Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/620

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From our position on horseback close behind him we were able to see that our foreigner was reading a guide book and was studying a map of the fortifications through which we were passing. Sud- denly he called to the driver to stop for a moment while he lit a match for his cigarette. The driver pulled up, and so

��Popular Science Monthly

�� ����An instance of how an effective disguise can be assumed on the spur of the moment. This disguise was effected in two minutes

did we. The stranger glanced up to see that the man was not looking round, and then quickly slipped a camera from under the rug which was lying on the seat in front of him, and taking aim at the entrance shaft of a new ammunition store which had just been made for our Navy, he took a snapshot. Then hur- riedly covering up the camera again he proceeded to strike matches and to light his cigarette. We followed close behind him till we came to where a policeman was regulating the traffic. I rode ahead and gave him his instructions so that the carriage was stopped and the man was asked to show his permit to take photographs. He had none. The camera was taken into custody and the name and address of the owner taken "with a view to further proceedings."

The Pluck of a Spy

Except in the case of the traitor spy, one does not quite understand why a spy should necessarily be treated worse than any other combatant, nor why his occu- pation should be looked upon as con- temptible, for, whether in peace or war, his work is of a very dangerous kind. It is intensely exciting, and though in some cases it brings a big reward, the best spies are unpaid men who are doing it

��for the love of the thing, and as a really effective step to gaining something valua- ble for their country.

Many interesting schemes are re- sorted to in spying. Once I went "butterfly hunting" in Dalmatia. Car- rying a sketch-book, a color-box and a butterfly net in my hand, I was above all suspicion to anyone who met me on the lonely mountain side, even in the neigh- borhood of the forts. I was hunting butterflies, and it was always a good introduction with which to go to anyone who was watching me with suspicion.

They did not look sufficiently- closely into the sketches of butterflies to notice that the delicately drawn veins of the wings were exact representations, in plan, of their own fort, and that the spots on the wings denoted the number and position of guns and their different calibers.

����The use of hair in disguising the face is perfectly useless unless the eyebrows are considerably changed. The brow and the back of the head are also extremely important factors in the art of disguise. The second picture shows the effect of "improving" the eyebrows of the face on the left, and also of raising the hair on the brow, while the third sketch shows what a difference the addition of a beard and extra hair on the back can make

The matter of disguise Is obviously an important one. I was at one time watched by a detective who was one day a soldierly-looking fellow and the next an in\alid with a patch over his eye. I could not believe it was the same man until I watched him from behind and saw him walking, when at once his indi- viduality was apparent. It is wonder- ful what a difference is made by merely altering your hat and necktie. It is usual for a person addressing another to take note of his necktie, and probably of his hat, if of nothing else, and thus it is often useful to carry a necktie and a cap of totally different hue from that which >ou are wearing, ready to change immediately in order to escape recogni- tion a few minutes later.

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