"All right—have it your own way—anything if or a quiet life!" said
Bob, quickly. "I was just wondering, that's all."
"I have been wondering, too," admitted Jimmy. "The disappearance of
Maxwell and the cash is almost as much of a mystery as is Captain
Frank Dickerson."
Twice that day, as they tramped along, seeking in vain for the American lines, they saw small parties of German soldiers. And on both occasions the Khaki Boys were fortunate enough to sight the enemy first, so they could conceal themselves in patches of woods.
They were now in a country where there were larger tracts of forest, and after coming out of one of these thickets Bob remarked.
"Fellows, do you know what I think?"
"Do you, really?" chafed Roger.
"Do I really what?" asked Bob, a bit disconcerted.
"Think!" exclaimed his chum. "I thought you'd given that up."
"This war is enough to make a chap give it up," Bob agreed. "But seriously, fellows, I think we're lost—that we've been going around in a circle, and we aren't any nearer our lines than when we were at the red mill. Not so near, in fact, for there we knew that some of the doughboys were not more than a mile away. But here—"
"Bob, I shouldn't be surprised but what you are right!" exclaimed Jimmy. "It does seem funny that, with all our traveling, we haven't come to the American lines. They can't be so far away as all this. I guess we must have traveled in a circle. Pity we haven't a compass."