The answer was the same that Slim himself had received that night in No Man's Land when the wounded and unconscious Rawle lay bleeding beside him--nothing but absolute silence. A great dread that he could not have defined gripped Jerry's heart. Something had happened to Slim; there was no doubt about that. What was it? Injury? Death? Capture? Again Jerry gave their mutual Brighton signal: "Whip-poor-will." "He can't be entirely out of hearing," he argued. "There's some reason why he doesn't answer." It was fast growing dark. Sliding the pack-set and their other paraphernalia into a little gully which he easily could identify later, but where it would be entirely hidden from the view of anyone else who might chance upon the scene, Jerry set out in search of his friend. It was a difficult task that he set himself, for he knew no more than the general direction that Slim had taken. But remembering that his chum had started off down the ravine, and that his purpose was to reach a higher hill a quarter of a mile away, Jerry took that route, too. Two or three times as he stumbled along he snatched out his pocket searchlight and was about to use it, when some sixth sense, plus the mystery of Slim's absence, prevailed upon him to take his chances in the darkness. Coming out of the ravine, he turned to the left and, by a steep incline, reached a ledge that seemed to be a natural pathway to one of the higher peaks. Suddenly the heart within him seemed to stop beating. Somewhere ahead of him, but seemingly upon a lower level of ground, men were talking! And they were talking in German! As though a bullet had struck him, Jerry dropped forward upon the ground. Grasping the outstretched roots of a tree, he pulled himself up within its heavy black shadow. There, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of attracting attention, he lay and listened. He thanked Brighton then for his understanding of the German language. Slim Goodwin was a prisoner, and those men--how many there were of them he could not tell--were questioning him! Slim was pretending not to understand. Jerry's brain worked rapidly. There was no use of his returning to the wireless and attempting to summon help that way, for even if aid was sent it would be hours before it could arrive, and, presuming that the rescuers could find the spot, there was every likelihood that the Germans would have departed with their prisoner before that time. No, assuredly, if Slim was to be rescued, he, Jerry, must do it. But how? As he lay there thinking, he heard the one who seemed to be the officer in charge order another man to build a fire. As it crackled and began to blaze up, the reflection of the flame gave Jerry their exact location. Also it formed a curtain of light against which it would have been easy for him to have seen any Boche sentinel or outpost, had there been one between him and them.