RECAPTURED
Once more the desperate fighting was resumed. Ned, Bob, and Jerry,
after a brief rest, were again thrown into the conflict after their
rescue from the dense Forest of Argonne. That wood had not yet all
been won, but it was in the way of being. The Germans were fighting
their last desperate battles, and full well they knew it. Only a
miracle could save them now, and there was no miracle for them.
Not that they did not fight, for they did. The resistance to the
American and Allied advance was stiff and formidable, but it was
overcome, and immense losses inflicted on the Huns as they made
counter-attack after counter-attack.
It was one day, after some of the most severe fighting of the war that
they had ever seen, that the battalion, in which Ned, Bob, and Jerry
then were, crossed a little stream, driving the desperately defending
Germans beyond it, and entered a small French village. When the echo
of the shots had died away, and it was seen that the Huns were in
full retreat, the three chums and their comrades, at the head of a
victorious force, marched down the main street of the quaint and
ancient little town.
Forth from their hiding places came the French population, weary and
scarred from four years of enemy occupation. Here and there the
tricolor, so long hidden, waved in the wind. The hated and dastardly
Germans had departed, never, please God, to come again!
Forward, into the recaptured town, marched Ned, Bob, Jerry, and their
comrades in arms. With tears in their eyes the French people watched
the Americans come. It was the day so long prayed for.
Near one of the half-ruined houses, which had been their abode--their
prison, in fact, since their capture,--stood Professor Snodgrass and
the two young ladies.
"Oh, can you believe it, Gladys!" exclaimed Miss Gibbs. "It doesn't
seem possible, does it, that we are saved?"
"No, but I am beginning to believe that it is not a dream any more.
Those American soldiers are real, aren't they?"
"They are, indeed, young ladies," said the professor. "At last I shall
be able to go back to my collection, and finish, I hope, the moving
pictures of insects under the influence of big guns. Oh, I shall also
hope to take you to safety with me," he added, as he thought of his
wards. "If only the boys were here!"
"What boys do you mean?" asked Miss Petersen. "You have so often
spoken of 'the boys,' but you have never mentioned who they were."
And this was true, for, just as the professor had been on the point of
doing so, he and the girls had been captured by the Germans, and,
since then, he had not had the heart to speak of his friends.
"Well, I can tell you now," he said as he and the two nieces of
Professor Petersen watched the victorious troops go marching by.
"There are three boys--three young men, American soldiers who----"
The professor paused, and looked hard at a certain group of marching
Americans. He took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them on again
to stare with all his power at three youths who swung along with the
_sang-froid_ of veterans.
"Why!" exclaimed Professor Snodgrass. "Why--bless my--bless--why, it's
Ned, Bob, and Jerry themselves!" he fairly shouted. "Oh, there they
are! There are the boys themselves!" and he rushed forward, tears of
joy for the moment dimming the glasses he had so carefully cleaned a
moment ago.
"There are the boys. Jerry! Ned! Bob! Here I am! And here are the
girls! Hurrah! Hurrah for the U. S. A.! Hurrah for President Wilson!
Hurrah for General Pershing! Down with the Germans! The United States
and the Allies forever! Hurrah!"
There was a laugh in the ranks of the marching Americans. Most of them
did not catch all that the little, excited, bald-headed man said, but
they laughed at his enthusiasm and loved him. But Ned, Bob, and Jerry
heard.
"It's him!" yelled Bob.
"It's the professor!" cried Ned.
"And the girls are with him!" added Jerry.
The lieutenant of the boys' company, seeing that something unusual was
in the wind said:
"You may fall out. Join us later. We'll probably stay here a while.
This is our objective, and we've made it."
And then the boys fell out and such a reunion as there was!
The stories were told and retold, and Ned, Bob, and Jerry, after
having been presented to the young ladies, listened to their accounts
of what had happened to them since they were caught in war-torn
Europe.
"And do you think we are safe now?" asked Miss Petersen.
"As safe as in a church," declared Bob. "We've come to stay!"
And so the Americans had. As General Pershing, in his report of the
operations culminating in the last phase of the Meuse-Argonne battles,
said:
"The strategical goal which was our highest hope was gained. We had
cut the enemy's main line of communications, and nothing but surrender
or an armistice could save his army from complete disaster."
And the armistice of November 11, 1918, came, bringing an end to the
war.
