“Rolf Kittering! Mon Dieu! I ought to shoot you, Rolf; I cannot, I cannot! But run, run! I'll shoot over your head,” and his kindly eyes filled with tears.
Rolf needed no second hint; he ran like a deer, and the musket ball rattled the branches above his shoulders.
In a few minutes other soldiers came running and from La Colle they heard of the hostile spy in camp.
“I shoot; I t'ink maybe I not hit eem; maybe some brood dere? No, dat netting.”
There were both runners and trackers in camp. They were like bloodhounds and they took up the trail of the fugitive. But Rolf was playing his own game now; he was “Flying Kittering.” A crooked trail is hard to follow, and, going at the long stride that had made his success, he left many a crook and turn. Before two miles I they gave it up and the fugitive coming to the river drank a deep and cooling draught, the first he had had that day. Five miles through is the dense forest that lies between La Colle and the border. He struck a creek affluent of the Richelieu River and followed to its forks, which was the place of rendezvous with Quonab.
It was evening as he drew near and after long, attentive listening he gave the cry of the barred owl:
The answer came: a repetition of the last line, and a minute later the two scouts were together.
As they stood, they were startled by a new, sudden answer, an exact repetition of the first call. Rolf had recovered his rifle from its hiding place and instantly both made ready for some hostile prowler; then after a long silence he gave the final wail line “hoooo-aw” and that in the woods means, “Who are you?”
Promptly the reply came:
“Wa wah wa wah Wa wah wa hoooo-aw.”