It was no time for words.  Dicky started off to the right as fast as he could go, ever keeping close to the protecting hedge, running swiftly and silently over the grass, Bob not many feet behind.  One hundred yards of rapid sprinting brought them to a lower, thinner hedge through which they climbed easily.  Fifty yards away was a stream, which they jumped, finding themselves in a small wood.  They made their way through this and debouched on a narrow country lane.  The countryside seemed to contain no one except the two fleeing Americans and the two pursuing Germans.  No sort of ground could have suited better the game of hide-and-seek they had started.  Each time the Boches came to a hedge or a bit of brush they had to guess which way the Yanks had turned.  Only once were they guided by footprints.

Fully accoutered and loath to throw off any of their equipment, the two Germans soon became thoroughly winded, and finally stopped short.  They had no doubt lost some minutes at the start by warily examining the plane and all around it for signs of the former occupants, which had given the Brighton boys just the start they so badly needed.

But the lads were really but little better off when they came to the conclusion that they had, for the time, at least, shaken off their pursuers.  They had passed fairly close to a cottage, which was apparently untenanted.  Now they came upon another.  No signs of life could they see around it.  They pulled up for the first time and stood behind a rude shack nearby.

“Lot of good it will do us to run away from those two,” growled Bob, panting.  “If they don’t find us some other Boches will.  It is only prolonging the agony.”

“I prefer the agony of being free to the agony of being a prisoner, just the same,” replied Dicky.  “Those two soldiers may have a job on that will not allow them to hang around here long.  We have come quite a distance, and they would be very lucky to find us now.  I’ll bet they have gone on about their business.  They will report the fact that a plane came down, and whoever comes to find it will think some other fellows have picked us up.  This is too big a war for anyone to worry much about two men.  Besides, the very hopelessness of our fix is in our favor.”

“I don’t mind looking for silver linings to the cloud,” said Bob.  “But how you make that out I cannot see.”

“Why, who would ever dream that we could get away?  Who would even imagine it possible?  Will the Germans spend much time searching to see if two Americans are hiding so far inside their lines?  Of course not.  They will think it absolutely impossible that we could get any distance without being picked up.  Why should they waste their time over us?”

“Well, is that cheering?”

“You bet it is!”

“Do you mean that there is a chance that we will not be picked up?”

“Of course I do.  Cheer up!  We are not caught yet.  Sicker chaps than we are have got well.  True we can’t get back to our front; and true again the chances are thousands to one against our escaping capture, but Holland is somewhere back of us and to the north—–­and we have that one chance, in spite of all the odds.”