d telephone system had been installed and connected this
house with a whole region, of which, in a military way, it seemed to be
the brain. Then Fred heard a voice that he recognized at once, and
started at the sound, until he placed it as that of the captain who had
taken Boris away, and remembered that the captain had not seen him, even
before he was disguised.

Fred's work, he soon found, was simplicity itself. He was to do the
bidding of any officer. He was sent on errands, from one part of the
house to another; often he carried written messages, 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 generally useful. Luckily, he was taken for granted. Everyone
seemed assured that he was one of the village boys, pressed into service
because he happened to be the first one to come along.

But for the first hour or so it was impossible for him to make any
attempt to discover if Boris was still in the house. He was too busy,
and he dared not spoil his opportunity to learn something really worth
while by seeming to spy about. He was rewarded before long for his
patience, for just as he was beginning to despair, an officer spied him
in a moment when he was not actively engaged upon some errand.

"Here, boy," called the officer, "take this tray!"

Fred took a tray from a soldier who was holding it awkwardly.

"Take it upstairs to the room on the third floor where a sentry is on
guard. He will let you in. When the prisoner there has finished his
meal, return with the tray to the kitchen. Do not let any knife or fork
or spoon stay in the room when you go. So you will make yourself really
useful and release a man who can do things for which you are too young."

It seemed to Fred, as he started upstairs with his tray, that this luck
was almost too good to be true. He scarcely dared to hope for what had
seemed to him the inevitable explanation of his errand. But when the
sentry 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 Boris's indifferent glance at him. His disguise must be good,
or Boris would have known him. He put the tray down, and then walked to
the window. He looked down first, and then up. Then with a grin, he
turned to his cousin.

"N