As Tom continued on he managed to cast one sidelong glance at the two forms locked together upon the ground. With his powerful left hand John Big Bear, trusty scout for Uncle Sam, had the German in a throat stranglehold, and before the under man could begin to writhe free, or so much as utter a groan, a knife which the Indian held in his uplifted right hand descended with tremendous force and unerring aim. [Illustration: With His Powerful Left Hand John Big Bear had the German in a Throat Stranglehold.] Tom knew that the Hun had died instantly and with only a flash of pain as the steel blade penetrated his heart! Instinctively, rather than by any sound he heard, Tom knew that John Big Bear, as silently as the wild animals he had stalked years before in his native woods in the great northwest of the United States, was approaching again. He gave Ollie the barest nudge, and he in turn relayed the warning to Harper. Tom felt a slight touch upon his arm. It was startling, even uncanny, to know that a man could move so silently and stealthily that he might be right beside one and his presence remain unknown until he, himself, revealed it. In the darkness the Indian pressed a finger against Tom’s lips, then put the automatic pistol which had been the German’s into his hand. “Wait!” was the one word he barely breathed into Tom’s ear, and the latter knew he was only to use the firearm when John Big Bear directed. And he was entirely content to trust to John Big Bear’s judgment in such an emergency as this. A moment later the German who had been stalking along beside George Harper, as the guard on the left, went the way of the Hun before him. Like a panther the Indian leapt upon him, strangling the breath from him and swiftly bearing him to the ground at the same time, and all so silently that no one else was the wiser. Each of the lads realized what they had not before—that it was a crafty determination to learn all that could be taught him about his own work in life, and not any lack either of strength or agility, which had caused the Indian time and again to go down to apparent defeat in wrestling matches with a powerful and practiced Japanese athlete who was a member of Company M in their same regiment. This Jap, descendant of a race of men noted for their agility and wrestling ability, their strength and suppleness and cat-like quickness, was an acknowledged peer of that mat, even among men of his own nationality, but more than once, after he had thrown John Big Bear only with the most evident effort, the lads had seen him look at the Indian in a silent questioning way, unconsciously shaking his head ever so slightly.