"They couldn't have known we were here taking views," remarked Joe.
"Oh, yes they could!" declared Blake. "Germany's spy system is the best in the world, and lots that goes on in America is known in Germany before half of our own people hear about it. But we'll have to get there before we can find out what is in that dugout, if it's there yet."
"Well, some part of it--maybe a hut or a brush heap--must be there, or the sentry wouldn't have seen men about it," observed Joe. "And now we'd better keep quiet. We're getting too close to talk much."
A little later they passed a sentry--not their friend--gave the proper password, and then stood on the edge of No Man's Land.
What would be their fate as they crossed it and ventured on the other side--the side held by the Germans?
"Come on!" whispered Blake softly, and, crouching down to avoid as much as possible being detected in the starlight, the boys went cautiously into the debatable territory.
Not without a rather creepy feeling did the three boys start on their mission, the outcome of which could only be guessed. They were taking great risks, and they knew it. But it was not the first time. They had gone into the jungle to get films of wild beasts at the water hole. They had ventured into Earthquake Land where the forces of nature, if not of mankind, were arrayed against them. And they had dared the perils of the deep in getting pictures under the sea.
But these were as nothing compared to the mission on which they were now engaged, for, at any moment, there might go up from the German lines, not half a mile away, a string of lights that would reveal their presence to the ever-watchful snipers and sharp-shooters.
And, more than that, the whole area might suddenly be swept by a hail of bullets from a battery of machine guns. Both sides had these deadly weapons in readiness, and it was well known that Fritz was exceedingly nervous and apt, at times, to let burst a salvo of fire without any real reason.
The fluttering of some armless sleeve on the body of a dead man, the rattle of a loose strand of barbed wire, the movement of a sorely wounded soldier lying out in the open, might draw the German fire. And if the moving picture boys were caught in that they would be hard put to it to escape.