"Can't you steer by the sun?" asked Franz. "We started south, and if we keep the rising sun on our left and the setting sun on our right, we're bound to go south."
"The trouble was yesterday that we didn't see the sun after we started hiking," declared Jimmy. "It's all right now—we're surely going south. But how long we can keep it up there's no telling."
"Well, then, as long as we know we're going in the right direction now, let's double quick and cover as much ground as we can straight away, before we get turned around again," suggested Roger.
His plan was voted a good one, and the tired young soldiers hurried on. But to their chagrin it soon became cloudy, and then a mist settled down obscuring every gleam of sunshine, and they had to depend on their sense of direction, which, truth to tell, was not very accurate.
When night came, it found the boys on a lonely stretch of land, partly bogs, with, here and there, patches of woods. The prospect was most gloomy, for their food was getting scarce, and they were tired and. sore. Their wounds, slight as they were, bothered them, and though none complained, each one would have been glad to be able to slip into some dugout, no matter how rough, and there rest.
"What shall we do!" asked Jimmy, as it became almost too dark to proceed along an uncertain path. "Shall we hole in or keep on?"
"It's going to be cold, holing in this night," replied Roger, with a shiver. "Look at that fog!" he went on, as the mists rolled up from a swamp. "It goes right through you!"
"Well, then let's keep on walking," said Jimmy, trying to speak cheerily.
They walked on in silence. Bob did not get off any of his queer, improvised rhymes, and as for Iggy he turned up the collar of his coat, hunched his shoulders; and seemed like some old man tramping along.
"Hark!" suddenly called Jimmy, and the words came in a tense whisper. It was as if he had said "Halt!" for his chums came to a stop on the instant.