“Yes, and we started to do it,” said Blake.  “But that stuff works like lightning.”

“Glad you found that out, anyhow,” grimly observed the soldier.  “The next time you hear the warning, ‘Gas!’ don’t stop to think, just grab your helmet.  And don’t wait longer than to feel a funny tickling in your nose, as if you wanted to sneeze but couldn’t.  Most likely that’ll be gas, too.  Cover your head when you feel that.”

“Thanks!” murmured Blake, for he and his chums understood that the soldier and his mates had saved their lives.

Now that the moving picture boys were out of danger and could take some stock of themselves and their surroundings, their first thoughts, naturally, were of their apparatus.

“Did they get our machines?” asked Joe.

“No; we saved the cameras for you,” answered Drew.

“What about the boxes of exposed film—­the ones the War Office is so anxious to get?” asked Blake.

“I didn’t see anything of them,” said the soldier.  “We were too anxious to get you out of the gas and save the cameras to think of anything else.  I didn’t see any boxes of films, but I’ll ask some of the boys who helped me.”

Blake and his chums waited for this information anxiously, and when it came it was a disappointment, for no one knew anything of the valuable reels.

“Though they may be there yet,” said Drew.  “There was some fierce fighting around that shell crater where we carried you from, but it’s within our lines now, and maybe the boxes are there yet.  Better go and take a look.”

This Blake, Joe and Charlie lost no time in doing.  After a little search, for the character of the ground had so changed by reason of the shell fire they hardly knew it, the boys located the place where they had so nearly succumbed.  They found the spot where their cameras had been set up, for they were marked by little piles of stones to steady the tripods.  But there were no boxes of films.

“Gone!” exclaimed Blake disconsolately, as he looked about.  “And we’ll perhaps never get another chance to make such pictures again!”

“It surely is tough luck!” exclaimed Joe.

They saw a sentry on guard, for this place was far enough from the lines of both forces to obviate the use of trenches.

“What are you looking for, Buddies?” asked the soldier, who knew the moving picture boys.

“Some valuable army films,” explained Blake, giving the details.  “They’re very rare, and we’ll probably never get any others like them.”

“Did you leave them here?”

“Right around here,” answered Joe.  “I think just near this pile of rocks,” and he indicated the spot he meant.

“Say, now,” exclaimed the American private, “I wouldn’t be surprised but what those two fellows took ’em!”

“What two fellows?” cried Blake.