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.