Front matter (continued 2)

"Didn't you know that there were telegraphic characters in that picture on your arm?" asked Lieut. Osborne.

"Yes, or rather I suspected it pretty strongly," was the reply.

"And you don't know what the message is?"

"No, I don't."

"Haven't you any idea?"

"Well, yes, I have an idea, but it's pretty vague. I overheard a little of a conversation not intended for my ears, and from that I got the notion, or perhaps it's only a suspicion, that the message contains the British naval or aeronautical wireless code."

"At any rate, it's of great importance," suggested Lieut. Osborne.

"Oh, there's no doubt about that," Tourtelle, or Hessenburg, assured.

"Are you an artist?" was the inquisitor's next question.

"Yes, I am; that is, I was an art student, and the story I told Ellis about making a hit with a cubist painting is true. That's what started the scheme of tattooing a picture message on my arm."

"Who suggested it?"

"One of the fellows who did the work. He was something of an artist as well as a chemist.

"The fellow with whiskers?"

"Yes," replied the spy. "I see you have had a pretty thorough report of that affair."

"We have. Did you know that the boy who was seized in the hall and dragged into the laboratory left with the pen-and-ink sketch of your painting crumpled up in his hand?"

"No. Is that what became of it? One of the men suggested that he must have stolen it, but I didn't think he was right."

"Did you know they put detectives on his track?"

"No. Did they?"

"That's what they did. And that is probably the reason why the hospital was raided a few days later. If they hadn't followed him, the boy probably would have passed the matter up and dismissed it from his mind. But he became restlessly curious and reported the affair to the police."

"Hm!" Tourtelle grunted at this elucidation.

"Do you mean for me to understand that you have no idea whom this message is for?" asked Lieut. Osborne, indicating the section of skin illuminated with cubist art.

"That's exactly what I mean," the cubist spy replied.

"But what were you supposed to do after you got over into Germany?"

"Seek out an army officer and tell him my story. Any officer, I was told, would know at once what to do with me."

"Do you speak German?"

"Not much, nor Austrian, either. I studied German at school and learned enough to be able to make myself understood on the other side of the Rhine."

"Come on, Ellis," said Lieut. Osborne, rising suddenly. "We've got all we want now. I'll report to the colonel and probably in a day or two Tourtelle will hear from us again. I'm going to take this cubist souvenir with me."

In the course of the conversation he had repacked the section of tattooed skin in the salt, and as he arose to leave he put the box in one of his overcoat pockets. Irving followed him out of the building, and soon they were speeding back over the road by which they had reached the field hospital.

CHAPTER XV

IRVING AN ORDERLY

"We will go direct to Col. Evans' headquarters," Lieut. Osborne announced shortly after the return trip had been begun. "He asked me to report back to him as soon as possible."

The trip was soon made. The colonel's headquarters were less than a mile behind the rear line trenches, and the road to this point was in fairly good condition.

Irving felt a deep interest in this visit aside from the bearing it had on the matter under investigation. He had never seen a colonel's headquarters and was curious to know what appearance such a place might present.

He was not greatly surprised to find it a dugout, although he had not pictured it such in his mind. The first suggestion that had offered itself to him was that the head of the regiment probably had stationed himself in the palatial residence or chateau of some wealthy fugitive civilian. However, when the truth appeared to him with the most commonplace simplicity, he decided that it was the very thing that he ought to have expected.

The dugout was a two-room affair in the side of a hill on the outskirts of a small village. The hill was covered with fruit trees and berry vines, affording an excellent camouflage. One of the rooms was occupied by the colonel and the other by his orderlies. The walls and roof were of concrete, thick enough to resist heavy bombing from the air. Other attaches of this headquarters were housed in several homes of the otherwise deserted village.

The commander of the regiment received the visitors in his elaborately furnished living room, bedroom and dining room. Lieut. Osborne began at once a rapid account of the interview he had had with Second Lieut. Tourtelle, or Hessenburg. The colonel listened attentively, every now and then casting a sharp and sometimes lingering glance at Private Ellis, who had all he could do to suppress the anxious eagerness he felt relative to impending developments. Naturally, as he had rather dubiously offered the original information that led up to the partial disclosure of extensive spy activities, he felt as if his whole future depended upon the full success of the investigation.

Lieut. Osborne opened the box containing the tattooed message and took it out of its salt packing. Col. Evans examined it curiously while the reporting officer explained all he knew about it, calling attention to the telegraphic dots and dashes running around the numerous "cubes."

"We ought to get somebody who is skilled in cryptographic work busy on this at once," said the colonel. "I've been in communication with the brigadier general's headquarters and suggested that to them, and now that I have this in my possession, I'm going to urge it stronger. I'll get them on the wire again."

They were seated at a table at one side of the room, and as he spoke, the regiment commander cranked the telephone box at his right and lifted the receiver to his ear. The conversation was short, for the intelligence department at the brigade headquarters had been busy on the colonel's suggestion and already had found an expert qualified to probe the mystery of the cubist cryptogram. He would start at once for the regimental headquarters.

"Just wait here till our cryptologist arrives," said the colonel, after reporting the result of his conversation over the telephone; "and maybe he'll be able to clear up matters so that we may begin to see bottom."

The expert, Lieut. Gibbons, attached to the divisional commander's intelligence staff, arrived half an hour later, and the spy story had to be told all over again for his benefit, while he examined curiously the "freak-art camouflaged message."

"I may be able to work this out in a few hours, and then again, it may take several days," he said. "I'd better take it with me back to headquarters and work on it there and report back results as soon as I get them."

The colonel assented to this and the expert prepared to depart with the cubist cryptogram in his possession. Then the regimental commander turned to the officer and the private and said:

"Lieutenant, you will return to your company. I will call on you when I wish to communicate with you again on this matter. Private Ellis, you will remain here. I can use another orderly, and, besides, I'd like to have you close at hand in case of further developments in this spy investigation. By the way, can you operate a motorcycle?"

"Yes, sir," Irving replied.

"Good. You can be useful at once. I have some papers that I want delivered to the brigadier general. You may follow Lieut. Gibbons' automobile and learn the way. He goes past the brigadier general's headquarters."

A motorcycle was soon produced and Irving, after a hurried examination of it, announced that he understood it thoroughly. A minute later he was in the saddle and "lickety-chugging" along after the intelligence official's automobile.

And meanwhile there was buzzing in his brain this new wonder with eager expectation:

"What was the real purpose of Col. Evans in keeping him at headquarters"? Was that officer likely to have further army detective work for him to do?

Already he was beginning to feel like a government secret service man, and he longed to be of further service to his country and the cause of world freedom in this romantic line.

He little dreamed how far beyond the scope of his saner imagination his patriotic longing was to be realized.

CHAPTER XVI

A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT

Three days later Col. Evans summoned Irving into his dugout office and said to him: "Well, the cubist cryptogram has been read."

The officer smiled with a kind of grim exultation as he spoke. Then he added:

"And it contained very important information."

"I'm glad of it," the boy answered simply, although he felt almost as if he would burst with a "hurrah!" that threatened to explode within him.

"Of course you are," the commander concurred. "And I suppose you'd like to know what's in it."

"Naturally," Irving replied; "but I doubt very much if you are going to tell me."

"Why?"

"Because, in the first place, it's none of my business as a private; and, secondly, I presume it is information of a character that the war department wishes to keep secret."

"Right you are, Ellis. That's the main reason I put the matter up to you. I wanted to find out what you thought of it. But there's another reason why you shouldn't know the contents of that message, and I'll tell you that later. Meanwhile, I have another important matter that I want to quiz you on. Do you want to go back to the trenches?"

"I'm perfectly willing to go back if that is the best thing I can do," Irving answered readily. "But I'll say this, that if there's any other place where I can be of greater service, I prefer to be sent there. It's a question of service pure and simple with me. Naturally, I have my selfish preferences, but I manage to suppress them."

"Have you any idea where you could be of greater service than in the trenches?" asked the colonel.

"I'll answer your question in this way: I'm sure that the time I spent helping to run down a dangerous spy was put to much better purpose than it would have been if spent in the trenches, although I think I did some good work out in No Man's Land in front of the trenches. But, of course, there's no more of that kind of work left for me to do."

"Are you sure about that?"

Irving looked curiously at the putter of this question, considered a moment or two, and then replied:

"No, I'm not; but I don't know of anything more."

"Suppose some more of that kind of work should be found, would you like to do it?"

"Surely."

"Irrespective of the size of the task or the danger?"

"I don't know how I could find anything much more dangerous than that skirmish in No Man's Land," Irving replied slowly. "The other part of your question I don't wish to answer rashly. Tell me the task, and I'll tell you if it's too big for me."

"That's the very answer I wanted you to make," said the colonel, almost eagerly. "Now, suppose we should ask you to go over into Germany on an important spy mission, how would that strike you?"

This was something Irving was not looking for, and he was so astonished that he did not answer for several moments. Then he said:

"It would strike me all right."

