“Here, too. Danny Morgan’s got to wait for the up train.”
“Turn up your collar and pull down your lid, Clem, so’s to show no white.”
“And get a move on, Don; those fellows are in a big hurry.”
A mutual object quickly brought these lads to a friendly, even familiar understanding, proved by the use of their first names and their quick agreement in action. Both noticed it, but they were either too proud or too much engrossed to refer to it openly. Ahead of them lay an apparently necessary purpose and they followed it with the quick determination that belongs to the well balanced, bright-minded school boy. It could be said of old Brighton that it put self-reliant energy and pep into its pupils; no youngsters anywhere could be prouder of the zeal to do and the encouragement therefor, which spoke volumes for the accomplishments of that student body, and in athletics, as well as for the many graduates who had attained high standing in various fields of endeavor. In nothing was this better shown than by the lads who entered the war and won distinction.
It was no light task to follow those hurrying, distant figures on a darkening winter night, along what soon became a winding, lonely, tree or thicket-lined by-way. The town ended at the station and only one house faced the Galaville road beyond for more than half a mile.
The dim figures could barely be seen far ahead and not wishing to be observed, the boys kept as near as possible to the edge of the road, along a fence or an overhanging clay bank on one side. They soon gained on the men; then, fearing discovery, they fell back. But even at this they knew that presently they must be seen; it was natural that these men should look behind them and when crossing a knoll the lads could not avoid showing against the sky. Then the road began to descend, and the pursued stopped and stood a moment.
“Keep right on slowly,” Don’s quicker wits advised. “They’ll smell a mouse if we stop, too. Come on; they won’t know we don’t live out this way.”
Again the men, possibly somewhat reassured and yet not wanting to be overtaken, hurried on and were soon out of sight around a bend.
“Wonder if they’ll sneak into the bushes to see who we are,” Clem queried.
“No; they’ll only hurry more so as to turn off at a road or path,” Don argued and he proved to be right. From the bend the two figures could barely be discerned. To hurry after them would excite suspicion, but now fair chance come to the boys’ aid. Just beyond, and evidently unknown to the German-speaking pair, a path led across a meadow that short cut another sharp bend in the road and this enabled Clem and Don to gain so much on the men that before the latter had reached the farm house beyond, the lads were close behind them, between a double line of willow trees and thus unseen.