CHAPTER XXI

PAYING A DEBT

Frank gave a start of surprise as he saw who his opponent was to be, and Bart, who was acting as Frank's second, leaned over him with a word of warning.

"Keep your eye peeled, Frank," he advised. "You know what Rabig is and the way he feels toward you. This is just a scheme of his to get even. He isn't coming up here for a friendly bout. He wants to show you up and knock you out if he can."

"Oh, I don't know," said Frank, unconcernedly. "But if he tries on anything like that I'll give him all he's looking for."

Rabig's second, Werner, one of the few friends he had in the regiment and who like himself was suspected of pro-German leanings, or at least lukewarmness in the service, took a long time in putting on his principal's gloves, and Bart, who was watching him with the eye of a hawk, stepped across the platform to witness the operation.

"Let me look at those gloves," he demanded.

"What's the matter with them?" growled Werner.

"This is the matter with them," said Bart, as he pointed to the part just above where the knuckles came and where the stuffing of the glove had been kneaded aside so that a blow given would be almost like one with the bare fist.

"None of that skin-tight business here," said Bart.

He pounded the glove until it was normal and then handed it back, not going to his own corner, however, until they had been fastened on Rabig's hands to his own satisfaction.

"That cur can't play fair in anything," he remarked to Frank as he came back.

The bell rang and the men came from their corners toward the center of the platform.

Frank extended his hand in the customary greeting but Rabig refused to take it. There was a stir in the audience.

"Looks like a grudge fight," remarked one, with quickened interest.

"It does on Rabig's part," assented his neighbor. "But if it comes to that I'm betting on Sheldon to trim him."

The boxers sparred for a moment, Frank cool and smiling, Rabig surly and furious. Then Frank found an opening and landed a deft uppercut that shook Rabig from head to foot.

He rushed at Frank like a mad bull but Frank cleverly side-stepped and countered with a left to the ear. Of the two Rabig was the heavier and in Camport had won a reputation as a rough and tumble fighter.

Stung by Frank's cleverly planted blows, he threw what little science he had to the winds and the next minute the two were at it, hammer and tongs.

"I'll do you!" Rabig panted, as he slugged right and left, vainly endeavoring to get through Frank's guard.

"Go as far as you like," retorted the latter, emphasizing the retort with a left jab that nearly lifted Rabig off his feet.

The bell that announced the end of the round found Rabig winded by his furious endeavors. But Frank, though breathing a little heavily, was serene and confident, as he returned to his corner.

"I told you he was in dead earnest," said Bart, as his principal sat down on his stool for a minute's rest. "Look out for fouls, Frank. He'll do anything to down you."

In the round that followed, Bart's warning was amply justified. Rabig in one of the clinches, as he leaned on Frank's shoulder, tried to bite and he butted continually.

"Cut that out, Rabig," warned Frank in a low tone, after the latter had twice used his head as a battering ram. "My patience won't last forever."

"I'll get you yet!" gasped Rabig.

Once more he drove his head at Frank's chin and the latter, now thoroughly aroused by the foul tactics, let fly his right and caught his burly adversary fairly on the point of the jaw.

Down went Rabig like a shot. Frank generously reached out his hand to help him to his feet, but Rabig struck it away and just here Corporal Wilson intervened.

"That'll do," he commanded. "We don't want any knockout. Sheldon wins."

Frank with a smile and wave of the hand stripped off his gloves and left the platform, to be pounded and mauled in exultation by his admiring comrades.

Meanwhile, Rabig slunk away followed by hisses and jeers at the foul tactics that after all had only resulted in the beating he so richly deserved.

"You trimmed him good, Frank," cried Tom exultantly.

"You went around him like a cooper around a barrel," jubilated Billy.

"I guess if you owed him anything, you've paid the score," chuckled Bart. "I've been aching for months to see that bully get what was coming to him."

"I didn't want to hurt him," said Frank, good-naturedly. "But when he came butting at me that way and even trying to bite, I simply had to lace him. But even now I haven't a bit of grudge against the fellow."

"He'll sing small after this," prophesied Tom. "But all the same, Frank, keep your weather eye open. He'll do you a mischief if he ever gets the chance."

It was just after the noonday mess the next day, and the boys were chatting in front of the mill, when Frank, looking carelessly down the road, gave a startled exclamation.

