well," remarked Frank.

Rabig only grunted and looked at Frank suspiciously.

"Did you see anything of Tom Bradford over there?" asked Frank.

A look of surprise came into Rabig's little eyes.

"No," he answered. "Was he captured?"

"We're afraid so," answered Frank.

"I didn't see him," declared Rabig. "Perhaps he's killed," he added, almost smacking his lips with satisfaction.

They longed to kick him, but restrained themselves, and Rabig passed on.

"Isn't he a sweet specimen?" asked Bart in disgust, as he looked at Rabig's receding figure.

"Did you see how his eyes lighted up when he heard that Tom was gone?" put in Billy. "The only thing that would give him more satisfaction would be to have the same thing happen to Frank."

"I guess he hates us all alike," said Frank. "Down in his heart he knows that we believe him to be a traitor. His only comfort is that we haven't been able to catch him with the goods. But that will come in time. A little more rope and he can be depended on to hang himself. But that can wait. What I'm more interested in is that he didn't have any news of Tom."

"Perhaps he was lying," suggested Bart. "He may have seen Tom over there, but wouldn't give us the satisfaction of telling us."

"No, I don't think it was that," commented Billy. "I was watching him closely while Frank was talking to him, and I could see that he was really surprised as well as pleased to learn that Tom was gone."

"But even if he didn't see him, that doesn't prove that Tom isn't there," suggested Bart. "He may have been captured by some other division. Besides, to tell the truth, I don't believe that Rabig was in a prison camp at all. Did you notice how fat and well fed he looked? I'll bet that he's been living high on the best the Huns could give him."

"He didn't look like most escaped prisoners for a fact," assented Frank. "We'll let his failure to see Tom go for what it's worth. But there's one thing that's been growing in my mind right along. We're sure that Tom isn't dead, for the burial parties cleared up the field and didn't find him. We know too that he isn't on the hospital list. I got a squint at that no later than yesterday, and Tom's name isn't there. That seems to cut out everything except capture by the Huns, doesn't it?"

"What else is there?" asked Bart gloomily.

"Just one thing," replied Frank, "and that is that Tom has got away from the Huns but hasn't yet got back to us. I know what that boy is. He isn't the kind to settle down and tell himself that he's a prisoner and that's all there is to it. There isn't a bone in his head, and he's been busy every minute thinking up some plan to get away. You know what the boches are doing now. They're getting so short of men that they're using prisoners right behind the lines in cutting brush and hauling guns and that sort of thing. Of course it's dead against all the rules of war, but a little thing like that doesn't bother the Germans. Now if that's going on there are lots of chances to escape that the prisoners wouldn't have if they were all huddled together in a prison camp under the rifles of their guards. Get me? Picture Tom out in the thick woods going meekly ahead doing as he is told without making a break for freedom. Not on your life! Some way or other he'll slip off, and some fine day you'll see the old scout come walking in and asking us if breakfast's ready."

"It sounds good," said Bart unconvinced, "but I'm afraid it's a dream."

"All guess work," chimed in Billy. "We don't know anything."

"No," admitted Frank, "but we know Tom."

CHAPTER VI

THE COMING DRIVE

"That big German drive seems to have slipped a cog somewhere," Bart remarked to his comrades, a few days later, as they were resting after a hard morning's work at organizing the position that their division was holding.

"I suppose the Crown Prince is making up a new time-table," grinned Billy. "He seems to have a passion for that. He ought to have been a railroad man."

"The trouble is that they always go wrong," laughed Frank. "I'll bet he's cross-eyed."

"Yet the Heinies fall for them every time," said Billy. "I suppose they figure that just by the law of chance one of them will have to be right some time."

"I thought that the drive had started the other morning, when the Germans came down like wolves on a fold," said Bart. "But it seems that things were quiet on other parts of the line, so that this must have been just a local operation."

"Local operation!" snorted Billy. "In other days it would have been counted a big battle. Why, if Waterloo were pulled off now do you know how the papers would describe it? They'd say that there was 'considerable activity on a section of the line over near Hougomont Farm yesterday, where certain units under Napoleon and Wellington came in contact. The artillery fire was fairly strong, and there were clashes between a few infantry regiments and the French were repulsed. Apart from this there is nothing to report.'"

The boys laughed.

"Everything's topsy-turvy nowadays," said Frank. "It used to be armies that did the fighting. Now it's whole nations. But look at that scrap going on overhead. Its a dandy."

They looked in the direction he indicated and their pulses quickened, for they themselves had once been engaged in a battle in the sky, and an aerial combat had a personal interest to them.

Far up in the sky, which just then was as clear as crystal, a duel was in progress between two planes. It was evident at a glance that both of the rival aviators were masters of their profession. They circled deftly about each other like giant falcons, jockeying for position, each trying to get the weather gauge on the other where he could rake his opponent with his machine gun without exposing himself to his enemy's fire in return.

Swooping, climbing, diving, the planes pursued their deadly purpose, while exclamations of admiration came from the lips of the fascinated onlookers as some specially daring manoeuvre promised to give the advantage first to one and then to the other of the antagonists.

"Classy work!" exclaimed Frank.

"They're both dandies," declared Billy. "It's a toss up as to which will win."

"They're so far up that it's hard to tell which is which," said Bart, "but I've got a nickel that says the Hun will be downed."

"Great Scott," cried Frank. "One of them was hit that time. See it swerve."

"And look at the smoke!" Billy shouted. "It's on fire! A bullet must have hit the petrol tank."

A burst of smoke and flame shot out from the doomed plane, and it began to fall, fire streaming out in its wake like the tail of a meteor. Down it came like a plummet.

"It's coming right in our lines!" exclaimed Bart. "Scatter, fellows, or it will be right on top of us!"

The wrecked plane had fallen about two hundred feet, when a figure shot from the burning mass, whirling over and over as it descended. The aviator, knowing that his only choice lay between being burned or crushed, had chosen the less painful form of death.

The body fell some distance off, but the plane itself came down within a few rods of the boys. It was blazing so fiercely that they could not approach very close to it, but they could easily detect the marking which indicated that it was a French plane.

The Army Boys looked at each other regretfully.

"Score one for the Huns," remarked Frank. "You'd have lost your nickel, Bart."

"It's too bad," said Billy, as he straightened up and shook, his fist at the victorious plane.

But to the boys' amazement, the conqueror, instead of flying off toward his own lines, was coming down toward them in long sweeping spirals.

"Why, it looks as if he were going to land here!" exclaimed Billy in wonder.

"If he does, we'll have the satisfaction of taking him prisoner anyway," observed