The boys had been standing in the lee of a big rock while thus conversing in low tones. Suddenly Whistler saw a movement on the hillside below them. A man dived behind a boulder, disappearing like a flash.
“There!” whispered Whistler. “I saw him! Did you?”
“I saw something,” admitted Belding. “Wish that big Johnny Bull friend of mine was here.”
“He’d be a bigger mark for a pistol ball—if the Hun is armed—than we make!”
“Good-night!” breathed Belding. “I don’t wish to consider myself as any such target.”
Nevertheless the two lads did not hesitate to approach the spot where they had caught a glimpse of the escaping German. Whistler Morgan, at least, had been in many a perilous corner since he had joined the Navy as apprentice seaman, and he was not likely to show the white feather now. As for George Belding, Whistler did not know much about him; but when they were some years younger and George had visited Seacove, he seemed to be as courageous a boy as one would wish to meet.
The boys on shore leave of course were without arms of any description. And, as had been suggested, the German might be armed. The Americans took no chances in their search for the enemy.
There was a big boulder just ahead, and at Whistler’s suggestion the two climbed this and, lying flat on their stomachs, wormed their way to the summit, from which a better view of what lay below on the side hill could be obtained.
“Sh! That’s the fellow!” hissed Belding, seizing Whistler’s arm almost at once.
The Seacove boy saw the olive-gray figure at the same moment. The two lay and watched the German making himself comfortable in a little hollow between two rocks some rods below their station. The man had evidently scrutinized all his surroundings and believed himself to be unobserved.