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Boris pushed on into a smaller room. Here Fred saw a man he would have known anywhere as Boris's father, and, for that matter, as some close relative of his mother. Alexander Suvaroff, General of Division in the Russian army, looked very much like Mikail, but there was a sharp difference between them. This Suvaroff was as kindly in aspect as the other was repellent and harsh. His eyes twinkled affectionately when he saw Fred.
"Welcome, cousin," he said. "Even if our chief purpose failed, I am glad we got here in time to save you. You heard that General von Hindenburg got away?"
"I knew that before we were caught," said Fred, "but I didn't know you had come for him."
"Of course they did!" said Boris. "Your wireless message told the staff he was here, and my father led a cavalry raid behind the German lines to try to catch him. But-he ran away!"
The general laughed at the contempt in Boris's tone.
"Of course he ran away!" he said. "I only wonder how he knew we were coming! That was bad luck-because not once did we strike so much as a German patrol as we rode."
"I can tell you," said Fred. "An aeroplane brought word. Its pilot must have seen you as he flew overhead, and suspected that you were coming here."
"So!" Suvaroff frowned. "I did not think of that! However, it is better than what we suspected at first. It looked as if someone at headquarters must have betrayed the plan. Well, it was too good to come true. If we had caught him and his staff, we might have hastened the end of the war by a good many months. Von Hindenburg is the ablest general in Germany, though he has been in disgrace for years. They sent for him as soon as war came. He'll do good work."
Fred was thinking.
"If that aeroplane saw you coming, general," he said, "isn't there danger that they may try to surround you here?"
"Yes, more than danger. They are sure to try to do it! But their cavalry is very slow, and I do not believe they have infantry enough near by to make any trouble for us." He frowned thoughtfully. "There is something very peculiar about the whole situation around here! If von Hindenburg is here, it means that their chief concentration on this front must be here. And yet we get reports of an astonishingly small number of troops! Not more than two corps."
Boris looked eagerly at his father, and then at Fred. But before he could speak General Suvaroff went on, crisply.
"You can ride?" he asked Fred. "Good! I will see that you and Boris have horses. Then we shall start. We can be back in our own lines before daylight."
Fred hesitated. Then Boris took the words from his mouth.
"Father, I want to stay!" he said, eagerly. "It will be safe. I can get back to the house and they can never catch me there, you know! They may not even search for me, but if they do, I can hide from them in the tunnel. And you say the German movement about here is puzzling. Would it not be well to have some way of sending word from here? Ivan is at work. But no matter what he discovers, if we are not at the house, it will do no good. Let me stay!"
"I should like to stay, too," said Fred.
"Impossible!" said General Suvaroff at once to that. "You would be shot as soon as you were caught-you are under sentence now. They would not treat you as a prisoner of war, even if they caught you among my troopers."
"But if they did not catch me-"
"No! I cannot let you take so great a risk. You are of my kin, and I owe a duty to your mother. I shall see that you get back safely to Russia and are sent home by sea from there."
"But if I go into Russia, I shall be arrested-those are Prince Mikail's orders," said Fred, quietly. "I am sure to be caught there, and here there is a chance that I may not be found. If you take Lieutenant Ernst with you as a prisoner, no one among the Germans will know me, except as I appear now. If I change back to my own clothes, I shall be safe from anything worse than detention. None of the officers of the court-martial escaped, did they?"
"No, that is true," said Suvaroff. He spoke thoughtfully. It was plain that Fred's argument was making an impression on him. "I have heard something of your affair with Mikail. I shall look into that. Eh-I don't know just what to do!"
"Let us stay!" pleaded Boris. "We will be careful, and we know now just what dangers we must avoid."
"I think we shall be back here, in force, before the week is out," said his father, after a moment's reflection. "Very well, you shall stay! It is true that you may be of the greatest service. I have not the right to consider personal matters when the welfare of Russia is at stake."
It was light by now. In curious contrast to the shambles of the garden and the disorder of the house, its windows shattered by bullets, its furniture broken and draperies torn in the swift conflict that had followed the appearance of the Cossacks, roosters were crowing outside and birds were singing. General Suvaroff gave a sharp order; subordinates passed it along. A bugle sounded, and, five minutes later, after the general had said good-bye to the two scouts, the Cossack raiders rode away. They were strung out in a long column along the road. As they passed through the village Fred and Boris, watching from an upper window of the abandoned parsonage, saw the villagers watching. Boris had a powerful field glass, and through this he and Fred could see the very faces of the watching Germans. Hatred and fear mingled in the looks they sent after the invaders of their country.
