The Boy Scouts In Russia

t went on, everyone knew just what his part in the work was. Telephone bells were ringing all the time, and Fred noticed now that wires entered the house through the dini

d, until he placed it as that of the captain who had taken Boris away, and

essages, handed to him by staff officers, to the room in which three telegraph operators were hard at work. Generally speaking, he was there to do odd jobs and make himself generall

and he dared not spoil his opportunity to learn something really worth while by seeming to spy about. He was rewarded before long for h

led the officer,

m a soldier who was

re has finished his meal, return with the tray to the kitchen. Do not let any knife or fork or spoon stay in the room

opened the door of the locked room, and he looked in, he saw Boris sitting dejectedly on the side of a bed. It was all he could do to suppress a cry of delight, but he managed it, and he was hugely tickled as he saw Bor

said, quickly.

r his face. There was no need for him to put

sper," he said. "Tell me,

Goldapp has been t

rs. It is more like that of an army corps. And there is

is here, there must be a German concentration in this region! The

working. I talked this

facts of what had happened since the raid upo

they come in h

r me. They are very polite. I think I shall be alone most of the time. They have no idea that I will try to get away, b

ater. Stay near your window, so that I can see a handkerchief if you hold it. Then I will throw up a stone with a string tied about, and you ca

g to help me to get away. But if you can manage it at all, have clothes like

not expected to stay away from home so long, and was allowed to go. He went to the opening of the tunnel, found that the place was unguarded, and decided from the general appearance of the hollow

g for hours to get an answer. Boris's father had been heard from and was extremely anxious to get into touc

burg is many miles from where you are," he

location of the house used as headquarters? I can descr

t to me," ca

ood deal about it from Boris, and, for that matter, before he had even seen Boris at all. So he only laughed, though he hoped that this feeling would not prevent the Russians from using

through the tunnel, since he knew that if he went by the outside route he would have trouble in getting through the sentries. Luck was with him again. He was nervous as he opened the door and came out into the night, but there was no one abou

nd the window of Boris's room. Immediately below it were the windows of corresponding rooms, and one of these was lighted. This made him pause at once. For the rope to be drawn up, or

on each circling of the house. Fortunately, their meeting came at the very end of the garden. So Fred was able to work out a sort of mental chart of their movements, and to confirm it by timing them. The two sentries met on his side of the house at the eastern end. The first walked west, the second north. The one who walked west h

did not seem to centre on the house at all. It was as if their instructions were more to prevent a sur

he sentries. He told Boris, also, not to draw up the rope at once, but to climb from his window to the flat roof, something easy enough to manage, and then to move along five paces. There the rope,

le the sound of a stone would have betrayed them had he failed to put it through the window. Now he tied his note to the ball, making it firm and secure with the end of a ball of twine. About his body he had coiled a long

e accuracy of his toss of a hot grounder to the first baseman. In basketball games, he had stood, with the score tied, to shoot for the basket on a foul, when the outcome was to be settled by the accur

tugs, and then settled down to wait, with beating heart, for now the crucial test was coming. The other sentry was about to appear. If he n

t and looked up. Fred scarcely dared to breathe. He knew what had happened. The twine had brushed against the sentry's cheek.

was another period of agonized waiting, for again a sentry was to pass. Fred used the brief interval of enforced inaction to loosen the rope and place it on the ground, tied to the loose end of the twine he took from his wrist, so that it would have a clear passage through the bushe

gh his fingers, that he must have burned the skin from his palms. But he made it, and came running toward Fred. He was crouched low against the ground. But, just before he reached the bushes there was a shout from above, a flash, a loud report. A bullet sang over Fred's head, and the next moment the garden was alive with ru