"And I believe you're thoughtful and careful. You've ridden by night a
good deal, I understand."

"Yes, sir."

"So. Now you are to ride at once to Breteuil, a little east of here,
where they're holding this prisoner. You'll deliver a note I shall give
you to Colonel Wallace, and he'll see to it that you have a look at the
man, in a sufficiently good light. Don't be afraid to observe him
closely. And whatever acuteness you may have in this way, let your
country have the benefit of it."

"Yes, sir."

"It may be that some striking likeness will enable you to recognize this
stranger. Possibly your special knowledge will be helpful. In any case,
when you reach Dieppe, present these papers, with the letter which I
shall give you, to the quartermaster there, and he will turn you over to
the Secret Service men. Do whatever they tell you and help them in every
way you can. I shall mention that you've seen the prisoner and observed
him closely. They may have means of discovery and identification which I
know nothing of, but don't be afraid to offer your help. Too much won't
be expected of you in that way, but it's imperative that you reach
Dieppe before morning. The roads are pretty bad, I know that. Think you
can do it?"

"What you got to do, you can do," said Tom simply.

It was a favorite saying of the same Jeb Rushmore, scout and woodsman,
who had told Tom about breed marks, and how they differed from mere
points of resemblance. And it made him think about Jeb Rushmore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF PAUL REVERE

Swiftly and silently along the dark road sped the dispatch-rider who had
come out of the East, from the far-off Toul sector, _for service as
required_. All the way across bleeding, devastated France he had
travelled, and having paused, as it were, to help in the little job at
Cantigny, he was now speeding through the darkness toward the coast with
as important a message as he had ever carried.

A little while before, as time is reckoned, he had been a Boy Scout in
America and had thought it was something to hike from New York to the
Catskills. Since then, he had been on a torpedoed transport, had been
carried in a submarine to Germany, had escaped through that war-mad land
and made his way to France, whose scarred and disordered territory he
had crossed almost from one end to the other, and was now headed for
almost the very point where he had first landed. Yet he was only
eighteen,