"One can't blame them," said Fred, with a shudder. "War's rather ghastly, isn't it, Boris?"
He looked down into the garden, and Boris's eyes followed his.
"Yes," said the Russian. "That's the ugly part of it. It's all ugly. But sometimes war must come, it seems to me. We in Russia have never wanted to make war. We have fought because we were forced to fight. I think that is what history will say of us in this war."
"They are not going toward Russia," said Fred, looking after the raiders, who were melting into the landscape now. "Their road seems to be due west."
"They must ride in a long circle, I suppose," said Boris. "If they went straight back, they would run right into the Germans. There must be a lot of the enemy between us and the Russian lines-their main body, you see. And my father won't want to fight. His object is to get back with as many men as possible. It would be useless to send a thousand Cossacks against an army corps."
"Oh, of course! It's wonderful to think of how they got here, Boris, riding right through the enemy's country! It's like the work cavalry did on both sides in our Civil War. They used to get behind the enemy's lines and cut telegraph wires and railways all the time."
In the village, there were now more signs of life. As the Cossacks rode by, the street had been empty, but now men and women were coming out furtively. They began to come toward the parsonage.
"Time for us to go," said Fred, with decision. "We wouldn't have much chance if they caught us here. And if we're to be of any use, those people have got to think that we've gone."
"Right!" said Boris. "Hello-look up there! I was afraid of that!"
He pointed to a monoplane, flying high and coming from the north, from the direction of the Baltic.
"Looking for the raiders," said Fred. "Let's hurry. I think we ought to report what has happened by wireless. Your father's party may need help." CHAPTER XII
THE TRICK
It was nervous work going through the lower floor of the house, through the garden, trampled by the rush of the Cossack charge, through bushes clipped and torn by bullets. All about was a curious silence, broken only by the sounds that the birds made, and the humming insects, which were not at all disturbed by war and the ruin it left in its wake. It was a relief to both scouts to pass into the tunnel. There everything seemed normal, strange though the place was. And in a few moments they were back in the great hall of the Suvaroff house, and were being greeted with delight by old Vladimir, though he reproached them, too, for coming back.
Their first thought was for the wireless. Fred sent a brief report of what had happened, describing the escape of General von Hindenburg. And then, as he was about to end the message, Ivan stood beside him. His eyes were shining and he seemed greatly excited.
"Tell them that von Hindenburg has only a masking force here with very few first line troops," he said. "Most of the Germans are far to the south. Their plan is to join the Austrians in an advance from Cracow. Here they hope to hold the lakes with a few troops. They expect our army to advance. They will give up Johannisberg and Ortelsburg. They will make no stand at all until we come to Allenstein. The whole movement here is a trick. They hope to lead us on here and then drive a great wedge into the heart of Poland, until they can strike at Warsaw."
Fred made no comment. He sent the message, then asked his own questions.
"You know of the raid last night?"
"I heard something of it-and that the old fox Hindenburg escaped. Tell me the rest."
"I'll be off," he said, when they had done. "Half a mile away I have a cache. There is a motorcycle and the uniform of a German soldier-a man of the cycle corps. I shall follow General Suvaroff."
"Can you catch them?" asked Boris, doubtfully. "They ride fast."
"Not so fast," said Ivan. "There may be fighting to do as well as running, and for fighting you need horses that are not too tired. It would be foolish to save an hour or two by hard riding and lose everything at the end for lack of the power to break through. And a motorcycle can do better than the fastest horse."
"But how did you get one?" asked Fred. "And the German uniform?"
Ivan smiled significantly.
"I met a man of about my size," he said. "I was walking. And I was tired. I took his cycle and his uniform away from him."
There was something about his tone and the look in his eyes that made Fred refrain from asking any more questions. He admired Ivan greatly, but he was a little afraid of him, too. In him he could see what lay behind the general belief that Russia was still a barbarous, partially civilized state, the underlying truth of the old saying: "Scratch a Russian, and you will find a Tartar beneath." He was glad that Ivan was on his side, and was bound to him, moreover, by his loyalty to the name of Suvaroff.
