No Man's Island

"If we count our paces we shall have some sort of an idea where we've been to. We know the tunnel runs pretty nearly due east from the ruins, and there must be a building at the...

About eleven o'clock next morning Warrender and Pratt landed from the motor-boat at the ferry, and, inquiring of the ferryman the way to Mr. Crawshay's house, struck up the hill...

"Call myself a casualty and slink to the rear? No, thank you, my lad. Not while I can stand and use my left arm. We must hold our ground here at all costs."

It was in the evening twilight that Armstrong and Warrender put off in the pram for their second expedition to the tunnel. On reaching the ruins, Warrender posted himself in one...

The change of camp had relieved the boys of one irksome tie. There was no longer any need for a constant guard. The barbed wire, and Warrender's patrolling of the camp, were mer...

"What we are--a couple of mugs. And Pratt's worse, with his absurd theories. Of course these chaps aren't in it. Rush is at the bottom of it, and the other fellow, though he loo...

"And three into eight will go with a recurring decimal," added Pratt. "I don't mind being the recurring decimal, which as a matter of practicality I take to mean that I'll come...

That night, Warrender was unusually wakeful. As a rule he slept as soundly as his companions; but now and then, when he had anything on his mind, he wooed sleep in vain. The str...

The one street of the village contained only two shops. One of these, the forepart of a simple cottage, was post office and general store, whose window displayed groceries, swee...

There was no more sleep that night for any of the party. When Pratt's bruised head had been bathed and bandaged the three placed their chairs at the tent entrance, and sat in th...

"Eyes left!" responded Pratt. "The sight of my habiliments basking in the sunlight will inform you that I have just been performing a cinema stunt--plunging fully clothed into t...

For all his loquacity, his gamesomeness of temper, Pratt was not without a modicum of discretion. Next morning, when they had taken their swim and were preparing breakfast, he d...

Fatigued though they were, the boys lay long awake in the room Mrs. Rogers provided for them, discussing the situation into which they had been thrown by the fire, and their pla...

"So you are my nephew Percy," said Mr. Pratt when Warrender had gone. "Light the lamp and let me look at you. I don't recognise you. When was our last meeting?"

Pratt was the only one of the three who had the curiosity to look at his watch when they descended into the cellar of the ruined cottage. It was twelve minutes past ten.

When Armstrong had started in the dinghy for a pull down the river his intention was to scull easily on the current to the mouth, then to turn westward, and exercise his muscles...

When the three friends arrived at the inn it was full to the door. Rogers, wigless again, caught sight of Warrender over the heads of the crowd, and came from behind the counter...

To lie on one's back, bitted like a horse, trussed like a chicken, with flies and midges disporting themselves, unchecked, about one's features, and ants making adventurous jour...

On entering the cottage by way of the tunnel and the cellar, he went upstairs to make a careful survey of the surroundings, saw no sign of the enemy, and hurried across the isla...

Something less than a mile up the river they came upon an old-fashioned gabled cottage of red brick, standing back a few yards from the left bank. The walls were half-covered wi...

One hot August afternoon, a motor-boat, with a little dinghy in tow, was thrashing its way up a narrow, winding river in Southern Wessex. The stream, swollen by the drainage of...

Late that afternoon, Warrender and Pratt started for a spin in the dinghy to the mouth of the river, intending to return on the tide. In accordance with their newly formed plan,...

A half truth, some one has said, is the greatest of lies: perhaps there is nothing more staggering to the intelligence than a half discovery--a discovery which solves one proble...

"You're more hefty with tools than I am," said Pratt to Armstrong. "So if you'll run upstairs and smash that chain off my uncle, I'll keep an eye on what's happening outside."

When uncle and nephew regained the lower floor they found that Armstrong had not been idle. From one side of the room he had hauled a long, stout table and set it up endwise aga...