The man with the setting pole answered him, and even pointed several times in a northwesterly direction, as though assuring him that the place mentioned lay in that quarter.
As though regretting one thing he had done, Thad took out the miniature Stars and Stripes and fastened the little flag to his coat again. He realized that the man would readily guess they were not Germans, and it was better that he know their nationality than to suspect them of being English.
He looked sharply at the emblem, and his heavy eyebrows went up, but he did not say a single word to indicate what he may have thought.
The boys were only too well satisfied that matters should be as they were. They had feared something much worse, and that the soldier would order them to turn back again.
“What did he say about Grevenbroich, Giraffe?” Thad asked, so that the horseman could plainly hear him mention that name.
“Oh! it lies off there some ways,” said the other, also pointing.
“How can it be reached from this road?” further inquired the scout leader.
Giraffe shrugged his shoulders. It was a new habit he had picked up since coming abroad, for over there on the Continent nearly every one depends on contortions of the facial muscles, and movements with the hands and shoulders to add emphasis to what they say, or else take the place of words.
“I couldn’t understand all he said, you know, Thad,” he explained, with a broad grin, “because he speaks such terrible German, not at all like our teachers gave us at school. But as near as I could make out, this road comes to a place inside of a mile or so where it branches in three different directions.”
“Well, now,” said Bumpus, “you wouldn’t dream it was of so much importance.”