The aeroplane, camouflaged as an American machine, had done some signalling, too, but not to the boys from Brighton. Its mission in descending almost to earth behind the wood had been to make the presence of the Americans known to a small detachment of Germans which somehow had escaped detection in remaining there, and which had been waiting for darkness to fall, in order to make an effort to skirt the long American lines and join their own, further on. And while Sergeant Tom Walton and Privates Ollie Ogden and George Harper were down in the dug-out, totally ignorant of what was going on above, half a dozen of these Germans had crept up and concealed themselves in positions most advantageous to the capture of the Americans. The three youths had not moved fifty feet from the dug-out when without the slightest warning, or time in which to fight back, they found themselves entirely surrounded, a bayonet point jabbing the stomach and back of each of them. There was absolutely nothing they could do but surrender, and this they did at the command of the officer in charge,—a lieutenant of cavalry, as the lads noted from his uniform and insignia. “A fine mess we’re in now,” Tom ejaculated, as their guns were taken from them and they were instructed to march ahead of their captors. “Wonder where we’re bound for?” Ollie whispered in reply. “Some place where they’ve got some eats, I hope,” George Harper summed up, and as the first shadows of night began to fall they were herded into the Germans’ hiding place, where they found a dozen more Huns. Preparations of some sort were going forward, but to the extreme disappointment of the famished youths it was apparent that it was not for the serving of food. And it was not long before they became aware that they were in for what looked like a long and fatiguing march, although they had not eaten for many hours. “Well,” said Ollie, when that matter seemed settled beyond all hope or doubt, “we ought to be glad they didn’t shoot us, anyway.” The sharp glance of a German near them was sufficient to warn them against any further conversation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIV JOHN BIG BEAR—SCOUT BY short stretches the Germans and their three American prisoners had been pushing forward now for nearly two hours. The Huns were not in ignorance of their own danger of capture, and their progress was made with the utmost caution, the major number, with Tom, Ollie and George, forming a central party, ahead of, behind and on either side of which scouts reconnoitered constantly to avoid contact with American outposts.