e owes you one on account of
the trick you played on him this morning."

"Then you really don't believe they did poison it, Rod?" asked the
other.

"That isn't the German way of doing things, as far as I know," Rod told
him; at which assurance Hanky Panky swallowed his fears, and drained the
gourd.

"Might as well be hung for a whole sheep as a lamb!" he declared, once
more dipping into the bucket; "but no matter if it's my last drink or
not, I'm going to say this is as fine water as any I ever drank over in
our own dear country. So here goes."

Rod in turn took a drink, and was ready to pronounce it excellent.
Indeed, after their dusty ride of the morning nothing could have been
one-half so refreshing as that draught of ice-cold water from the well
with the old-fashioned sweep.

"If we're meaning to rest up a little bit," remarked Hanky Panky,
shrewdly, "we might as well stay right here. Then just before we start
off again it'll be another swig all around. I'd like to carry a canteen
of that same water along with me, so I could wet my whistle as I rode."

"That would be your undoing, I'm afraid," laughed Rod, picturing the
other uptilting the said canteen every few minutes, in spite of the
wretched condition of the road and the necessity for cautious riding.

"I wonder whatever became of the people who lived here?" remarked Josh,
presently, as he shifted his position for some reason or other, and sat
with his face close to the curb of the well.

"Oh! they must have lit out long before the Germans arrived," Hanky
said, confidently; "I hope now you don't believe they were actually
killed, and buried somewhere around here, do you, Josh? You are the
worst hand to imagine terrible things I ever knew."

"I didn't say anything like that, did I?" demanded Josh; "but it must
have been on your mind. Listen! what was that?"

"I didn't hear anything," said Hanky Panky, looking worried all the
same; "what did it sound like, Josh?"

Instead of answering, Josh held his hand up to indicate that if the
other stopped talking he too might catch the sound. And as they listened
what seemed to be a long-drawn groan came up from the depths of the well
from which they had just been drinking!

CHAPTER XXII.

AT THE FORD OF THE RIVER MARNE.

"Oh! did you hear that?" exclaimed Hanky Panky, all excitement; "it was
a sure-enough moan. Rod, Josh, there's been some poor fellow down there
all this while; and we never dreamed