“That’s old Jock! Something terrible is happening. Here!” Brand thrust the automatic into Dave’s hand. “You know how to use it. Press the handle, that’s all. March him down into the pasture. Don’t hesitate to shoot. This is war—our war!” He was gone. As he dashed through the brush, Brand felt his blood fairly boiling in his veins. “If anything serious has happened to good old Jock,” he thought savagely, “if one of those devils harms the old man I’ll tear him to pieces with my bare hands!” Since no further sound reached him, guided only by that one agonizing roar, he made his way as best he could along the slope. Then breaking through a cluster of young beech-trees, he stopped short to stare. The little tableau before him seemed unreal. It might have been taken from some picture. A young man dressed in civilian clothes, minus a coat, lay flat upon the ground. His eyes gleaming, white teeth showing in a snarl, a golden collie lay with his fore-paws on the prostrate man’s chest. Over them, leaning on his crutch, towered a great gray-haired one-legged Scot. He was saying: “Keep ’im Flash! Don’t ye let ’im stir an inch!” At the same moment, from the pasture below came the confused murmur of many voices. This was followed by a shout: “Come on, men. They’re ’iding up ’ere somewheres!” _Chapter IV_ Hans Schlitz While the sound of voices from below grew louder, Jock said in a steady voice: “He was changin’ to civies.” “His uniform must be hidden somewhere close,” suggested Dave. “Aye. That it must,” Jock agreed. Brand was not long in locating the uniform half hidden by dead leaves. In a pocket he found an automatic. “It’s good he didn’t have that in his hand,” said the sturdy Scot, “else I shouldn’t ha’e been here. I caught him doin’ the lightnin’ change act. “Plannin’ to do the spy act, eh?” He spoke to the man on the ground. The answer was a surly curse. “All right.” Brand spoke quietly to the dog. “Let him up.” Flash looked at Jock, read an answer in his eyes, then left his post. “Get up.” There was a sound like clinking steel in the English lad’s voice. “He knocked me over,” Jock explained quietly. “That was easy enough, an’ me with but one leg. Then he went on to finish me off. He’s got astonishin’ strong hands, that lad has. He’s all for shakin’ a man. If it hadn’t been fer good auld Flash now—” “He would have killed you.” Chilled hate was in Brand’s voice. All of a sudden hands parted the branches of a small oak and there stood the brawny blacksmith from Warmington, the village below Ramsey Farm. He carried an antique fowling-piece. “So you got one of ’em? That’s grand, me boys!” he approved. “Where now would you say the others be?” By that time a dozen members of the Home Guard had gathered in. “My friend from America, David Barnes, has one of them just up here a little way,” Brand replied. “I’ll say you’ve done a fine job of it,” the blacksmith approved.