"He's got me," yelled a cursing voice. "I'll get you all, if you don't stop shooting and come out," warned Overton coolly. He could hear the wounded man moving rather swiftly through the corn. "He ought to leave a trail of blood," thought Hal, swiftly, and turned his attention to the next enemy. But that man had stopped his firing. Then Hal turned his rifle in the direction of the flashes from the pistol farthest away. Bang! He sent one shot there, and the shooting of the unknown stopped. [Illustration: Hal Dropped to One Knee.] Private Overton, however, could not know whether he had hit the fellow. "That fellow in the middle may be left yet," breathed Hal Overton, "I'll find out." He had three shots yet left in his magazine, and his piece was at cock. Rising, he made swiftly for the corn, and dived in. "Back for your life!" sounded a voice straight ahead. Crack! crack! Two pistols shots fanned his face. But Hal took another running bound forward, preferring to reserve his fire until he could catch a good glimpse of the fellow's body. "Back, you fool!" hissed the voice, followed by two more shots. "Come out with your hands up, or I'll get you!" Hal retorted. Instead, the unknown and unseen turned and ran some fifty feet. Hal pursued, without shooting. Crack! crack! For an instant Hal felt almost dizzy with sudden dread, for those flashes seemed almost to smite him in the face. Yes, he was afraid, for a brief space. The coward is not the man who is afraid, but the man who allows his fear to overmaster him. "Fire again," yelled Hal, "and I'll know just where to send a bullet." As he rushed onward he came out of the corn patch. Fifty feet further on he saw the fugitive, just dropping to the ground at the roots of a tree. Crack! crack! crack! Lying on the ground, his head hardly showing beyond the roots, the fugitive was now in excellent position to stop the young sentry's rush. Whizz--zz! whizz--zz! Click! Two of the speeding bullets flew past Hal's head. The third struck and glanced off the rifle butt just as Hal, dropping to one knee, was raising the piece to his shoulder to sight. Bang! That was Hal's rifle, again in action. He had aimed swiftly, but deliberately, for the base of the tree. Against the military rifle of to-day an ordinary tree offers no protection. The American Army rifle, at short range, will send a bullet through three feet of green oak. "Wow!" yelled the other. Though Hal did not then know it, the bullet had driven a handful of dirt into the fellow's mouth. Hal could hear the rascal spitting, so he called: "Come on out and surrender, and I won't fire again." "You go to blazes!" yelled an angry voice. Muffled as the voice was, it had a strangely familiar sound to the young soldier. Hal seized the chance to fill his magazine as he shot the bolt back. He slipped another cartridge into the chamber. From the sounds beyond he knew that his enemy was also reloading.