JACK

The men bearing the lanterns came closer, Jack saw, as he himself
scurried amidst the bushes seeking a hiding-place.

"Guess that Potzfeldt must know that planes can drop down on his big
open field," the youth muttered to himself. Then as a new idea flashed
through his brain he continued: "Whee! I warrant you now that ours
wasn't the first airplane to land there. Sometimes maybe the spy he
wants to send back of the French lines gets aboard right here, with his
little cage of homers."

Presently loud exclamations told that the men had discovered the marks
of the arriving and departing Caudron machine. Jack could hear them
exchanging remarks about it, in German of course. Then he saw one of the
trio start back toward the house. He was half running, as though much
excited. Jack jumped to a conclusion.

"Say," he said to himself, in a whisper, as though even the sound of his
own voice might be company for him, "now that must have been Carl
Potzfeldt himself. What's he making for the house with a hop, skip and
jump for? Perhaps one of his sharp-eyed men has told him there are marks
of small shoes around; and old Carl got a sudden suspicion something
tremendous has happened."

The master-spy came back again. He was now accompanied by two others,
and Jack saw by their uniforms that they were members of the general's
staff.

All were talking earnestly, Potzfeldt, Jack imagined, telling them some
story concerning Bessie and her mother, in which he figured as a noble
man, trying to save Mrs. Gleason from the wiles of some American fortune
hunter, into whose hands he now feared she and her daughter had fallen.

"My! but he's wild!" chuckled the hidden observer. "He realizes that the
two American boys have been too much for his scheming after all. Guess
he must have had a suspicion all along we'd break up his game. That'd
account for his plotting with the other spy to have our planes meddled
with, so we'd meet with some terrible accident that would remove us from
his path."

Jack was really enjoying himself. It did him good to hear Potzfeldt
raging around, and spluttering as though his rage half choked him.

What Bessie had said concerning the cruel treatment she had received at
the hands of her mother's relative had fired Jack's blood. He detested a
man who in order to accumulate money could treat a helpless woman and
girl as Potzfeldt had those who were in his power.

"I'd just like," he was telling himself a