re enabled to see what the place was like.

Clean straw had been littered, a foot deep, down each side of the
room; and fifteen blankets were folded, side by side, along by each
wall. Upon pegs above--meant for the scholars' caps--hung the
haversacks, water bottles, and other accouterments; while the
rifles were piled along the center of the room, leaving space
enough to walk down upon either side, between them and the beds. At
the farther end of the room was a large fireplace, in which a log
fire was blazing; and a small shed, outside, had been converted
into a kitchen.

"We might be worse off than this, a long way, Ralph," said Louis
Duburg, as Ralph took his place on the straw next to him.

"That we might, Louis. The fire looks cheerful, too, and the nights
are getting very cold."

"That they are, Ralph.

"Ah! Here is supper. I am quite ready for that, too."

The men who officiated as cooks--and who, by agreement, had been
released from all night duty in consideration of their regularly
undertaking that occupation--now brought in a large saucepan full
of soup; and each man went up with his canteen, and received his
portion, returning to his bed upon the straw to eat it.

"Anything new, Barclay?" one of the men asked, from the other side
of the room.

"Yes, indeed," Ralph said. "New, and disagreeable. Mind none of you
get taken prisoners, for the Prussian General has issued a
proclamation that he shall shoot all franc tireurs he catches."

"Impossible!" came in a general chorus, from all present.

"Well, it sounds like it, but it is true enough," and Ralph
repeated, word for word, the proclamation which he had translated
to Major Tempe.

As might have been expected, it raised a perfect storm of
indignation; and this lasted until, at nine o'clock, the sergeant
gave the word:

"Lights out."

In the morning, after parade, Ralph and Percy strolled away
together and had a long talk and, at the end of an hour, they
walked to the house where Major Tempe had established his
headquarters.

"Good morning, my friends," he said, as they entered. "Is there
anything I can do for you? Sit down."

"We have been thinking, sir--Percy and I--that we could very easily
dress up as peasants, and go down to Saverne, or anywhere you might
think fit, and find out all particulars as to the strength and
position of the enemy. No one would suspect two boys of being franc
tireurs. It would be unlikely in the extreme that any