No one could lose him; no one could get away from him.

And a bird in the air would make no more noise than he! Swiftly, silently, he slipped from one tree to another, his keen eye always fixed upon the fleeting figure and his ears alert to learn if, perchance, the Boche was being pursued.

Not a sound could he hear except that of the distant shooting.
It occurred to him that the precaution of camouflaging might be useful to him also, and he silently disposed one of the leafy boughs which the German had left diagonally across his breast with the fork over his shoulder so that it formed a sort of adjustable screen, more portable and less clumsy than the leafy mound which had covered the Boche.
With this he stole along, sometimes hiding behind trees, sometimes crouching among the rocks along the bank, and keeping at an even distance from the man.

His method with its personal dexterity was eloquent of the American scout, just as the Boche, under his mound of foliage, had been typical of the German who depends largely upon _device_ and little upon personal skill and dexterity.
The scout from Temple Camp had his ruses, too, for once when the German, startled by a fancied sound, seemed about to look behind him, Tom dexterously hurled a stone far to the left of his quarry, which diverted the man's attention to that direction and kept it there while Tom, gliding this way and that and raising or lowering his scant disguise, crept after him.
They were now in an isolated spot and the distant firing seemed farther and farther away.

The stream, reduced to a mere trickle, worked its way down among rocks and the German followed its course closely.