"Tom, for a thousand dollars!" cried Frank.
"It must be!" echoed Bart.
"Sure as guns!" chimed in Billy.
"Do you know him, then?" asked the girl, who had been looking at them wonderingly. "Oh, then hurry! For they are going to hang him. They put a rope over the tree near the well and said they would hang him when they got through eating and drinking."
Hang Tom! If there had been any hesitation before, there was none now.
The chums would have run every step of the way if the corporal had not restrained them. As it was they covered the mile in double-quick time.
As they came to where the farm bordered on the woods and caught sight of the house, their eyes turned with dread toward the well. An exclamation of heartfelt relief broke from them. The rope was there as the girl had said, but no hideous burden dangled from it.
No one was in sight, and a death-like silence brooded over the place.
They waited in the shelter of the trees. Perhaps the enemy had recovered and was waiting for them with a force three times their own.
Five minutes pa.s.sed. Then the corporal gave an order.
"Fix bayonets! We"re going to rush the house."
There was a sharp click.
"Charge!"
With a cheer they rushed across the brief s.p.a.ce that separated them from the house and up to the open door.
The corporal looked in.
"Put up your guns, boys," he said quietly. "We"ve got them."
The others crowded after him into the long low-ceiled room. The enemy had been delivered into their hands. There, sprawled over the floor in all sorts of ungainly att.i.tudes among the smashed furniture, were the invaders in various stages of stupor. Some of them opened their eyes at the sudden interruption and stared hard at the newcomers. The lieutenant himself sat at the table on which his head had fallen forward.
But the Army Boys did not tarry long. A word of permission from the corporal and they bounded up the narrow stairs and burst into the room where the girl had said Tom had been left.
The room was empty!
They searched and called frantically.
"Tom! Tom! Where are you? Come out! It"s friends, Frank, Billy, Bart!"
They looked in every cranny and corner of the house upstairs and then down. Then they rushed out to the barn. Then with fear at their hearts they sounded the well.
All was to no purpose. Tom--if it had really been Tom--might have vanished into thin air for any trace they found of him.
Where had he gone? What had become of him? Or, worst of all, what had the enemy done to him?
There was no answer, and at last they rejoined their comrades in the hope that questioning of the German lieutenant or some of his men might tell them what they wanted to know.
The first precaution that the corporal had taken was to disarm and bind his prisoners. Then the farmer and his son were released. They were wild with rage at the treatment they had undergone and the wanton havoc wrought in their home. If the choice had been left to them they would have killed every prisoner on the spot.
At the corporal"s command water was brought from the well and buckets of it were dashed over the Germans. There was sputtering and yelling, but the soldier boys enjoyed it hugely, and they worked with a hearty good will.
It was a drastic remedy for sleepiness but it worked, and before long the Germans, looking like so many drowned rats, had come out of their stupor and began to realize their situation. The privates were sheepish, but the lieutenant went almost crazy with anger when he realized how he had been trapped. His eyes looked venom at the girl, who laughed at him triumphantly. His rage was increased by his consciousness of the pitiable figure he presented. His smart uniform was dripping, his hair was matted over his face and even his ferocious mustache had lost its Kaiser-like curl. Even one of his own men ventured to snicker at him, and the look the officer turned on him was not good to see.
The corporal began to question him, but the lieutenant looked at him in disdain.
"A German officer does not answer the questions of a corporal," he sneered.
"Just as you like," retorted Wilson coolly. "Perhaps you"d like to have me leave you here with the owner of the house and his son. I think they"d like nothing better than to have five minutes alone with you. Perhaps even one minute would be enough."
The lieutenant took one glance at the glowering faces of the farmer and his son and wilted instantly.
"I will answer your questions," he said, shortly.
CHAPTER XIII
A DEEPENING MYSTERY
"He came off his perch mighty quick," remarked Bart to Frank in a whisper.
"I don"t wonder," replied Frank. "He"d be a pretty poor insurance risk if these people could get a whack at him."
The corporal asked a few formal questions as to the lieutenant"s regiment and division, which were answered sullenly though promptly.
But these had little interest just then, and their asking was really a matter for headquarters. They were simply the prelude to other questions in which the company were much more deeply concerned.
"You had a prisoner here?" asked the corporal.
"Yes."
"Where is he now?"
"He was placed upstairs."
"He is not there now. What have you done with him?"
"Nothing."
"What were you going to do with him?"
The officer moved uneasily.
"Take him back to my quarters," he finally answered.
"Why did you have that rope put over the tree by the well?"
There was no answer, but the officer grew red in the face.