rcher picked it up with
trembling hands. Across its front was a motto:

"_Mitt Gott--und Vaterland_."

The middle of it was obscured by the flaring German coat-of-arms. A
pistol lay midway between the two bodies and part of an old engraved
motto was still visible on that. Tom could make out the name Napoleon.

"What d'you s'pose happened?" whispered Archer, aghast.

Tom shook his head. "Come on," said he. "Let's look for the others."

Taking the lamp, he led the way silently through the other rooms. On a
couch in one of these was laid a soldier's uniform and a loose paper
upon the floor showed that it had but lately been unwrapped. There was
no sign of Florette or her mother, and Tom felt somewhat relieved at
this, for he had feared to find them dead also.

"What d'you think it means?" Archer asked again, as they returned to the
room of death.

"I suppose they came for her just like she said," Tom answered in a low
tone. "Her father must have shot the soldier, and probably whoever
killed the old man took her and her mother away."

He looked down at the white, staring face of old Pierre and thought of
how the old soldier had risen from his seat and had stood waiting with
his fine military air at the moment of his own arrival at the shadowed
and stricken home. He remembered how the old man had waited eagerly for
his daughter to translate his and Archer's talk and of his humiliation
at the shabby hospitality he must offer them. He took the helmet, a
grim-looking thing, from the table where Archer had laid it, and read
again, "Mitt Gott----"

It seemed to Tom that this was all wrong--that God must surely be on the
side of old Pierre, no matter what had happened.

"Do you know what I think?" he said simply. "I think it was just the way
I said--and like she said. They came to get her and maybe they didn't
treat her just right, and her father hit one of them. Or maybe he shot
him first off. Anyway, I think that soldier suit must be the one Frenchy
had to wear, 'cause he told me that the boys in Alsace had to drill even
before they got out of school. I guess she was going to bring it to us
so one of us could wear it.... We got to feel sorry for her, that's one
sure thing."

It was Tom's simple, blunt way of expressing the sympathy which surged
up in his heart.

"I liked her; she treated us fine," said Archer.

For a few seconds Tom did not answer; then he said in his old stolid
way, "I don't know where they