Luckily it was growing dark and Tom had pulled Rabig's hat well down over his face, yet not so far as to make it appear that he was trying to evade scrutiny. He walked on briskly to a point where a sentry on duty before an opening in the wire fence was standing.

"_Halt! Wer da?_" hailed the sentry.

"_Ein Freund_," replied Tom.

"_Losung._"

"_Potsdam._"

At the same time Tom carelessly extended the pa.s.s which the sentry glanced at and returned to him with a curt gesture, in which Tom thought he saw contempt. But it meant that he was free to pa.s.s, and he did so with an air of indifference.

His heart was beating so fast that it seemed as if he would suffocate.

At every step he feared to hear a shout behind him that would tell him that the ruse was discovered. But the fortune that had frowned upon him so many times of late this time was friendly. Behind him were the usual camp noises and nothing more.

In a few minutes he had gotten out of sight of the lines and was in the woods at a point where the trees grew thickly and only a half-beaten trail led through the underbrush. Then he quickened his pace and soon found himself running.

If he were pursued, he had fully made up his mind what he would do. He would never again see the inside of a German prison. He had the revolver and he would fight to the last breath. He might go down, probably would, considering the odds that there would be against him, but he would die fighting, and would take one or more of his enemies with him.

He was racing along now at top speed and he only slackened his gait when he knew that he had put miles behind him. By that time it had grown wholly dark, and in the woods it was as black as pitch. He was safe for that night at least. His enemies could not have seen him if they had been within ten feet of him.

And the darkness brought with it a word of warning. While in one sense it was a protection, on the other it had in it an element of danger.

He could no longer know the direction in which he was traveling. He knew the danger there was of traveling in a circle. If he kept on he might swing around in the direction of the German lines. And it would be a sorry ending to his flight to have it finish at the very point from which he had started.

He made up his mind that he would curl himself up in some thicket and s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours of sleep. At the first glimmer of dawn he would resume his journey. Then he could see, no doubt, the American lines, from which he knew he could not be very far away. The big guns, too, that had now settled down to their nightly muttering, would be in full cry at dawn, and sound as well as sight would help him.

He found a heavy clump of bushes into which he crawled. He had no fear of oversleeping. He knew that his burdened mind would keep watch while his body slept, and that he would surely wake at the first streak of dawn.

Some distance ahead of where the old Thirty-seventh was posted on the far-flung battle line, the Army Boys were on sentry duty. It was the turn of Corporal Wilson's squad to perform this irksome task, and they were glad that it was nearly over and that soon they would be relieved.

Their beats adjoined each other and there were times when they met and could exchange a few words to break the monotony of the long grind.

"This sentry stuff doesn't make a hit with me," grumbled Bart. "I'm getting blisters on my feet from walking."

"Where do you expect to get them, on your head?" laughed Frank. "Cheer up, old man. The sun will be up in a few minutes and then the relief will be along."

"It can't come too soon," chimed in Billy. "Gee, but I'm hungry! This early morning air does sure give you an appet.i.te."

"If only something would happen," complained Bart. "It's the deadly monotony of the thing that gets my goat. Now if a Hun patrol should come along and stir things up, it would be worth while."

A sharp exclamation came from Frank.

"Look out, fellows!" he warned. "I saw those bushes moving over on the slope of that hill just now and there isn't a bit of wind."

In an instant they had their rifles ready.

The bushes parted and a figure stepped forth into the open.

"Why, it's one of our fellows!" said Bart, as he saw the American uniform.

"Been out on scout duty, I suppose," remarked Billy.

Frank said nothing. His keen eyes noted the newcomer and his heart began to thump strangely.

As the soldier came nearer he took off his hat and waved it at them.

A yell of delight broke from the startled group.

"It's Tom! It's Tom! It's Tom!"

CHAPTER XXII

A JOYOUS REUNION

Shouting like so many maniacs, they rushed toward him. At the same instant Tom, too, began to run, and in a moment they had their arms around him, and were hugging him, pounding him, mauling him, exclaiming, questioning, laughing, rejoicing, all in one breath.

Tom was back with them again, good old Tom, their chum, their comrade, Tom, over whose fate they had spent so many sleepless hours, Tom, for whom any one of them would have risked his life, Tom who they knew was captured, and who they feared might be dead.

There he was, the same old Tom, with face and body thin, with hair unkempt and matted, with traces showing everywhere of the anxiety and suffering he had undergone, and yet with the same indomitable spirit that neither captivity nor threatened death had broken, and the same smile upon his lips and twinkle in his eyes.

"Easy, easy there, fellows," he protested laughing. "Let me come up for air. And before anything else, lead me to some grub. I haven't eaten for so long that there's only a vacuum where my stomach ought to be."

"You bet we'll lead you to it," cried Bart.

"An anaconda will have nothing on you when we get through filling you up," promised Billy.

"What did I tell you, fellows," cried Frank delightedly. "Didn't I say the old boy'd be coming in some morning and asking us if breakfast was ready?"

Tom was giving Frank the long-lost letter he had been carrying when Corporal Wilson came up with the relief and their greeting was almost as boisterous and hilarious as that of his own particular chums had been, for Tom was a universal favorite in the regiment, and they had all mourned his loss.

They would have overwhelmed him with questions, but Frank interposed.

"Nothing doing, fellows," he said. "This boy isn't going to say another word until we've taken him to mess and filled him up till he can't move. After that there'll be plenty of time for a talk and we'll keep him talking till the cows come home."

It was a rejoicing crowd that took Tom back to the main body of the regiment, where he almost had his hands wrung from him. They piled his plate and filled his coffee cup again and again and watched him while he ate like a famished wolf.

"Tom's running true to form," joked Frank, as they saw the food vanish before his onslaught.

"Whatever else the Huns took away from him, they left him his appet.i.te," chuckled Billy.

"Left it?" grinned Tom, as he attacked another helping. "They added to it. I never knew what hunger was before. Bring on anything you've got, and I'll tackle it. All except fish. I'm ashamed now to look a fish in the face."

It was a long time before he had had enough. Then with a look of seraphic contentment on his face he sat back, loosened his belt a notch, and sighed with perfect happiness.

"Now fellows, fire away," he grinned, "and I'll tell you the sad story of my life."