In the village of Petit-Bois, on the street leading to the church, lived a grocer named Adler, a German by birth, who had plied his trade there for almost ten years before the war forced him to leave French territory. He was not kept away for long, however, for within a few weeks his countrymen had overrun Belgium and enough of northern France to include Petit-Bois, so Herr Adler came back and resumed business, with more Germans than French now for customers. He was a widower and lived alone until his uncle and aunt had come to Petit-Bois a month ago to keep him company. The grocery had become prosperous of late, since the victorious army had trebled the population of the village, and the grocer was glad of help in the time his uncle could spare from his work as company cook in an Infantry regiment. He was pleased also at having for lodger a relative in the army. Adler's aunt sat mostly in her room over the grocery knitting socks, except when she was called to wait upon customers in the shop.

She was seated there now in the early winter afternoon, the needles moving swiftly in her nimble fingers, though her eyes were not on her work but turned toward the window through which bare branches showed, and low, red roofs beneath the sullen, cloudy sky. Elizabeth was paler and thinner than she had been when the Gordons last saw her, and her face was serious and sad as she looked off into the distance. It was not her journeyings since leaving America that had wearied her—the journey into Mexico, the long sea voyage from Santa Cruz to Copenhagen, and again the tedious way from Denmark into Germany. It was the weeks passed in her native land which had done most to sadden her cheerful spirit.

The month she had spent in Germany had been strangely hard, and lately she had stayed more and more at work by herself, absorbed in perplexing and anxious thoughts. The grief and suffering she saw daily about her, without power to alleviate it, hurt her kind heart, and the great war seemed further than ever from her simple understanding. She saw Karl filling once more a humble place in Germany's mighty army, with a steadily growing pride in the victorious onslaught of which he had become a part. She heard the name of Germany and of German conquest on every tongue, or saw a silent witness of it in the vanquished people around her, and still her heart did not feel that overpowering thrill at her country's greatness that in Karl had been so quickly awakened. Elizabeth went among the Germans of the village and spoke with them in her native tongue. She worked willingly at warm garments for the soldiers and helped her nephew at every opportunity, but with a quiet sadness and reserve that any one who had known the old Elizabeth would have quickly wondered at.

The neighbors often asked her about her life in America, usually with bitter words and marveling at her safe return.

"How fortunate you were, Frau MÜller, to get off so easily! I suppose our poor countrymen are suffering much at the hands of the Yankees now. Did you contrive long for your escape?"

Elizabeth had smiled the first time such questions were put to her, and had told frankly of the freedom with which she and Karl had left America. But later she did not go into such details, for she saw that she was not fully believed and that, moreover, her story lost interest since it contained no accusations against America.

She had heard before in Germany words of suspicion and dislike expressed against England, and she had not been familiar enough with England or English people to resent or disbelieve them. But she had spent a good part of the last twenty years in America, and had known too much happiness and kind companionship there to feel indifferent when malicious lies were told about its people. She had lived, too, much of that time, in the army, and knew enough of its officers and soldiers and their families not to be deceived into believing them greedy, money-mad or bloodthirsty, according to the imagination of her informer.

This sort of stupid abuse made Elizabeth acutely unhappy, and hurt her confidence in her native land, for which she had long had the tenderest affection. So rather than engage in arguments with strangers she remained alone a good part of the time and worked peacefully at her sewing and knitting, hoping, with as much cheerfulness as she could summon, for better days to come.

She was pondering again over these troubling thoughts as she sat by the window, deeply wishing that she could go back to her native town in Bavaria and talk to the old pastor she had known in her youth. He had never outgrown for her the wisdom she had seen in him when he had married her to Karl, with much kind and shrewd advice for both of them. She smiled at the thought of it as she bent over the heel of her sock. Suddenly heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and the door was opened. Elizabeth looked up in surprise.

"Is it you, Karl, home so early?" she asked as her husband came quickly in and crossed the room to her side.

