"Oh, that's great!" said Fred. "Perhaps I can help, too, because I can
send by wireless. I don't know whether I would be much good with the
Continental code, because I've learned only with Morse. But I might be
of some use."

"Another operator will be of the greatest use," said Boris. "I know a
little, a very little, about it. And there is a man here. But I am
afraid that they will come very soon and take every man who is of
fighting age away."

"But your men aren't soldiers!"

"Most of them have served their term in the army. But, even if they had
not, the Germans would take every able-bodied man. That is all right.
We are probably keeping back all Germans who might go home and go into
the army, and all the other countries will do the same with men of a
nation with which they are at war."

"Vladimir has all that I brought," said Ivan, breaking in now. "As for
me, I must go again."

"Go? Now? Aren't you going to stay?"

"No! I have much to do. I may be back. But if I return, I shall come
through the cellar--you understand? There are strange movements of
troops in this region that I cannot understand at all. There are far
fewer soldiers here than I thought there would be. I have not been able
to find traces of more than a single corps of Germans--and we had
expected them to have three or four, at the very least, concentrated in
East Prussia as soon as the war broke out. At Augustowo they were even