Page:Air Service Boys Over Enemy's Lines.djvu/158

150 "I can glimpse lights through the trees, and chances are they come from windows in the house beyond."

"I see them too," affirmed Tom.

"But say, isn't it pretty late for a farmhouse to be lighted tip like that?"

"Depend on it, there's some good reason for all that illumination," Jack was told. "And perhaps we'd better drop this talking so much, now we're getting close to the place. No telling what we'll find there. For all we know this may be some one's headquarters, though pretty far back of the line for that sort of thing. But I think it'll turn out to be something more than ordinary."

It did.

Jack began to weave all manner of fantastic explanations to account for the illumination of the house alongside the road to Metz.

He felt he would not be very much astonished to discover a line of military cars standing at the gate, and find that an important council of war was being conducted within the building.

Then he remembered the crying and sobbing. Somehow, that did not seem to fit in with his other imaginings. The touch of Tom's hand on his arm made Jack give a violent start.

"Here's a high fence, you notice," Tom whispered. "Seeing that makes me believe it's