"Suppose you were given a credential that would effect admittance for you into high official circles--would you go there and attempt to obtain information that might be available, because of your credential?"

"Yes, sir," Irving replied firmly.

"What do you think of that stunt of tattooing a message in the form of a freak art production on the arm of Lieut. Tourtelle?"

Irving smiled.

"Of course," he said, "it was clever and under ordinary circumstances ought to have been successful; but I'd rather not go through life with a thing like that on my arm. It might brand me as a freak, if not something worse."

"I don't blame you," returned the colonel, but as he spoke a peculiar shrewdness lighted his eyes, causing the boy to wonder a little. Then he added: "Still, it might be possible for one to submit to such nonsense if thereby he might advance a great and worthy cause."

"Sure, that's quite possible," Irving agreed; "but I don't see how Tourtelle, or Hessenburg, can claim any such motive."

"No, but if he had done it for his own country, the British empire, to advance the cause of human freedom, what then?"

"Well, in spite of the ridiculous appearance of the picture on his arm, I'd say he ought to be proud to keep it there. I would. I think I'd be proud to show it. It would be something to show and tell about to--to--my great-great-grandchildren when I got old, you see," Irving finished with a really illuminating smile.

"I think I've quizzed you far enough on this subject," Col. Evans announced at this point, throwing off the manner of vagueness that had hitherto characterized a good deal of his conversation, and speaking with unmistakable directness. "I'm now going to ask you to consent to have that cubist picture tattooed on your arm."

Irving looked in astonishment at the commanding officer of the regiment, being scarcely able to believe his ears. Surely the proposition was nonsensical. And, yet, this was no occasion for nonsense. But the boy's wondering conjectures were interrupted by the officer, who was adding to his last announcement.

"After the art work on your arm is finished," he said, "I'm going to send you into Germany to find out some things we want to know."

"Yes?" Irving responded, with a rising inflection that carried with it a suggestion of an interrogation.

"Yes," the officer continued; "I want you to take the place of the spy whose tattooed arm had to be amputated."

CHAPTER XVII

PARACHUTE PRACTICE

Private Ellis looked hard into vacancy and thought just as hard for half a minute; then he said:

"I get you, I think, Col. Evans, all except one point; and that, I suppose, would come to me all right if I knew the contents of that tattooed message."

"No, you wouldn't," the colonel returned quickly. "It wouldn't do you a bit of good."

"I'd know whether it's important," Irving insisted.

"I can tell you that much," was the officer's reassurance; "and then you're no better off. It's of vast importance and would be of incalculable value to our enemies if it fell into their hands."

"Then there's only one explanation of your proposition," Irving concluded. "You will change the dots and dashes so that they will convey information different from that originally intended."

"Good!" exclaimed the colonel. "You'll do all right. Are you willing to undertake it?"

"I am," said Irving.

"Very well. So far so good. Now I'm going to test your nerve some more. Look out, for this is going to be a corker. If you drop, you'll drop hard."

"I'm waiting," said the boy, with a kind of gritty grin.

"All right. Would you dare make a descent with a parachute from an altitude of several thousand feet?"

This was a tester, indeed. Irving knew it the instant the last word of the question left the colonel's lips, but he did not flinch.

"Of course, I ought to have some preparation for such a feat," he replied. "I've never been up in an aeroplane."

"To be sure," Col. Evans agreed, with a vigorous nod. "You'll get all the schooling necessary. You'll start out on the venture well equipped. I'm going to send you to the aviation field near brigade headquarters, and there you'll learn to do your umbrella stunt. Then you'll come back here and go through some more preliminaries. The work of a spy, you see, is just as much of a science as the handling of an army."

That ended the interview, and an hour or two later Irving started in an automobile for the aviation field with a note from the colonel to the flying commander. There he was placed under an expert, and his schooling in the art of dropping from lofty heights began.

Private Ellis did not clearly understand just how all this program was to be carried out, but he had no doubt that Col. Evans had a complete plan in mind and that the missing details would fit in well with what had already been revealed to him. So he went about his new work confident that the outlook for success was good.

His training at the aviation field lasted a week. During that time he made half a dozen descents by parachute from various altitudes. The last descent was from a height of 3,000 feet. By this time the experience had become almost as commonplace a thriller as coasting on a long toboggan slide or "dipping the dips" at an up-to-date amusement park. He had never dreamed that descending with a parachute could become so matter-of-course a performance.

"I understand now how circus people can look on their death-defying stunts without being awe-struck with their own daring," he mused after he had floated down the fourth time at the rate of three-and-a-half feet a second. "Just think of it: a good swift sprinter would run a hundred yards in about one-third the time that I take to fall thirty-five feet. This is quite a revelation of physical science to me."

Irving was by nature a very observing youth. His instructor was something more than a mere bird-man, for he had studied aviation as a mathematical, as well as a physical, science. He showed the boy how to figure out the rate of falling after being given the diameter of a standard-made parachute and the weight of the aeronaut.

The parachute with which the young spy-student got his experience as a diver from the sky was one of several supplied for experimental work following reports that the enemy had perfected a similar device which had proved successful as a life saver in air battles. But the experiments of Allied aviators had not proved sufficiently successful to warrant providing all air fighters with "high-dive umbrellas." Descents could be made with reasonable assurance of safety from aeroplanes flying in good order, but if a pilot lost control of his machine the chances were small that he or his companion gunner or bomb dropper would be able to leap free from the struts and other framework with a parachute.

Irving would have liked to learn to pilot an aeroplane, but there was not time enough for him to take up that study. Indeed, before half the week had elapsed he decided he could like no occupation better than that of an aviator. He saw several expeditions start out to meet the enemy at the front, and also saw them return, followed by the announcement on two occasions that several of the British and Canadian flyers who had gone out to meet the foe, full of confidence in their own prowess, would return no more. They had been either shot down or forced to descend within the enemy's lines.

Nothing was said at the aviation field regarding the reason for the training that was being given to Private Ellis. No questions were asked and Irving did not volunteer any information. At last the instructor stated to the boy that he had completed his course and had learned his lessons well, and that he was now at liberty to seek further directions from the colonel. He accordingly returned to the latter's dugout.

Col. Evans asked him a number of questions, and then said:

"I want you to return to the field hospital and get some more information from that spy, Tourtelle, or Hessenburg. And in getting your information, remember that you are to impersonate him on the other side of the Rhine. Now, this is going to be a test of your spy-intelligence. Let's see how well equipped you can return here after your next interview with him. Do you get me, or must I give you some tips?"

"Don't give me any tips, but let me show you what I can do," Irving replied. "If I fall down on this mission, you'll know I'm not the fellow for the job."

"All right," said the colonel. "I've telephoned for Lieut. Osborne to come here and accompany you again. But this time, remember, you are to do the quizzing, and the lieutenant is to report to me how efficiently you went at it."

"I'm glad to be put on my own responsibility, sir, before I drop down from the clouds into the midst of the enemy," the boy said grimly.

CHAPTER XVIII

STUDYING TO BE A SPY

An hour later Lieut. Osborne arrived at the colonel's headquarters, and he and Private Ellis started at once for the field hospital. There they found Hessenburg, alias Tourtelle, much improved physically, but not a little nervous regarding his own rather precarious prospects. Instead of being an officer helping to direct, in his small way, the battle against the autocratic presumption of a great military power, he was something more than an ordinary prisoner of war--a trapped spy, who had conspired with others for the downfall of his own country. With seemingly genuine repentance, he exhibited much eagerness to give all the information possible in order to induce leniency for himself from a court-martial.

"I am instructed by Col. Evans to make this statement to you as coming from him," Irving announced early in the interview: "He desires all the information you can give him regarding your program that was to have been followed if you had succeeded in making your way beyond the enemy lines. He has certain plans in view, the success of which will depend largely on the correctness of your information. If you should misinform him, through us, those plans undoubtedly would fail. Moreover, if any enemy spy should get a tip through you or anybody else, that the information supplied by you was being used to attain important ends, those ends probably would never be reached.

"What we must have from you, therefore, is the truth, and the whole truth. To insure his receiving this, Col. Evans has asked me to inform you that the only thing that can save you is the success of his plan. If the plan fails, he will assume that the blame is yours and you will be shot."

Irving paused a moment, and Hessenburg seized the opportunity offered to interpose thus:

"You mean to say that he will have me shot for something for which I'm not the least responsible?"

"Not at all," Irving replied. "You will be shot for being a spy, which has already been proved against you. But if you're careful to tell us the truth, even though I don't cover some of it with my questions, your chances to escape that penalty are good."

"I understand," said the spy. "Fire away. I'll do the best I can."

The three were seated about a small table in a small room selected for the purpose. The door was closed. Irving drew a note-book and pencil from his pockets and prepared to jot down reminders of the information received by him.

"First," he said, "we'll all talk in low tones to prevent, if possible, anybody's overhearing us. Now, begin by telling me what was the extent of your acquaintance with spies in Canada and their system of operations."

