"Then hop to it," Dave grinned and pointed. "Straight back. You'll see branches broken off the bushes. I'll wait here and try to figure our next move."
"Be right back," Freddy said and hurried off into the woods.
When the English youth left Dave sat down on the ground and fixed frowning eyes on the farm house. Last night in that prison room his brain had concentrated on but one problem. The problem of getting out of the room. Well, they had done that, and they had put considerable distance behind them. That was all, however. Now, there were more problems to confront, and consider. Number one, was to find out where they were. Number two, was to decide whether or not it was safe yet to start heading west, or to continue north, and number three, was the problem of food. Whether they went north, south, east, or west they had a long road facing them, and their bread and cheese was not going to last forever. They would have to get food some place. And that farm house....
Dave let his thoughts trail off and stop as Freddy came up and sat down beside him. The English boy looked like an entirely different person. His eyes were clear and not heavy with fatigue. There was a lot of color back in his face, and there was a happy and contented smile on his lips.
"I'll remember that brook all the rest of my life," he said. "Gee, nothing ever seemed so good. Well, have you thought up a plan? I fancy, though, we'd better stay here until it's dark. We're bound to be stopped in daylight. That colonel chap has probably radioed a description of us all over the place."
"Gee whiz, you think so?" Dave ejaculated. "Just to catch a couple of fellows like us?"
"I fancy so," Freddy said in a sober adult voice. "He'll be hopping mad that we escaped. And besides pricking his pride it will probably add to his silly ideas about us. Yes, I think the blighter will go to all ends to catch us. So, we'd better keep a watchful eye out even if we are in a hurry. What do you make of that farm house?"
"I've been thinking about it," Dave grunted. "There are Germans there, of course, but there must be food, too. If we could only manage to swipe some food I'd feel a lot better about starting out again. It's going to be a long walk, and it's a cinch we won't be able to do any hitch-hiking with German tanks and armored cars all over the place."
"True," Freddy murmured. "But we might have to walk for days, and days. Then the information we have might not be of any use to the Allied High Command. We've got to get back quickly, Dave, and I'm afraid we can't do that by walking all the way."
"No, I guess not," Dave said unhappily. "But we'd be taking a heck of a chance trying to thumb a ride. Maybe, though, if we moved over close to that road over there, an empty truck or something might come by and we could slip aboard it for a little ways, anyway. Gosh, it seems a hundred years since I left Paris!"