but the mere chance. Such things often--"

"Chance, my grandmother's wall-eyed cat!" snorted Mahan. "Maybe
it might have been chance--when this place hadn't been bombed for
a month--for a whole flight of boche artillery and airship
grenades to cut loose against it the day General Pershing
happened to stop here for an hour on his way to Chateau-Thierry.
Maybe that was chance--though I know blamed well it wasn't. Maybe
it was chance that the place wasn't bombed again till two days
ago, when that troop-train had to spend such a lot of time
getting shunted at the junction. Maybe it was chance that the
church, over across the street, hadn't been touched since the
last drive, till our regiment's wounded were put in it--and that
it's been hit three times since then. Maybe any one of those
things--and of a dozen others was chance. But it's a cinch that
ALL of them weren't chance. Chance doesn't work that way. I--"

"Perhaps," doubtfully assented old Vivier, "perhaps. But I little
like to believe it. For it means a spy. And a spy in one's midst
is like to a snake in one's blankets. It is a not pleasing
comrade. And it stands in sore need of killing."

"There's spies everywhere," averred Mahan. "That's been proved
often enough. So why not here? But I wish to the Lord I could lay
hands on him! If this was one of the little sheltered villages,
in a valley, his work would be harder. And the boche airships and
the long-rangers wouldn't find us such a simple target. But up
here on this ridge, all a spy has to do is to flash a signal, any
night, that a boche airman can pick up or that can even be seen
with good glasses from some high point where it can be relayed to