CHAPTER XIX

NICK RABIG UNDER ARREST

It might have been expected that a sleepless night would have followed the raid. But the young Americans were far too healthy and their nerves were already becoming too well steeled to let the Germans, like Macbeth, "murder sleep." Their eyes closed almost as soon as their heads touched the pillows, not to open again until reveille sounded the next morning.

They were a little more subdued than usual, however, as they dressed, for there was poor Fred's empty cot and some dark red blotches on the floor to remind them of their comrade's plight and their own narrow escape.

"I wonder how Fred's getting along," said Tom, voicing the general thought.

"All right, I hope," returned Frank. "It will make him sore to be cooped up now with a broken leg, just when the boys are putting the finishing touches on their training."

They were relieved to find on inquiry after breakfast, that Fred was doing finely, that the wound in his head was negligible and that the break in his leg was a simple fracture so that in six weeks he would probably be as well as ever.

"The old scout will have one satisfaction, anyway," said Bart. "He's the first one in our bunch who has actually shed his blood for Uncle Sam."

"Gee, he beat us to it," agreed Tom. "But don't worry, we'll have plenty of chances later on."

In the interval before drill, they strolled about the old mill, seeking traces of the visitation of the night before. These were easily visible for there were immense shell holes where the bombs had buried themselves in the earth.

They found one of the missiles that had not exploded. Bart was about to pick it up when Frank shouted a warning.

"Nix on that funny business!" he cried. "You never can tell when those fellows will start working."

"Yes," added Bart. "Those fingers of yours will come in handy later on. You'll need them in your business."

"Yes," remarked their corporal, Wilson, who sauntered up to them at the moment. "For all we know that thing may have been fixed so that it wouldn't explode when it struck the ground but would the minute somebody picked it up and commenced fooling with it. The only safe way is to give them all a wide berth.

The corporal was popular with the men directly under him, and although he was a strict disciplinarian and kept the men up to their work, there was nothing petty or tyrannical about him. And the respect the men had for him was heightened by the stories that were told in the regiment of the adventures he had undergone.

For he had been a rover over the earth, and in his short life of thirty years had passed through more exciting scenes than fall to the lot of most men in a lifetime. He had been a miner in Australia, had ridden the ranges in Arizona, "mushed" in the Klondike, and been at one time a member of the famous Canadian Mounted Police. He was quiet and reserved, never boasting of his exploits and extremely efficient in anything he set about to do. He was a dead shot and could shoot from the hip with either hand. A coin tossed into the air at a distance of fifty feet he could clip four times out of five.

On one occasion the boys had been astonished eye witnesses of his shooting. The nine of clubs had been pinned to a tree sixty paces distant and Wilson, pulling the trigger so quickly that the eye could scarcely follow, had wiped out the spots in nine successive shots.

He was as courageous as he was skilful, and in case of trouble could be counted on as one of the most valuable members of the regiment.

So that when he showed a disposition to depart from his usual reserve and take part in the conversation the boys made room for him with alacrity.

"Fritz is full of cunning little tricks," the corporal continued. "They played the fountain pen game and got a lot of our fellows before the Allies got wise to it."

"That's a new one on me," said Frank. "What is the fountain pen game?"

"Why," answered Corporal Wilson, as he seated himself comfortably on a nearby rock and struck a match for his pipe, "the Heinies in the first line trenches when our boys went over the top and drove them out used to leave behind them a lot of their stuff because they usually skipped in a hurry.

"One of our boys would find a fountain pen among other things and think he had a prize, but the first time he started to unscrew the cap the thing would explode and smash his hand to bits. We've got a good many cripples in the ranks on account of that. But the game's played out now, and they'll have to think up a new one."

"We ought to get even with them for that," said Tom.

"Oh, we've got even all right," grinned the corporal. "We worked them on the hand grenades. You know how it is sometimes, when the first line trenches are facing each other. A Frenchman or a Britisher throws over a hand grenade, the Hun catches it on the wing, as it were, if its a long time fuse and throws it back in the hope that it will explode in the Allied trenches and thus become a boomerang."

