It is the commonest thing in the world to hear people tell what they
might have done, and unfold plans conceived after the necessity for
them was past. Such plans make good reading, but poor history.

Warren, of course, tramping hastily down a deserted street, lay open to
disaster, and the defeat of his purpose. If he had reconnoitered as
carefully as he had followed his game, he would have been able to
locate them without the least suspicion on their part that they had
been shadowed. It then would have been simple to have watched for some
unguarded moment, when the boys could easily have gained entrance to
their quarters and secured the children.

There is no great deed accomplished in this world where caution does
not play a great part. In war, in business, in sports, the man who
looms the biggest after the game is done and people have the time to
study things, is the man who had never once failed to exercise a proper
amount of caution. In a fairy story this warning is given: "Be bold;
be bold -- but not too bold."

You see caution does not question or hesitate or delay too long.
Caution keeps right on, but slowly and with a careful regard to safe
footing. Caution keeps you from rocking the boat, and pointing the
loaded gun, and skating near the thin ice. It keeps you from the heels
of the kicking horse. It makes the good general save his men.

Warren forgot. After blocks and blocks of trailing, he bolted down the
street, examining each house with anxious excitement.

Finally he discovered footmarks leading toward a dark, heavy door, and