"Will it take us much out of our way to go down by Poulseur?" he asked. "No. Why do you ask?" "I remember a place where a big tree has fallen right across the stream," the lad replied. "We could crawl over it quite easily. I found it, one day, when I was bird's-nesting. I think I can find the spot again." "Good. Now, as little noise as possible. Go round all clearings. Keep your ears wide open. If I stop, you stop. If in danger, don't move; remember that every wild animal's first defense is movelessness." He slipped into the woods. Horace had expected to find the hunchback a retardation to escape, and, in the tunnel, he had wondered whether he would not be wiser, after all, to escape to Holland and thence to America. However, when the boy remembered that the hunchback had saved his life, this idea seemed rank ingratitude. Once on the trail, Horace found to his vast surprise that the shoe was on the other foot. Instead of being compelled to humor his companion and to help him from time to time, the boy had much ado to keep up with his comrade. At a stumbling pace which was neither walk nor run, the hunchback forced his way through bush and shrub, leapt clumsily from stone to stone and kept up a steady, swift gait which kept the boy panting for breath. Safely and without raising the alarm, they reached the fallen tree spanning the river. The former time that Horace had been there, he had been content to lie down and wriggle across, but the hunchback, for all his apparent clumsiness, went across it like a tight-rope walker, and Horace, for very shame, could not do otherwise. The hunchback turned his head over his shoulder--he could do so, in the most uncanny way, without turning his body--and watched him. "Your nerve is good," he grunted, approvingly. They went on at the same swift pace, hour after hour, over stumps, fallen trees, and stones, down gullies and up ridges, all in the black dark, the hunchback scouting in advance. From time to time they crossed a road, and this was done with the utmost circumspection. At last, the chill which heralds the dawn warned them of the dangers of coming daylight. The hunchback commenced to quest about, like a dog seeking the scent. "What are you looking for?" asked Horace. "A place to hide and sleep," Croquier answered. "We won't move by day. A hunchback with a caged eagle accompanied by a boy--oh, no, that would be much too easy to trace! We can only travel by night. Well, we ought to be somewhere near the village of Hamoir. I don't want to be too close. The village might be occupied by the enemy." Presently, with a low exclamation of satisfaction, Croquier called to the lad. "I've found the place," he said. "Let us walk back a little way." "Why?" asked Horace. "You'll see," was all the reply he got. Obediently the lad walked back to the point designated, where a narrow footpath crossed the stream.