Beyond the hill and the brook was a wide valley dotted with numerous farms. Here the country was more or less open, and he wondered how he could make another advance. He moved along the brook, and presently came to an old stone bridge, over which ran a fairly good highway.
One side of the bridge was hidden in a mass of bushes, and here the young lieutenant found a fairly good hiding-place. From this he did not dare to venture until darkness had fallen, in the meantime keeping his eyes and ears wide open for the possible appearance of the soldiers who had discovered him. But they did not come that way, and he at last concluded that he must have thrown them off the trail.
It was probably nine o’clock in the evening when Dave resolved to resume his journey westward. He crawled out on the roadway just as a farmer came along driving a box-wagon loaded with barrels.
“I wonder if I dare chance a ride?” he said to himself; and then, as the back of the wagon passed him, he made a quick leap, landing between several barrels. He wormed his way in between the barrels, finally coming to a sitting position well hidden from the farmer, who sat on the front seat driving.
Two hours passed, and in that time the wagon covered a distance of at least twelve miles. The valley with its farms was left behind, and they were beginning to ascend a slight rise of ground. Here there was another patch of woods.
During the ride Dave discovered that one of the barrels in the wagon contained apples and another pears, and he appropriated as much of this fruit as he wished to eat.
“Get up there, you!” cried the farmer in German to his team. “We’ll soon be there now, and I’ll be glad of it. This has been a long drive.”
Dave could see that they were approaching some sort of an estate, and from the words of the farmer concluded that a stop was to be made there. Consequently, he thought it about time for him to leave the wagon, and lost no time in doing so.
This move was a fortunate one for our hero, because less than two minutes later the wagon turned in at a massive stone gateway where several men were on guard. Seeing the lights flashing in the darkness and the figures of some men moving along, Dave lost no time in dropping out of sight into the woods on the opposite side of the road.
“Well, I’m about twelve miles nearer the fighting front, anyway,” he reasoned. “I suppose from now on I’ve got to be doubly careful as to how I advance.”