"My acquaintance with those people and their affairs was very limited," Hessenburg replied. "I can't even say that my uncle was, or is, a spy, although it would be natural to suspect him. Government agents watched him pretty closely, and it's possible that he didn't actually do anything that would call for his arrest. But I'm pretty certain he knew a good deal more than I did. I think he knew all about my affair and approved of it. To tell the truth, I believe that it was through him that the spy organization learned that my sympathies were treasonable and decided to approach me on the subject of making a spy agent out of me.

"It was the man with whiskers at the hospital who first broached the subject to me: You seem to have a pretty complete report of that affair. That man was a physician, and I got acquainted with him while making business trips to the hospital for my uncle. He learned that I was an art student, and one thing led to another, until he knew I wanted England and France to be defeated and was willing to do anything I could secretly to bring that about. After that it didn't take him long to persuade me to be the bearer of a tattooed message on my arm into Germany. The other fellow who helped tattoo the message was the artist, an architectural draftsman with considerable skill at free-hand drawing."

"What are their names?" asked Irving.

"Dr. Adolph Marks and Jacob L. Voltz."

"What is your uncle's name?"

"Ferdinand J. Hessenburg."

"What does the 'J' stand for?"

"Johan."

Irving put a long string of questions of this kind, and thus obtained much detailed information regarding the spy and his family connections and home surroundings, also concerning the art school he attended in Toronto. He made copious notes of the answers, so that the process of questioning the confessed enemy agent was necessarily much slower than it otherwise would have been.

"I'm up against one difficulty that I'd like to clear away," the inquisitor mused in the course of his examination of the wounded "second looie"; "and that is the fact that this fellow is an artist and I am not. Suppose when I get over in Berlin, some wise fellow, full of information from Canada, should ask me to paint a cubist picture. What would I do? I must find out if there's any danger of my being asked to do anything of that sort to test my identity."

He continued his questioning thus:

"Did those two men who tattooed that picture on your arm know that you were an art student?"

"Oh, sure," Hessenburg replied. "That's how they happened to suggest the art method of conveying the message."

"And how about your credentials, your identification when you got into Germany? How were the German officials to know who you were, that you weren't a fake?"

"By the message itself."

"You think your instructors believed that was enough?"

"Yes, they said so. We had that question up for discussion. I raised it myself."

"How did you raise it?"

"I wanted them to get word to Berlin by another route to look out for me, but they said that would involve a danger that they were trying to avoid by the tattoo method. If they tried to get a wireless code message to Berlin, it might be intercepted and deciphered, and then a thorough search would be made for me."

Irving was much relieved by this statement. There was no reason to suspect Hessenburg of trying to deceive him in this regard. The spy could have no grounds to suspect that his inquisitor was planning to take his place and carry an altered copy of the cubist message to the war lords of the enemy.

"I guess I'm safe enough in that regard," he told himself. Then he added aloud:

"You think they have no information regarding you in Berlin?"

"Yes--I don't see why they should. I was informed that the contents of the message would be all the credential I'd need, that it would make me so popular among the high-ups that I could have anything I asked for."

"But they wouldn't tell you what was in the message?"

"I didn't ask. I knew better. The plan we were working on was directly opposed to my knowing the information I was to carry."

The quizzing of Hessenburg continued half an hour longer, and Irving and the lieutenant started back for the colonel's headquarters.

"Did I omit any questions I should have asked?" the spy-student inquired after they had ridden a short distance.

"You did fine," Lieut. Osborne replied. "I couldn't think of another question that I would have asked."

CHAPTER XIX

LAST PREPARATIONS

The next move in Irving's program of preparation for spy work in Germany had to do with the tattooing of an altered copy of the cubist art message on his arm. The alterations were made by the cryptologist who had deciphered the original message. He made the changes after consulting with intelligence officials, who prepared a system of dots and dashes that ostensibly conveyed valuable information. This "information," however, was not only misleading, but it was of such character that the deception could hardly be discovered before the lapse of months and possibly a year or more.

By the time the spy-student had "completed his course of study" the material, instruments, and artist were ready for the pictorial operation. The instruments had been supplied by a surgeon, the artist had been discovered after a search by telephone communication with the various official headquarters of the regiment, and the material, some pure aniline dye, had been found in a moving laboratory, or automobile chemical outfit, maintained for surgical, sanitation, pure food, and pure water purposes for the army.

The artist, aided by a surgeon, and the dye and some sharp-pointed needles, did the work. It was a long and tedious task, and many rests were required for the users of the dye-dipped needles in order to keep their nerves steady and their judgment sure in the delicate workmanship. After it was finished, the boy compared it with the salt-preserved original, and decided that the result could hardly have been more satisfactory for the desired purpose.

Then Irving had another session with Col. Evans, who gave him his final instructions.

"I haven't given you much of an idea yet what we want you to find out for us at Berlin, or wherever you can get the information," said the commander of the regiment. "We know, of course, that there is an extensive enemy spy organization in both Canada and the United States, and while we are able to get a few of those fellows now and then, still they're pretty smart as a rule, and we feel that we have only scratched the surface. We want their names, or the name of every leader of consequence among them. That's what we're sending you into Germany for. You must realize, therefore, that the mission on which you are being sent is one of no small consequence. The highest officers in the army have been acquainted with the plan and not only concurred in it, but offered suggestions for its improvement and perfection.

"You have learned from Hessenburg what you are to do when you land on German soil. You will probably be taken to Berlin or some important German military point, and there your message will be read. You will be a hero in the minds of the highest commanders and will undoubtedly be granted any favor you ask. My suggestion is that you ask to be assigned for study to qualify you for the most confidential and important work in the enemy secret service. Tell them you wish to return to America as a leader in the work and call their attention to the fact that, as you have become pretty thoroughly Americanized, or Canadianized, and lost most of the foreign appearance and accent of your father, you can pass successfully as a loyal citizen of the dominion. Then work your way into the confidence of those who are directing the spy system of our enemies and get at their records. Get the names of all the leaders you can find. You may be able to do this openly, for your own information when you return to take up more important work in Canada and the United States. Give special attention to the spy activities in the United States, for we want to show that the pro-German agents in that country are violating its policy of neutrality.

"Now, let me tell you frankly why we have selected you for this work in spite of your youth. Any man,--I won't call you a boy, for from now on you must be a man in every sense of the word,--any man who can put together the twos and twos you summed up after your experience with Hessenburg, or Tourtelle, and after reading your cousin's letter, is a natural-born investigator. The average person would have been confused by that evidence; he would not have had the nerve to form the conclusions you formed. I'm not saying this to flatter you. If you feel in the least flattered, you had better say so at once, and give up the whole scheme, for there is great danger of your failing and being shot. Let me tell you why:

"The man who has one second's time to entertain a conceited or self-conscious thought, devotes just that much time to the undermining of his own strength. Get me?"

"Absolutely," Irving replied. "I've told myself that many times, although not in those words."

"Now," continued the colonel, "I believe you told me that you had studied German at school?"

"Yes, I had one year of it."

"And Hessenburg said he knew only a little of the language?"

"Yes."

"Does he know any Austrian?"

"No. His uncle and his father, although Austrians by birth, lived mostly in Germany until they emigrated."

"Good. You will not be under suspicion because of your ignorance of the German language. Still, it would be well for you to be able to make yourself understood and to understand others from the moment you get into that country. So I'm going to put you under an instructor for a few days."

In accord with this announcement, Private Ellis talked nothing but German for a week with an orderly of German parentage who had enlisted with the Canadian army to help "get the kaiser." By the end of that time he felt as if he could hold his own, conversationally, at anything from a kaffee klatsch to a Berliner royal turnverein, and announced that he was ready to make his "high dive" into the land of the enemy.

CHAPTER XX

"SECOND LOOIE ELLIS"

Meanwhile activities at the front had been progressing in a decisive manner, although familiarity with the progress and its significance was restricted to an exclusive class, consisting of certain officers and an army of industrious workers, who might be classed as the moles of modern warfare.

The latter were the engineers and workmen whose occupation at times was a good deal like that of a miner. It had been their duty to tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, until you'd think the whole of the country in this vicinity must be a system of underground passages that would almost rival the catacombs of Rome.

This tunneling, or sapping, was one of the most important forms of strategy in the war. Undoubtedly in future years, remnants of many of these underground passages, preserved for their value as historical curiosities, will be inspected by thousands of tourists visiting the scenes of the world's greatest conflict.

Vimy Ridge, near the end of the historic fight at that long elevation of earth, was a veritable human anthill. The work of opposing armies in their efforts to undermine each other is an exceedingly interesting, if terrible, operation, and Vimy Ridge furnished an excellent illustration of this.

