CHAPTER III

ANOTHER PUZZLE

"What's the matter up ahead there?" came the demand from Schnitzel, who, with Bob, was helping along the disabled Iggy. "Why don't you go on, Jimmy?"

"Is the way blocked?" asked Bob. "Are we stuck again?"

"Keep still back there!" fiercely whispered Sergeant Jimmy. "Don't make such a row, or they'll hear you!"

"Who?" asked Franz, and this time he lowered his voice to the desired pitch. "Are there some Germans up ahead? Did the blowing up of our dugout mean that our lines are smashed?" His voice was anxious. He and Bob could not see beyond the place where Roger and Jimmy had come to a halt.

"Just wait a minute," advised Jimmy, still keeping to a whisper. "Rodge and I just saw something that may be all right, and may be all wrong. We're going to see what it is. We'll tell you when we come back. Stay where you are with Iggy. It may not be safe to go on any farther."

Bob and Schnitzel let Iggy lean up against the tunnel wall. The Polish lad closed his eyes and made himself as comfortable as possible. His two companions looked ahead along the dark shaft which connected the two former German dugouts. They could dimly see Jimmy and Roger moving ahead, now and then cautiously flashing their pocket torches.

And the strange sight that had so startled the two leading Khaki Boys was this. In the second dugout, which did not seem to have been much damaged by the blast that, for a time, had buried the Khaki Boys, Roger and Jimmy saw four men. They stood in the middle of the old dugout, which had not been used in some time, and on a table, about which they were congregated, burned a candle stuck in the neck of a bottle.

But the curious fact about it all was that while two of the men wore the regulation American army uniform, the other two were in civilian attire. And it needed but an instant's thought on the part of Roger and Jimmy to make them understand that there was something vitally wrong here.

Civilians were not only not supposed to be so far within the front lines, but they were actually forbidden. It was against all military rules and regulations. No one without a uniform was allowed so near the front--even the newspaper correspondents being rigidly required to conform to certain rules in this respect.

The reason for this was obvious. So stern were the necessities of war that it was imperative that each man bear some distinctive mark. He was either a friend or a foe, and the only way this could be told, where there were so many thousands, was by a uniform.

Of course, the wearing of a uniform did not guarantee that the man inside it was a friend. He might be a spy. But the appearance of men in civilian garb within the army lines caused suspicion at once. And this suspicion was at once engendered in the minds of Roger and Jimmy.

"What do you think of that?" whispered Roger.

"I don't think very much," was Jimmy's answer, as they paused at an angle in the tunnel and gazed forward into the candle-lighted dugout. "It looks bad to me."

"That's what I say. Those are two doughboys, or some of our Sammies, anyhow. As for the other two--say, I haven't seen anyone in civies for so long it looks strange. What do you think those two civilians can be doing there talking to two of our men?"

"I give it up--at least for the present," said Jimmy. "It's another puzzle--like the time when we saw Captain Frank Dickerson at the red mill, maybe."

"They could be French refugees," went on Roger. "Maybe they have been held prisoners by the Germans, and just got away."

"Well, that's a possibility, of course," assented his chum. "But they don't look as if they had been in prison. They're too well dressed, and they look too well fed for that. In fact they look more like Germans than Frenchmen."

"They do," assented Roger, as he peered over his friend's shoulder. "Still you can't always tell. At one time we thought Captain Dickerson looked like a German, but he wasn't. But the fact that these men are in civilian clothes is what gets me. They haven't any right so far inside our lines dressed like that."

"You're right," said Jimmy. "There's some sort of a mystery here. It may turn out all right, and it may be all wrong. I'm going to----"

Jimmy interrupted himself to utter an exclamation of surprise, for suddenly one of the men leaned over the table and blew out the candle, leaving the dugout in darkness. And, almost as if this was a signal of some sort, there began a furious bombardment, the echoes of which came to the ears of the Khaki Boys.

"They're at it again!" cried Roger.

"Those are our guns!" declared Jimmy. "We're paying the Huns back for smashing our fine dugout!"

"The one we took from the Germans," added his chum. "Say, Jimmy," he went on. "You know all this around here used to be within the German lines; this tunnel and the dugouts."

"Of course I know it," returned Jimmy. "What of it?"

"Well, maybe there's a secret passage leading over to their new lines and trenches from here. Maybe that's how those two civilians got in here."

"Nothing like that!" declared Jimmy. "The German lines are too far away from here now. Besides, why would two lone Germans venture back in the enemy's camp? It isn't reasonable."

"Well, there's something queer," declared Roger, "and we'd better report it."

"I guess so," agreed the young sergeant. "But now what shall we do--go ahead or wait here?"

"Let's show a light and go on," decided Roger, for they had darkened their flash torches on seeing the burning candle. They had stood in the darkness while looking into the dugout containing the four men.

Jimmy hesitated a moment. He did not at all like the situation. It was "extremely ticklish," he said afterward. To show a light now, when the four men were in darkness, would mean that Jimmy and Roger would be targets for any hostile act. They would be in plain view while the others were not. Roger guessed something of what was passing in Jimmy's mind for he said:

"There can't be any danger. Those were two of our own doughboys there."

"Yes," was the answer. "I guess we can take a chance. But have your automatic ready while I show the glim. No telling what may happen."

Roger let a faint gleam escape from between two fingers which he pressed over the small bulb of his pocket flash lamp. He directed this gleam into the dugout, and then he and his chum received another surprise.

For the place was empty. The four men--two soldiers and two civilians--had disappeared!

As Jimmy and Roger stood in the tunnel, a few feet away from the door leading into the dugout, from behind them came Bob's voice.

"Say!" he whispered, "are you fellows going to stand there chinning all day? We want to get Iggy somewhere so we can see what the matter with him is! What's the row, anyhow--why the traffic hold-up?"

"Something queer going on here, that's all," answered Roger. "Come on now--the way's clear. Wow! Hear that gun!"

"One of our big new ones," remarked Jimmy, as the concussion shook the tunnel and rattled down particles of dirt from the sides and roof.

"If there's fighting going on we ought to be in it!" exclaimed Franz, as he and Bob started on again with the disabled Iggy. They could see the dim gleam of Roger's lamp ahead of them.

"Oh, we'll get in it as soon as anyone," remarked Jimmy. "But first we want to find out what's going on here. Come on, fellows. We can get out of the tunnel and into this dugout, anyhow. This place seems to be all right. I know my way out. The cave-in didn't extend this far back."

This was true. The big shell that had brought their rest dugout down about the heads of the Khaki Boys had done no damage here. One end of the tunnel--that nearest the big underground shelter--was partly demolished, but the end connecting with the second dugout was not disturbed.

Into this dugout, then, went the five Khaki Boys, Iggy shuffling along by putting his arms over the shoulders of Franz and Bob. They had been obliged to proceed sideways in single file along the narrow tunnel, but the dugout was large enough to accommodate a dozen or more.

"They aren't here!" exclaimed Jimmy, as he quickly looked around the place, Roger having relighted the candle in the bottle.

"Who aren't here?" Franz demanded.

"The four men we saw when we stopped so suddenly," Jimmy explained. "They've gone!"

"Where?" Roger wanted to know.

Jimmy pointed to a rude door leading out of the tunnel. It was answer enough.

"Say, you fellows act as though there was a dark mystery here," complained Bob, as he helped Iggy to a seat on a box.

"I'm beginning to think there is," was Jimmy's answer. And hardly had the words passed his lips than from the door leading out of the dugout came a voice saying:

"Come on now! We can get 'em this way, I guess!"

The four Khaki Boys drew their revolvers and stood tense and waiting, forming a protecting screen in front of Iggy.