"Was that where you won your medal, Dad?" questioned Jack eagerly.
"No, my boy. The medal was won some time later, while your two uncles were in the hospital trying to recover from their wounds. We made two advances, and then were told to hold our new line. There was a fierce bombardment early in the morning, and then, because of a mix-up of orders, part of our command fell back while another tried to go forward.
One of our men, a fellow named Lorimer Spell, a queer sort of chap who hailed from Texas, was. .h.i.t by a piece of sh.e.l.l and knocked partly unconscious. He was unable to save himself, and as I didn"t want to see him killed I ran out from behind our shelter and brought him in."
CHAPTER XVI
d.i.c.k ROVER"S HEROISM
It can readily be believed that the Rovers did not sleep much that night. The boys and girls were downstairs by seven o"clock and waited anxiously for the appearance of their parents in the dining-room of d.i.c.k Rover"s residence, where the fathers were to have breakfast before returning to the troopship which was docked across the river, at Hoboken.
"We"ve got to get back by noon," announced Tom Rover, "and Sam and I want to pay a visit to Wall Street before we go, so we won"t be able to spend much more time here."
"You were going to tell us how you won that medal, Dad," said Jack, after breakfast was over and his two uncles had said good-bye to everybody and left. "What about it?"
"Well, if you must have the story, sit down and I"ll give it to you,"
answered d.i.c.k Rover, with a smile. "As it happens, the death of Lorimer Spell may make quite a difference in my plans for this Summer."
"Oh, then the poor man died in spite of your efforts to rescue him!"
said Martha in crestfallen tones.
"He didn"t die from that sh.e.l.l wound," answered her father. "But I had better tell the story from the beginning, since you seem to be so anxious to hear it."
"You must remember, d.i.c.k, that Jack is something of a soldier himself.
He is a captain of the cadets, you know," remarked the mother of the lad.
"Oh, but that isn"t like being a real soldier and fighting for Uncle Sam!" protested the youth.
"This Lorimer Spell, the fellow I saved, was a tall, lanky Texan who joined our command after we arrived in France. Just how he got in I can"t say. He was rather a quiet sort of man, and some of the soldiers thought he was decidedly queer. He took a great interest in botany and geology, and I take it he was something of a student in those lines, although he was by no means well educated.
"The day that he was knocked out by a fragment of a sh.e.l.l was a misty one--the kind of a mist that makes it very uncertain to see any great distance. We did not know how close some of the Huns might be, and as a matter of fact they were closer than we expected, and some time later two of our men were shot down while moving from one trench to another close by.
"When Spell went down I was over a hundred feet away from him. Before he became unconscious he tried to crawl back to the trench from which he had come. But evidently he was confused and went down in plain sight of the Huns.
"I didn"t care very much for the man, as I told you before, but I could not see him remain there exposed to the fire of the enemy, and so without thinking twice I jumped up out of the trench and ran across the ground to where he was lying. The sh.e.l.ls had torn the soil dreadfully, so that I had considerable difficulty in reaching him.
"I placed him on my shoulder, and just then several Huns began firing at us. One bullet grazed my side, giving me a deep scratch, and another went through the cloth of Spell"s coat. I stumbled down into a sh.e.l.l crater with the man and had all I could do to drag him and myself out.
Then I plunged forward again, and just as the Huns let out several more shots, both of us stumbled down into the trench, and the rescue, if you might call it such, was over."
"Well, I think that was a grand thing to do, Dad!" burst out Jack, his face beaming. "Simply grand!"
"You couldn"t beat it for pluck!" said Fred.
"And that"s how you won the medal?" broke in Andy. "Fine!"
"You certainly deserved it," added his twin. "Gee! but suppose those Huns had plugged you when you were carrying the fellow!"
"And that"s how I got him back to the trenches," went on d.i.c.k Rover. "He was taken to the field hospital, and there his injuries were found to be slight, and in a few days he was back on the firing line again."
"He ought to have been mighty thankful," declared Martha, who sat close by, holding her father"s hand.
"He was thankful; and for that reason he did something which may have an important bearing on my future business dealings," answered d.i.c.k Rover.
"He said he had no relatives of any kind, and he then and there made a will whereby if anything happened to him all that he possessed in this world should go to me."
"And then he was killed?" questioned Mrs. Rover.
"Yes. Just two days after his return to duty we were making another advance. Spell was in one part of the field while I was in another.
Suddenly I saw him running off to a place just in front of where our squad was located. Then he made a turn as if to come toward us, and just at that instant he threw up his hands and fell forward on his face."
Here d.i.c.k Rover paused and dropped his eyes. No one cared to speak, and for an instant there was utter silence.
"When the skirmish was over we had gained our position, and a few hours later the body of Lorimer Spell was picked up and carried to the rear,"
went on Jack"s father. "A bullet had struck him in the back of the head, and death must have been instantaneous.
"I confess that I felt pretty bad. A number of the company knew of the will Spell had made, and two of them were witnesses to the crude doc.u.ment he had drawn up. As a consequence, Spell"s personal effects were turned over to me. They included a small amount of money, a ring, a wrist watch, and a number of papers, including an order for a box in a safe deposit vault in a bank in Wichita Falls, Texas."
"Poor fellow, it"s too bad he couldn"t have lived to enjoy himself now the war is at an end," remarked Mrs. Sam Rover.
"Were any of his papers of value?" questioned Jack curiously.
"That remains to be found out, Jack. His papers spoke of a valuable tract of oil land in Texas close to the boundary line between that State and Oklahoma."
"Oil lands!" exclaimed Randy. "Why, they may be worth a fortune, Uncle d.i.c.k! They are making immense strikes in oil down in that territory."
"I know that, Randy. Some of the wells are worth a fortune. But, on the other hand, you must remember that many of the tracts that are supposed to have oil on them have so far proved to be utterly dry. Men spend ten to forty thousand dollars in sinking a well only to find in the end that they have had their labor for their pains."
"Did Lorimer Spell say that his land had oil on it?" questioned Fred.
"From the way his papers and letters read one would think so, Fred. But, as I said before, Spell was a very queer kind of man. In fact, some of the fellows in our company thought he was a little bit out of his mind at times. It is just possible that he only imagined that he possessed valuable oil land."
"But you are going to investigate, aren"t you, and make sure?"
questioned Jack.
"Certainly, Son. I intend to go to Texas and make an investigation just as soon as I am mustered out of the service."
"Oh, Dad! do you mean that you might go to Texas this Summer?"
"I will if they muster me out."
"If you go, won"t you take me along?"
"I"ll think about it," and d.i.c.k Rover smiled at his son, whose face showed his eagerness.
"Gee! I"d like to go to Texas myself," burst out Fred.