Early in the fight for possession of the hill the tunneling began. At the beginning of this narrative, when Private Irving Ellis and "Second Looie Tourtelle" were scouting in No Man's Land, this boring of the elongated mole on the earth's surface was as much of a fencing contest as a sword battle between two seventeenth century Frenchmen. The Germans held the hill, had taken possession of it and intrenched themselves on the eastern slope as one of the strongholds of their advanced positions in France. The Canadians and the British in attempting to dislodge the invaders, found themselves at a considerable disadvantage. There seemed to be only one way to overcome this difficulty without a great slaughtering of the forces of the Allies. This was by boring under the hill, mining it with trinitrotoluol, touching off the explosive with electric sparks and blowing the fortified mound into Kingdom Come.

Who first started the undermining process may never be known, unless both kept records of dates and doings along this line. It is probable, however, that it was begun by the Canadians, for the opposing army had not as great incentive for haste as had the Allies. Moreover, they did not have to go back so far to start their tunnels, and their subterranean operations were more of defensive than offensive character.

Statements from authoritative sources since the close of the war indicate that this tunneling contest was somewhat of a "diving" nature. It was a contest of depth as well as progress. The Allied engineers began operations at a certain level and went forward. As they advanced they listened. It was like an American Indian putting his ear to the ground to listen for the approach of distant enemy horsemen, or a physician examining the chest of a patient with a stethoscope for "unfriendly" sounds in the heart and lungs. The engineers carried a sort of subterranean stethoscope to detect the approach of enemy tunnelers. The instant they heard sounds of Prussian engineers boring their way to meet the sappers of the Allies, they stopped operations and went back to a new starting point and began over again, this time on a lower level. This process was repeated many times, the Prussians ever planning to get near enough to the Canadian sappers to enable them to stop their subterranean operations with high explosives, and the Allied tunnelers purposing to plant enough trinitrotoluol under Vimy Ridge to blow it sky-high.

Meanwhile, Private Irving Ellis, in preparation for the greatest event of his young career, was oblivious to all these activities, which were destined to culminate in one of the biggest sensations of the war. He knew in a vague way that something was going on under the ground at the front. He had heard more or less reliable trench gossip to this effect and had enough real information to assure him that there was something behind it. Moreover, it was reasonable, to one of modern warfare training, to suspect very extensive sapping activities in positions of this kind. However, he would have been greatly astonished if an intimation had come to him of how his own preparations for a plunge from the skies were converging in point of time with the preparations of the Canadians for blowing up Vimy Ridge.

At last the occasion arrived for the carefully planned departure by night of the "boche spy" with his tattooed message camouflaged in a "spasm of cubist art," as it was characterized by the architectural draftsman who helped copy it on Irving's left forearm. The latter sat in the rear seat of the aeroplane from which he had taken his lessons in dropping from the sky and which was specially fitted up with an elaborate parachute mechanism of the latest and most approved development.

Apparently it was an important occasion in aircraft activities aside from Irving's scheduled stunt, for a large squadron of machines was preparing for flight at the same time. Probably a big raid was about to be made on the boche lines or some important ammunition or supply station of the enemy, the boy reasoned. But no information was volunteered to him on this subject and he asked none, for it had nothing to do with his affair. He was merely to watch for his opportunity, pick his own time for taking "French leave," signal the pilot by an agreed touch on the shoulder, "put up his umbrella," and depart.

Irving had more than one good cause to feel elated at the manner in which circumstances had shaped themselves for an all-around success of his venture up to the present time. And not the least of these was the presentation to him, a few hours before his flight over the boche lines, of a second lieutenant's commission. Accompanying this was a note from Col. Evans wishing him the "best of good fortune," and concluding thus:

"You will take your leave in the same rank that Hessenburg might have taken his, namely, as a second lieutenant, if your shrewd interpretation of developing events had not intervened. If you have any reasonable degree of success in this big venture of yours--and I'm sure you will--I'll guarantee you a first lieutenancy, and it will take only a continued exhibition of the good sense and judgment that I have seen in you up to date to bring you eventually a captain's commission."

"It's 'Second Looie Ellis' now," Irving mused, as he took his seat in the rear cockpit, strapped himself in, buckled about his waist, chest and shoulders the parachute harness, and waited for the pilot to start the motor that would send them away off on a wild night trip through the air over a wilder scene of human slaughter and with one of the wildest spy-plans in view that ever put thrills into the records of international secret service agents.

CHAPTER XXI

THE BLOWING UP OF VIMY RIDGE

The aeroplane in which Lieut. Ellis made his "get-away" flight was equipped with two machine guns, one for the pilot and one for the gunner in the rear cockpit. While practicing the art of parachute descent, Irving also acquired some practical knowledge of the use of a machine gun in the air, not with the idea of engaging an enemy plane in battle, but in order that he might put up an appearance of being skilled in sky fighting if it became advisable for him to make such pretense in order to avert suspicion as to the motive of his "escape." In other words, he must be careful not to create a suspicion that there was collusion between him and the pilot.

The parachute was folded compactly and deposited in a cylindrical chamber behind the rear seat. The mechanism by means of which this aero life-preserver was put in operation may be described as follows: Directly in front of the parachute container was a device which, when put in action, effected the release of the giant "umbrella." In front of this device was a compressed-air reservoir. Within easy reach of the person occupying the rear seat was a ratchet-lever, which, when pulled, threw the seat back to an angle of about forty-five degrees and jerked open the compressed-air reservoir. The opening of this reservoir put the release machinery into action, and this in turn threw out of the containing chamber the compactly folded parachute, which automatically, on being released, spread out and encompassed a great volume of resisting atmosphere. This powerful resistance, acting like a hurricane in a tent, caused the occupant of the rear cockpit to be jerked along the slanting back of his seat out into the vast expanse of empty space.

One great beauty of this device, when used for exhibition purpose, was the fact that if it failed to work, the aviator retained his seat as comfortably as if nothing had happened. As a life-saver, of course, this peculiarity had little or no value, inasmuch as a flyer in distress would be lost if the parachute failed to pull him out of his seat.

Before each of his experiments, Irving had tested the "sky-umbrella" with a dummy heavier than himself in order to be certain that there was no danger of ripping the silken cloth. A slight tear produced by the strain on the parachute while he was being dragged from his seat might become larger during the descent and cause him to fall with sufficient shock to seriously injure or kill him. This was really the only considerable danger in the whole performance, but it was one that needed to be guarded against very carefully.

Up flew the aeroplane with graceful sweep and joined the flock of two score other "night birds" that were starting out on a raid. The flight to the front lines was quickly made and without incident of note. In fact, not an enemy plane arose in the air to oppose the attacking squadron until the leading flyers were directly over No Man's Land, brilliantly illuminated with the fireworks of battle, and then something happened that must have thrilled every aviator who witnessed it, accustomed though he was almost daily to thrills that make the life of a soldier on land or a Jackie of the navy seem like a tame existence in comparison.

Suddenly there was an upheaval of earth almost directly below him, followed by another and another in quick succession; then a regular concert of upheavals in almost a straight line, and a very long line at that, evidently, even to a pair of eyes looking down from a great height in the air. There was a magnitude in the scene that could not be mistaken, although the ridge of land that was visible only a few moments before looked like little more than an elongated anthill.

"My goodness!" Irving exclaimed, though the noise of the motor and the propeller and the rush of air about him made it impossible for him to hear himself. "My goodness! they've actually blown up Vimy Ridge."

The machine swept on with the flock of mechanical war-birds, on over No Man's Land and past the enemy front lines. Meanwhile Irving gazed down, fascinated by the scene far, far below. It was a scene of the most diminutive dwarfs now. The trenches looked like little more than pen scratches on a dim-colored sheet, certainly not more than chalk marks, of no particular color, on a "faded blackboard." And the people--the soldiers! Yes, he could see them now, in large numbers. They looked like ants--no, let's not understate it,--they looked like mice, small mice, however; and they arose--on the Canadian side--out of the "chalk marks" and dashed forward, a very short distance, it seemed, only a few inches or feet at the most, but they chopped off their steps so short that they appeared just to creep along. Irving was astonished at the clearness of the night scene under the battle's illumination.

But they made it finally, up the side of the hill, if indeed any hill remained, and into the crater--Irving could see an altered condition following the trinitrotoluol explosions, and concluded that there must be a long, a very long, crater--miles of it--in the place of Vimy Ridge. They were cheering like mad--Irving knew it, though he could not hear a voice. Yes, into the crater they went, a myriad of insects, or wee animals,--they had possession of it--the enemy seemed not to offer any resistance. They were whipped, thoroughly--they knew it. Tons and tons of high explosive planted under that ridge had blown it to the sky.

"No, it didn't, either," Irving mused with a smile of "altitude amusement." "It was only a flash in the pan. Not a pebble came half as high as we are, and the sky is hundreds of miles--umph! How much higher is it? My! if the world could only get up here and look at itself, I wonder if things wouldn't go a little differently. No, I'm afraid not! There'd always be somebody then trying to grab a bigger slice of the moon than he's entitled to.