"Listen, now," said Ivan. "Here it is very dangerous. Stay as long as you can, but never let yourselves be caught in the house by any Germans. Do not let the villagers see you. Take to the tunnel without hesitation if there is an attack upon the house, or a search. I think you will be safe as long as you are watchful, but you cannot be off your guard for even a moment. The Germans will think that you went back with the Cossacks but they will try to make sure."
"We will be careful," said Boris. "You are sure of what you have learned? There will be no more than two army corps in this region?"
"That is certain. I have scouted for twenty miles to the west and I have been along the railway lines. If there were more troops coming, I should have discovered it. I am sure of that."
"And now you are going back toward our lines?"
"Yes. I may be of service to your father. And, in any case, I shall be of more use if I am with the German advanced position than if I stayed here, far in the rear. Good-bye!"
He departed through the tunnel. And then for Fred and Boris began a task almost harder than any that could have been set. They had to wait. There was nothing for them to do except sit in the little turret room. Below, Vladimir and the others kept a sort of guard, but there seemed little reason even for that.
From the turret, whence the wireless waves were sent pulsing out through the air, a fine view of the surrounding country for a good many miles was to be had. For the most part this was a level section, slightly undulating, but with very few high spots. From their vantage point the roads stretched out like ribbons or like lines on a map. Fred opened the wireless and amused himself by listening. At first he could hear only a confused jumble through the receivers that were clamped to his ear. Then he changed his wave length, experimenting until he got a clear series of dots and dashes.
"I think I'll take this down," he said to Boris. "It'll be like Greek to us, of course, but it's all German wireless talk, and it all means something. Perhaps if we're lucky, we'll stumble on to the key of the code they're using, and that might be useful."
After a time Boris, who could receive well enough but was an inexpert sender, relieved him, and Fred, taking the field glass, began to search the horizon. Soon something caught his eye and held his attention. At first he thought he saw troops moving, coming from the east. It seemed strange that German troops should be in retreat so soon, but in a moment he understood. He did not see soldiers moving along the road, but a company of civilians, with carts that were drawn by men and women. At first the sight puzzled him, but then he understood, and he called to Boris to look.
"They're clearing out the villages toward the border," he said.
Boris only glanced through the glass.
"Yes. They were doing it the day after the war began, too," he said. "It's better for them, of course. If civilians are about where there is fighting, they are in danger from both sides. The Germans wouldn't stop a minute at shelling one of their own villages if we were holding it. Fred, I think they must be going to send our little lot away, too. There are soldiers coming along the road-Uhlans."
Fred looked down and saw a picket of lancers approaching, headed by an officer. And in a few minutes there were signs of great activity in the village. Soon the exodus began. And then the Uhlans turned at the road leading up to the great house, and began to climb.
"Coming to warn our people, I suppose," said Boris. "We'll make ourselves scarce, Fred. Vladimir can talk to them when they arrive."
But Fred did not go without one more sweeping look about him. And it showed him something that surprised him.
"I've got a curious feeling," he told Boris, when they had slipped into the secret passage. "I've got what we call a hunch in America-a feeling that Ivan has been fooled. You didn't see what I did just now. I'm perfectly certain I saw troops marching on two roads that aren't very far apart, to the north."
"Marching east or west?"
"East. I think a real trap is being prepared, Boris. And-I'm going to try to find out the truth!"
"How?"
"I'd better not tell you, Boris. Go back and listen-see what you can hear at the thin wall. I'm afraid that if we both go we might be heard, if they are near there. I want to know where those Uhlans come from."
"All right," said Boris, wondering a little. He went off, and Fred, as soon as he had disappeared, began to make his way very quietly, almost stealthily, indeed, toward the other end of the tunnel-the one that gave to the open air.
"He'd never have let me go if I had told him," he said to himself, feeling the need of justifying what looked like treachery, since his own conscience was accusing him. "And I didn't lie to him. I didn't say that I would be there when he came back. I only hope I get out before he finds I've gone!"
When he reached the opening he felt safe, and there he stopped and wrote a note to Boris, telling him what he meant to do and why he had not taken him into his confidence before.
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