"If we could only find a piece of the shell we could come nearer to guessing what sort of gun fired it," remarked Tom, as the two Air Service boys rested a moment from their hard, terrible labors.
"Do you mean if it was dropped from an airship it wouldn't have any rifling grooves on it?" asked Jack.
"That's it. A bomb, dropped from an aeroplane, would, very likely, be only a sort of round affair, set to explode on contact or by a time fuse. But if it was a shell fired from a long-range gun, there might be enough of it left, after the explosion, to observe the rifling."
"There isn't a gun with a range long enough to reach Paris from the nearest German lines, unless they have broken through," said Jack.
"Well, the last may have happened; though I should think we'd have got some word of it in that case. There'd be fierce fighting if the Germans tried that, and we'd rush reinforcements out in taxicabs as the Paris soldiers went out once before."
"Do you think then," asked Jack, as they went back, after their brief respite, to their appalling labors, "that they have a gun long enough to fire from their nearest point, which is about seventy miles from this city?"
"I don't know what to think," remarked Tom. "It seems like a wild dream to speak of a gun that can shoot so far; and yet reality is over-topping many wild dreams these days. I'm going to reserve judgment. My chief concern now, though of course I'm not going to let it interfere with my work, is to find my father. If he should have been in here, Jack—"
Tom did not finish, but his chum knew what he meant, and sympathized with his unexpressed fear for the safety of Mr. Raymond.
Digging and delving into the ruins, they brought out the racked and maimed bodies, and there was more than one whose eyes were wet with tears, while in their hearts wild and justifiable rage was felt at the ruthless Germans.
Ten had been killed and nearly twice that number wounded in the third shell from the Hun cannon.