“Make all ship-shape, boys,” Lieutenant Whitcomb ordered. “Toss out these few small stones and sticks and we’ll call this a drawing-room. Take positions and stow equipment, except guns and ammunition. Make yourselves all comfortable and easy so that there won’t be a lot of hitching around later. If we keep right quiet here for a while maybe we’ll see something. We may get a chance to take in some Hun scouts or that spy.”
“I’ve got a hunch,” Don said, when all had settled down upon the dry carpet of spruce needles, Herbert and himself sitting together, with their backs against a big rock, “that there’s going to be something doing around here. I don’t know whether I can smell sauerkraut or not, but these woods ought to shelter some Heinies somewhere near and if so they’ll be likely to spy on us. Can’t we beat them at that game, Herb?”
Lieutenant Whitcomb turned to the men:
“Corporal, how about sending Jennings and Gill out to scout around? they’re crackerjacks at that. We ought to know if we have any neighbors; we might make them a call, or if the forest here is too well populated with those things from across the Rhine, we want to send a runner back and tell the captain about it.”
“All right, sir; those boys are always keen to get out and hunt Huns. Old deer hunters back home, they tell me.” The corporal got on his hands and knees and crawled over to the other side of the rocky basin, taking the orders to two of his men, who immediately, grinning with positive pleasure, got up, made a hasty survey of the forest and then sneaked off quickly.
“I don’t wonder they feel that way about it,” Don said. “I’d enjoy doing a little scouting myself. With your permission, I——”
“I’m not telling you what to do, Don,” Herbert replied. “This is your job as well as mine. Three are better than two, but if I were you I wouldn’t go far; anything may happen and we’ll all want to be together.”
Don nodded and arose; in a moment he, too, was making his way slowly, noiselessly through the underbrush, peering all about, listening. The forest seemed to be almost silent; hardly a sound came to his ears. The flutter of a bird ahead, startled from its feeding; a few stridulating crickets chirping monotonously beneath dead leaves; far off the occasional boom of heavy guns and once, perhaps more than a mile away, a brief period of rapid shooting—probably a raiding party of one side or the other had been warmly received. Don marveled; what remarkable conditions and surprises intruded upon the great war! Here, hardly a mile from where hundreds of thousands of men eagerly awaited the slipping of the leash to spring at each others’ throats, the aisles of the forest seemed as peaceful as those within a great cathedral; as though only the plowman or the harvester dominated beyond the woods and red war was undreamed of.
Don had noted that Gill had gone about due west—for what particular reason was not apparent—and that Jennings had disappeared toward the north and the known enemy positions. Therefore, an easterly course was Don’s choice.