t out on their journey in fact.

As it was, the mere sketching of the route fired The Rat's imagination.
He forged ahead with the story of adventure, and filled it with such
mysterious purport and design that the Squad at times gasped for
breath. In his glowing version the Secret Two entered cities by
midnight and sang and begged at palace gates where kings driving
outward paused to listen and were given the Sign.

"Though it would not always be kings," he said. "Sometimes it would be
the poorest people. Sometimes they might seem to be beggars like
ourselves, when they were only Secret Ones disguised. A great lord
might wear poor clothes and pretend to be a workman, and we should only
know him by the signs we had learned by heart. When we were sent to
Samavia, we should be obliged to creep in through some back part of the
country where no fighting was being done and where no one would attack.
Their generals are not clever enough to protect the parts which are
joined to friendly countries, and they have not forces enough. Two boys
could find a way in if they thought it out."

He became possessed by the idea of thinking it out on the spot. He drew
his rough map of Samavia on the flagstones with his chalk.

"Look here," he said to Marco, who, with the elated and thrilled Squad,
bent over it in a close circle of heads. "Beltrazo is here and
Carnolitz is here--and here is Jiardasia. Beltrazo and Jiardasia are
friendly, though they don't take sides. All the fighting is going on
in the country about Melzarr. There is no reason why they should
prevent single travelers from coming in across the frontiers of
friendly neighbors. They're not fighting with the countries outside,
they are fighting with themselves." He paused a moment and thought.

"The article in that magazine said something about a huge forest on the
eastern frontier. That's here. We could wander into a forest and stay
there until we'd planned all we wanted to do. Even the people who had
seen us would forget about us. What we have to do is to make people
feel as if we were nothing--nothing."

They were in the very midst of it, crowded together, leaning over,
stretching necks and breathing quickly with excitement, when Marco
lifted his head. Some mysterious impulse made him do it in spite of
himself.

"There's my father!" he said.

The chalk dropped, everything dropped, even Samavia. The Rat was up
and on his crutches as if some magic force ha