“I’ll guard him all right,” said Harding grimly. “I’ll toss him overboard at the first sign of trouble.”
The German appeared to understand the words.
Chester climbed into the front seat with some difficulty because of the lurching of the car as it sped along. In a few words Hal told him of the dispatches the colonel had carried.
“If he had ’em, I’ve got ’em now,” said Chester grimly. “I took everything he had.”
“We can’t stop to see now,” said Hal. “You climb back and tell him we are figuring on him to show us the way to the front direct. If he refuses or plays false, tell him you’ll shoot him.”
Chester clambered back into the tonneau again.
“I agree!” shouted the colonel when Chester told him what he would be expected to do. “And I’ll do better than that. I don’t want to fight any more. I’m tired of it. I am your prisoner, sir, and I wish to be taken into your lines as such.”
“That sounds pretty fishy to me,” said Chester.
“But it is true,” protested the German, “and I will show you the way through the German lines.”
There was something so apparently sincere in the German’s words, that Chester climbed back and again held counsel with Hal. The result of this was that the German colonel was transferred to the front seat, and Chester sat close behind him with a revolver at his back.