"But what am I thinking about? My head must be getting giddy. That won't do a bit. I'm on very serious business. The bombing planes are hovering over the rear line trenches and dropping their flower-pots on 'em. The anti-aircraft guns are getting busy, too. There went one right ahead of us. They're getting our range. And here comes a fleet of German planes to meet us. Well, it won't be safe to wait very long, and it won't be fair to my pilot. Just as soon as we get well beyond that third trench there, I'll take my plunge."

Irving set himself fixedly as if about to make a mighty leap or a pistol-shot start in a foot race. As a matter of fact, he was going to do nothing of the kind. Only a sort of passive effort was required of him, and yet, his nerves had never been more tense. He put his right hand on the release lever and leaned forward, his left hand almost touching the pilot, and looked down over the side of the car, then off toward the approaching enemy squadron, then at the camouflaged positions of the belching anti-aircraft guns, then here and there at the exploding shells in the midst of the invading fleet, then back again at the ground scene directly below.

Suddenly he leaned farther forward and slapped his hand smartly on the pilot's shoulder. The latter nodded and turned the nose of the sky machine downward. This was Irving's cue. He leaned back and pulled the release lever as far as it would go.

CHAPTER XXII

BEHIND THE GERMAN LINES

The "escape" was successful in every respect. The boy rocked to and fro all the way down, like a cork on a billowy sea. Down, down he went, the scene continuing, in the glare of innumerable lights of the battle, almost as bright as day. Irving could see clearly where he was going, although it was just beyond the zone of blazing activities. Between the chosen landing place and the fighting terrain was a small belt of timber, but the surroundings were lighted so brilliantly that the general character and lay of the land could be determined even from a height of several thousand feet.

Reinforcements were being rushed forward from points farther in the rear. Irving could see a wave of men advancing toward the lighted area. It looked as if attempts were being made to retake the hill, or what was left of it. Undoubtedly the enemy had lost heavily as a result of the volcanic explosions and the need of reserves was pressing at the front.

Irving landed right in the midst of a company of advancing men. The lieutenant called a halt and remained long enough to make inquiry as to the meaning of the parachute descent. The boy replied in fairly good German that he was a spy in the service of the emperor, and asked to be directed to regimental, divisional or army headquarters. The officer assigned a sergeant to accompany the "arrival from the sky" and, after a tramp of more than an hour over a highway on which they had to dodge camions and autos and motorcycles and troops almost as watchfully as one must dodge heavy traffic in a warehouse district in a large city, they arrived at a small town where they found a brigadier general's headquarters in what had formerly been the chief municipal building of the place.

Lieutenant Ellis was taken in charge here by an intelligence attache, who, observing the Canadian uniform worn by the boy, questioned him as to his identity and mission. Irving was greatly pleased, as the conversation progressed, to find that he understood almost everything his inquisitor said and could answer intelligibly all the questions put to him. The conversation, freely translated into English, was as follows:

"Who are you?"

"My name is Hessenburg. I am a second lieutenant in the Canadian army. But I am a Prussian sympathizer and the bearer of a message from agents of Emperor William working secretly for him on the other side of the Atlantic ocean."

"To whom is the message addressed?"

"I don't know. It is in cipher."

"Then how are you going to find the person to whom it should be delivered?"

"I was informed that any high officer in the German army, from brigadier general up, could tell me what to do the instant he heard my story."

"How did you get past the Canadian and German lines without being captured; or did you surrender in battle?"

"No, although that was my plan at first. I managed to get into the air service temporarily and dropped with a parachute, from an aeroplane in the midst of a big battle after we got over on this side."

The intelligence attache uttered a guttural something that sounded like an oath. From the tone and facial expression accompanying it, Irving mentally translated the ejaculation into the much milder, "You don't say so!"

"That's true," interposed the sergeant who accompanied Irving from the scene of his descent. "I saw him come down. The lieutenant of my company ordered me to bring him here."

"If all this is true, I suppose you'll have to see the general," the attache concluded. "Just wait here and I'll find out how long you'll have to wait. You say your message is important?"

"I haven't read it," the spy answered; "but I was informed that it was very important. I think you'd better help me get it to him as soon as possible."

The attache left Irving and his companion seated on a long bench in the orderly room and entered the adjutant's office. A few minutes later he came out again and announced that the message was "on its way to the general" and an order to "come in" would probably come out in a short time.

The "short time" was more than two hours, however. The brigadier general had been napping. Ordinarily his night repose might fittingly have been called sleep, but the taking of Vimy Ridge rendered any such peaceful term inappropriate. It is probable, indeed, that there were naps for few German officers of whatever rank, attached to that sector, on the night of the great battle on the Canadian front. At any rate, this officer was one of the few, and he awoke at break of day. One of the first matters brought to his attention was the arrival of a spy from America with an important message.

"Bring him in," he ordered.

A minute later Irving was standing before a very burly and very fierce looking individual in the uniform of a high commanding officer and saluting him with an appearance of self-confidence, in spite of a most provoking nervousness that unexpectedly seized him.

CHAPTER XXIII

OFF FOR BERLIN

Irving Ellis recovered his composure and his nervousness left him in full control of his faculties as he answered the first question put to him by the brigadier general. It was a very simple question, thus:

"You are Second Lieutenant Hessenburg of the Canadian army?"

"I am."

"But a subject of Kaiser Wilhelm?"

"No, I am not," Irving replied. "I'm a subject of Great Britain, for my father was naturalized in Canada. But my sympathies are over here and when I am old enough, you'll find my citizenship where it ought always have been."

"There, I got a little truth into my bunch of lies," Irving interpolated to himself. "My citizenship will be where it always ought to have been, and was, and is, and always will be, as long as I live--in the United States. I spoke with a double tongue and satisfied my own conscience at the end. Oh, I can see that I'm going to be some prevaricator before this adventure is finished. Really, it never occurred to me before, but a spy must have the biggest imagination on earth to be successful. However, it's a good cause, that's some consolation."

Before the boy finished this soliloquy, the brigadier general was asking another question:

"And you were sent here by some of our agents in Canada?"

"Yes."

"With a message?"

"Yes."

"Let me see it."

Irving took off his coat and rolled up his left shirtsleeve, exposing to view the "cubist art" tattooing recently pricked into the skin with sharp pointed needles and aniline dye. The brigadier general gazed at it with deep interest two or three times; then looked into the spy's face and said:

"You're all right. You must go to Berlin at once."

He contemplated the hieroglyphic oddity a minute longer and then said:

"My curiosity is keen to know how you got over here."

"I flew over," Irving replied.

"How could you manage that? Were you in the air service?"

"Yes, during the last few weeks. I was out with a pilot last night and slipped away with a parachute in the heat of the battle."

It was the brigadier general's turn now to utter something of the explosive character of an oath. As Irving's schooling and recent drill in the Teutonic tongue did not comprehend such ultra-rhetorical figures of speech, he did not get the full significance of the expletive.

But it was evident that the officer's outburst was anything but an expression of anger. Admiration popped into his eyes and spoke out of them in "violent harmony" with his oath. But this overflowing endorsement of the spy's activities was suddenly interrupted by a change of manner that caused Irving a little uneasiness as a new thought took possession of the burly military man's mind.

"What do you suppose they think about you now over in the Canadian lines? They're onto you now, aren't they? If we want you to return on another mission over there, you've spoiled the game by your manner of escape, haven't you? How could you explain it if they put you on the grill?"

"That'll be very easy," Irving replied. "I waited for the right conditions. We got into a fight with a couple of German planes and it was looking pretty bad for us. Then a shell from an anti-aircraft gun exploded so near to us that it seemed impossible for us to have escaped serious damage. Well, two seconds later I saw the pilot was having trouble with his engine; so I concluded it was time for me to take my departure."

The look of gleeful admiration returned to the officer's face.

"You handled it well, very well," he said, with a disagreeable, gloating laugh.

Irving's sentiments, however, were of much different nature. He was thoroughly disgusted with his own "string of falsehoods," as he characterized the stories he had told to the intelligence attache and the brigadier general.

"I know very well that a spy is a personified fib, pure and simple," he told himself with a reflective compression of his lips. "I don't think it's any worse than that, and I don't think the stories I told were any worse than fibs. A spy is just a misrepresentation walking around on two feet. If he doesn't tell a single fib, it's his business to make the enemy think he's something he isn't. If he does this for a bad cause, he's a bad man; if he does it for a worthy cause, he's a good man, not because he fibs, but because of the cause he misrepresents. So long as he doesn't misrepresent the cause, he ought to be all right. Still, the world will admire him more if he's smart enough to get what he wants without telling any downright li--fibs like the ones I told. I'm going to see if I can't get along hereafter without fibbing."

Irving worked this reasoning out in his mind as the conversation with the officer proceeded. He was much relieved also on finding that he was able to answer all succeeding questions without resorting to any gross misstatements of facts. At last the brigadier general closed the interview by saying:

"I'll excuse you for the time being. Meanwhile I'll communicate with my superior officers and you'll wait under orders of the adjutant for instructions from me."

