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If he had his deserts he'd be up against the firing squad within twenty-four hours." "Easy there, Tom," counseled Frank, looking around him, for in his excitement Tom had raised his voice. "Remember I'm not dead sure. I wouldn't swear to it in a court of law." "Here comes Nick himself," remarked Bart. "The Old Nick," growled Tom. "Hello, Rabig," said Frank, as the former Camport bully came along.
Life at the front was too full of work and rush for any one experience to leave its imprint long. Their first inquiry after breakfast was for Rabig. "How's Rabig getting along?" Frank asked of Fred Anderson. "Oh, he's all right, I guess," answered Fred carelessly. "When the doctors came to examine him they found that the wound didn't amount to much. Said he'd be all right in a day or two."
"Hold your horses," grinned Tom. "I'll get to him in good time. If it hadn't been for Rabig I wouldn't be here. I owe that much to the skunk, anyway." It was hard for them to wait, but they were fully rewarded when Tom described the way in which he had trapped and stripped the renegade, and left him lying in the woods. "Bully boy!" exclaimed Frank. "That was the very best day's work you ever did."
"I don't feel dead sure that Rabig helped him," said Frank, "and yet the more I think it over, the more I'm inclined to think that Tom is right about it. Still, Rabig's entitled to the benefit of the doubt. I know how the Scotch jury felt when they brought in the verdict: 'Not guilty, but don't do it again." "That's just what I'm afraid Rabig will do," said Tom.
"To think that you were legging it away from the house just as we were coming toward it," said Billy. "It was the toughest kind of luck," admitted Tom. "Yet perhaps it was all for the best, for then I might not have had the chance to get the best of Rabig." "Rabig?" exclaimed Frank, for the traitor had not yet been mentioned in Tom's narrative. "What about him?" questioned Billy eagerly.
"That looks like quite a solid door," remarked Frank, inspecting it critically. "Oh, I don't know," responded Billy. "It's got dents in it. Here's one that looks as though it were made by a rifle butt." Rabig looked at them angrily, and yet furtively, evidently seeking to find out how much their remarks meant. "You fellows had better get along," he snapped.
And since the boxing bout in the camp, when he had tried foul tactics and Frank had thrashed him thoroughly, his venom toward his conqueror had been more bitter than ever. The boys stopped when they reached the front of the hut. "Hello, Rabig!" they greeted him. "Hello!" responded Rabig, still keeping up his pacing. "Right on the job, I see," remarked Bart, pleasantly enough.
Rabig had that cut on his hand to explain the escape of the prisoner. He seemed to be sleeping in his bunk that night I got back from the woods. So far he has an alibi for everything. We can't prove that he let himself be captured. We can't prove that the Germans let him escape. As for the information he claims to have, our suspicions are based only on what we know of the man's character."
But a scalp wound could be easily made where it would produce the most blood and do the least harm." "But what object would Rabig have in taking such chances?" asked Billy. "The fellow had been searched and couldn't have had any money with him." "No, but he could have promised plenty," argued Tom. "Perhaps he's told Rabig that the grateful Kaiser would make him rich.
"It would be a terrible thing to accuse a man wrongfully of such a thing as treason. Rabig would simply deny it and put it up to us to prove it. Then, too, every one knows that there's no love lost between us and Nick, and they might think we were too ready to believe evil of him without real proof."
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