The Khaki Boys over the Top; Or, Doing and Daring for Uncle SamChase, Josephine
History
The Khaki Boys over the Top; Or, Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam
Chase, Josephine
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
"I have been wondering, too," admitted Jimmy. "The disappearance of
Maxwell and the cash is almost as much of a mystery as is Captain
Frank Dickerson."
Twice that day, as they tramped along, seeking in vain for the
American lines, they saw small parties of German soldiers. And on
both occasions the Khaki Boys were fortunate enough to sight the enemy
first, so they could conceal themselves in patches of woods.
They were now in a country where there were larger tracts of forest,
and after coming out of one of these thickets Bob remarked.
"Fellows, do you know what I think?"
"Do you, really?" chafed Roger.
"Do I really what?" asked Bob, a bit disconcerted.
"Think!" exclaimed his chum. "I thought you'd given that up."
"This war is enough to make a chap give it up," Bob agreed. "But
seriously, fellows, I think we're lost--that we've been going around
in a circle, and we aren't any nearer our lines than when we were at
the red mill. Not so near, in fact, for there we knew that some of the
doughboys were not more than a mile away. But here--"
"Bob, I shouldn't be surprised but what you are right!" exclaimed
Jimmy. "It does seem funny that, with all our traveling, we haven't
come to the American lines. They can't be so far away as all this. I
guess we must have traveled in a circle. Pity we haven't a compass."
"Can't you steer by the sun?" asked Franz. "We started south, and if
we keep the rising sun on our left and the setting sun on our right,
we're bound to go south."
"The trouble was yesterday that we didn't see the sun after we started
hiking," declared Jimmy. "It's all right now--we're surely going
south. But how long we can keep it up there's no telling."
"Well, then, as long as we know we're going in the right direction
now, let's double quick and cover as much ground as we can straight
away, before we get turned around again," suggested Roger.
His plan was voted a good one, and the tired young soldiers hurried
on. But to their chagrin it soon became cloudy, and then a mist
settled down obscuring every gleam of sunshine, and they had to
depend on their sense of direction, which, truth to tell, was not very
accurate.
When night came, it found the boys on a lonely stretch of land, partly
bogs, with, here and there, patches of woods. The prospect was most
gloomy, for their food was getting scarce, and they were tired and.
sore. Their wounds, slight as they were, bothered them, and though
none complained, each one would have been glad to be able to slip into
some dugout, no matter how rough, and there rest.
"What shall we do!" asked Jimmy, as it became almost too dark to
proceed along an uncertain path. "Shall we hole in or keep on?"
"It's going to be cold, holing in this night," replied Roger, with a
shiver. "Look at that fog!" he went on, as the mists rolled up from a
swamp. "It goes right through you!"
"Well, then let's keep on walking," said Jimmy, trying to speak
cheerily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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