Irving returned to the orderlies' room. He had not eaten breakfast and informed an officer of the hungry condition of his stomach. This resulted in his being turned over to an orderly who conducted him to the officers' mess, where he was served with a very good meal.

"I guess I'm in right," he mused. "They give me the best feed and show me considerable attention. The auspices are good. Hope I can keep things coming my way, and I'll get what I'm after."

About an hour after breakfast, the adjutant summoned Irving into his office and spoke to him, thus:

"We have just received orders to send you to Berlin. Are you ready to go?"

"I haven't any luggage to pack," the spy answered.

"You will be supplied with what you need," the adjutant continued. "You will also be accompanied by a young lieutenant who is recovering from wounds received at the front and who has been granted home leave for a month or two. He lives in Berlin. He will be here soon and go with you to the train."

An hour later Irving was on a troop train, speeding away to the northeast, away from the still thundering battle front and toward the objective city of his secret-service aims, hopes, plans and patriotic ambition.

CHAPTER XXIV

IN BERLIN

Berlin!

The name was well worth the exclamation. If Irving did not utter it aloud, he thought it in the "tone of voice" in which it appears here.

He had ridden more than half of the preceding day, all night and well into another day with a companion in whom he was able to find little of sympathetic interest. The fellow, an infantry lieutenant, about 30 years old, was a cold-eyed, emotionless individual and about as cruelly boastful Prussian as one would care to meet. There was no fate too frightful for an English soldier in his opinion, and all other Allies fighting on the side of the British ought to be reduced to vassalage and forced to pay tribute to the House of Hohenzollern.

Irving tried for a while to engage in intelligent conversation with him, but at last found this impossible and decided to encourage him along the line of least resistance with the view of obtaining as much information from him as his prejudiced mind was capable of giving. By discounting every thing uttered with a burst of passion or with sneer of contempt or tone of bravado and by watching for inadvertent admissions, Irving gleaned enough to convince him that the central allies were not nearly as confident of winning the war as they wished the outside world to believe.

Lieutenant Ellis was a good enough spy not to confine his observations to the one supreme purpose of obtaining a list of enemy agents in Canada and the United States. He saw at once, after landing with his parachute in the boche lines, that he could be of great service to the cause for which the Allies were fighting by gathering a fund of information regarding the man power, supplies, ammunition and the general attitude of the people in the kaiser's country. By the time he reached Berlin, he felt considerably compensated for the uncongeniality of his traveling companion during the trip.

They took a horse-cab--there were no automobile taxis in evidence--and were driven at a very sleepy gait to a high-class hotel in Friederichstrasse. The horse behind which they rode looked as if he might have had a full meal of oats and corn some time before the war. There was little in the scenes through which they passed that impressed Irving as bearing any indications of the ravages of war, except perhaps the scarcity of automobiles and the lack of that spick-and-span condition for which the streets of Berlin had long been famous. The boy spy was unable to discover any quality of excellence at all superior to that of Buffalo, N.Y., in general appearance.

The hotel he found well furnished, decorated and supplied with rugs. The rooms taken by Irving and his companion were all that a "particular," if not fastidious, guest would demand. True, a girl operated the elevator, but the young spy had learned, through letters from his cousin, that Canadian girls went much farther than this in their patriotic efforts, sharing not a little in the heavy labors of munition shops and the general industries.

Irving's companion, whose name was Fritz Vollmer, spoke a few words to the clerk in an undertone, and the clerk nodded knowingly, as if to indicate that everything was all right.

"An old friend o' mine," Lieut. Vollmer remarked as they walked toward the elevator. "I just told him you were all right in spite of your uniform, that you'd been a spy over in the enemy's country and hadn't had time to change your clothes since you got through the lines. You won't be bothered about room rent or any other expenses here. Those will be taken care of. You're not to change your uniform until after you've had a session at intelligence headquarters."

"When will that be?" Irving inquired.

"This afternoon some time," was the answer. "I'll go over and make arrangements and then come back and go with you. Meanwhile we'll go out and have some lunch."

In spite of Lieut. Vollmer's supercilious ways and boastful language, the young boche officer evinced a deep personal interest in his companion. But undoubtedly the reason for this was the daring and romantic record that the young spy had behind him. And this record necessarily obtruded itself so conspicuously in Irving's affairs right now that the vainglorious Teuton could not subordinate it even when picturing his own "high excellence." Therefore Lieut. Vollmer's uncontrollable admiration for the venturesome youth whom he was companioning was just a result of the over-awed condition of his own mind.

They went out to a cafe in Friederichstrasse and ate a very modest luncheon for which Vollmer paid fifteen marks. Then they returned to the hotel, and Irving remained in his room while Vollmer went to Wilhelmstrasse to announce the arrival of "the spy" and make arrangements for presenting him to the proper official. The boy would have been glad to go out and stroll through the streets of the capital of the great war-making nation, but hesitated to do this because he feared that his Canadian uniform might get him into needless difficulty.

An hour later Fritz returned and announced that he had found the proper official to receive the spy's message. That official, he said, was eager to meet the kaiser's daring agent, and would he please return with Lieut. Vollmer at once?

Irving assented, and together they left the hotel. On the way the Prussian officer thrilled the spy with patriotic fervor which he was able to suppress only with great difficulty by informing him that the United States had declared war against Germany a few days before.

"America will bitterly rue the day she took that action," Lieut. Vollmer declared vengefully.

CHAPTER XXV

THE READING OF THE CRYPTOGRAM

It was a rather imposing structure with gray-stone front that Irving and his companion entered in Wilhelmstrasse as the headquarters of the globe-encircling spy system of the terrible German empire. They walked through the doorway and passed down the cavernous corridor, with its innumerable ramifications of mystery, secrecy, penetration. All of these ramifications were by no means physical and evident to the inquisitive eyes of the visitor from across the sea. Most of them, nearly all, in fact, were pictured in the brain of Lieut. Ellis, who saw visions of thousands of communicating branches reaching out into every part of the civilized world.

The names of Bernstorf, Von Papen, Boy-Ed, and other former leading agents of the kaiser in the United States flashed through his mind, and he was curious to know what sort of men directed their activities from central headquarters. It was not long before his curiosity was rewarded with visual evidence.

Lieut. Ellis and Lieut. Vollmer walked up a broad flight of flagstone steps to the second floor and into the waiting room of a large suite of offices. There they were met by a girl of freshman high-school age, who evidently served in the capacity of office boy.

"Have the office boys all been drafted for military service?" Irving asked himself as his companion answered the girl's questions.

They were directed to wait a few minutes, which they accordingly did, and in a quarter of an hour were ushered into the presence of a mild-eyed man whose least prepossessing characteristic was the undependability of the mildness of his gaze. Irving had not been long in the room with him before he realized that the fellow's "gentleness" was a carefully cultivated "attribute," schemed, plotted, and devised to qualify him for the shrewdest and most subtle of government secret service. He was a large man of good proportions, with a mustache that stood out like a tooth-brush parted in the middle and a very fair and well rounded face. Although he might have passed for thirty-five years of age, Irving subsequently learned that he was nearly ten years older. He answered to the title of "the baron," addressed familiarly by Lieut. Vollmer.

"Here he is," said the latter, who seemed to think this was all the introduction needed.

Irving bowed, and "the baron" bowed. There was no shaking of hands between them.

"Very well," said the intelligence official, indicating thereby that the announcer's duty was performed and that he might now retire. Vollmer did as suggested by the manner of the receiving nobleman, and Irving and his world-plotting host were alone.

"I have heard your story from Lieut. Vollmer," "the baron" began. "He said you had a message tattooed on your arm. Let me see it."

Irving took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeve and exhibited for inspection the "cubist art cryptogram" on his left forearm. The official gazed at it closely a minute or two; then said:

"Just wait a minute and I'll have it read."

He lifted a telephone receiver to his ear and called out a local number through the transmitter. Presently he was talking to the desired department.

"Send Kiehler and Joe Weber in here," he said.

Three minutes later two middle-aged men entered. Neither of them was of striking appearance. In fact, each had a rather stolid look, but it was not long before Irving realized that there was some real mechanical, if not imaginative, ability underneath their apparent stupidity.

"Take this young man into your office and read that cipher message on his arm," ordered "the baron."

The two cryptogram readers bowed and one of them requested Irving to follow. They left the office and proceeded to another on the top floor of the building.

It was a very light suite of rooms that Irving now found himself in. One room particularly was supplied with the best of daylight illumination through a skylight overhead. It reminded Irving of an architectural drafting room. Half a dozen men were seated at as many desks working as diligently over record and manuscript material before them as so many college students "cramming" for a trigonometry or chemistry exam. Irving was conducted to an unoccupied desk in a remote corner of the room and there he and his two companions sat down and the consultation began.

