ve to look out for--that we may have a visitor any
moment. Look over there, Arthur. There's a little space behind that
row of barrels. If anyone comes we can hide there."

But Arthur had another idea. Before Paul could stop him, he sprang
lightly up the stairs that led to the room above, whence the sound of
the German soldiers came very plainly. He fumbled for a moment at the
door before he returned.

"I thought I might find that," he said. "I've shot a bolt on the door.
That will hold anyone who tries to come down for a few moments at
least, and it will give us time to get out the way we came. We may
wish to escape, you see."

"Good!" said Paul. "All right! Now let's try to find those guns."

But of guns or weapons of any sort they could find no trace. They
looked behind all the barrels and casks and under every possible hiding
place. They lifted some of the barrels, though to do so was a
considerable task, and the result was the same.

"Perhaps they have chosen some other hiding place or else the woman did
not really know, and only suspected," suggested Arthur.

But that explanation did not satisfy Paul. And in a moment he had an
inspiration. At once he began trying to tip back the great hogsheads
at one side of the vault. The third yielded easily, and he immediately
pried off its top.

"Aha, here we are!" he said. "Look, Arthur! I noticed that some of
these were empty, but I thought anything like a gun would rattle around
inside. But do you see what they did? They have the guns here, but
they're packed in with rags and sacking, so they can't move and make a
noise."

"That was clever!" said Arthur. "I suppose they expected the Germans
to make a search."

He drew out a gun, a shotgun with a sawed off barrel. The shortening
of the barrel served a double purpose. It made it possible for the gun
to be hidden in the barrel, and it made of it, also, at close range, a
far more dangerous and formidable weapon than it had been in its
original form.

"What are we to do with them? Where shall we hide them?"

"Nowhere. We shall put them back," said Paul. "When we have finished
with them, that is. Here, let me show you!"

He took the sawed off shotgun, opened the breech, and in a moment had
hopelessly shattered the firing mechanism.

"There, do you see? They'll find their guns--but they'll have trouble
in firing them! That's better than taking them away, because it's so
much safer."

"