Alan was very much disappointed that things turned out so and tossed back his head to conceal his chagrin. As he did so his eye caught sight of something strange in the bushy tree-top directly above their heads.
“Look, boys, isn’t that a little house up there?” he cried, pointing.
As he did so there came a chorus of guttural exclamations from the concealing leaves up above, and, before the startled Airship Boys had time to do more than scramble to their feet, at least a dozen shaggy-bearded German soldiers, in ragged, dirt-stained gray uniforms, came sliding one after another down the surrounding tree-trunks.
“Hands up!” roared one who seemed to be in command, and, even though he spoke in German, there was no mistaking the meaning of the musket barrels pointed threateningly at the three boys.
CHAPTER XI
THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST
For an instant the heart of each boy stood still. Then things began to happen. Ned shot straight from his hip, the revolver bullet tearing its way straight through his coat pocket and wounding the nearest soldier.
Buck grappled closely with the soldier closest to him, beat down the threatening gun muzzle, felt the discharge scorch his leg in passing, and rolled over and over on the ground, arms interlocked in deadly combat.
Alan sprang behind the nearest tree and opened fire on the assailants, with a revolver in each hand spitting lead as fast he could pull the trigger.
Muskets belched flame and smoke in a half-circle around them, but Ned was safely behind a sheltering tree-trunk before the deadly leaden hail could reach him. Another soldier fell, howling with pain, and a third clapped one hand to his shoulder where a well-sped bullet from Alan’s revolver had lodged. The Germans took shelter behind adjacent trees, as the boys had done, and only Buck and his opponent still rolled out, exposed to fire. Yet neither the boys or the Germans dared shoot at the struggling men for fear of wounding one of their own party.