And it also brings to an end this story. Not that the fighting was all
over, for there was some after the boys and the professor and his
charges were so happily reunited. But the Motor Boys had no further
part in it. They remained in the village where they had met the little
scientist, as a guard, until the Germans were so far away as to render
them harmless.
"And to think you found the girls all by yourself!" exclaimed Ned, as
they were talking over the events after the first day of the capture
of the French town.
"Well, yes, I did manage to," said the professor, "though I never
expected, when I started out for a butterfly that morning, that I'd
end up with meeting the girls I so much wanted to see."
"But we were glad to see you," said Miss Gibbs.
"Very," echoed Gladys.
Ned, Bob, and Jerry were very curious to know what branch of
scientific study Miss Petersen and Miss Gibbs were interested in, for
they remembered that Nick Schmouder had said that they had left his
father's home to go further into Germany for some sort of scientific
work. It developed, however, that Schmouder, ashamed to confess that,
in his fright, he had abandoned the two girls, had made up the story
to clear himself of the charge of cowardice and neglect.
"Well, I guess it's all over but the shouting," said Bob, at last.
"And now I guess nobody will say anything if I eat."
"We're all with you, Chunky!" cried Ned. "I'm as hungry as--as Bob
Baker!"
But of the "shouting," a little must be told. For when the fighting
was over, and it was certain that Germany could never resume, when the
armistice had been signed and the victorious movement of the Allies
into Germany began, Jerry and his chums were called one day before
their assembled comrades, and there, much to their surprise, they were
each given honorable mention for their acts while on duty with the
lost battalions in Argonne Forest. Jerry, for his work as a runner
received the Distinguished Service Cross, and Bob and Ned honorable
mention for their part in the desperate fight.
[Illustration: JERRY RECEIVED THE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS.
_Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line._ _Page 248_]
"They ought to decorate Professor Snodgrass for going alone into the
enemy's territory and rescuing two young ladies," said Ned, when the
cheering was over.
"All I want to do is to get back to my bugs," sighed the little
scientist, and he soon had his wish. It might be added that his moving
pictures of insects, showing their actions when heavy guns were being
fired near them, were very successful, and created a sensation in
scientific circles, even though the professor's "wasp-gun" was not
adopted.
As soon as it was possible the two young ladies were sent back to the
United States with their share of their uncle's wealth, while
Professor Snodgrass made plans to use his share in making a full and
complete study of the insects of the Amazon. Also, the boys learned
later, Professor Snodgrass used a part of his fortune to further
assist his old friend, and thus saved the fortunes of this man and
enabled him to pay all his debts, including the money lent by the
professor himself.
"And now I wonder what will happen to us!" exclaimed Bob, when these
three friends of theirs had departed.
"Oh, I fancy we can find something to do," said Jerry. "I understand
the problems of peace will be as hard to solve as those of war, and
we'll have to do our share."
"Sure thing!" assented Ned.
What was in store for the boys will be related in the next volume of
this "Motor Boys--Second Series." In that we will see how Ned, Bob and
Jerry covered themselves with glory by solving a most unusual
mystery.
A month or so later the three chums, with other soldiers of the
victorious armies, some of them sorely wounded, were sent to a port in
France, there to take ship for home.
"And believe me!" exclaimed Bob, with feeling, as he went on board,
"France and Europe may be all right, and so are those Salvation Army
doughnuts, but give me a piece of mother's cherry pie!"
"So say we all of us!" chanted Ned and Jerry.
And then, as they stood together on deck, the transport began her
homeward trip.
THE END
THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES
BY LESTER CHADWICK
12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 80 cents, postpaid.
BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
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BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
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Joe's great ambition was to go to boarding school and play on the
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BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
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Joe goes to Yale University. In his second year he becomes a varsity
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In this volume the scene of action is shifted from Yale college to a
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BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE
_or A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles_
From the Central League Joe is drafted into the St. Louis Nationals. A
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BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS
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BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES
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The rivalry was of course of the keenest, and what Joe did to win the
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BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD
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The Giants and the All-Americans tour the world, playing in many
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By ALFRED RAYMOND
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The trials and triumphs of Harry Harding and Teddy Burke, two
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HARRY HARDING--_Messenger "45"_
When Harry Harding bravely decided to leave school in order to help
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After a blissful two weeks' vacation, spent together, Harry Harding
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Their "year of promise" brings them many new experiences, pleasant and
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