To what extent these considerations entered Don Richards’ head are now uncertain; he has never given expression to the incident in full, but it may easily be inferred, judging from the boy’s humanity and right-mindedness, that for a little disinclination held him, perhaps only for the turn of a few seconds; then bold circumstance demanded action. The three men came on up the hill, walking now more and more slowly and finally advancing with some caution. They were easily a hundred and fifty yards away when they halted, facing the spruces. And then the khaki-clad figure deliberately raised its arm and pointed out, with evident care, the precise position of the fortified squad of Americans. It is possible that even then the spy would have got away with his ruse, so earnest had been Lieutenant Whitcomb’s orders to his men. Perhaps Don did not feel exactly bound by these orders; Herbert had frankly admitted that he was independent of the command, though bound by courtesy and necessity to generally act with the squad. Perhaps, under the stress of the moment, Don forgot orders, purposes, strategy. The spy, clad in the uniform of those against whom he was striving, condemned to death by his occupation, the most contemptible and often the most dangerous of enemies, stood there, openly giving information to his friends of that which he had in some way become possessed. It was a sight to make the justice-loving blood of any patriotic lad boil. It is an axiom with the marksman, in warfare as well as in hunting dangerous game, to keep cool and bend all effort on the correct aiming of his weapon. Once before, in the flight of a spy, Don had lost sight of this important rule and his man had escaped. Another, at shorter range, though in the fury of a duel battle, had paid the penalty. And now bitter anger clouded the sighting of the rifle. Indeed, the boy hardly contemplated that he raised his gun, that he glanced along the barrel, or that he pulled the trigger at the supposed moment of seeing his front sights low. He knew, however, that at the crack of the weapon the white-ribboned cap of the spy flew into the air and that at the next instant the fellow was behind a tree, dodging thence to another, his companions with him. The shot was a signal. Herbert had been disturbed by the act of the spy, as had others of the squad; then when Don fired, the jig was up and the Yanks, in their little natural fortress, became this time the aggressors.