"Did the cow stop in front of your gun?"

"Yes, it stopped before each one of them."

"So it did at ours," he said.

"_Merci_ Monsieur, you will hear from this." And he left in a hurry. He
phoned the gendarmes in the city of Ypres and in less than half-an-hour
they came. They entered the farmhouse and searched it thoroughly.
Upstairs they found parts of a heliograph lamp and a complete telephone
apparatus; there was also in his stove a system that had been
inaugurated for forcing up a shower of sparks; this apparatus had been
found in the houses of a number of spies who had paid the penalty for
their work. Then they made a search of the cellar in which were found
hundreds of tins of beef and jam, all of which had come from our
rations, and then was explained the mysterious disappearance of our
grub. There was no trace to be found of our Algerian trooper; he had
made a hasty exit.

Friend farmer and his wife were arrested, taken away with the children
and placed in the coop, and there the traitorous couple got their
deserts--they were taken to the square and shot.

After they had gone we made ourselves at home in the building, and the
comforts that awaited us there made us feel almost glad that they had
turned out to be spies. Among the rations we found that they had taken
stuff that had been purloined from other units as far back as three
months before. After a thorough ransacking and a feed that filled us to
our heart's content, we made for the battery, being greeted with a fresh
outburst on our arrival, and under the fire we pulled our remaining guns