SUSPICION
To paint the emotions that chased themselves over the features of the
four boys would have taxed the ability of an artist. For a moment no one
of them cared to look into the eyes of the others.
Tom was the first to act. He grabbed his cap in his hands, kneaded it
into a ball, threw it on the ground and jumped up and down on it.
The others looked at his scowling face and the sight was too much for
them. They threw themselves on the ground in convulsions of laughter.
They howled. They roared. They rolled over and over, until Tom himself
caught the contagion and joined in with the rest. It was a long time
before any one of them was able to speak.
"Stung!" choked Bart, while tears of merriment rolled down his cheeks.
"Forward! March!" gurgled Billy. "Pound me on the back, you fellows, or
I'll have a fit."
"A grocer! Napoleon!" roared Frank. "Shades of Austerlitz and Waterloo!"
"And we fell for it!" yelled Tom. "Think of it, fellows! By the great
horn spoon! We fell for it!"
They got themselves under control at last, though not without many
interruptions, for again and again one of them would start to speak and
go off into a peal of laughter.
"I'm as weak as a rag," gulped Billy. "I haven't laughed like this in
all my life."
"It would make a hit in vaudeville," chuckled Bart. "Think of us sillies
stalking along and going through shadow motions for a nut like that.
We're squirrel food, all right."
"Well, after all what could we do?" defended Frank. "We're not mind
readers."
"Not even of a scrambled mind like that," interposed Billy.
"And we couldn't tell that he wasn't an officer," went on Frank, not
heeding the interruption. "His uniform seemed to be all right, although
a bit gaudy."
"That gives us a way out," said Bart. "We can say that we followed the
uniform, not the man, and let it go at that. But, oh, boy! if the
fellows of our regiment had seen us trotting along behind that lunatic,
maybe they wouldn't make our life a burden."
"We'd never have heard the last of it," agreed Tom. "But what they don't
know won't hurt them, and it's a safe bet that none of us will ever let
out a squeak."
"It's lucky there wasn't any moving picture man handy," laughed Frank.
"He'd have had a film that would put all the rest out of business. But
now let's get back to the cottage after this unfortunate hike of ours."
"Say," put in Bart, as a new thought struck him, "do you think those
keepers could have caught on?"
"I don't think they tumbled," Billy reassured them. "They were too
intent on catching Napoleon to think of anything else."
"Poor Napoleon," chuckled Frank. "I suppose he's back on St. Helena by
this time."
"Well, there's one comfort, anyway," declared Tom. "He doesn't know that
he put anything over on us. If he hasn't forgotten us altogether he
thinks we're part of the Old Guard."
"They say a philosopher is one who can grin when the laugh is on
himself," laughed Billy. "If that's so we're dandy philosophers."
All too soon that pleasant week was over, and the boys, refreshed and
rested, went away, though with many a backward glance, to the stern work
where they had already won their spurs and made their mark.
They started in on their work again with renewed zest and with quickened
energy, for a battle was impending and they were anxious to take their
part in driving back the Hun.
They saw Rabig frequently, and though they all disliked him heartily, he
was still a soldier like themselves in the service of Uncle Sam, and
they strove to disguise their feeling for the good of the common cause.
"He's a bad egg, all right," declared Tom, who stuck obstinately to his
belief that Rabig had had some part in the escape of the German
corporal, "but as long as we can't prove it, we'll have to give him a
little more rope. But sooner or later he'll come to the end of that
rope, and don't you forget it!"
Nick had come out of the court-martial that investigated the escape, not
with flying colors, but with bedraggled feathers. The cut on his head
had proved so slight as to arouse suspicion that it might have been
self-inflicted. Still the motive for this did not seem adequate, and the
upshot of the inquiry was that Rabig was confined a few days in the
guardhouse and then restored to duty. But in the private books of the
officers there was a black mark against him, and all of them would have
been better pleased not to have had him in the regiment.
"Oh, well, don't let's talk about him," Frank summed up a discussion
about the bully. "The whole subject leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I
only hope he's the only rotten apple in the barrel."
"That's just the trouble'," replied Tom. "If that rotten apple isn't
taken out of the barrel a good many more may be spoiled in less than no
time."
"Sure enough," agreed Bart. "But I guess there isn't much danger in this
case. If Nick had lots of friends that he might influence it might be
different, but you notice that the fellows leave him to flock by
himself."
"He's about as popular as the hives in summertime for a fact," commented
Tom. "He'd be a mighty sight more at home if he were in the trenches on
the other side."
"Maybe so," admitted Frank.
"What are you fellows chinning about?" broke in a familiar voice, and
they turned to see Dick Lever regarding them with a friendly grin.
"Hello, Dick," came from them all at once in a roar of welcome, for it
was the first time they had seen him since he had rescued them from
their German captors, and their feelings toward him were of the warmest
nature.
"Where have you been keeping yourself?" asked Frank. "We've been looking
for you to drop in and see us for a long time past."
"As a matter of fact, I did get down this way about a week ago," replied
Dick, as he tried to shake hands with all four at once, "but the whole
bunch of you were off on furlough."
"Sorry we missed you," said Frank. "Yes, we did get a few days off, and
it didn't do us a bit of harm. We've all come back feeling the best
ever."
"Ready to take another crack at the Huns, eh?" grinned Dick. "Some
fellows never know when they have enough."
"You needn't talk," laughed Bart. "I'll bet you've been popping away at
them every day since we saw you last."
"Oh, they've kept me pretty busy," said Dick carelessly. "The Hun flyers
are getting pretty sassy just now, and we have to keep working hard to
drive them back."
"I've noticed more of them flying over our lines than usual in the last
day or two," remarked Billy.
"Say," broke in Tom, "this is sure our lucky day. Here comes Will
Stone."
"We sure are lucky when two of the best fellows in the world drop in on
us at the same time," said Frank, as he and his mates greeted the
bronzed tank operator. "I don't know whether you two fellows know each
other, but if you don't you've both lost something."
"Oh, we're not altogether strangers," smiled Stone, as he and Dick shook
hands heartily. "Many a time I've seen his plane flying overhead, and
it's made me feel rather comfortable to know that he was on the job, and
that no Boche flyer would have a chance to drop something that would put
Jumbo out of commission."
"It would have to be some bomb that would make junk of that big car of
yours," said Dick. "I was flying pretty low the day we smashed the Boche
lines and I saw the way Jumbo snapped those wires as though they were so
many threads. That tank's a wonder and no mistake."
They were having such a good time and the time flew so rapidly that they
were startled when the bugle blew and they were compelled to go to their
respective quarters.
A few nights after his return Frank was assigned to sentry duty on an
important post on the front trenches. His beat terminated at a point
where he could see a little shack that stood on the side of a hill.
Standing as it did in the battle zone; it had become little more than a
ruin. Most of the thatched roof had been shot away, one side had gone
altogether, and the other three sides leaned crazily toward each other.
It was a little after midnight when Frank thought he saw a gleam of
light either in the cabin or close by it. It was very faint, scarcely
more than the glimmer of a firefly, and it vanished instantly.
Still, it had been there. Cautiously, avoiding every twig with the
stealth of an Indian, Frank crept toward the hut.