hen he heaved a satisfied sigh, for
he had been a little afraid lest he discover some evidence of foul work
there. Such did not happen to be the case; the owner of the cottage
instead of staying and arousing the passions of the invaders by firing
at them in secret, had wisely departed to unknown regions before their
coming, taking warning in time.

So the trio of boys hastened to the well as soon as they could dispose
of their wheels. It would do them no harm to idle away ten minutes here,
and drink their fill of the sparkling liquid which doubtless lay in
those shadowy depths.

Hanky Panky reached it first of all, Josh not appearing to be in a humor
to force himself to the van. In fact Josh seemed to be amused at
something, for he had one of those smirks on his face which marked it
whenever he watched Hanky Panky's evidence of greed.

"I don't seem to be able to quite see down _all_ the way, Rod," the
other was saying when his comrades joined him; "but I dropped a pebble
in, and could plainly hear a good splash; so there's plenty of the stuff
down there."

"I only hope it's all right," remarked Josh, shortly afterwards, when
they had managed to draw up a dripping bucket of cold water.

That caused Hanky Panky to hesitate, for he had a gourd in his hand, and
was about to dip in.

"Now what in the wide world do you mean by saying that, I'd like to
know, Josh; you're always trying to drop a fly in the ointment, seems to
me. What could there be wrong with this water?" he demanded, filling the
gourd as he spoke.

"Oh! I don't know," drawled the other, wickedly, "but if it happened
that some of those ugly-tempered Germans chose to drop a little poison
in the well it'd be a tough thing for the French who drank later, and
mebbe make 'em sick in the bargain."

Hanky Panky turned pale, and allowed the gourd to spill; whereupon Josh
coolly took it out of his hand, dipped into the bucket, and commenced
drinking.

"If it doesn't kill _me_, why then it's safe, you see. I'm always
willing to be the tester for the crowd, you know. Tastes all right,
though, and as cold as anything. Whew! Rod, you have a dip, since Hanky
feels nervous about it, won't you?"

Rod thereupon laughed, accepted the rude drinking cup from the joker,
filled it from the dripping bucket, and offered it to the third member
of the group.

"Don't mind what he says, Hanky; you know Josh loves to have his little
joke; and I believe he still feels that h