“I guess this situation is getting on my nerves, all right enough,” he murmured. “My, what wouldn’t I give to be back safe and sound with our boys!” And then he pictured himself safe in the quarters at the abandoned mines. He wondered what his chums had thought concerning his disappearance.
Slowly the night wore away, and at the first streak of dawn Dave arose on the seat of the rowboat and took another look around.
He had been right about the stone buildings in the distance. They were located half-way up the wooded side of a hill and were evidently some ancient castle.
Up and down the stream he noted several villages and towns, but they were all a goodly distance away. Near him seemed to be nothing but the brushwood and trees with some farm lands behind them.
As soon as it became light enough to do so, Dave set to work to push the rowboat still further in among the bushes until it was completely hidden. Then he began a closer inspection of the craft, having noticed that it contained two small lockers, one at the bow and the other under the stern seat. In the bow locker was a small amount of fishing tackle, and this he examined with care.
“If I can’t find anything else to eat, maybe I can catch a few fish,” he thought. “Although how I am going to cook them without being noticed, I don’t know.”
From the bow locker our hero turned to that under the stern seat, and here a pleasant surprise awaited him. The locker contained a bundle rolled up in a raincoat, such as he had seen the German soldiers occasionally wearing.
“That raincoat will help me disguise myself,” he reasoned with satisfaction. “And there, too, is a hat to go with it. Good enough!”
The bundle was done up in an old newspaper tied with a cord; and, undoing this, our hero brought forth several links of smoked bologna, a loaf of fresh bread, and a covered dish filled with potato salad.
It may be surmised that Dave lost no time in supplying himself with an early morning meal, washing it down with a drink from the river. The bologna, although rather highly seasoned, proved to be quite palatable, and the bread was much better than he had seen since becoming a prisoner. The potato salad, too, was very good, even though smelling quite strongly of onions.