no idea of how important it may be!"

"My orders are to place you under arrest. You can make application to see
anyone later. But now I have no discretion. Come! If you really want to see
Colonel Throckmorton, you had better move on."

Harry knew as well as anyone the uselessness of appealing from such an
order, but he was frantic. Realizing the importance of the news he carried,
and beginning to glimpse vaguely the meaning of Graves and his activity, he
was almost beside himself.

"Make Graves there give back the papers he took from me!" he cried.

"I did take some papers, lieutenant," said Graves, with engaging frankness.
"But they were required to prove what I had suspected almost from the
first--that he was a spy. He was leading an English scout from his own
patrol into trouble, too. I suppose he thought he was more likely to escape
suspicion if he was with an Englishman."

"It's not my affair," said the lieutenant, shrugging his shoulders. He
turned to Harry. "Come, my lad. I hope you can clear yourself. But I've
only one thing to do--and that is to obey my orders."

Harry gave up, then, for the moment. He turned and began walking along, a
soldier on each side. But as he did so Graves turned to the lieutenant.

"I'll go and get my breakfast, then, sir," he said. "I'll come on to Ealing
later. Though, of course, they know all I can tell them already."

"All right," said the officer, indifferently.

"You're never going to let him go!" exclaimed Harry, aghast. "Don't you
know he'll never come back?"

"All the better for you, if he doesn't," said the officer. "That's enough
of your lip, my lad. Keep a quiet tongue in your head. Remember you're a
prisoner, and don't try giving orders to me."

CHAPTER XIV

THE TRAP

The bullet that sang over their heads effectually broke up the threatened
trouble between Dick Mercer and Jack Young on one side, and the telephone
linemen on the other. With one accord they obeyed that guttural order,
"Hands oop!"

They had been so interested in one another and in the cut wire that none of
them had noticed the practically noiseless approach of a great grey motor
car, with all lights out, that had stolen up on them. But now, with a
groan, Dick and Jack both knew it for one of the Bray Park cars. So, after
all, Dick's flight had been in vain. He had escaped the guards of Bray Park
once, only to walk straight into this new trap. And, worst of all, there
would be no Jack