The Boy Scouts In Russia - [18]

"There are an awful lot of these fellows with dispatches running about," he said to himself. "It seems to me that this place is more than a colonel's headquarters. A colonel has just one regiment under him, and he certainly wouldn't need so many riders to carry his orders about-unless he were in command of a detached fort or position, and Colonel Goldapp isn't. I guess he's there, right enough, but I've an idea there's someone more important, as well. It might be worth while to find out just what is going on around here."

But that could wait. For the moment his task was to meet Vladimir and then to spy out the parsonage. Meeting Vladimir proved easier than he had hoped. He followed the trail of the man on the motorcycle until he was within sight of the grey stone parsonage, and then had his bearings exactly. He approached the hollow cautiously, but no one was around. The ground was fairly soft; there had been rain within the last three or four days. And so, as he approached the spot of his encounter with the superstitious soldier, Fred was able to tell that no visitation had been made to the hollow. He marked the footsteps of the soldier; the man had evidently run from the place.

Looking around cautiously, he saw that everything was clear, and dropped down on hands and knees as he reached the gully. Vladimir was waiting, and in less than a minute explained the secret of the door.

"All right," said Fred. "Now you get back to the house, and either be near the entrance to the passage yourself, or keep someone stationed there. I don't know what's going to happen, so I can't tell you, but I think that maybe I shall get Boris away from the parsonage."

Vladimir's eyes gleamed.

"I am an old man," he said, "and I fear that I am useless. But if I can help to rescue him-"

"If you can help, I'll let you know," said Fred. "But I don't know yet even how I shall set about it. And I think it's more important for someone we can trust absolutely to be in the house. There may be nothing for you to do there, and yet, if anything does come up, you will be needed there very quickly. Shall you go back through the tunnel?"

"No. They may have watched me as I came out, and it will be better for them to see me return. No one suspects the tunnel yet, but some of these Germans are clever."

"Right! Well, I know how to get into it now from this end, and that may help a lot. But I hope that when I use it again Boris will be with me."

He let old Vladimir go out first. Then, after waiting for several minutes, he went up the gully in his turn, and set out boldly and with no attempt to hide his movements, for the parsonage.

There was even more activity there now than there had been when he had first set eyes upon it. There were more automobiles; four of them altogether. At the wheel of each sat a soldier driver in grey uniform, and with a cloth covered helmet. Each car was of the same type, a long rakish grey body, low to the ground. As he neared the house an officer wearing a long, grey coat came out, accompanied by two or three younger men. He turned to speak to them, then got into one of the cars, which immediately drove off. As it went a peculiar call was sounded, more like a trumpet than an automobile horn. Fred guessed then what he afterward learned to be a fact; that the automobiles used by the German staff officers on active service had horns that indicated the rank of the officer using them.

It seemed to Fred that there were more officers than soldiers about. There seemed to be only enough soldiers to provide a guard. Sentries were all about, but there were officers almost in swarms. He walked along, indifferently rather than boldly, and he was sharply challenged when he drew fairly near to the house.

"You can't go any further, youngster," said the soldier. "The staff has taken this house."

Fred stared at him rather stupidly, but turned away. Then he was called back suddenly, and for a moment his heart was in his mouth at the thought that his disguise had been penetrated and that he was about to be made a prisoner. Like Boris, he was concerned only with the effect of this upon his plans. He did not think of his own safety, although, had he been caught, he might have expected the fate of a spy, since he was in disguise within the German lines. It proved, however, that he was not to be arrested. A young captain was eyeing him sharply.

"Come with me, boy," he said. "We are short of servants in the house here. You will do."

For a moment he was indignant, but then his heart leaped happily. If he was taken into the house as a servant, he could find out all and more than he had hoped, and that without risk. CHAPTER IX

"THERES MANY A SLIP-"

Once inside the house, Fred found a scene of orderly confusion. That is, it looked like confusion to him, but he could see that, for all the bustling and the hurrying that went on, everyone knew just what his part in the work was. Telephone bells were ringing all the time, and Fred noticed now that wires entered the house through the dining-room window. Evidently a field 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.