; it had demolished No. 2 gun.

"Stand to!" yelled the Captain; then to the farmer, "Take that damned
cow away." He hurried the cow off and put it in the barn, but he had no
sooner gone than Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p! and the Captain and I were
knocked off our feet. The water bottle was broken and I did not take
time to get another but made for the guns. They were hammering our
batteries thoroughly now and I was told to take shelter. I ran over to
the farmhouse and asked the farmer's wife for a cup of coffee,--to sell
me a cup, which she refused; in fact, her husband would not permit any
of us to enter the house again. Then a smothering fire smashed the
French battery, the destruction being so accurate and complete that it
was done while I was asking and being refused the coffee! Just leaving
the house, I met one of the French captains. "Did you notice anything
peculiar in the farmer's actions?" he asked me; "I mean, with his white
cow?"

"I told him I hadn't noticed anything peculiar, that I had noticed he
had taken his white cow out in front of our battery, grazing her there
just before the battery was shot up.

"Did the cow stop in front of your gun?"

"Yes, it stopped before each one of them."

"So it did at ours," he said.

"_Merci_ Monsieur, you will hear from this." And he left in a hurry. He
phoned the gendarmes in the city of Ypres and in less than half-an-hour
they came. They entered the farmhouse and searched it thoroughly.
Upstairs they found parts of a heliograph lamp and a complete telephone
apparatus; there was also in his stove a system that had been
inaugurated for forcing up a shower of sparks; this apparatus had been
found in the houses of a number of spies who had paid the penalty for
their work. Then they made a search of the cellar in which were found
hundreds of tins of beef and jam, all of which had come from our
rations, and then was explained the mysterious disappearance of our
grub. There was no trace to be found of our Algerian trooper; he had
made a hasty exit.

Friend farmer and his wife were arrested, taken away with the children
and placed in the coop, and there the traitorous couple got their
deserts--they were taken to the square and shot.

After they had gone we made ourselves at home in the building, and the
comforts that awaited us there made us feel almost glad that they had
turned out to be spies. Among the rations we found that they had taken
stuff that had been purloined f