Both saw what Ollie had been the first to discover. A hundred yards ahead of them, against the sky line, they could make out the silhouette of a man, stooping over a form that lay prone upon the ground. As he moved about, his actions were cat-like in their quickness. Once in awhile he hesitated to peer about him, but with the background of the heavy wood behind them the lads remained unseen, while able to observe every action in the strange, even weird performance being enacted before them.
The man was not a stretcher-bearer, neither was he a surgeon, else he would not have been alone. It was several minutes, while their vision was being focussed to the scene, before it dawned upon the lads what was taking place. It was Tom who breathed the words in a scarcely audible tone.
“A spy,” he whispered.
It seemed impossible that the man out ahead could have heard, but he stopped suddenly in his hurried work, crouched further forward over the dim form on the ground, and peered all about him after the manner of some wild beast of the jungle, sensing the approach of danger. For several moments he remained in that position, while the three lads stood motionless, scarcely daring to breathe.
At the end of that time, apparently assured that he was still undiscovered, he raised himself slightly and went to his work again.
There was no doubt as to his object now. He was frantically tearing at the clothing of the man beneath him. It all became as clear as daylight now to the three boys from Brighton. There could be no further doubt about it. The man was a German scout spy who somehow had remained in, or gotten back to, the territory taken by the Americans, and he was now fulfilling his mission by searching the dead in quest for secret orders, maps, plans and photographs, which would arm his superiors with valuable information as to the method and direction of the campaign which had been launched with such success.
“We can’t advance directly without being seen,” whispered Harper, drawing the others close to him so that they might hold a hasty consultation. “And we daren’t shoot from here, because there’s the barest chance that he may be one of our own men, although it is a hundred to one against it.”
“You’re right,” Tom agreed. “There is but one thing to do, and that is for two of us to circle in on him from either side, while the other pushes slowly forward, giving us time to get near him without being discovered ourselves.”
“Sh-h!” Ollie warned; and then, in a tone scarcely to be heard, “Look! Apparently he’s found what he was after.”
It was true. Even as Ollie had spoken, and the others had turned swiftly to look back again to where the treacherous enemy was in quest of information which might greatly hinder and harass the American advance, the man cautiously raised himself and began moving forward, away from where the lads stood.