their guilty souls and the car to an abrupt halt. Before them
was a regiment of regulars advancing in column of fours, at
the " double." An officer sprang to the front of the car and
seated himself beside Ford.

"I'll have to commandeer this," he said. "Run back to
Cromer. Don't crush my men, but go like the devil!"

"We heard firing here," explained the officer " at the Coast
Guard station. The Guard drove them back to the sea. He
counted over a dozen. They made pretty poor practice, for he
isn't wounded, but his gravel walk looks as though some one
had drawn a harrow over it. I wonder," exclaimed the officer
suddenly, "if you are the three gentlemen who first gave the
alarm to Colonel Raglan and then went on to warn the other
coast towns. Because, if you are, he wants your names."

Ford considered rapidly. If he gave false names and that fact
were discovered, they would be suspected and investigated,
and the worst might happen. So he replied that his friends
and himself probably were the men to whom the officer
referred. He explained they had been returning from Cromer,
where they had gone to play golf, when they had been held up
by the Germans.

"You were lucky to escape," said the officer "And in keeping
on to give warning you were taking chances. If I may say so,
we think you behaved extremely well."

Ford could not answer. His guilty conscience shamed him into