Trent wondered what he meant. And he wondered why for a day or two Devlin goaded him no more. Instead he looked at him as one who knew another was marked down for death and disgrace. It was inevitable that Anthony Trent could never know how near to discovery he was. The odds are against the best breakers of law. The history of crime told him that the cleverest had been captured by some trifling piece of carelessness. Had Devlin some such clue, he wondered?
CHAPTER XXXI
DEVLIN’S REVENGE
THERE came a night when Devlin’s men were called upon to clean out part of a forest from which many snipers had been firing, and where machine guns and their crews were known to be. It was work for picked men only and Trent admitted Devlin made a courageous leader.
The Americans met unexpectedly strong opposition. It was only when half their little company was lost that they were ordered to retreat. The way was made difficult with barbed wire and shell splintered trees. It was one of a hundred similar sorties taking place all along the Allied lines hardly worthy of mention in the press.
Trent, when he had gained a clearing in the wood, saw Devlin go down like an ox from the clubbed rifle in a Prussian hand. Trent had put a shot through the man’s head almost before Devlin’s body fell to the soft earth. He had an excellent chance of escape alone but he could not leave the American officer who was his enemy to bleed to death among his country’s foes. He was almost spent when he reached his own lines and the Red Cross relieved him of his inert burden. They told him Devlin still lived.
Three days later Trent was called to the hospital in which his officer lay white and bandaged. Although Devlin’s voice was weak it did not lack the note of enmity which ever distinguished it when its owner spoke to Anthony Trent.
“What did you do it for?” Devlin demanded.
“Do what?”
“Bring me in after that boche laid me out?”
“Only one reason,” Trent informed him. “Alive, you have a certain use to your country. Dead, you would have none.”