roads much ammunition and food and many fighting men were daily
rushed.

The safety of the village had thus become of much significance.
While it was too far behind the lines to be in grave danger of
enemy raids, yet such danger existed to some extent. Wherefore
the presence of the "Here-We-Comes"--for the paradoxical double
purpose of "resting up" and of guarding the railway Function.

Still, it was better than trench-work; and the "Here-We-Comes"
enjoyed it--for a day or so. Then trouble had set in.

A group of soldiers were lounging on the stone seat in front of
the village estaminet. Being off duty, they were reveling in that
popular martial pastime known to the Tommy as "grousing" and to
the Yankee doughboy as "airing a grouch."

Top-Sergeant Mahan, formerly of the regular army, was haranguing
the others. Some listened approvingly, others dissentingly and
others not at all.

"I tell you," Mahan declared for the fourth time, "somebody's
double-crossing us again. There's a leak. And if they don't find
out where it is, a whole lot of good men and a million dollars'
worth of supplies are liable to spill out through that same leak.
It--"

"But," argued his crony, old Sergeant Vivier, in his hard-
learned English, "but it may all be of a chance, mon vieux. It
may, not be the doubled cross,--whatever a doubled cross means,--