"Do you? Good! Then watch those answering flashes. Check off the message for me."
Harry obeyed, having spotted in that moment the answer of a similar instrument on a hill perhaps five miles away. He read off the Morse signs carefully, and the officer nodded.
"And that's all right," he said, with a sigh of relief. "They'll have an escort here for us as quickly as it can ride over. I suppose you know I signalled for that?"
"Yes, sir."
The officer was plainly puzzled by Frank and Henri. He could not quite understand what they were doing in what was decidedly disputed ground. But he had not the instinct that would have prompted a French, and more especially, a German officer, to question them and, if he was not fully satisfied, to put them under restraint.
"All right. We'll be getting on," he said. "Ride along, now. I'm going back. Don't get out of touch. And if I'm not around when we get to the road where we are to turn off for Guise, stop them. They know you're guiding us."
He went off, with a great sputtering of his engine, and Frank and Harry rode along quietly. But Frank felt a strange uneasiness.
"I feel as if there was something wrong around here," he said.
"What do you mean, Frank? Everything's quiet now. Even the firing is not as heavy as it was."
"I know, but just the same, that's how I feel. As if there was something in the air. What's this—a village we're coming to?"