man lines to
try to catch him. But--he ran away!"

The general laughed at the contempt in Boris's tone.

"Of course he ran away!" he said. "I only wonder how he knew we were
coming! That was bad luck--because not once did we strike so much as a
German patrol as we rode."

"I can tell you," said Fred. "An aeroplane brought word. Its pilot must
have seen you as he flew overhead, and suspected that you were coming
here."

"So!" Suvaroff frowned. "I did not think of that! However, it is better
than what we suspected at first. It looked as if someone at headquarters
must have betrayed the plan. Well, it was too good to come true. If we
had caught him and his staff, we might have hastened the end of the war
by a good many months. Von Hindenburg is the ablest general in Germany,
though he has been in disgrace for years. They sent for him as soon as
war came. He'll do good work."

Fred was thinking.

"If that aeroplane saw you coming, general," he said, "isn't there
danger that they may try to surround you here?"

"Yes, more than danger. They are sure to try to do it! But their cavalry
is very slow, and I do not believe they have infantry enough near by to
make any trouble for us." He frowned thoughtfully. "There is something
very peculiar about the whole situation around here! If von Hindenburg
is here, it means that their chief concentration on this front must be
here. And yet we get reports of an astonishingly small number of troops!
Not more than two corps."

Boris looked eagerly at his father, and then at Fred. But before he
could speak General Suvaroff went on, crisply.

"You can ride?" he asked Fred. "Good! I will see that you and Boris have
horses. Then we shall start. We can be back in our own lines before
daylight."

Fred hesitated. Then Boris took the words from his mouth.

"Father, I want to stay!" he said, eagerly. "It will be safe. I can get
back to the house and they can never catch me there, you know! They may
not even search for me, but if they do, I can hide from them in the
tunnel. And you say the German movement about here is puzzling. Would it
not be well to have some way of sending word from here? Ivan is at work.
But no matter what he discovers, if we are not at the house, it will do
no good. Let me stay!"

"I should like to stay, too," said Fred.

"Impossible!" said General Suvaroff at once to that. "You would be shot
as soon as you were caught--you are under sentence now. They would not