"Rather a risky game I call it," said Billy. "It wouldn't be any fun to have one of those gentle little things go off in your hand."

"That's where the trick comes in," said the Corporal. "You know of course, there are two kinds of fuses. The short time fuse has red threads in it, the long time fuse hasn't. If the German sees that there are none of these red threads in the fuse of the grenade that drops near him he figures he's got time to throw it back.

"Well, one of the British Tommies had a bright idea and he carefully picked all the red threads out of a short time fuse. Then he zipped it over. Of course the Heinie picked it up, thinking it was a long timer and that was about all for Heinie. It blew him and all the men near him to German headquarters."

"To German headquarters," said Bart, wonderingly. "I don't get you."

The corporal grinned.

"Haven't you heard that?" he said. "A British Tommy wrote home that he'd had pretty good luck through the war for he'd sent a dozen Germans to Hades. The British censor scratched out the word, 'Hades' and wrote above it, 'It is not permitted to refer to German headquarters'."

The boys laughed.

"And yet they say the British haven't a sense of humor," commented Frank.

"That's why I say," summed up the corporal, "that you've got to be mighty careful in handling all these contraptions. A fool and his fingers are soon parted."

"Does he mean me?" asked Bart with a grin.

"You've said something," agreed Billy, with unflattering frankness.

The corporal strolled on.

"Fine fellow, that Wilson," remarked Frank.

"He's all of that," agreed Billy, who having been with him when the regiment was on the Mexican border knew him better than his companions did. "That fellow could lick his weight in wildcats. There isn't anything he's afraid to tackle. I heard a story about him once that you fellows wouldn't believe if I told you."

"Let's hear it," said Bart.

"Shoot," chimed in Tom. "We'll see about believing it after we've heard what it is."

"It happened down in Nicaragua," went on Billy. "Caribtown, I think it was, or some place near there. There was some little dinky revolution going on and Wilson it seems had gone down there on some filibustering expedition. He drank pretty freely in those days though he doesn't touch a drop now.

"It seems he was in one of the town resorts when he heard talk about a boa constrictor that had recently been captured and confined in a big cage. The snakes down there don't measure more than ten or twelve feet, but they can easily crush a man if they get their coils around him.

"Wilson just then had got into a condition where he was ready to fight a regiment, and he sneered at their fear of the snake. They egged him on until he boasted that he would be willing to meet the snake in a close room with nothing but a knife. The riffraff there called his bluff and it was arranged that the fight should take place the next morning."

"Some contract!" ejaculated Tom.

"Is this straight goods, Billy, or are you getting us on a string?" asked Bart suspiciously.

"On the dead level," answered Billy. "I had it from a fellow who was down there at the time and knew all about it."

"Stop chinning, you fellows, and let Billy get on with his story," commanded Frank. "He's just getting to the creepy part now and I want to know how the thing turned out."

"Well," continued Billy, "when Wilson woke up the next morning he realized what he was up against. But he was as game as a pebble, and though he knew the odds were against him he wouldn't back out.

"The snake, that had been teased and irritated until it was bursting with rage, was dumped from its cage into a back room of the resort. Then Wilson, armed only with a long knife that they had lent him, went in and shut the door behind him, while the natives crowded around the windows to see the fight.

"The instant the snake saw Wilson he reared up almost to the ceiling and flung himself at the man's throat. Wilson dodged and the fangs caught him in the shoulder. Wilson slashed savagely at the coils that were trying to coil themselves around his body and they staggered around the room. But the knife failed to reach a vital spot and finally one of the folds got around Wilson's legs and he fell to the floor, still stabbing savagely. The snake had won the first round, and it promised to be the last."

There was a gasp from Billy's listeners but their interest was too tense to permit of any interruption.

