the windmill from which
he had observed the wood into which the Germans had gone. To make his
way to the road along which he and Henri had first seen the Germans
passing was an easy matter. But he was afraid of roads by this time, and
the more so because he knew that the Germans, having been aroused by the
attack from the sky, would be doubly on the alert. So he stuck to the
side of the road, religiously taking advantage of every bit of cover he
could find to escape the foe.

"They knew they'd given themselves away just as soon as they fired at
us," he reasoned, thinking half aloud as he trudged along, which was a
habit of his. "And I don't believe they know they hit us at all. They do
know that they didn't bring us down at once. Anyhow, there's no reason
for them to be secret any more, and if they stay in that wood, they'll
throw out pickets now, because they'll think that as soon as we went
back and made our report troops would be sent to rout them out. It's up
to me to be mighty careful."

That was good sound reasoning, too. From all he had learned since the
war began, he knew that the Germans were by no means foes to be
despised. They had been pretty generally victorious, but that was not
all. They had shown a capacity for being always ready, for thinking of
everything that might come up to block their plans. And he was sure,
therefore, that the German commander would not argue that the aeroplane
had got clean away just because the probabilities indicated that it
had. He was almost certain to beat the country within a reasonable area
for it, in the hope of finding it crippled and thus unable to carry the
news it had come to get.

"I bet the Germans wouldn't have sent just one aeroplane," he reflected.
"They'd have sent two, so that if anything happened to one, the other
could have brought back the news."

But though he was thinking hard, he didn't linger as he went. Soon he
came to the transverse road along which the Germans had gone, and turned
in the direction they had taken. It was beginning to rain a little now,
and it was very dark. He still stuck to the fields, though he was close
to the road, and he found nothing to bar his way to the inn. When he got
there, moreover, he found the place dark and deserted. Not a soul was in
sight, but there were evidences that spoke as eloquently as men or women
could have done. In the tap room furniture was smashed and broken and
shattered glass was about the floor. Plai