er at this moment, alone at midnight in a mountain
shack, one girl among a band of strange men--and two men stretched dead
on the floor.

And Frederic! Always her perturbed imaginings led back to Frederic, to
the terrible fate that lay in store for him, to the awfulness of war
that had put between them an impassable gulf of blood and guilt and
treachery that, in spite of their love for each other, kept them at
cross purposes and made them enemies. Why, she vaguely wondered, must
governments disagree and start wars and make men hate and kill each
other? What was it all for?

In the midst of her mental wanderings she became conscious that Fleck
was speaking to Carter.

"I'll stay here with Miss Strong and the prisoners," he was saying.
"While we are waiting for the men to return with the cars, you'd better
make a search of the house."

"Why not wait until daylight for that?" suggested Carter.

"It is not safe," the chief objected. "To-night is the time to do it. A
plot important enough to have the especial attention of the war office
in Berlin must have many important persons involved in it. Somebody with
money in New York, some influential German sympathizer, must have helped
old Hoff set up these aeroplanes here and equip his shop. Some chemical
plant supplied the material for those bombs. It must have taken hundreds
of thousands of dollars to carry the plan to completion. Men rich enough
and powerful enough to have put through this plot are powerful enough to
be still dangerous. The minute word reaches the city that the plan has
miscarried there will be some one up here posthaste to destroy or remove
any damaging evidence we may have overlooked. Now is the time to do our
searching."

"You're right, Chief," Carter admitted. "It would not surprise me if
there is not a wireless plant here. I'll soon find out."

"Let me help," cried Jane.

Her nerves were suffering from a sharp reaction. All through the
excitement of the attack she had remained calm and collected, but now
she felt that if she remained another minute in the same room with the
two bodies, if she stayed near that row of shackled prisoners, if she
should chance to catch Frederic's eye, she either would burst into
hysterical weeping or would collapse entirely. If only there was some
activity in which she could engage it might serve to divert the current
of maddening thoughts that kept overwhelming her. With something to do
she might regain her self-co