Tom hurried to the prostrate figure and saw that the German was quite dead. There was no other sign of human presence and not a sound to be heard but the rippling of the clear water at his feet.
For a few moments he stood, surprised and silent, listening. Then he fancied that he heard a rustling in the bushes some distance away and he looked in that direction, standing motionless, alert for the slightest stir.
Suddenly there emerged out of the undergrowth a hundred or more feet distant a strange looking figure clad in a dull shade of green with a green skull cap and a green scarf, like a scout scarf, loosely thrown about his neck. Even the rifle which he carried jauntily over his shoulder was green in color, so that he seemed to Tom to have that general hue which things a.s.sume when seen through green spectacles. He was lithe and agile, gliding through the bushes as if he were a part of them, and he came straight toward Tom, with a nimbleness which almost rivalled that of a squirrel.
There was something about his jaunty, light step which puzzled Tom and he narrowed his eyes, watching the approaching figure closely. The stranger removed a cigarette from his mouth to enable him the better to lay his finger upon his lips, imposing silence, and as he did so the movement of his hand and his way of holding the cigarette somehow caused Tom to stare.
Then his puzzled scrutiny gave way to an expression of blank amazement, as again the figure raised his finger to his lips to antic.i.p.ate any impulse of Tom"s to call. Nor did Tom violate this caution until the stranger was within a dozen feet or so.
"Roscoe--Bent!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Don"t you know me? I"m Tom Slade."
"Well--I"ll--be----" Roscoe began, then broke off, holding Tom at arm"s length and looking at him incredulously. "Tom Slade--_I"ll be--jiggered_!"
"I kinder knew it was you," said Tom in his impa.s.sive way, "as soon as I saw you take that cigarette out of your mouth, "cause you do it such a swell way, kind of," he added, ingenuously; "just like the way you used to when you sat on the window-sill in Temple Camp office and jollied Margaret Ellison. Maybe you don"t remember."
Still Roscoe held him at arm"s length, smiling all over his handsome, vivacious face. Then he removed one of his hands from Tom"s shoulder and gave him a push in the chest in the old way.
"It"s the same old Tom Slade, I"ll be---- And with the front of your belt away around at the side, as usual. This is better than taking a hundred prisoners. How are you and how"d you get here, you sober old tow-head, you?" and he gripped Tom"s hand with impulsive vehemence.
"This sure does beat all! I might have known if I found you at all it would be in the woods, you old pathfinder!" and he gave Tom another shove, then rapped him on the shoulder and slipped his hand around his neck in a way all his own.
"I--I like to hear you talk that way," said Tom, with that queer dullness which Roscoe liked; "it reminds me of old times."
"Kind of?" prompted Roscoe, laughing. "Is our friend here dead?"
"Yes, he"s very dead," said Tom soberly, "but I think there are others around in the bushes."
"There are some enemies there," said Roscoe, "but we won"t kill them.
Contemptible murderers!" he muttered, as he hauled the dead Boche out of the stream. "I"ll pick you off one by one, as fast as you come up here, you gang of back-stabbers! Look here," he added.
"I got to admit you can do it," said Tom with frank admiration.
Roscoe pulled away the shrubbery where the German had been kneeling when he was struck and there was revealed a great hogshead, larger, Tom thought, than any he had ever seen.
"That"s the kind of weapons they fight with," Roscoe said, disgustedly.
"Look here," he added, pulling the foliage away still more. "Don"t touch it. See? It leads down from another one. It"s poison."
Tom, staring, understood well enough now, and he peered into the bushes about him in amazement as he heard Roscoe say,
"a.r.s.enic, the sneaky beasts."
"See what he was going to do?" he added, startling Tom out of his silent wondering. "There"s half a dozen or more of these hogsheads in those bushes. As fast as this one empties it fills up again from another that stands higher. There"s a whole nest of them here. See how the pipe from this one leads into the stream?"
"What"s the wire for?" said Tom.
"Oh, that"s so"s they can open this little c.o.c.k here, see? Start the thing going. Don"t pull away the camouflage. There may be another chap up here in a little while, to see what"s the matter. _Tommy"ll_ take care of them all right, won"t you, _Tommy_?"
"Do you mean me?" Tom asked.
"I mean your namesake here," Roscoe said, slapping his rifle. "I named it after you, you old glum head. Remember how you told me a feller couldn"t aim straight, _kind of_" (he mimicked Tom"s tone). "You said a feller couldn"t aim straight, _kind of_, if he smoked cigarettes."
"I got to admit I was wrong," said Tom.
"You bet you have! Jingoes, it"s good to hear you talk!" Roscoe laughed.
"How in the world did you get here, anyway?"
"I"ll tell you all about it," said Tom, "only first tell me, are you the feller they call the Jersey Snipe?"
"Snipy, for short," said Roscoe.
"Then maybe you saved my life already," said Tom, "out in No Man"s Land."
"Were you the kid on that wheel?" Roscoe asked, surprised.
"Yes, and I always knew you"d make a good soldier. I told everybody so."
"_Kind of?_ Tommy, old boy, don"t forget it was _you_ made me a soldier," Roscoe said soberly. "Come on back to my perch with me," he added, "and tell me all about your adventures. This is better than taking Berlin. There"s only one person in this little old world I"d rather meet in a lonely place, and that"s the Kaiser. Come on--quiet now."
"You don"t think you can show _me_ how to stalk, do you?" said Tom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ON GUARD
"You see it was this way," said Roscoe after hie had scrambled with amazing agility up to his "perch" in a tree several hundred feet distant but in full view of the stream. Tom had climbed up after him and was looking with curious pleasure at the little kit of rations and other personal paraphernalia which hung from neighboring branches. "How do you like my private camp? Got Temple Camp beat, hey?" he broke off in that erratic way of his. "All the comforts of home. Come on, get into your camouflage."
"You don"t seem the same as when you used to come up to our office from the bank downstairs--that"s one sure thing," said Tom, pulling the leaves about him.
"You thought all I was good for was to jolly Margaret Ellison, huh?"
"I see now that you didn"t only save my life but lots of other fellers", too," said Tom. "Go on, you started to tell me about it."
It was very pleasant and cosy up there in the sniper"s perch where Roscoe had gathered the thinner branches about him, forming a little leafy lair, in which his agile figure and his quick glances about reminded Tom for all the world of a squirrel. He could hardly believe that this watchful, dexterous creature, peering cautiously out of his romantic retreat, was the same Roscoe Bent who used to make fun of the scouts and sneak upstairs to smoke cigarettes in the Temple Camp office; who thought as much of his spotless high collar then as he seemed to think of his rifle now.
"I got to thank you because you named it after me," said Tom.
"And I _got to thank you_ that you gave me the chance to get it to name after you, Tommy. Well, you see it was this way," Roscoe went on in a half whisper; "there were half a dozen of us over here in the woods and we"d just cleaned out a machine gun nest when we saw this miniature forest moving along. I thought it was a decorated moving van."
"That"s the trouble with them," agreed Tom; "they"re no good in the woods; they"re clumsy. They"re punk scouts."
"Scouts!" Roscoe chuckled. "If we had to fight this gang of cut-throats and murderers in the woods where old What"s-his-name--Custer--had to fight the Indians, take it from me, we"d have them wiped up in a month.
That fellow"s idea of camouflaging was to bury himself under a couple of tons of green stuff and then move the whole business along like a clumsy old Zeppelin. I can camouflage myself with a branch with ten leaves on it by studying the light."
"Anybody can see you"ve learned something about scouting--that"s one sure thing," said Tom proudly.