artin, know the
country here? You can find your way about?"

"Yes, my colonel."

"I want you to take certain messages for me to the English headquarters.
Where it is to-day, I know. It is here--see, on the map?"

They looked at the spot he indicated, and concealed their surprise. They
had supposed the English much nearer the border.

"Where it may be to-morrow I cannot tell. But it is of the greatest
importance that the papers I give you be delivered at headquarters. It
is so important that we will not trust them to the telephone, to the
telegraph, to the field wireless. They are reports of the most
confidential nature, having to do with movements that will be of great
importance a few days from mow. You will not wear your uniforms of Boy
Scouts for the work in hand."

Neither of them said anything.

"That, you will understand, is because the uniforms would make you more
than ever conspicuous to the Germans. I do not think you will be
anywhere near the Uhlans. But in war one must not think; or, if one
does, one must think of all things that may happen. So you will wear
your ordinary clothes. You have one day, two days, three, if necessary,
to find the British headquarters. No more. These papers are written on
the thinnest of paper. It is so thin that the messages are contained in
these marbles that I give you--one to each of you."

They took the marbles and still they made no comment.

"If you are captured and searched, I believe you will have very little
to fear. It is not likely that a German officer, no matter how zealous
he may be, will be over-suspicious of a lot of marbles in a boy's
pocket. You will have a pocket full of them, and they will all look
alike. And if the Germans find you are only boys moved by the curiosity
of boys to see battlefields, they will not hurt you. I do not believe
they will even hold you. Probably they will not even take your marbles
away from you, thinking them harmless playthings, never once dreaming of
their secret. Only the officer at our headquarters who knows of your
coming will be able to distinguish one marble from another. How he will
do so, it is better that you should not know."

"Someone then will know that we are coming, my colonel?" said Henri, a
smile brightening his face.

"Evidently. When you reach the British lines, you will be challenged,
probably arrested and detained. Say to the soldier that he is to give a
word to his officer--Mezieres. That will insure y