ral years
ago. Last summer it seems to have been taken over by this bunch of
Germans. At times there are only two or three of them there, but
recently the number has increased. Carter thinks there must be a dozen
men there now."

"How did he locate the place?" asked Dean.

"Carter is a real detective," said the chief enthusiastically. "He
reasoned it out that where there were Germans there must be beer. He
scouted along the main road until he found a wayside saloon where, as he
had shrewdly suspected, they got their liquid supplies. From the
proprietor of the place and the hangers-on he had no trouble in getting
the information he wanted without arousing their suspicions."

"Where is Mr. Carter now?" asked Jane.

"He's waiting for us a few miles up the road."

"He has only four men with him, hasn't he?" questioned Dean.

"That's all."

"And there are four of us here."

"Three and a half," said the chief, motioning to Dean's bandaged arm.

"It's my left arm," he retorted. "I can handle a revolver, at least,
with my good arm."

"And I can shoot, too," boasted Jane; "that makes nine of us."

"Nine of us against twelve of the enemy," said the chief thoughtfully.
"It looks like a busy evening."

"And don't forget," warned Jane, "that the Hoffs are coming up this
evening. At least young Mr. Hoff told me this morning that he was going
away this evening. That makes two more on the other side."

"And one of them," muttered Fleck, "a mighty dangerous man."

CHAPTER XV

THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS

At last they had reached their goal, the place which the two spy
suspects undoubtedly had been in the habit of visiting regularly every
week for months past.

Sheltered by a great rock and the underbrush about it, Jane, with Fleck
and Thomas Dean, peered eagerly out at a dingy, weather-beaten frame
structure which neighborhood gossip had told them was the sheltering
place of the "Friends of the Air." In its outward appearance at least,
Jane decided, it was disappointingly unmysterious. It looked to her
merely like a cheap summer boarding-house that had gone long untenanted.
There was a two-story main building, cheaply constructed and almost
without ornament, sadly crying for new paint, and the usual outbuildings
found about such places in the more remote country districts.

Still from Chief Fleck's manner she was certain that he regarded their
achievement in locating the place as of the highest importance. They had