Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/277

 schafskopf. Search the woods and rocks until morning. Take the other machine and follow his footsteps until you see them no more. Then follow his trail in the woods. Take the two Försters with you. I will go back to Blaufelden to send for more men and question the guards who permitted his escape. Go!”

The fugitives sat silently listening to the sounds below them, heard the orders to put the wounded man and the dead messenger into the machine and presently the commotion of departure as the machines were backed away from the gully, turned, in available spots, and then departed in opposite directions, General von Stromberg’s at full speed, the other slowly, while Captain Wentz walked on before, his shoulders bent, trying to follow the signs of Hammersley’s rubber soles in the road. But it had begun to rain steadily again and Hammersley was thankful, for it would not be long before all marks of his footsteps would be erased.