Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/84

74 the shots come from. So we're comparatively safe after dark, it seems."

Later this was not to prove to be the case, but it was when Tom spoke.

The boys went to the section of the city in which the last shells had fallen. While comparatively little damage had been done, a number of persons had been killed and injured, children among them. Some fragments of the shells were picked up, but not enough to make certain any particular theory in regard to the gun.

"But if it's a gun, where could it be placed?" queried Tom of an officer. "The Germans haven't broken through, have they?"

The French officer shook his head.

"No. And please God they will never get through," he said. "But there is a gun somewhere, I am sure of that."

"Do you mean to say within ten or fifteen miles of Paris?" Jack wanted to know.

"I can not be sure. It is true there may have been traitors. We have them to contend with as well as spies. But our line is intact, and at no point along it, near enough to it to fire into Paris from an ordinary gun, can the Germans be found."

"Then it must be an extraordinary gun," suggested Jack.