“I owe my life to you, Hal.  It seems that you bob up wherever you are needed most.”

Hal turned and gazed at the speaker.  He was Captain Harry Anderson, of His British Majesty’s Royal Dragoons, whom the lad had last seen in the hands of the Germans.  Then the fight, the burning barn, and his recognition of Anderson just before he had lost consciousness, all came back to him in a flash, and he pressed the hand that grasped his.

“Lieutenant—­I mean Captain Anderson!” he exclaimed.  “I thought you were safe in the hands of the Germans.”

The lad arose slowly to his feet, supported by the captain’s arm.  He staggered a trifle; but, after inhaling a few breaths of the cold, invigorating air, was soon himself again.

“And I,” said Captain Anderson, answering Hal’s exclamation, “thought you also were safe in the hands of the Germans.”

“Well,” said Hal, with a faint smile, “it seems that the enemy did wrong to believe they had any of us safely.”

“It does, indeed,” the captain smiled back; “but come, tell me how you escaped.  I have asked Chester, but he has been so worried about you that he has failed to do so.”

“We haven’t time now,” replied Hal.  “We are on a reconnaissance, and must proceed immediately.”

“It will be unnecessary,” replied Anderson dryly.  “I have just come from that way and am in a position to tell you, or General French, either, for that matter, all you desire to know.”

“Are you sure?” asked Hal.

“Positive,” replied the captain briefly.

“In that event,” said Hal, “we may as well return, for we shall be wasting time and possibly sacrificing men, to linger here longer.”

He turned to his men.  “Mount!” he ordered.

The troop sprang to the saddle.  Ordering them to face about, the lad commanded: 

“Forward!”

The troop set off at a quick trot, Captain Anderson on a spare horse riding between Hal and Chester at their head.

“Now,” said the captain, “you can tell me about yourselves as we ride along.”

The two lads did so, and when he learned that the lads had seen active service in the eastern theater of war, the captain was greatly surprised.

“And still I shouldn’t be surprised at anything you do or may do,” he said.  “You see I know you well.”

“Come now, captain,” said Chester, “tell us something of your own experiences.”

“Well,” said Anderson, “I have had about as strenuous a time as you can imagine, and I have been at the threshold of death more than once.”

“Let’s hear about it!” exclaimed Hal.

“You remember, of course,” began the captain, “how we were captured, and how badly I was wounded?  You remember, also, that we were separated in the German camp?”

The lads signified that they did, and the captain continued: 

“All right, then.  It seems that my wounds were more serious than was at first supposed.  A fever set in, and my German physician told me that I was a dead man.  I laughed at him.  I told him I had too much work to do to die yet awhile.  He wanted to know what that work was and I told him it was killing Germans.  This made him angry, and—­”