The declaration was like a dare, and the black-haired boy reacted to it instantly. "I'm going to!" he asserted with his quick, flashing smile. "I bet you're scared," he said to Hendley.

"No, I'm not!"

"I'll go first," the other boy said. And with a darting glance along the wall in both directions to make sure no one was watching them, he crouched before the narrow opening and began to worm his way through. The damaged section of plastic film tore easily, but the bars were so close together that the boy winced as he struggled to wriggle between them.

"You'd better not!" the fat boy warned apprehensively.

But the small, slim body gave another twist and suddenly the boy was gone, disappearing through the opening into the mysterious place beyond the wall.

"Come on!" they heard him call excitedly. "Hurry up! Wait'll you see it!"

Hendley tried to follow him. Halfway through the opening he could go no farther, no matter how much he shoved and twisted. His chest was skinned and bruised by the effort, and he had trouble breathing. "I—I'm stuck!" he cried.

Beyond the wall the slender, black-haired boy's shrill laughter rang briefly. It broke off. There was a moment's silence. Hendley and the fat boy listened. Anxiously they began to shout. There was no answer from within the camp. And then it seemed to Hendley that he heard a muffled, whimpering cry.

At that instant a huge, heavy hand fell on the fat boy's shoulder. The two boys by the wall had been so intently absorbed that they had failed to see or hear anyone approaching. Hendley stared up in fright at a broad, towering figure in a beige uniform with a small emblem on one shoulder. A big hand seized him by the arm and effortlessly pulled him free of the bars....

They were taken to a white building, where they were separately questioned. Hendley had vowed to himself that he would say nothing about the day's events, but he found himself at first frightened and then awed by the huge, gray-haired man who talked to him. The man spoke gently, reassuringly, and after a while Hendley was blurting out the whole story, trembling and stammering, moved at last to tears by the mystery of his small friend's fate.

The following day he and the fat, blond boy were taken back to their school. Oddly enough, Hendley could not now remember what their 

 Prev. P 31/165 next