Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/286

248 intelligence system which he had so easily mocked. In broad daylight he flew high over the lines and dropped into the town, where he had been concealed, a jibing letter which stated the exact period he had waited beneath the noses of the Germans for the moment of his escape. Of course he didn't think. His pride had overcome his judgment. He had underestimated the Teutonic skill. The sequel slipped to him as more important intelligence slips from beyond the German trenches. That man has lost his exultation. He wonders that his life should have been given back to him. For from the single clue of the note the German agents found their way to the house on the edge of the town. The gossip of the cafés, shrewd guesses, a painstaking process of elimination were their mileposts, and when they knocked at the door and drew the old man roughly from his house they He stared at them, trying to shake off their hands, with a great surprise, because it had been so long, because he had forgotten to be afraid.

At that moment an acquaintance brushed against the daughter in the market place. She was directed to a friend's house where she was told that her father had been taken. So she, too, was placed upon that underground road of sympathy and patriotism, and during the dawn of her escape were sure.