CHAPTER XXII
THE SHADOW OF TREASON
When the soldiers jumped from their bunks the next morning at the call of the bugle Frank"s comrades saw his bandaged head and they surrounded him at once with expressions of solicitude and alarm.
"What"s the matter, old man?" asked Bart anxiously.
"Don"t say you"re badly hurt!" exclaimed Tom.
"You look all in," said Billy. "You"re as pale as a ghost."
"I"m a long way from being a ghost yet," smiled Frank, as he drew on his clothes. "Wait till you see me tuck away the grub at breakfast. I b.u.t.ted my head against a stump last night to find out which was the harder, and the stump won."
"Stop your kidding and tell us about it," commanded Bart.
Frank told them the main features of his encounter of the night before, but it was only after mess when he had them by themselves that he voiced his suspicions of Rabig.
Tom gave a long whistle.
"That fellow will queer this whole outfit yet," he blurted out. "He"s a sneak and a traitor. If he had his deserts he"d be up against the firing squad within twenty-four hours."
"Easy there, Tom," counseled Frank, looking around him, for in his excitement Tom had raised his voice. "Remember I"m not dead sure. I wouldn"t swear to it in a court of law."
"Here comes Nick himself," remarked Bart.
"The Old Nick," growled Tom.
"h.e.l.lo, Rabig," said Frank, as the former Camport bully came along.
Rabig grunted a surly "h.e.l.lo" in reply, and was pa.s.sing on when Billy hailed him.
"Sleep well, last night, Rabig?" he asked carelessly.
Rabig"s face flushed and a frightened look came into his eyes.
"Sure I did," he snapped. "Why shouldn"t I?"
"No reason in the world," replied Billy.
"These cool nights are fine for sleeping," remarked Tom. "A little too cool to be out in the woods, but just right for the trench."
Rabig seemed to be trying to think up a reply, but nothing came to him and he simply stood still and glowered at them. He appeared to be speculating. What significance was there in these apparently careless questions? Why should they be asked at all? How much did these cordially hated acquaintances of his really know?
"I hear that one of the Germans was killed close to our lines last night," said Billy, shifting the attack.
"Right inside our lines," corrected Tom. "And here"s the fellow who shot him," pointing to Frank.
"Frank has nerve," drawled Billy.
Rabig shot a glare of hate that was not lost by the onlookers, who kept their eyes steadily on his face.
"He nearly got another one, too," observed Bart. "And the funny thing about it was that he thought he knew the fellow"s voice."
This was coming too near for Rabig to pretend that he did not know what they were driving at. He turned upon them in desperation.
"Look here," he snarled viciously. "What do you fellows mean? If you mean that I"m mixed up in this thing you lie. Now don"t you speak to me again or I"ll make you sorry for it."
Without waiting for a reply he hurried off, and the four Camport chums looked after him with speculation in their eyes until he was lost to view at a turn of the trench.
"He"s guilty all right," declared Tom with conviction.
"If ever guilt looked out of a man"s eyes they looked out of his,"
agreed Bart.
"It seems so," admitted Frank with reluctance, "and yet he was in his bunk when I went through last night." "How do you know it was Rabig?"
Tom retorted. "Are you such a cute detective that you can tell one man"s snore from another?"
"Who else could it have been?" asked Frank. "If it was some one else, that some one else must have been in cahoots with Rabig and agreed to make him seem to be in his bunk. I"d hate to think that there was more than one traitor in the regiment.
"One"s more than enough," agreed Bart.
"What do you think we ought to do about it?" asked Billy.
"I don"t know," replied Frank, with a worried look on his face. "It would be a terrible thing to accuse a man wrongfully of such a thing as treason. Rabig would simply deny it and put it up to us to prove it.
Then, too, every one knows that there"s no love lost between us and Nick, and they might think we were too ready to believe evil of him without real proof."
"On the other hand," replied Tom, "if we let him go on, we may wake up some time to find that Rabig has done the regiment more harm than a German battery could do."
"We"ll simply have to keep our eyes peeled," was Billy"s solution of the problem, "and watch that fellow like hawks. But if he makes one more bad break I don"t think we ought to keep silent any longer. Let"s hope that next time, if there is any next time, we"ll have the goods on him so that there can"t be any denying it."
But pleasanter thoughts diverted their attention just then, for the camp postman came into view and the boys rose with a whoop and pounced upon their letters. And all their spare time that morning was spent in reading and rereading the precious missives from their friends so many thousand miles away.
Frank was poring over a letter from his mother for the tenth time when he heard his name spoken and looked up to see Colonel Pavet, who was pa.s.sing along in the company of another officer.
He had only a moment to spare, but that moment was given to Frank, who had risen and greeted him with a welcome as warm as his own.
"Ah, Monsieur Sheldon, letters from home, I see," he remarked. "I hope your mother is well."
"Very well, thank you," responded Frank. "And very grateful to you, Colonel Pavet, for the interest you have taken in her behalf and mine."
The colonel courteously waved the thanks aside.
He replied. "But you can tell Madame Sheldon that her affairs are progressing finely, though not as rapidly as they would if it were not for the distracted state of France. For instance, my brother Andre has been trying to get a furlough for a man who was formerly a butler in the De Latour family, and whose evidence he thinks will be most important in establishing your mother"s right. It is only with the greatest difficulty that I have been able to bring this about, but I have succeeded at last, and the man will go to Auvergne next week to give his testimony. Let us hope that it will be as valuable as Andre thinks."