittering sound exactly like the little bird in the thicket below. Presently he rose cautiously to take a look and get the bearings, after which he turned and put his lips to Clem’s ear. “Man on watch about a hundred feet from us, sitting on a rock. He don’t look this way. I think I’d better edge off a little and work around so as to come up on the other chap, and you work up nearer this one, behind the thicket. When I yell he’ll turn and then you’ve got him. Wait till I yell.” There is little doubt that this plan would work out well. The German mind can not cope in matters of woodcraft and ambush with that of an American backwoodsman. Duncan wormed himself away and Clem could not detect a sound made in his progress. Hardly more than fifteen minutes would be required for him to gain his object, but in less than five minutes a whistle sounded up the hill. The watcher ran that way and there was the buzz of a self-starter and the whir of a motor. Before the bushwhackers had time to collect their senses the long car, with its lights on, was running back across the field. Duncan joined Clem. “Rotten luck! But glad you didn’t shoot. And say, they’ve got to go slow over and around those rocks. Can’t we head ’em off if we go down the hill straight toward the foot of the lane? How’re your legs?” “I’m with you!” announced Clem, and together, with the easy, long-stepping lope of the runner trained in the woods, the two set off, leaping over the obstacles in their way, dodging around boulders and thicket patches, and making good time in spite of the uneven ground. But they had not covered a third of the distance and had several hundred yards yet to go when they saw that the chase was hopeless. The car had made far better time than they had believed possible and when it reached the head of the lane it turned and shot like an arrow down the hill. The boys stopped and gazed in bitter disappointment after the retreating foemen. “I wish we had sailed into them up yonder,” Clem said. “Gettin’ shot ourselves would have been worse than this,” Duncan argued. “Say, look, they’ve stopped! About where your car is!” Clem exclaimed. “Maybe we can--”