The two cryptologists, however, had little to say. They seemed to have little interest in Irving save as to the cipher message he had brought for them to translate. They exhibited no surprise when the boy spy rolled up his sleeve and disclosed the manner in which he had conveyed his message. They seemed to have become so accustomed to the discovery of unusual things that nothing could astonish them. Stolidity of manner was a term that fitted them exactly, but certainly not unqualified stolidity. Irving felt almost as if their eyes burned right into his arm.

They worked diligently for more than an hour over the boy's bared arm, frequently jotting down characters on tabs of paper before them. At last they finished and informed him that he might go.

"Go where?" Irving inquired.

Without answering, one of the men picked up the receiver of a telephone and put it to his ear. He gave a number to the operator and soon he was talking to someone. The waiting boy was sure that the person "at the other end" was "the baron."

"Go back to the hotel and remain there for instructions," the man at the 'phone said presently, as he hung up the receiver.

Irving left the building, intending to take a cab to the hotel. He had scarcely reached the street, however, when it suddenly occurred to him that he had no money with him.

"I'll have to walk," he mused. "Well, it isn't very far and I can make it easy before suppertime. But I wonder if I'll get through with this uniform. Well, I'll use my nerve and see what happens."

He started out briskly, but observed as he went that he attracted attention from a good many persons on the street, some of them soldiers. Undoubtedly it was his nerve that got him through, but he could not avoid several times turning his head with whatever nonchalance he could command and stealing glances to the right and left and behind. After looking back two or three times, he became curious regarding the purpose of a middle-aged man in civilian clothes whom he had observed in front of the intelligence building as he came out of the main entrance.

"I wonder if that fellow is following me?" he said to himself, a little nervously.

He walked a few squares farther, then stopped and looked into a tailor show-window. He remained there several minutes, really interested in the display and the prices. With a kind of meditative look, he glanced down the street, but could see nothing of his supposed shadower. Then he moved on again, turned a corner, walked half a square, and suddenly faced about as if he had made a mistake in his direction and must retrace his steps.

The middle-aged man in civilian clothes, who was not more than a hundred feet away, turned almost as suddenly as the boy in Canadian khaki had turned and entered a cafe that he seemed about to pass.

"I'm being followed," muttered the spy with a real chill of alarm. "I wonder what's up. Have they found something wrong with that message? Did those cryptogram readers discover that the message had been tampered with?"

CHAPTER XXVI

FOLLOWED

Irving walked on as if nothing unusual had occurred to disturb his peace of mind, and yet nothing more disquieting perhaps had ever moved the quakings of fear within him. If the man who had followed him could have looked into the face of the young second lieutenant in khaki as the latter passed the cafe, undoubtedly he would have seen there an expression of countenance exceedingly interesting to him.

The day was now rapidly drawing to a close, and the damp April atmosphere, chilly enough when the sun was at its zenith, was becoming cold toward night. Irving had no overcoat. He had worn only a flying-coat and "cover all," aside from his ordinary fair-weather garments, on the night of his ascent in an aeroplane and descent with a parachute, but he was not particularly uncomfortable even under present conditions. Still, he felt that it would be much more pleasant within four walls of a first class hotel, even though, as he suspected, the management was burning coal under war emergency limitations. So he hurried on, and did not slacken his pace until he was back at the hostelry.

About a square from the hotel he turned and looked down the street to see if the middle-aged man in citizen's clothes was still following him. Yes, there he was, 200 feet back, sauntering with a long stride, which rendered it possible for him to keep pace with the spy without an appearance of haste. As the latter entered the lobby and walked toward the elevator, he said to himself:

"I'll have to bluff it through. I'm not going to pretend ignorance of the fact that I've been followed. But I mustn't appear to be afraid of being watched. I must present the matter in a different light."

He knocked on the door of Vollmer's room, but received no response. Then he went to his own room to wait until his guide returned.

"I'll have to wait for him before I can get any supper," he mused. "I'm in a peculiar situation, and don't know exactly where I'm at. I think I'll have to have a plain talk with him tonight, much as I hate to rest any of my fortunes on his questionable goodwill."

Lieut. Vollmer returned at about 6 o'clock and announced without any formal greeting that they would go out to supper. Irving picked up his hat from the bed where he had thrown it on entering the room and signified his readiness to go at once.

He was eager to begin conversation on the subject that interested him most, but decided that he must await a favorable opportunity. His companion had relapsed again into unsociable aloofness, and the walk of three squares to the cafe where they had their luncheon was made without the passing of a word between them.

The meal, too, was eaten almost as quietly. Irving made a few attempts to draw his companion into conversation, hoping to lead up gradually to the subject that was weighing rather heavily on his mind, but he failed utterly. At last just as they were about to leave the restaurant, the young German lieutenant altered the aspect of affairs very much by saying:

"I'm going to leave you to your own devices now, Hessenburg. For anything you want, get in touch with the baron; he'll give instructions for taking care of you. They'll probably give you an army uniform and send you to the front to fight for the fatherland. I'm on a leave of absence and am going home to stay there until my leave expires."

Irving was stunned by this announcement from his uncongenial guide, who was about to leave him unceremoniously in the lurch. He did not know how to reply and so made no attempt to do so aside from the utterance of a few conventionalities, such as, "I hope you'll enjoy your furlough," and "I thank you for the courtesies you have shown me."

Lieut. Vollmer did not return with Irving to the hotel, but gave him a limp handshake out on the sidewalk, tossed a careless "aufwiedersehn" at him and sauntered away. The deserted spy went back to his room and passed an uncomfortable night, tormented with so many doubts of conflicting nature that he soon found himself in a very nervous condition. After he had lain awake an hour or two trying to clear up the obscurities in his mind, he decided that the course of thinking that he had permitted to sway him would result disastrously even if there was no reason for him to feel apprehensive of the outlook.

"I must throw this out of my mind and get a good night's rest," he told himself. "If my nerves are all shot to pieces tomorrow, it'll be folly for me to attempt to get any satisfaction from the government officials. They'll see there's something wrong, dead sure. I'm proving myself a mighty poor spy, and ought to have stayed in the Canadian trenches. Of course, I must expect to run into the most dangerous situations and depend on my wits, bluff, and nerve--yes NERVE--to get me out. What if I am under suspicion? If they have no goods on me, I'm safe enough so long as I don't convict myself by a guilty manner. I must be mistaken in my suspicion that they have found something wrong in that cubist art message. They'd 'ave arrested me right away if they'd discovered the change. I'll probably find everything all right tomorrow when I talk with the baron. Why, he may even decorate me with an iron cross. Hope it won't be too heavy to carry around, that's all. Or maybe they need all the iron to make shells with and will give me a leather cross--no, they need that for shoes; or a rubber cross--no, they need that to make rubber heels so they can pussy-foot out in No-Man's-Land. There! I've got my nerves in better shape; think I can go to sleep now, but I do wonder why that middle-aged man in civilian clothes was following me. I wonder if he wore rubber heels."

That was the way Irving managed to induce sleep an hour or two before midnight. He adopted the method very systematically and determinedly, and it worked. But his slumber was not as undisturbed as he would have had it, for he dreamed the most violent and mysterious of dreams enlivened and peopled with aeroplanes and booming cannon and minnenwerfers and parachutes and rubber-heeled secret service men who followed him so softly, gently, stealthily that it seemed as if even the thunder of battle was being toned down to zephyrs of inconsequential ghostly conflict.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SPY'S DECISION

Irving arose at daybreak next morning. In spite of his uneasy night, he was much refreshed and felt confident that he had good command of his nerves. This was an important reassurance, and the young spy decided that he would not let it get away from him.

"I'll tie it down with a string of self-confidence and a knot of determination," he told himself resolutely.

This way of putting the idea amused him a little and added to his strength of purpose.

"First of all, how about breakfast?" he asked himself as he combed his hair with a pocket comb which he carried with him and regarded the puzzled wrinkling of his brow in the wash-room mirror.

"Well," he added, as he returned the comb to its case-and the case to his pocket, "I guess I'll have to go without breakfast. Not a very comfortable idea, either, but there seems to be no way out of it. That fellow Vollmer seemed to take a malicious delight in forgetting every one of my comforts. I wish I had something to do between now and 9 or 10 o'clock. I don't like to stroll around any more than is necessary in this uniform."

But there seemed to be nothing for him to do except remain in his room and wait for his wristwatch to tick several thousand seconds. It seemed, too, as if all of these ticks hammered away right in the center of his brain, always striking on the same pin-point spot and irritating his nervous system almost beyond endurance. At 8:30 o'clock he decided to wait no longer and grabbed his hat and hastened from the hotel. Without making particular note of his surroundings, he set out at a brisk pace for the building that contained the intelligence offices which he had visited the day before.

Meanwhile he had forgotten all about the middle-aged man in civilian clothes who had followed him through the streets. It had not occurred to him that the fellow might return to the hotel and continue his espionage next day. He had presumed that the man would make a report to his superiors and the affair would be taken up again in some other manner if, indeed, there should be any resumption at all of the investigation.

