"Halt!" cried the voice from the shrubbery again as Jimmie rose.
"Who's there?" asked the lad, wheeling toward the low undergrowth which concealed their visitor. "Come out into the open if you dare."
"Ach, yes!" replied the other. "I dare come out. You will all stand—and in a line, please. Aber you don'dt, I shoot!"
"What's this," asked Ned, "a hold-up or a joke?"
"Nein," the newcomer replied. "Aber you don'dt line up dere you find oudt it is no joke, not. Beside yourself stand, quick!"
"This is enough to make anybody fairly beside themselves!" Jimmie declared, unable to repress his tendency toward a joke.
"Come on out, you Dutchman," taunted Jimmie in a moment. "I can see you crouching there and see your uniform. Come on out!"
As the faces appeared, Jimmie gave a gasp of astonishment.
"Otto! Fritz!" he almost shrieked. "We left you guarding that old barn up there. How does it come that you are here?"
"My post I deserted," he began, stepping from the bushes, but with his rifle still cautiously pointed toward the lads. "This country is familiar to me, for that house was my uncle's. Many times have I in this brook waded and swam. Today I thought of it when we over the hill came and when we had put you in the barn I came right here to see the beautiful brook once more and hear the birds singing in the trees."