"Just then," continued Billy, "something happened. One of the natives who had a little more humanity than the rest of the crowd had sculled off to an American gunboat that was lying in the harbor, and told of the scrap that was going to be pulled off. The captain sent over a squad of marines with a rush and they got there just in time to break in the door and hack the snake to pieces with their cutlasses. Another minute and it would have been all over. As it was, Wilson was unconscious, and it was some weeks before he came around ship-shape."

"What a daring thing that was to do!" ejaculated Frank.

"He certainly was there with the nerve!" exclaimed Bart.

"I'll bet he hasn't had any use for snakes since then," added Tom.

"In one way it was a good thing," said Billy, "for it made Wilson swear off from drinking and he's never touched liquor since. You see how he is now, as steady as a church."

"Well," commented Bart, "he'll have all the fighting he wants from now on."

"Yes," agreed Frank with a laugh, "with snakes that wear helmets."

"Look who's here, boys!" exclaimed Tom suddenly, as they saw four soldiers approaching with a prisoner under guard.

"Why, it's Nick Rabig!" they exclaimed in unison as they recognized the burly figure that slouched sullenly along between the quartette guarding him.

"What has he been up to, now, I wonder?" questioned Billy curiously as they sauntered forward to intercept the party.

Rabig favored them with a scowl that had rarely been absent from his face since he had been caught in the draft.

"What's the trouble?" asked Frank of the leader of the file, whom he happened to know.

"Insubordination," was the terse response. "Refused to salute an officer."

"Putting him in the jug on general principles," volunteered another, who was more communicative. "He's been shirking ever since he got here."

"A bad egg," added the third. "It's lucky there aren't many of his type among the boys. The Huns would have an easy job if they were all like him."

They passed on to the building that served as a guardhouse, and which, be it said to the credit of the boys in France, had very few inmates. For the discipline of the camp was strict and the spirit of the men was good. They felt that they stood to the French for what America was and they tried to live up to the high standards laid down for them by generations of American ancestors.

"I think that's the best place for Nick," commented Tom as the doors closed behind the prisoner. "He's a surly brute and he might affect others. One rotten apple in a barrel can spoil the whole barrelful."

"He's no good," said Bart. "Remember how he used to talk on the other side? I'll bet at this minute he'd rather be wearing a Prussian helmet than an American uniform."

"Sure thing," said Billy. "'_Die Wacht am Rhine_' is the only music he cares to hear."

At this moment Corporal Wilson returned with a paper in his hand upon which he had been noting down the assignments of the day.

"Two of you fellows are in for guard duty," he said, consulting his list. "You, Sheldon, and Raymond will serve till after mess."

He passed on and Bart made a wry face when his back was turned.

"Sweet job!" he muttered.

"Orders are orders," replied Frank, as they shouldered their guns and marched down to the guardhouse.

They began to pace back and forth, exchanging a word now and then at the point where their beats adjoined.

Nick Rabig was lounging at the barred window in an evil temper. If anything could have added to his anger it was the fact that the two young soldiers he most detested had been chosen to stand guard over him and witness his humiliation.

Frank's generous nature sensed the prisoner's feeling, and he studiously avoided catching his glance or taking any notice of him.

But Rabig, incapable of appreciating Frank's motive, chose to interpret this as studied contempt, and his rage flamed forth in a coarse epithet that Frank only half caught but that brought him up all standing.

"What's that you said?" he demanded quickly.

"None of your business!" snarled Rabig, but before the glint in Frank's eyes he did not venture to repeat the insult.

"Now look here, Rabig," said Frank, sternly. "Cut out that sort of stuff. I heard what you said and if you were outside here and weren't in uniform I'd thrash you within an inch of your life."

"Talk is cheap," sneered Rabig. "Why didn't you do it when you were on the other side? You had chance enough."

"I had my reasons," replied Frank, "but they're reasons that a fellow like you couldn't appreciate. As it was, you came within an inch of getting what was coming to you. Some day you will get it, Rabig, and when I cut loose you'll know there's something doing!"