He wore the German private's gray uniform as cook to an Infantry company, and his rather stout figure had trimmed down wonderfully since he put it on. He looked almost young and soldierly. But his face just now was red and hot, and his black eyes blazed with excitement.

"Whom do you think I have seen?" he shouted, pointing a shaking finger at his wife as though to assure her earnest attention. "I have seen a spy from the American army across there with the French, and whom do you think it was? It was Bob Gordon!"

Elizabeth turned deathly pale. Her knitting slipped unnoticed from her hands and she stared at Karl speechlessly until he shook her by the shoulder, crying:

"Come! Don't be so stupid! I want that picture you have of him. Where is it? I must show it to my captain, so he will be convinced it is the right man when we have taken him. He was wandering about the border of the village, just entering it. He has got across the lines somehow, in a farmer's old clothes. Pretty smart! But not so smart that I didn't recognize him—our fine young officer! He won't get back so easily, for I have sent warnings to all the pickets beyond the wood."

Karl was fairly quivering with eagerness. He saw glory awaiting him around the corner—the precious words of praise from his superior, the possible decoration, which are life itself to the zealous German soldier, and which he puts before every impulse of humanity or independence.

"Hurry!" he urged angrily, astonished at Elizabeth's white-faced silence. "I want to take him on the road by the fortifications. Think what it means to us who were half accused of being friendly to America! Could there be better proof than this of our loyalty?"

Elizabeth's pale lips could hardly form the words she tried to utter. Her throat choked her, but desperately she strove against the horror that seized her and pleaded tremblingly, "Oh, Karl, not a spy—not a spy!"

Karl frowned, staring at her with hard eyes, but she faltered, "You won't give him up, Karl? Not Mr. Bob, our old friend!"

"What else would I do?" Karl demanded, thrusting out both arms in an excited gesture. "Would you have me betray the Fatherland?"

Elizabeth found her tongue at last and rose to face her husband. Her thin face was flushed and her eyes shining.

"Karl, it is not only you who love Germany," she said earnestly. "I would not betray her to our enemies, but, Karl, you know well that there is nothing here for Mr. Bob to learn. Only the fortifications are secret, and he will never be allowed near them by the guard. You know they would shoot him before he reached them, as they shot that poor, deaf old man the other day. Tell him to go, Karl. Tell him never, on his word, to spy again, as the price of his safety. No, wait," she begged, as Karl showed impatient signs of interrupting her. "Do it for the debt we owe America. Have you forgotten the long, happy years we spent there? Often I think of my kind mistress and of Mr. Bob when he was a little child. Do you remember the day long ago when he fell off his horse, how you picked him up and carried him in the house? You were pale that day yourself, and when he opened his eyes you said, 'Thank God.' You were very ill ten years ago, when the Major had you cared for like his friend and your life was saved. Don't we owe them anything, Karl, that you are so ready to harm them?"

Karl's brows had unbent a little as he listened to Elizabeth's plea, and when he answered it was less arrogantly, though his voice was still hard and self-assured.

"Yes, wife, I know. But you reason stupidly. I cannot make you see beyond your finger-tips. Our service in America was good, and we were friends with the Major's family. I served him faithfully. But now we are at war, and Germany's enemies are ours. I am now a soldier and Mr. Bob is a soldier, too. That is an end to all talk of friendship. Keep your pity for our own people, and forget all gratitude to those who are against us. America and the sons of America are less than nothing to you now."

Karl's face was set, and his eyes gleamed at thought of the praise and honor awaiting him with Bob's capture. No persuasion on earth could have turned him aside from his purpose, and to his excited mind it lost all trace of selfish ambition and became the loftiest patriotism.

Elizabeth closed her lips despairingly and looked at him with sad eyes. But his forbearance was now quite at an end.

"Give me the picture!" he cried, shaking her thin shoulder. "Must I treat you roughly to get it? Where is your obedience?"

