Now this episode struck me as being very peculiar. In the first place, I have it from Archer that Slade was of an imperturbable, stolid nature, and not given to fits of temper. Also, on hearing of the captain downstairs he had laughed at the girl for believing the stories the German had told her, and treated the mysterious tyrant’s talk like the trash it was. Why, then, should he have flown into such a fury when he saw the picture?
I thought a good deal about it after I left old Grigou’s cottage and the explanation that I hit on was this: that Slade rather liked the girl and was angry to think of her having this German’s picture. Then I thought of what Archer had said about Slade’s not having any use for “girrls.” Well, at least, I thought, Slade was rather erratic. Perhaps it was only a trifling matter, but it puzzled me and it puzzles me still.
No matter.
There is a little oasis of scouting and woodcraft in this bloody desert of war which will show you Tom Slade in a familiar light—as you used to know him at your beloved Temple Camp. And when you think of your dead comrade of the good old days I am sure you will wish to think of him as he trod the forest depths next day in quest of the iron murderer that lay concealed there.
I mean to recount this to you now.
CHAPTER X—THE SOUVENIR OF SOUVENIRS
If Slade had any suspicion that “Monsieur le Capitaine” was directly interested in the great gun which was concealed thereabout, he did not say so to old Grigou and his daughter. They, at least, knew nothing of any such gun in their neighborhood, but they told him of frightful explosions which made their cottage “shiver.” They seemed to think that such things were common along the entire front and they knew of houses which had been shaken down by distant explosions. Slade asked them if they had heard any of these explosions lately and they told him they had not—not for several days. “Only he shake his head—vere wise—so,” Jeanne volunteered.
He said afterward that he had counted on the noise of the monster to guide him to it but that he supposed his visit was in an interval of disuse caused by the ever-increasing scarcity of ammunition.
Early in the morning he set forth with a little snack which Jeanne had prepared for him and following the woods path was soon lost in the hilly forest. I have myself seen this forest at its edge and how any human being could hope to locate a particular object in it is beyond my comprehension. The woods path which ends near Grigou’s cottage follows a meandering course over the densely wooded summit and winding down the western slope develops into the single street of Talois village. I should say it might be five miles over the hill as the crow flies and more than ten by the path.
It was long after dark when Slade returned, very weary and apparently discouraged. He had seen nothing but dead men in the woods, he said. Not a sign was there of any open way along which artillery might be hauled—not so much as a wagon track. He was in a very ill mood and Jeanne tried to console him by saying that as long as he tried it was not disgrace if he failed.