The old man started:

"'Our country,' indeed! I forbid you to speak like that. Have you the
least idea where you hail from? A scamp like you has no country."

"You forget all that I have done, M. Morestal.... You and I, between us,
have 'passed' four of them already."

"Hold your tongue!" said Morestal, who seemed to take no pleasure in
this recollection. "Hold your tongue.... If the thing had never happened
..."

"It would happen just the same, because you are a good-natured man and
because there are things.... There.... It's like with this lad.... It
would break your heart to see him.... Johann Baufeld his name is.... His
father is just dead ... and he wants to go out to his mother, who was
divorced and who lives in Algeria.... Such a nice lad, full of
pluck...."

"Well," said Morestal, "he's only got to 'pass'! You don't want me for
that."

"And what about the money? He hasn't a sou. Besides, there's no one
like you to tell us all the paths, the best place to cross at, the best
time to select...."

"I'll see about it.... I'll see about it," said Morestal. "There's no
hurry...."

"Yes, there is...."

"Why?"

"The Boersweilen regiment is manoeuvring on the slopes of the Vosges.
If you'll lend us a hand, I'll run down to Saint-Elophe first, buy a
suit of second-hand French peasant's clothes and go and find my man.
Then I'll bring him to the old barn in your little farm to-night ... as
I have done before...."

"Where is he at this moment?"

"His company is quartered in the Albern Woods."

"But that's next door to the frontier!" cried Morestal. "An hour's walk,
no more."

"Just so; but how he is to reach the frontier? Where is he to cross it?"

"That's quite easy," said Morestal, taking up a pencil and a sheet of
note-paper. "Look, here are the Albern Woods. Here's the Col du Diable.
Here's the Butte-aux-Loups.... Well, he's only got to leave the woods by
the Fontaine-Froide and take the first path to the left, by the Roche de
..."

He suddenly interrupted himself, looked at Dourlowski with a suspicious
air and said:

"But you know the road as well as I do ... there's no doubt about
that.... So ..."

"My word," said Dourlowski, "I always go by the Col du Diable and the
factory."

Morestal reflected for a moment, scribbled a few lines and a few words
in an absent-minded sort of way and then, with a movement of quick
resolution, took the sheet of note-paper, crumpled it into a ball and
flung