"Tom, you're right!" exclaimed Jack, evidently annoyed, thinking that that circumstance might make his self-assumed task the more difficult. "Wouldn't it be queer if he should prove to be the very one? It doesn't seem reasonable to me."
"Why not?" demanded his companion quickly. "Couldn't a German general conspire to lay hands on the property of a relative just as easily as any ordinary person? Haven't they been accused of stealing most of the valuables in Belgium and Northern France as spoils of war, from priceless paintings and works of art to family plate and jewelry?"
"I reckon you're about right, Tom, so far as that goes," agreed Jack, finally impressed by what his chum said. "General Anton von Berthold—if we find out that is his first name it would settle it for me. And then we could perhaps learn from one of the prisoners we find in the barbed wire stockade something about his goings-on, where he's putting up at present, and all that, you know."
"And in the meantime don't you think Jeanne would like something to eat?" asked Tom. "How could she ever have managed to make her way through the Boche lines, and get to where you ran across her?"
"I've tried to find out," Jack told him. "She mentions something about being taken by a neighbor after that man carried her sister away on his horse. They told her that her mother had died, and been buried. Then one day she was taken, hidden under a load of forage, and carried miles away. When she was put down in the end they told her she could soon find the Americans, who were near by. But she had wandered about in the forest for nearly a whole day before I came on her."
"Well, let's skirmish for something to eat. Our chef is a good friend of yours, Jack; suppose you go around and tell him what's doing. He'll not refuse to let you have something for a poor little girl. Take Jeanne along with you. She'll win Erastus over without fail by one of her smiles."
"I'll do it, though I hardly think it necessary. The poor little thing must be awfully tired, too. But I'll carry her, I did that most of the journey here. Then to get some gas and start back to where Morgan is sitting on our plane, waiting for me to come."
"Here, you get busy with that gas and I'll manage the grub part of the programme! If Erastus declines to fork over I'll choke him. But I know he can't refuse when he sees her," and Tom jerked his thumb backward while saying this toward Jeanne, now sitting on a friendly stump looking about her with interest at the bustling scene.
Jack hurried away to secure a can of gasoline, while Tom took Jeanne by the hand and led her toward the air squadron's camp kitchen, or "chuck-wagon."
Erastus, the cook, was as usual about that hour as busy as a bee. With so many hungry men to provide for when meal time came around, he hardly found a minute to call his own.