if their uniforms will fit us, if we can get through, if we can find
out, if we can get back. Do you speak Russian, Bal-Arret?"

"Not a word."

"Prussian?"

"Enough to pass myself through I guess, and----"

"Hush," said the young man, as three Russians suddenly appeared out of
a little ravine on the edge of the wood.

They had come on a foraging expedition, and had been successful,
apparently, for, tied to a musket and carried between two of the men
was a dead pig. How it had escaped the Cossack raiders of the day
before was a mystery. They were apparently coming farther into the
forest for firewood with which to roast the animal. Perhaps, as the
pig was small, and, as they were doubtless hungry, they did not wish
their capture to be widely known. At any rate, they came cautiously up
a ravine and had not been noticed until their heads rose above it.
They saw the two Frenchmen just about as soon as they were seen. The
third man, whose arms were free, immediately presented his piece and
pulled the trigger. Fortunately it missed fire. If it had gone off it
might have attracted the attention of the Russian outposts,
investigations would have been instituted, and all chance of passing
the lines there would have been over.

At the same time he pulled the trigger he fell like a log. The
grenadier, who had thrust into his belt a heavy knife, picked up from
some murdered woodsman on the journey, had drawn it, seized it by the
blade, and, with a skill born of olden peasant days, had hurled it at
the Russian. The blade struck the man fairly in the face, and the
sharp weapon plunged into the man to the hilt. He threw up his hands,
his gun dropped, he crashed down into the ravine stone dead. The next
second the two Frenchmen had seized the two Russians. The latter were
taken at a disadvantage. They had retained their clutch on the
gun-sling carrying the pig, and, before they realized what was
toward--they were slow thinkers both--a pair of hands was clasped
around each throat. The Russians were big men, and they struggled
hard. A silent, terrible battle was waged under the trees, but, try as
they would, the Russians could not get release from the terrible grasp
of the Frenchmen. The breath left their bodies, their eyes protruded,
their faces turned black.

Marteau suddenly released his prisoner, who dropped heavily to the
ground. To bind him with his own breast and gun straps and belt was a
work of a few