"If I'm suspected of being a British spy, they'll probably arrest me when I report back at the baron's office," he mused before leaving the hotel.

After walking a square or two, Irving slowed his pace considerably, realizing that it was still early and that he probably would have to wait an hour or more for "the baron" after his arrival at the latter's office if he continued to walk as rapidly as he had started. To "kill" a little of the surplus time ahead of him, therefore, he stopped and looked into several shop windows, the last being an "eat shop," which teased his appetite not a little and caused him to feel that he could chew a piece of army meat of the consistency of leather, or rubber, with a good deal of relish at that moment.

The suggestion contained in the word rubber, for which there seemed to be no appropriate reason in connection with a steaming breakfast, revived his burlesque musings of the night before as he was drifting away into a nervous slumber. The semi-dream pictures in his mind of a government sleuth on rubber heels brought him back to his startling experience of the previous day so suddenly that he turned almost involuntarily and gazed in the direction from which he had come.

If he had been a person of superstitious susceptibility wandering through a country cemetery in the ghostly moonlight, he could not have been more apprehensively thrilled by what he saw. Half a square up the street was the mysterious middle-aged man in civilian clothes who had followed him from the intelligence building to the hotel.

"Gee! I must hustle along and get to the baron's office as soon as possible," he decided as he quickened his steps. "I must bluff this thing through as I never bluffed before. I must put the matter up to him and find out what it means."

He hurried on more rapidly than the pace with which he started from the hotel and did not slow up again until he reached the building in Wilhelmstrasse for which he was headed.

He decided not to pretend to be ignorant of the fact that he was being followed; indeed, he would have retraced his steps and accosted his shadower if it had not seemed probable that such a course would have been futile. So, just as he was passing through the pillared entrance, he turned and looked again up the street.

Yes, there he was, 150 feet away, sauntering along as if his greatest object in life was the sniffing of the damp April ozone. One look was enough, and the shadowed spy entered the building and walked up the flagstone stairway.

"I'm going to find out who that fellow is and what he's up to if such a thing is possible," he resolved. "I'm going to put it up to the baron right now and if I'm under suspicion I'll soon find out and, I hope, drive the suspicion away."

The young spy was now exhibiting real qualities necessary to make a successful army secret service man.

CHAPTER XXVIII

MAKING PROGRESS WITH THE BARON

Irving entered "the baron's" outer office and asked to see the big intelligence official. To his surprise, that secret service dignitary was in, and the caller was requested to wait a few minutes until he was at leisure.

"Even the nobility are getting up early to help win the war," Irving ruminated as he waited. "Well, that shows a good trait of character--if they only had a good cause to fight for. I wonder if they really think they have. I don't see how they can."

Presently he was informed by an office girl that "the baron" would see him, and he entered the latter's private office. The big, usually mild-eyed official looked at him rather sharply, he thought, but he resolved not to be overawed by his dominating personality.

"I am here," he began, rather abruptly, but with a bow of seeming respect, "to find out what is to become of me. I feel lost in this big city. Lieut. Vollmer left me last night and informed me that if I wanted anything, I should apply to you. In the first place, I should like to have some breakfast."

"The baron" seemed to be amused by this speech. He did not, however, indicate any particular concern over the hungry condition of the spy, who had proved himself a daring and spectacular hero "in the service of the fatherland." But he smiled and answered in reassuring tones:

"No breakfast? Ach himmel! You shall have all you can eat, and by the time you have finished your breakfast, you'll realize how futile is the English blockade."

"What kind of plans have you for me?" Irving asked, deeming it of no advantage to enter into a discussion of conditions in Germany with a man who undoubtedly would express only the most optimistic views. "I'm getting impatient, I can't stand it to be idle. I want something to do."

"What do you want to do?" asked "the baron."

"Whatever I'm best fitted for. I hoped I'd been successful enough in the venture just completed to warrant your keeping me in something of the same line."

"Do you want to go back to Canada?"

"I'd thought some of that, but it doesn't seem practicable," Irving replied. "You see, I'm an enlisted soldier now and would be sent back to the front if I returned. But it seems to me that I might do some good work in the United States."

"Yes, that's true, you might," "the baron" admitted, meditatively. "I'll think that over."

"Meanwhile," Irving continued, "I'd like to get rid of this uniform. It causes me no end of inconvenience. I'm constantly expecting to be stopped on the street and questioned."

"Have you been stopped yet?"

"No, but I've been followed. I'd have gone out and walked around some last evening, but was followed all the way from here to the hotel. The same man followed me from the hotel here this morning."

"The baron" appeared to be genuinely surprised at this statement.

"I don't understand that," he said. "What kind of looking man was it that followed you?"

"He was middle-aged and dressed in civilian clothes."

"I'll find out about this," "the baron" announced, pressing a button on his desk.

An office messenger between 60 and 70 years old entered.

"Is Schoensiegel or Blau out there?" inquired "the baron."

"Blau is," replied the messenger.

"Send him in."

The messenger went out and a minute later an individual who might have passed for an ordinary plain-clothes man of the police force entered.

"Blau," said the intelligence official, "this is Mr. Hessenburg, one of our friends from America--Canada. He was with the Canadian army at the front and broke away to bring us some important information. He's been here only a couple of days, but has been followed on the street by someone, not under orders from this office. I want you to go outside and wait until he leaves, and then find out who it is that's following him and why he's doing it. Maybe some other department or the police are laboring under a misapprehension as to our friend's identity."

"Gans gewiss, Herr Hauptmann," said Blau, bowing himself out of the room and indicating acceptance of his commission. The conversation was resumed between the spy and "the baron."

"I'll provide you with a uniform and make you an attache of this office for the present," the latter announced. "Later I'll take up your suggestion for keeping you in this branch of the service and see what I can do. The skill and daring of your achievements thus far deserves recognition, I can say that much at least."

Irving was reassured and encouraged by these words. He was convinced that "the baron" entertained no doubt regarding the genuineness of his representations.

"Why not give me employment that will enable me to advance my efficiency for further spy work?" the boy suggested.

"That's a good idea," declared the intelligence official with a look of professional animation in his eyes. "I think I'll do that. As soon as you get your uniform, report at this office and I'll have you assigned to your new duties. Meanwhile I'll put you on the payroll and give you an order for a month's salary in advance. Your bill at the hotel has been taken care of, but from now on you'll pay that yourself. Lieut. Vollmer was guilty of an inexcusable oversight when he left you without money for your meals and other incidentals. I thought that was being taken care of."

Irving thanked "the baron" for the interest shown in his welfare. Then he took up the subject on which he had expected to make his strongest play with the intelligence official.

"I want to speak to you now," he said, "about a matter that perhaps I should have brought to your attention sooner. It's about the message on my arm. I don't know what's in that message, but it may be that Canadian officials have taken steps to render worthless the information I brought to you. Would it be possible for them to render it of no value to you if they knew the contents of the message I brought?"

The keen interest that "the baron" manifested instantly in these suggestions indicated to Irving that he could hardly have broached a subject that would command closer attention.

CHAPTER XXIX

ORDERS FOR MONEY AND CLOTHES

"It would not only be possible for the Canadian officials to nullify the value to us of the message you brought, but that is exactly what they would do if they found out the contents of that message."

This is the reply "the baron" gave to the question put to him by Irving at the close of the preceding chapter. The spy put the question in accord with a suggestion made by Col. Evans in the course of his instructions behind the Canadian lines. The intent of this move was to obviate suspicion that he had delivered a fake message when discovery was made that the information it contained did not answer its professed purpose.

"Have you any reason to believe that they discovered the nature of the information you brought in that message?" asked the high Prussian official after he had answered the spy's question.

"I'm afraid I have," the latter replied. "Why didn't they arrest you?"

"Because they didn't know where to find me. I was lost somewhere in the Canadian army. They probably had no way of identifying me. However, they must have made a search for me when they learned what had been going on--maybe they're searching yet."

"Do you know what they learned that a message of this kind was being brought over here?"

"I know enough to feel that there is grave danger that they made such a discovery."

"How did you find that out?"

"This way: One of the boys in the company to which I belonged received a letter from his cousin in Canada that told almost the whole story, and I read the letter. That cousin told a long story about his going to Toronto to visit some friends and getting sick while there. He was taken to a hospital--our hospital, by the way--and while he was convalescing, he strolled out in the hall and saw the tattooing operation on my arm. The two men who were doing the work saw him standing there and gazing through the glass door, and they rushed out, collared him, and dragged him into the laboratory. But he satisfied them that he was merely a curious onlooker and they let him go.

"However, they had him watched, and after he left the hospital he was followed everywhere he went. He communicated with government officials and a week or two later the hospital was raided. This is all the information the letter contained, but it is possible that they compelled somebody to reveal the contents of the message that was tattooed on my arm."