me an idea and made my heart leap with exultation. Preparations were going forward quickly to give the soldiers their breakfast, and I saw all the things being carried from the house to a low building across a wide yard that looked like a barn. The soldiers were chaffing the women and helping to carry the food and vessels; and in a moment my plan was ready.
"We shall catch them like rats in a trap," I cried to Zoiloff, as I pointed this out to him. "The place is made for us and couldn't be better. We'll time our visit when the men are just at breakfast yonder, and, if a couple of our fellows can steal up unseen, that big door can be slammed, and there won't be more than half a dozen left for us to deal with about the house. We shall cage the old fox to a certainty. Let Spernow and two men creep along this way and down under cover of those trees to the entrance to the yard, and post themselves there. The main portion can get to the house through the orchard below us"—and I pointed to the spots I meant—"and we shall be into the place before they even dream that we are near. Once we get close to the house, do you and half a dozen make for the front and settle with anyone there, making an exit from the house impossible. I'll enter by the back with the rest of us and square accounts with anyone inside. The horses must be left up here in the woods, tethered; we can't spare a man to stay with them."
We discussed the minor points of the attack, fixed the moment, and left it that Spernow's closing the door upon the troops at breakfast should be the signal. If things went wrong with him and the men escaped, we settled that Zoiloff should, as arranged, rush round to the front, but that I and the men with
