A moment later he detected another voice in a different key yet pitched hardly above a whisper. So it was a conference! A conference of whom and about what?
He crept still farther forward.
Right before him stretched a little glade full of small trees and undergrowth with a scarcely visible path leading downward.
To press too far between the bushes would have inevitably betrayed him.
He halted with his rifle ready for action and listened.
The conversation seemed to be an earnest one and in their earnestness the conferees at times forgot caution, for, as one of the men raised his voice in expostulation, Frank could note that he was talking German. But it was not that which made him start suddenly and clutch his rifle more tightly.
He had heard that voice before.
Where and when?
He cudgeled his brain and then it came to him.
It was Nick Rabig's voice!
That is, he thought it was. But at that distance he could not be perfectly sure. At any rate it was time to act.