As this continued, and the distance covered made it seem as though they must now be paralleling, if not actually already by, the American lines, the youths became more and more depressed. The aeroplanes passed above them without knowing they were there, and thus far not a single American patrol had been encountered. The outlook was not encouraging. It began to look as though Tom Walton, George Harper and Ollie Ogden were to be ushered out of hostilities and into a German prison camp for the duration of the war. Without a spoken word, but in glances as eloquent as any speech, the young men questioned one another as to the possibilities of escape; but though each cast about desperately in quest of what might look like the slightest promise or the smallest opportunity, none presented, and the three tramped on, striving to go along so quietly and unobtrusively as to allay all suspicion upon the part of their captors that they might even be contemplating escape. Each felt that if they could succeed in this, then the Germans might become less watchful, and perhaps, later on, when the Huns were more weary with their tramp and constant caution of attracting attention to themselves, they might drop behind and not be missed until they had made good their escape. Optimism is an American characteristic, but particularly it prevails in the happy, care-free, sturdy American youth, and these three lads were of the sturdiest stock and could trace their forebears back to Revolutionary times. It is good, too, that invariably with optimism goes courage and self-possession, or Sergeant Tom Walton might have gasped out his astonishment, or cried out in involuntary consternation, when he happened to glance upward just as a Boche in front of him struck a match to light his pipe. There in the branches of a tree just above him, almost near enough for him to have touched it with a slight jump, a face peered down at him! It was all in the space of a few seconds, but as the man there in the branches stared back at him, not a muscle of his countenance moving, his eyes blinking ever so slightly from the sudden flare of light from the match, Tom recognized in that swarthy personage one whom he knew—a man of iron strength, of indomitable will, of almost uncanny ability in following a trail—John Big Bear, Indian scout for Uncle Sam, one time crack rider and dead shot with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West!