“I thank you very much,” said the man, evidently impressed with the kindness shown by the two American boys.
“Oh, don’t mention it,” remarked Amos, lightly. “We’re supposed to be friends of all parties to this scrap. I’ve got a German chum at home I think heaps of, and his name is Herman Lange. Good-bye, and I want to say you put up a rattling good fight as long as it lasted.”
Perhaps the other did not wholly understand all of Amos’ remarks, but he knew the boy was saying nice things about his recent performance, so he smiled, and insisted on shaking hands with them both.
The last they saw of him he was making for a heavy growth of brush as though intending to profit by the advice given by the long-headed Western boy, by lying low until the day was spent, when it would be safe for him to be abroad.
“For one I’m not sorry I helped ease up that pain a bit,” remarked Amos, as he and Jack walked away, once more heading toward the quarter where they knew the British column would be found.
“Same here,” echoed the other. “He was a nervy chap, all right. You noticed that he never let out a single peep when I shoved those broken bones together, though I warrant you it must have hurt like fun.”
“I saw you pick up something and ram it in your pocket when we were coming away—must have been worth your trouble, Jack.”
“It was what the poor chap was hunting for, I reckon,” replied the second boy, as he thrust a hand inside his coat, and brought out a roughly folded paper.
“Why, would you believe it, he’s been making a regular chart from away up there in the clouds!” exclaimed Amos, the instant this paper was unfolded.
“And besides being a bold air-pilot that German must be a regular topographical engineer if there is such a thing. I never saw a map made hurriedly but showing everything so plainly. Here’s marks to show the positions of the British trenches around Ypres, every big gun marked with a cross, and even the supply stations and the hangars of the aeroplanes plainly located. Why, with a chart like this, distances plotted out and all that, German gunners could shell any position they chose from a distance of eight or ten miles.”