Part 20 (2/2)

The course of the fighting had taken Frank and his comrades in the vicinity of the farmhouse where they had rounded up the German lieutenant and his squad. But it was a very different place now from what it had been when they had first seen it. Sh.e.l.ls had torn away part of the roof, and the attic lay open to the sky. But the farmer and his family still stayed there although in daily peril of their lives. They lived and slept in the cellar, which was the only place that afforded them a chance of safety.

One day when only an artillery duel was going on and the infantry was getting a rest that it sorely needed, the Army Boys went over to the house. The girl saw them coming and recognized them at once. She came out to meet them with a smile on her face.

”_Les braves Americains!_” she exclaimed. ”You have not then been killed by those dreadful Germans.”

”Don't we look pretty lively for dead men?” asked Frank jokingly.

”And that lieutenant?” she inquired. ”Oh, I hope you have hanged him.”

”No,” said Frank, ”but he's a prisoner.”

”It is not enough,” she said with a shudder of repulsion.

”Have you heard anything of the young soldier that the lieutenant was going to hang?” asked Frank eagerly.

”No,” she answered. ”But stay,” she added, ”I have something here that you may want to see.”

She darted back in the house and quickly returned with a very-much crumpled card in her hand.

”It is a _carte postale_,” she explained. ”We found it in the yard some days after you had been here. It had been trampled in the mud by the horses' feet and the writing had been sc.r.a.ped or blotted out.

Perhaps it belonged to the young man. It may have fallen from his pocket. I do not know.”

Frank took it eagerly from her hand, while his comrades gathered around him.

The card was almost illegible, but it could be seen that it was a United States postal. There was not a single word upon it that could be made out in its entirety, but up in the corner where the postmark had been they could see by straining their eyes the letters C and M.

”That's Camport, I'm willing to bet!” exclaimed Bart excitedly.

”And here's something else,” put in Billy pointing to where the address would naturally be looked for. ”See those letters d-f-o-r----”

”It's dollars to doughnuts that that stands for 'Bradford,'” Frank shouted. ”A card from Camport to Tom Bradford. Boys, we didn't guess wrong that day. That was Tom that that brute of a lieutenant was going to hang!”

They were tingling with excitement and delight. To be sure, they did not know what had become of their friend. But he had escaped from this house. He was perhaps within a few miles of them. He was, at any rate, not eating his heart out in a distant prison camp.

Then to Frank came the thought of Rabig. Perhaps Tom hadn't escaped.

Perhaps Rabig had added murder to the crime of treason of which they were sure he was guilty.

”Are you sure that you haven't found anything else that would help us in finding our friend?” he asked of the girl, whose face was beaming at the pleasure she had been able to give to her deliverers.

”No,” she answered. ”There is nothing else. I am sorry.”

”Let's take a look around the house again, fellows,” suggested Frank.

”We may have overlooked something the other day. It's only a chance, but let's take it.”

They made a careful circuit of the house, but nothing rewarded the search until Frank, with an exclamation, picked up some pieces of rope that had been lying in the gra.s.s not far from the window from which the prisoner had dropped.

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