Elizabeth made no more protests. She walked with heavy steps to the old bureau and pulled open a drawer. From the depths of a worn leather pocketbook she drew out the little photograph and, without one glance at it, handed it to her husband.

Karl snatched it eagerly from her hand, and looked at it closely, holding it to the light. He started to tear off the figures of Lucy and William, but reflecting that it would be better to show the picture unmutilated, he thrust it quickly inside his blouse and went out of the room.

Elizabeth stood by the bureau motionless for a moment, then mechanically she straightened the crocheted cover where Karl had brushed against it. She had crocheted it herself two years ago at Governor's Island, while Lucy was recovering from the measles, sitting beside her in the darkened room. She went slowly over to the window, staring out unseeingly. In her painful bewilderment she prayed for help and guidance to know what she should do, and as her lips moved she felt her mind made up beyond any faltering.

She turned to the wall where a woolen shawl hung, and, hesitating no longer, took it down and wrapped it about her head and shoulders. Her face was calm and quiet now with the strength of her resolution. She descended to the shop and found Herr Adler seated there, casting up his accounts, for it was Saturday afternoon.

"Good-day, Aunt," he nodded, raising his blond head at sight of her. "Will you stay here for a while and attend to the customers while I do my figuring? My uncle has gone off somewhere in a great hurry."

"First I must go out and see Frau Bauer," said Elizabeth, smiling pleasantly at her nephew. "I promised to come before the week is out. In half an hour I will be back and help you gladly." She replaced a few potatoes which had fallen from the basket and walked out into the street. Once outside she quickened her pace a little and turned off in the direction of the fortified road behind the village.

Bob had lingered in the woods a while after putting on the peasant's clothes, trying to feel at home in them before he showed himself in the village. But the disguise was complete enough to any one unfamiliar with his face, and sure to escape notice by its very commonplaceness.

"If they see that you are a stranger they will take you for a marketer from the countryside," the old Frenchman had assured him. "They come from a day's journey off now, because the land is untilled beneath the shell-fire, north and south of us."

Bob entered Petit-Bois about noon, skirting the edge of it until he could get enough idea of its streets to seem passably familiar with the ones leading to the farther end of the village. His cap was pulled down over his eyes, and his clumsy shoes no longer impeded his steps as they had done at first. He bent his shoulders forward too, with a suggestion of physical unfitness.

Thrusting his hands into his pockets he walked along at a good rate on a pretty, tree-bordered street, until he reached the center of the village with its shops and red-roofed houses, one or two of them damaged by shell-fire, beyond which the little, spired church showed against the gray sky. Not many people were on the streets and the few were mostly German soldiers off duty, wearing an air of self-importance which contrasted strongly with the hasty and anxious looks of the French women, children and occasional men who went about such business as they had. What might have marked Bob out for notice was his fresh color and the clear eyes shaded beneath his cap, for terror and privation had taken the healthy bloom from the French country-folk, and even the children wore a serious, apprehensive look as they hurried by, wrapped in their scanty shawls against the biting air.

Bob did not linger, having no desire to remain in a crowd, and possessed by one idea—to see all he could and get away as soon as possible. He went on up the street, passed the church, and turning into a lane found himself presently at the eastern end of the village. Along its outskirts a road ran at right angles to the principal street, and as Bob reached it he saw, to his discomfort, a German sentry walking guard. Beyond the little grove of oaks just back of the road Bob's fancy pictured with eager certainty one of the concrete block-houses, or machine-gun emplacements that formed the projected second line of defense. He stepped out on to the road and immediately received a threatening gesture of the sentry's bayonet, eloquent enough, though the man was some distance from him, accompanied by a thumb pointed vigorously back in the direction of the village. Bob turned unwillingly into the lane again, frowning at the oak grove before he strolled slowly away from it.

"Fine chance I have of seeing anything," he thought, fuming, as he shuffled along. "I don't make a very dangerous spy."

