A few minutes more and all was ready. The tarpaulin was lashed on the wagon and the shed doors closed. The two men mounted to the seat and drove slowly off across the snow toward the forest road.
Bob made himself wait until the wagon had entered the woodland, then he ran to the shed doors, unbolted and flung them open. He drew out his torch and flashed it over a rough floor strewn with fagots, balls of string and bits of wood and bark. Overhead was nothing but rafters, with a rack full of hay. On one side were the animals’ stalls.
He began examining the floor inch by inch. Half-way through he left off to enter one of the stalls and there continue his scrutiny. He kicked aside a handful of straw and a crowbar lying at one side.
“Here we are,” he said to himself.
Setting his torch between the bars of the manger, he took up the crowbar and pried it into the cracks of the flooring. At the second trial a big piece of the floor—boards nailed together—rose up and tipped over, leaving a black, gaping hole. He seized the torch and played its beams over the opening. A ladder led downward half a dozen feet.
Bob felt of the ladder, stepped on it, flashed his light ahead of him and descended. He found himself in a little cellar, chill with sunless cold, its walls piled with wooden boxes. On the floor were bundles of fagots, and piles of loose wood, ready to be tied. Bob turned his light on the boxes, fumbled with the lids, found one on which the boards had been laid back unfastened, and pushed them aside.
“Of course—might have known it,” he thought, a rush of anger mounting in him until he forgot the cold in a burning heat of indignation. The box was filled with machine gun ammunition belts. With his foot Bob touched a rifle bullet lying on the floor. “Good enough, Herr Johann, so you’re a Bolshie after all. Androvsky was right about the Boches. They’ll take any means for an end.”
As Bob made these bitter reflections he turned and remounted the ladder. He put back the piece of flooring, and scattered the straw about the stall again. Switching off his torch he went slowly toward the shed doorway, outside of which stood Trudchen in the moonlight, a ragged shawl gathered about her, her hair flying in the wind and her face set with terror.
Bob looked at her with sharp annoyance. He was in a rage at Franz and he wanted to hate everything belonging to him. So it was with real vexation that he found himself feeling not so much anger as pity at sight of the trembling woman before him. He thrust his torch into his pocket and said moodily:
“Well, Frau, do you stay up all night, too? Franz has a nice little business here. I’ve been looking over his stores.”