"God help 'em if they come!" said Mort, savagely, and he spoke for all. "They were going to send old Angus up with the shop," Potter said. There was no feeling in his tone now; somehow he was without emotion. "Without a chance for himself," he added. "The damn sn'akin' blaggards!" growled Pat Cassidy. "L'ave it to us, sorr. Gerrman spies, is it?" "They're bringing explosives--TNT. Any man that doesn't like it can go home--and nobody'll think the worse of him." Pat faced the quartet of his fellow-machinists. "Think the worse of him, is it? Is there a man here which the white liver of him wants to run from a thafe of a Gerrman spy?... There is none, sorr. We're all Amerricuns here, sorr, and, loike Amerricuns, we stand togither...." "Have you a bit of a flag, now, Mr. Waite?" asked Mort. "Seems like we ought to have one showin'." "There's one in the locker, Mort. Run it up." Wisdom would have asked the police for protection. It is not strange that Potter and his men never thought of that. It was they who were being attacked, and they felt themselves well able to manage the defense--that and a little more. It was a thing characteristic not only of them as individuals, but of their Americanism. "Lights out, except the lamp Angus keeps burning--and keep quiet. I'll stay here with Angus. The five of you scatter around the place; keep hidden and--" "Give 'ell to anythink that comes h'along," said Cockney Tom. "Exactly," Potter agreed. They armed themselves with implements of peace, with huge wrenches, machinists' hammers, bars, and went out quietly. Presently old Angus, the watchman, arrived. Potter would have sent him home, but the old man felt himself one of them and entitled to his share in the matter. He remained. Because of the isolated position of the hangar, down on the shore of the lake, it was possible the plotters might make their attempt at any time after the normal hour for the activities of the place to cease had arrived. Hildegarde had not told Potter the hour she had heard named, so there could be no moment during which vigilance could be relaxed. Potter walked softly from window to window, watching, listening. Resolutely he shouldered Hildegarde out of his thoughts; the suspense, the impending danger, made it possible partially to do so. But not wholly. One might say that she stood upon the threshold alertly waiting the slightest relaxation of vigilance to slip in. And slip in she did more than once--to be ejected after a sordid mental scuffle.