He returned to the church, found a second by-way and made for another part of the forbidden road. This way was not so deserted as the lane he had left, and as he passed a dozen people he quickened his pace a little, thinking his idle wandering might look suspicious. He was the less conspicuous, though, as many of the villagers were wandering about themselves with little object. Their livelihood gone, their hearts wrung with grief or anxiety, they seemed to have little purpose in their actions, and those who met Bob's eyes looked at him with dull indifference, or at most with a mild curiosity. The German soldiers left them unmolested, so far as Bob could see. Even the most brutal, he guessed, had seen enough of abusing an unarmed and helpless population. Once an officer passed quickly by, having the whole road to himself by unanimous consent of the other pedestrians. He was a tall, powerful-looking man, a captain, as Bob saw by a glance at his shoulder. It went severely against the grain to salute him, but Bob could not risk being brought into notice by a reprimand and he raised his hand briskly with the others. The officer did not condescend to return the salute, but his eyes passed over Bob's shabby figure indifferently, which was all Bob wanted.

As he neared the road again he peered across it as well as he could before coming under the sentry's gaze, and to his delight he saw plainly a square, white spot rising slightly from the ground in the moss among the tree-trunks. He hastily calculated the distance between this lane and the other and decided that the block-houses were at least a hundred yards apart. His sketches made from the airplane were fairly accurate, and would be of great service when the looked-for retreat commenced from the hard-pressed German lines before the village. He was consumed with a desire to get nearer the road, but the few houses along the lane had already ended, and it was empty except for himself. He felt that it would be going too far to show himself again to the sentry appearing from a second deserted road. To the left he heard the sound of drums and caught sight of a big farmhouse not far off, which, to judge from the crowd of soldiers gathering about its yard, had been turned into a barracks.

It was, of course, something to have verified his observations of the morning, and he had a pretty good idea of what protection the houses of the village would afford an army defending the second line, but Bob was far from satisfied as he once more neared the church. He glanced up at the spire, wondering if by hook or by crook, or by any of those marvelous schemes that seem easy enough when you read about them, he could get up inside the belfry and use the glasses carefully hidden under his blouse. While he gazed up, blinking at the mist-covered sun, a hand laid quickly on his arm made him jump in spite of all his self-control. He turned, expecting he knew not what, to see a thin, little woman with a shawl drawn like a hood over her face.

A house close by them had been partly shattered by shell-fire, and a gaping hole still showed in the wall. "Come in here," she whispered, and drew Bob inside the wrecked door out of sight of passers-by.

"Mr. Bob," said Elizabeth, pushing back her shawl and showing her haggard, frightened face. "Oh, Mr. Bob, why did you come here? Go quickly away, I beg you—for your mother's sake!"

"Elizabeth!" said Bob, staring unbelievingly at the troubled face before him. Then as the shock of her recognition of him outweighed his curiosity he asked, bewildered, "Who knows I am here? Have you told any one?"

"Karl saw you," said Elizabeth, wringing her hands in her helpless terror. "He will give you up, Mr. Bob, but I could not stay and nothing do after he told me. Your mother's eyes came sorrowfully before me, and I must help you if I can. But, oh, Mr. Bob, if without your uniform they take you! Get back while yet there is time, if some way you know!"

"Karl—here? What a chance!" Bob muttered, his brain on fire now with the impulse of his desperate need.

"It is not chance, Mr. Bob," said Elizabeth heavily. "His regiment was here sent when the Americans joined the French across the line. Karl could choose this or one other regiment, but here he came because my nephew asked him. You will believe me?" Her face was beseeching in its tearful earnestness, lest Bob should not take her warning with instant seriousness.

"Oh, I believe you, Elizabeth—it isn't that!" Bob assured her, darting a glance into the street. "Thank you a thousand times," he stammered, clasping her hands with more fervent gratitude than his hurried words could speak. "Good-bye!"

Elizabeth held him back for an instant. "Oh, Mr. Bob, nothing try against the German army!" she entreated. "They are too strong. Now go, and God go with you."

