"But no one else did," laughed the colonel. "And from what I hear from your commander you've been doing similar things ever since. I just heard of your daring escape last night. It was gallantly done, _mon ami_."

"Luck was with me," replied Frank.

"It usually is in such exploits," was the visitor's reply. "You know the old saying that 'fortune favors the brave.' But I'll spare your blushes and come down to something that will probably interest you more. Did you get that letter from Andre, my brother, about your mother's property?"

"Why, no, I didn't," answered Frank. "When was it written?"

"That's strange," said the colonel, a puzzled look coming over his face. "I received a letter from Andre day before yesterday and he said that he had written to you by the same mail."

"Well, you know the mail is rather irregular just now," replied Frank.

"No doubt it will get to me before long. Perhaps your brother told you something of what was in the letter he wrote to me."

"Not in detail. He just mentioned that he was very anxious to get hold of a former butler in your grandfather's family who is now in the ranks. They had his testimony in part before he was called into service, but he had not been cross-examined. Andre seems to feel sure that he can extract information from him that will aid your mother to come into possession of the estate. Andre's judgment is good, and as you know, he is one of the leading lawyers of Paris."

"He is too good, and you also, to take all this trouble in our behalf,"

said Frank warmly. "My mother and I can never thank you enough."

"The debt will be always on our side," responded the colonel with a wave of the hand. "By the way, how is your mother? I hope she is well."

"She was well when I last heard from her," replied Frank, "and happy--that is as happy as she can be while we are separated from each other."

"She is a true daughter of France," said the colonel, "and she should be happy to have so brave a son. Please remember me to her when you write. _Au revoir_," and with a friendly smile he pa.s.sed on.

"Still hobn.o.bbing with the swells, I see," remarked Billy, as Frank rejoined his chums.

"He was telling me of a letter that his brother had written me about my mother's property," explained Frank. "Queer that it hasn't reached me.

Did any of you fellows get any mail yesterday?"

"I got a couple of letters," replied Billy. "Tom handed them to me just before we went into action yesterday morning."

"Come to think of it, Tom was asking for you at the same time," said Bart. "He'd brought down the mail for the bunch. He said he had a letter for you. But you weren't around at the time and he stuck it into his pocket. Then the boches came swinging at us, and in the excitement I suppose he forgot all about it. Likely enough he has it with him now--that is if the Huns have let him keep it."

"That must be the explanation," said Frank. "Well, all I can do is write to the colonel's brother and ask him to send me a duplicate of the letter. Poor Tom! I'd give all the letters in the world to have him safe with us just now."

"Same here," said Billy and Bart in chorus.

"I guess the Huns have got him," said Frank gloomily. "He isn't among the dead or wounded as far as we've been able to find. But I'll bet they thought they had hold of a wildcat when they nabbed him."

"Trust Tom for that," said Bart. "He was a terror when he had his blood up. He must have got knocked on the head, or they wouldn't have taken him alive."

"Perhaps he'd have been luckier if he had been killed," said Billy sadly. "From all I hear there are plenty of prisoners in German camps who would welcome death."

"It makes me grit my teeth to think of the humane way we treat the men we capture, and then compare it with the way the Huns treat our soldiers," said Frank bitterly. "Look at the German prisoners we saw working on the roads that time we went away on furlough. Plenty of food, kind treatment, good beds. Why, lots of those fellows are living better than they ever did in their own country. They're getting fat with good living."

"Nothing like that in German prison camps," growled Bart. "Horrible food, mouldy crusts, rotten meat, and not enough of that to keep body and soul together. In a few months the men are little more than skeletons. They work them sixteen or eighteen hours a day in all kinds of weather. They set dogs on them and prod them with bayonets. Did you read of the forty they tortured to death by swinging them by their bound arms for hours at a time in freezing weather?"

"It's no mistake to call the Germans Huns," snapped Billy, clenching his fists.

"No," agreed Frank, "but it's rough on the Huns."

CHAPTER V

NICK RABIG TURNS UP

"Guess who's here," said Billy a few mornings later, as he came up to Bart and Frank. "Give you three guesses."

"That's generous," remarked Frank. "Well, I'll bite. Who is it? The Kaiser?"

"Come off."

"The Crown Prince?"

"Quit your kidding."

"I know," said Bart. "Hindenburg."

"Blathering b.o.o.bs, both of you," p.r.o.nounced Billy. "But with your limited intellects one ought to be patient. I'll give you one more chance. Think of the fellow you like the least in all the world."

"Nick Rabig!" the others exclaimed in one breath.

"Right," grinned Billy. "I knew that would get you. Nick seems to be as popular with you as poison ivy at a church picnic."

"What cat dragged it in?" groaned Bart.

"Our unlucky day," growled Frank. "I knew something would happen when I picked up the wrong shoe this morning."

"But how did he get back?" asked Bart, his curiosity overcoming his repugnance.

"Came in on his own feet," replied Billy. "Escaped, so he says, after performing prodigies of valor. To hear Nick talk you'd think he'd wiped out half the German army."

His comrades laughed.

"I suppose we ought to kill the fatted calf," said Frank sarcastically.

"Where's the calf?" asked Bart. "Unless we take Billy here," he added as an afterthought.

He dodged the pa.s.s that Billy made at him, and just then Fred Anderson, another young soldier, strolled up.

"Heard the news?" he inquired.

"About Nick Rabig? Yes," replied Frank. "Billy's just been telling us about it."

"Bad news travels fast," growled Bart.

"Nick doesn't seem to cut much ice with you fellows," commented Fred.

"I never thought much of him myself, but you seem to have it in for him especially. I suppose it's because he tried to play that dirty trick on Frank in the boxing bout."