Fortunately the breakfast tailings proved abundant, and the dog went off to assist a friend of his in making sundry interesting smell analyses along the gate posts of the stockade.
Chapter 76. The Duel
This was temporary relief, but left no suggestion of complete escape. He lay there till nearly noon suffering more and more from the cramped position and thirst, and utterly puzzled as to the next move.
“When ye don't like whar ye air, git up without any fuss, and go whar ye want to be,” was what Sylvanne once said to him, and it came to Rolf with something like a comic shock. The soldiers were busy in the woods and around the forges. In half an hour it would be noon and they might come back to eat.
Rolf rose without attempting any further concealment, then stopped, made a bundle of the stuff that had sheltered him and, carrying this on his shoulder, strode boldly across the field toward the woods.
His scout uniform was inconspicuous; the scouts on duty at the mill saw only one of themselves taking a bundle of hay round to the stables.
He reached the woods absolutely unchallenged. After a few yards in its friendly shade, he dropped the thorny bundle and strode swiftly toward his own camp. He had not gone a hundred yards before a voice of French type cried “'Alt,” and he was face to face with a sentry whose musket was levelled at him.
A quick glance interchanged, and each gasped out the other's name.
“Francois la Colle!”