Alan and Lucy looked at each other, stirred their cold, cramped limbs and set off in the general direction of the hospital. The short afternoon was fading into twilight and a bleak wind swept the forest branches.
“What on earth is it all about, Alan?” Lucy demanded, and her voice held nothing of Alan’s joyous excitement at the mysterious rendezvous, but only anger and anxiety. “It can’t be anything, anything that we need fear.”
“Fear—no. But I expect it ought to be looked into. If three Boches come together at sound of a whistle and confer in the depths of the forest it isn’t for the sake of upholding the Entente, nor the Star-Spangled Banner.”
“But it might be for the sake of getting around the food restrictions. Father has caught them at that,” said Lucy, desperately unwilling to be alarmed at the fragmentary conversation to which they had just listened.
“Yes, it might be that. In fact it’s likely enough,” assented Alan. “If I’d had another fellow with me instead of you we might have confronted them then and there and demanded an explanation.”
“Oh, but—then we’d never have found out anything,” protested Lucy. “Don’t you think Herr Johann has some good story ready to tell?”
“Perhaps. But I like settling things. Never could wait to puzzle a matter out. Let’s run, Lucy. Aren’t you frozen?”
“Rather,” said Lucy, still thoughtful.
They fell into a jog-trot, for it was hard to run fast among the thickly-planted trees. Alan said in a moment, as though thinking aloud:
“He was certainly taking orders. But orders for what? An uprising? Not likely.”