comrade's stolid, frowning face and quiet demeanor.

"We can set fire to the whole business if we have to," said Tom, "so
don't get rattled. We ain't going to die. Here, hold this."

Archer held the stick, blowing upon it, while Tom heated an end of the
wire, holding the other end in some of the damp straw. As soon as it
became red hot he poked it into the place he had selected above him. It
took a long time and many heatings to burn a hole an eighth of an inch
deep in the thick planking, and their task was not made the pleasanter
by the thought that after all it was like taking a shot in the dark. It
seemed like an hour, the piece of splintered wood was burned almost
away, and what little temper there was in the malleable wire was quite
gone from it, when Tom triumphantly pushed it through the hole.

"Strike anything?" Archer asked, in suspense.

"No," said Tom, disappointed. He bent the wire and, as best he could,
poked it around outside. "I think I can feel it, though. Missed it by
about an inch. There's no use getting discouraged. We'll just have to
bore another one."

Long afterward, Archibald Archer often recalled the patience and
doggedness which Tom displayed that night.

"As long's the first hole has helped us to find something out, it's
worth while, anyway," he said philosophically.

Resolutely he went to work again, like the traditional spider climbing
the wall, heating the almost limp wire and by little burnings of a
sixteenth of an inch or so at a time he succeeded in making another hole
through the heavy planking. But this time the wire encountered a
metallic obstruction. Sure enough, Tom could feel the troublesome hasp,
but alas, the wire was now too limber to push it up.

"I can just joggle it a little," he said, "but it's too heavy for this
wire."

However, by dint of doubling and twisting the wire, he succeeded after
many attempts and innumerable straightenings of the wire, in joggling
the stubborn hasp free from the padlock eye on which it had barely
caught.

"There it goes!" he said with a note of triumph in his usually impassive
voice.

Instantly Archer's hands were against the door ready to push it up.

"Wait a minute," whispered Tom; "don't fly off the handle. How do we
know who's wandering round? Sh-h! Think I want to run plunk into the
Prussian soldier that walked over our heads? Take your time."

In his excitement Archer had forgotten that ominous tread above their
prison, and