nly the Germans had stopped as
they went by.

"Of course!" he said, to himself. "If there were people here they took
them along with them. They wouldn't be likely to leave any French
people, whose first idea would be to tell what they had seen! It's
certainly lucky that they didn't see us. We'd be with them now, I
guess."

It was spooky work exploring the abandoned inn in the damp, dark night
and with the knowledge that German soldiers were probably no great
distance away. It was less than a quarter of a mile to the edge of the
wood that had assumed such an important aspect, and he expected at any
moment to hear the footsteps of intruders. None the less he went about
his task quietly and coolly.

"If they had any essence, they'd hide it," he said to himself. "They'd
know that both armies would need it for automobiles and aeroplanes, and
they'd try to keep any they had left. So it won't be in any of the usual
places."

For that reason he did not even leave the main building to make a search
in the stable that was used as a garage. Instead, he went into the
cellar. Here it was still plainer that the Germans had passed through.
His feet stepped into puddles of sticky dampness, and, using his
flashlight, he saw that it was wine. The heads of casks had been knocked
in; broken bottles, too, strewed the floor.

This, however, had not been wanton destruction, he was sure. It had an
object, and that object had been to prevent the soldiers from getting
anything to drink. Troops on an errand requiring such extraordinary
secrecy as had been maintained in this case could not be allowed to
drink any liquor. That would have spoiled in all likelihood the
remarkable discipline of which Captain Greene had spoken.

But, once more, it was not his business to think of what he saw, or to
speculate about it, but to find the petrol if any was to be found. And
he stumbled upon the hidden store quite suddenly, and quite literally,
too. In one corner of the cellar was what looked like a pile of kindling
wood. Harry kicked it indifferently in passing, and was almost thrown
when his feet encountered a resistance more solid than he had any reason
to expect. He looked down, and there, under the kindling, were two
ten-gallon cans of petrol!

"I knew it must be there!" he cried to himself. He was down on his knees
in a moment, shaking the cans to make sure that they were full. One had
never been broached; the other was nearly half full. And th