"Look what's coming, fellows!" he cried.

They came up all standing and looked in the direction indicated.

"By the great horn spoon!" ejaculated Tom. "Have I got the delirium tremens?"

"It's a nightmare," declared Billy.

Up the dusty road was coming the weirdest creation that the boys had ever seen. It looked like a great hulking rhinoceros. It moved along slowly and ponderously, as though it were straining under a burden too heavy to be borne.

The sun reflected from its sides showed that it was coated with metal. There were openings in the armor through which the muzzles of machine guns protruded. Around its huge wheels there passed what seemed to be a broad endless chain that formed a path on which the wheels traveled. There was no driver to be seen and it came lumbering along like a blind monster feeling its way. But although its progress was leisurely it was sure, and the boys as they watched it gathered an impression of almost irresistible force.

"I've read of the car of Juggernaut," muttered Tom as it came nearer, "and I guess this must be it."

"It's going into the ditch!" exclaimed Bart, as the monster gave a lurch into a deep depression at the side of the road.

"It'll topple over sure!" prophesied Billy.

But the prophecy proved false for the car righted itself from an almost impossible angle and came on as doggedly as before.

Just before it got to where the boys were standing it came to a halt, a door opened and a young fellow of about their own age leaped out.

He was strong and well built, with hair that crisped in curly waves close to his head and a pair of merry blue eyes that spoke of fun and good fellowship.

"Hello, fellows!" he exclaimed, waving the formality of an introduction and wiping the perspiration from his forehead. "My, but it's hot in there!"

They crowded round him in eager curiosity.

"Where did you dig up this rig?" asked Billy. "Is it real or is it all a hideous dream?"

The newcomer laughed.

"You don't seem to be stuck on my pet," he grinned. "I'll admit she isn't much on beauty, but when she comes to scrapping she's a holy terror."

"She looks it," agreed Frank. "I'd hate to have her bump up against me when she was in a bad temper."

"That's the way the Huns feel," laughed their new acquaintance. "They haven't any use for tanks. You ought to see the way we got 'em in the battle of the Somme."

"Were you there?" asked Tom.

"Very much there," was the answer. "This old rascal of mine was right in the thick of it."

"You English have all the luck!" exclaimed Bart enviously.

"English nothing," replied the operator. "I'm an American just as you are. My name is Stone, Will Stone, and I was born in Detroit."

"Bully!" exclaimed Frank, and there was a general handshake and introductions all around.

"But how did you get over here before the rest of us?" queried Bart.

"Well," laughed Will, "you know Windsor in Canada is just across the river from Detroit and I slipped across and enlisted with the Canadian troops. I knew a good deal about automobiles--everybody in Detroit does, because there are so many plants there--and when these tanks were ready for use and they called for volunteers I was Johnny-on-the-spot."

"You chose a hot branch of the service, all right," commented Tom. "If you were looking for excitement I guess you got it."

"You're a good guesser," grinned Will. "When you're climbing over trenches and crashing through walls and rooting up trees, with bullets pattering against the sides like hailstones on a roof, the fellow who can't get enough excitement out of it is pretty hard to please. But come along, you fellows, and I'll show you over the old shebang if you care to look at it."

They needed no second invitation, and for the next half hour there was a volley of questions and answers as they examined the offensive and defensive qualities of the grim monster that had carried consternation into the German ranks.

"Well, so long, fellows," said Will, when at last he climbed into the tank and set its unwieldy bulk in motion. "Here's hoping that we meet again soon."

"In Berlin, if not sooner!" Frank shouted after him.

A few days later one of the French colonels visited the camp. After his formal reception by the American officers he made a tour of inspection, going among the men, looking over the barracks and asking innumerable questions.

There was an absence of pomp and ceremony about him that was characteristic of the French officers who, perhaps more than those of any other nation, live on terms of simple comradeship with their men, and the boys, to use Billy's phrase, "cottoned to him" at once.

Unfortunately he knew little English and as the boys knew still less French, conversation was halting and difficult. The officer's delight then, can be imagined when, on addressing a question to Frank, the latter responded in French as pure as his own.

"Why, my boy," said Colonel Pavet, "you speak as though you were a son of France."

"A stepson, perhaps," replied Frank, smilingly. "For my mother is a daughter of France!"