"Suppose we hide the bicycles near here and go along through the fields? Don't you think that will be better, Frank?" was Henri's cautious suggestion.
"Yes, I suppose it will, though it will be slower, too."
"Of course. But if we are going to be stopped all the time along this road, we'll really save time in the end by doing it."
So they made a cache, as Frank told Henri it should be called, hiding their wheels so that they would have a chance of recovering them if they came back this way. They marked the spot not only by landmarks, but by the stars, which were beginning to dot the sky now.
"There may be fighting here," said Frank. "And if there is, this place may look very different before we see it again. If there is a battle the trees will go, and the fences, and all the houses for if they are not burned deliberately, the shells will destroy them."
"Look, Frank, what is that?"
Henri had turned and was pointing now to the north. There a stream of white light shot into the air, then dropped, and left only its reflection. But in a moment others joined it, and the whole sky to the north was brilliantly lighted. It was like a display of Northern Lights, only nearer and even more brilliant.
"Searchlights, of course," said Frank. "They can throw them on the trenches—and they're good to guard against aeroplanes and dirigibles, too. At night, you see, there'd be a chance for aeroplanes to fly very low and do a lot of damage."
"Can't they hear the engines from the ground?"
"Not always. They have mufflers on a good many aeroplane motors now, so that they don't make any more noise than a quiet automobile."