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Jimmie knelt, and resting the gun on the top of the wall, covered him.

“Throw up your hands!” he commanded.

The stranger did not start. Except that he raised his eyes he gave no sign that he had heard. His eyes stared across the little sun-filled valley. They were half closed as though in study, as though perplexed by some deep and intricate problem. They appeared to see beyond the sun-filled valley some place of greater moment, some place far distant.

Then the eyes smiled, and slowly, as though his neck were stiff, but still smiling, the stranger turned his head. When he saw the boy, his smile was swept away in waves of surprise, amazement, and disbelief. These were followed instantly by an expression of the most acute alarm. “Don’t point that thing at me!” shouted the stranger. “Is it loaded?” With his cheek pressed to the stock and his eye squinted down the length of the brown barrel, Jimmie nodded. The stranger flung up his open palms. They accented his expression of amazed incredulity. He seemed to be exclaiming, “Can such things be?”

“Get up!” commanded Jimmie.

With alacrity the stranger rose.

“Walk over there,” ordered the scout. “Walk backward. Stop! Take off those field-glasses and throw them to me.” Without removing his eyes from the gun the stranger lifted the binoculars from his neck and tossed them to the stone wall. “See here!” he pleaded, “if you’ll only point that damned blunderbuss the other way, you can have the glasses, and my watch, and clothes, and all my money; only don’t–“

Jimmie flushed crimson. “You can’t bribe me,” he growled. At least, he tried to growl, but because his voice was changing, or because he was excited the growl ended in a high squeak. With mortification, Jimmie flushed a deeper crimson. But the stranger was not amused. At Jimmie’s words he seemed rather the more amazed.

“I’m not trying to bribe you,” he protested. “If you don’t want anything, why are you holding me up?”

“I’m not,” returned Jimmie, “I’m arresting you!”

The stranger laughed with relief. Again his eyes smiled. “Oh,” he cried, “I see! Have I been trespassing?”

With a glance Jimmie measured the distance between himself and the stranger. Reassured, he lifted one leg after the other over the wall. “If you try to rush me,” he warned, “I’ll shoot you full of buckshot.”

The stranger took a hasty step BACKWARD. “Don’t worry about that,” he exclaimed. “I’ll not rush you. Why am I arrested?”

Hugging the shotgun with his left arm, Jimmie stopped and lifted the binoculars. He gave them a swift glance, slung them over his shoulder, and again clutched his weapon. His expression was now stern and menacing.

“The name on them” he accused, “is ‘Weiss, Berlin.’ Is that your name?” The stranger smiled, but corrected himself, and replied gravely, “That’s the name of the firm that makes them.”

Jimmie exclaimed in triumph. “Hah!” he cried, “made in Germany!”

The stranger shook his head.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Where WOULD a Weiss glass be made?” With polite insistence he repeated, “Would you mind telling me why I am arrested, and who you might happen to be?”

Jimmie did not answer. Again he stooped and picked up the map, and as he did so, for the first time the face of the stranger showed that he was annoyed. Jimmie was not at home with maps. They told him nothing. But the penciled notes on this one made easy reading. At his first glance he saw, “Correct range, 1,800 yards”; “this stream not fordable”; “slope of hill 15 degrees inaccessible for artillery.” “Wire entanglements here”; “forage for five squadrons.”

Jimmie’s eyes flashed. He shoved the map inside his shirt, and with the gun motioned toward the base of the hill. “Keep forty feet ahead of me,” he commanded, “and walk to your car.” The stranger did not seem to hear him. He spoke with irritation.

“I suppose,” he said, “I’ll have to explain to you about that map.”