The street was almost empty. Bob reached it unnoticed and crossed swiftly to the lane from which he had caught a glimpse of the German barracks a quarter of an hour before. He had observed that it ran through the length of the village obliquely parallel with the principal street. At a guess it should come out nearer by half a mile to the north end of the meadow than the way by which he had entered. He began walking down it swiftly, but fear urged him on until his feet would no longer keep the ground. He darted furtive looks around him and saw no passers-by. The scattered houses were closed, too, against the raw, misty air. He broke into a gentle run and reached the village outskirts in ten minutes. Where the lane ended the meadows began, and for a moment Bob paused, uncertain, looking about him at the brown fields and the trees with sombre, bare branches against the gloomy sky. The woods stretched beyond, and to these Bob raised his eyes and saw a splotch of green among the winter bareness. It was the little wood of firs among which Benton lay hid. Bob sprang forward and crossing the first field at a leisurely walk, in case curious eyes were at any of the windows behind him, he descended a little knoll and then, stretching his long legs, broke into a run that would have won him trophies on any athletic field.

For a mile and a half he ran on, over fields and through thickets, steering wide from any signs of habitation, until his breath began to fail and his legs to ache and stumble. But on he went, until the woods closed in and, close at hand, he saw the little thatched shed whose safe haven meant more than anything in the world to him just then—refuge from certain death.

He darted in the narrow doorway and dropped, gasping, on the earthy floor. But only for a moment. The next he was tearing off the shabby, old garments he wore and searching in the dim corner for his precious discarded uniform. Five minutes later—never did he think he could have dressed so quickly—he stood up, once more an American officer.

Discovery he felt to be inevitable, for Karl must have been hot upon his trail when Elizabeth warned him—and he was barely half a mile from Benton's hiding-place. The search would be complete, but by getting further off he would lessen the chance of giving away his comrade with him, and making him the victim of his own rashness. He went out, stepping cautiously, and seeing all clear, walked quickly into the woods toward the German line. He had got no further in his plan than this—to be taken far off to the right, beyond the grove of firs. But as he walked wearily on, he tried vainly to think of some way out, some place of concealment that German sagacity could not fathom. He thought vaguely, too, of home, and wished that he were back there. The words of an old song came into his mind:

"Do they miss me at home, do they miss me,
When the shadows darkly fall?"

He shook his head, trying hard to think to some purpose. The sound of the guns was nearer now, and the detonations distracted him as he tried to locate them. He thought he was within five miles of the German trenches. He listened intently, trying to find his direction, when crackle—crash! sounded the breaking twigs and brushwood back of him. He wheeled around and met the barrel of a German rifle with a stocky infantryman behind it.

Bob felt almost calm now that it had actually happened. He nodded to the soldier and, at a sharp signal, turned his back, raising his arms above his head. His pistol was jerked from his belt, his pockets quickly searched, then the soldier gave an order, motioning him to go on. He led the way, and the two soon emerged from the wood and began skirting the meadow. Bob had a part to play in the eyes of this silent and stolid Teuton. He represented America, and she was going to be represented worthily, whatever despondency and dread might in reality clutch at the heart of her son. About half a mile down the field an officer was seated on a rock with a little group of soldiers about him. Bob guessed that this was the main base of the searching party Karl had instituted.

Karl was evidently taking part in the hunt, for he was not in sight, but as he drew nearer another figure brought Bob's heart into his mouth. Almost a groan escaped him. Benton was a prisoner like himself, and lost, with all his matchless skill, to the American flying corps.

Bob cast one remorseful look at him, which was returned by an undaunted nod and twinkle from the plucky Westerner, then the officer got up from the rock and strolled in Bob's direction. As he inspected the insignia on Bob's uniform he made a slight, stiff bow, which Bob returned. The German was a lieutenant like himself, a slender, fair man with keen, blue eyes and set lips.

