at the lines in disgust for a brief period of time.

"It's a cipher of some kind," explained Tom, seriously. "With the key
all this would resolve itself into some sort of communication, I
suppose, connected with valuable information concerning the French
armies here at Verdun."

"Then it was made by a spy!"

"No question about that part of it," came the ready reply.

"This carrier pigeon with this message, was on its way across to some
point in the rear of the enemy line when you fired, and brought the poor
little thing down in a quivering heap, I'm sure that's it," continued
the other.

"Yes. And so after all it's turned out to be a lucky thing you chanced
to see the bird coming along, Jack, and begged me to knock it down so we
could show some sort of game when we got back to camp."

"What ought we do with this message?" asked Jack, accustomed to
depending on his more energetic chum in many cases; though when left to
his own resources he could think for himself, as had frequently been
proved.

"I shall see that it gets to French headquarters, with an account of the
singular way we ran across it," Tom told him.

"Do you think it would be possible for any one there to translate this
cipher of the German secret code?"

"Why not?" Tom demanded. "They are clever people, these wideawake
French, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if they turned this incident
to some good use."

"How?"

"Oh, it could be done in many ways. Suppose they found the key to the
code. Don't you see how a fictitious message could be sent on in some
way, if they could bag another pigeon from the same coop? They might
even coax the Germans to deliver a furious attack at a supposed weak
place in the line, which would of course be heavily guarded."

"That would be something worth while!" exclaimed the other with glowing
eyes. "Lead them into a trap, where they would be mowed down like ripe
grain, terrible as that sounds!"

"Yes, that's the idea I had in mind. But it would depend on several
things. First of all would come the successful solving of this cipher
code."

"Yes, and then the finding of another homing pigeon," added Jack. "I
wonder if the fellow who released that bird could have a lot more of the
same kind hidden away somewhere around back here."

"I was just going to suggest that we take a turn toward the south, and
look around a bit before going back to camp. Do you feel equal to it,
Jack?"

"What, me! Tom? Why, I'm as f