n he crawled into the
opening.

The guard was standing facing the spot where Stan was crouching. A
floodlight in the yard made the whole place as light as day. Stan
watched the other guards as they moved about. Under a tree at the
entrance to the yard a heavy machine gun had been planted. A crew of
three men manned the gun. It was set to cover the three jails and the
whole yard.

The situation looked hopeless. With so much light an attack could not be
engineered. Suddenly Stan's lips pulled into a straight line. He had a
bright thought. The yards and grounds had never been lighted up so
completely by the Bolero family. That meant the Germans had strung a lot
of wire. If he could locate the main line and cut it, he could plunge
the place in darkness long enough to break into the shed where his pals
were being held.

After studying the yard and the lighting, Stan decided the wires came in
from the big barn. Working his way around the sheds he came to a spot
where a wide and well-lighted roadway separated them from the big barn.
Four Germans guarded the road and they were well spaced. Again he was
blocked.

Then he noticed that a set of heavy wires came down from somewhere in
the darkness to the corner of the big barn. They swung in from high
above his head. Stan grinned. The electricity for the whole villa came
in from behind the barns. It was like General Bolero to have unsightly
power poles at the back of his estate. Stan turned and headed into the
woods. He was looking for a power line pole.

The job of locating a pole among a forest of trees was not easy, but
Stan had the general location from the run of the lines. After a few
minutes of hunting he located the pole and got set to climb it. He
stacked his things at the base of the pole. He would have to slide down
in a hurry and dash to the attack. He hoped there would be plenty of
confusion. He also hoped the lead-in wires were insulated. The line was
at least 220-volt, because there were three wires leading to the barn.

Climbing up the pole Stan came to a transformer. Gingerly he tested one
of the wires with the hard rubber handle of his knife. Nothing happened,
so he started sawing away. He was not shorted by any part of the
transformer or any wire he might be touching in the darkness. The wire
was thick and heavy but it was copper and his sharp knife bit into it.
With a tug Stan severed the heavy wire and felt it go twisting away into
the darkness, which h