regard to the gun.

"But if it's a gun, where could it be placed?" queried Tom of an
officer. "The Germans haven't broken through, have they?"

The French officer shook his head.

"No. And please God they will never get through," he said. "But there is
a gun somewhere, I am sure of that."

"Do you mean to say within ten or fifteen miles of Paris?" Jack wanted
to know.

"I can not be sure. It is true there may have been traitors. We have
them to contend with as well as spies. But our line is intact, and at no
point along it, near enough to it to fire into Paris from an ordinary
gun, can the Germans be found."

"Then it must be an extraordinary gun," suggested Jack.

"It may well be--perhaps it is. Yet, as I said, there may have been
traitors. There may be a gun concealed somewhere closer to Paris than we
dream. But we shall find it, messieurs! Who knows? Perhaps you may be
the very ones yourselves to locate it, for we are depending on you
soldiers of the air."

And it was not long before this talk came back to Tom and Jack with
impressive recollection.

And meanwhile the bombardment of Paris went on, usually during the late
afternoon or early morning hours--never at night, as yet.

Yet with all the frightfulness of which the unscrupulous Huns were
capable, it was impossible to dampen for long the spirits of the French.
Soon they grew almost to disregard the falling shells from the hidden
German gun. Of course there were buildings destroyed, and lives were
lost, while many were frightfully maimed. But if Germany depended on
this, as she seemed to, to strike terror to the hearts of the brave
Frenchmen the while a great offensive was going on along the western
front, it failed. For the people of Paris did not allow themselves to be
disheartened, any more than the people of London did when the Zeppelins
raided them.

Indeed one Paris paper even managed to extract some humor out of the
grim situation. For one day, following the bombardment, a journal
appeared with "scare" headlines, telling about eleven "lives" being
lost. But when one read the account it was discovered that the lives
were those of chickens.

And this actually happened. A shell fell on the outlying section and
blew up a henhouse, killing nearly a dozen fowls and blowing a big hole
in the ground.

There were other occasions, too, when the seemingly superhuman
bombardment was not worth the proverbial candle. For the shells fell in
sections wh