of a railway. In the
foreground, perhaps five hundred yards away only, there was that farm
to which Jules had pointed--a typical German farm, its outhouses
clustered about it, cattle in its yard, and poultry feeding round it.
Smoke was issuing from one of the chimneys, and it required no great
imagination on the part of those three to visualize the kitchen at the
other end of the chimney--a broad, stone-flagged kitchen maybe, with a
deep, old-fashioned ingle-nook, and pots and pans about it.

"Phew! It makes a fellow's mouth water," declared Stuart, looking
hungrily at the farm. "To think that there are people down there who
have got plenty to eat, and here are we up here simply longing for it.
I suppose it wouldn't do to venture down?"

Henri shook his head emphatically.

"Not as we are, certainly not," he declared. "For residence in
Ruhleben hasn't exactly improved our appearance. To begin with,
Stuart--no offence, of course--you'll quite understand, a shave and
haircut wouldn't come amiss, would it? As for Jules--our dandy Jules,
whose socks and turn-out were the envy of all the youth of Paris--not
to mention Berlin, before the war broke out--he's hardly 'it', is he?"

"Oh!"

There came an exclamation from Jules, while he grimaced at Henri.

"Not 'it'," he cried, and then laughed as he glanced at his own person
and then back at Henri. "Well, a fellow has to admit that there's not
one of us fit to enter decent society; but it ain't our fault, is it?
Not exactly. Only, as Henri says, it would give us away badly if we
went down to the farm and demanded victuals. Still, the fact remains
that a chap can't help feeling hungry, particularly when he looks at
that smoke coming from the chimney, and the fowls all round. Couldn't
a fellow slink down, knock one of them over with a stone, and bring it
back?"

Even that was out of the question, and each one of them realized it.
Their only safe course, indeed, was to remain hidden as they were in
that cover till the night came again, when, tramp-like, they would take
to the road once more, and, tramp-like, might rob some hen-roost to
provide a meal for the morrow. Yet it was hard, and became harder
still as the hours went by, to put up without even those scanty meals
which had been accorded them at Ruhleben.

However, they had other things to occupy their attention when the
afternoon had come, for a messenger mounted on a motor-bicycle dashed
along the road, a