"You are my prisoner, Lieutenant," he said in good English.

Bob made a sign of assent.

"You admit having come down by accident with Captain Benton this morning?"

"Yes," said Bob briefly.

"You were seen near the village and taken while walking in the woods. Did you expect to get away if nobody appeared to be in sight?"

"We hoped to get back across the lines after dark," said Bob, wishing he could talk to Benton.

"You will be taken into the town for examination directly. Have you any request to make?"

"No, thank you," said Bob. The officer turned away, and Bob was led by the guard to a place beside the rock, where he sidled along in the course of a few minutes until he could mumble a word near Benton's ear. The pilot spoke over his shoulder.

"Awfully sorry, Gordon, to have got you into this."

"Why, it's my fault," said Bob.

"No, it isn't. They saw us come down. They've been trying to locate our descent all day. They got me about an hour after you left, and before this search began. Don't know what started that."

The guard pushed in between the two, shutting off any further communication, and the little group formed in double lines, the prisoners in the center, for the march to the village.

Bob caught sight of Karl now, standing a short way off in excited conversation with a non-commissioned officer. He felt a sudden, unreasoning anger at sight of the familiar face and unfamiliar gray-uniformed figure of the man he had so long regarded as a harmless and friendly dependent. But recognizing the hard fortunes of war he turned his eyes resolutely away.

Karl, indeed, was quite willing to keep out of Bob's vicinity. Not all his pride and self-importance could make him look forward to such a meeting with any enjoyment. Just now he was fully taken up by the argument with his superior.

"You say when you saw him at the outskirts of the village he was dressed in peasant's clothes, MÜller?" inquired the Feldwebel or Sergeant, dubiously. "The man is certainly in uniform now. The mist befogged your eyes. That muddy colored cloth they wear may look like anything at a distance." The Sergeant was milder than he might ordinarily have been at Karl's mistake because he belonged to the company Karl cooked for, and had enjoyed better meals lately than for a year past.

Karl hesitated, longing to insist, but not wishing to presume too far. He had won praise already for revealing the presence of another man after Benton was taken.

"We searched the village from end to end at your direction," the Sergeant continued. "He was not in it, naturally, as he was in these woods. That'll do, MÜller. The squad is ready to move."

In an hour the two prisoners were in the house requisitioned in the village by the Regimental Commander. There they were separated. Bob was asked a few perfunctory questions by several officers in turn, relating to his rank, his corps, and his intention in making the morning's flight. He managed to reply with enough vagueness to give no information, and they stopped short of questions which he must refuse to answer. Before long they withdrew and left him alone. He stood forlornly by the window, watching the winter twilight close in and lights spring up through the village, when the door opened, and, to his delight, Benton came toward him.

"I have only a minute," he said quickly. "They told me I could say good-bye, but to cut it short."

"Good-bye?" echoed Bob, feeling his heavy heart sink still lower. "They aren't going to separate us, Benton?"

"Yes." Benton frowned, all the bitter and helpless disappointment at his capture distorting for an instant his calm face. "They are going to send me up to the Divisional Commander. Whether to present me with the Iron Cross or to show me to a firing squad I haven't yet made out," he muttered. "But anyway you're to be sent on alone, with some French prisoners taken yesterday."

"Oh, Benton, that's tough," sighed Bob, his brave heart quailing for a moment at thought of the lonely captivity before him.

Benton brought back a feeble smile at sight of Bob's black depression. He held out a big hand. "Cheer up! Things might be worse, Bob. Here's hoping for the best."

Bob gave the friendly hand a warm clasp, and took a long, parting look into his comrade's frank, honest face. He thought of the memorable days of work they had spent so companionably together, but more than all, as he let go Benton's hand he seemed to sever the last link that bound him to freedom and America. Then Benton went out, and on his heels came a soldier, holding open the door for the fair-haired young officer, who said curtly:

"Follow me, Lieutenant. You will leave the village in half an hour."