"Look out!" some one shouted. "Maybe they're playing possum!"

And so it was, for as the group advanced there was a burst of fire, and half a dozen men went down. Ned and Bob had a vision of Jerry crumpling up at the very entrance of the dugout, and their hearts seemed to stop beating.

"Drive 'em out! Kill the Boches! Wipe 'em up!" yelled the survivors.

With a fierce yell, Ned tossed into the open doorway a hand grenade. It exploded with terrific force, partly wrecking the place, and then in rushed he and his comrades, with gleaming bayonets.

"Kamerad! Kamerad!" came the cowardly appeal from the Germans.

And a moment later out of the dugout where the machine gun had been concealed came four German soldiers, all that was left alive of a company of twenty, and of these four two were badly wounded.

Ned and Bob, seeing that the place, the last of any opposition in that section, was captured, were about to turn back to see if Jerry was still alive, when a second look at one of the German prisoners caused Ned to cry:

"Nick Schmouder!"

"Ja!" came the answer, and then, in German, he asked:

"Who speaks my name?"

"Nick Schmouder!" said Ned again.

"Do you know this man?" asked an officer sharply.

"Yes," answered Ned. "He used to be a janitor at Boxwood Hall, a school I attended."

And the face of Nick Schmouder showed as much wonder as did that of Ned Slade.



CHAPTER XIX

NEWS AT LAST

"Well, well, Nick! To think of meeting you here!" exclaimed Bob.

"Don't speak to the Hun!" some one called, and then, for the first time, Ned and Bob seemed to realize that the little man, with whom they had been on friendly terms at college, was an enemy.

But such was the case. It was only one of many queer incidents of the war, and more than one fighting American found among the prisoners sent back, after he and his comrades had cleaned up a Boche nest, some man he had known back home—a former waiter at a club, perhaps, or a man who delivered his groceries.

"How came you here?" asked Nick Schmouder, with scarcely a trace of German accent, as he and the other prisoners stood with upraised hands, though one of the survivors had to drop his as he fell in a heap because of weakness from his wounds.

"We came here to teach the Kaiser how to walk Spanish," said Bob. "I didn't think you'd fight against us, Nick, after what you learned at Boxwood Hall."

"Ach! I was forced to," was the answer. "I am glad it is over—that I am a prisoner. I did not like this war. I shall be glad when it is over and you have won. It is terrible! Listen, I will a secret tell," and he did not seem afraid of the effect it might have on his apathetic comrades. "Every time I shoot the machine gun I point it at the ground so it will kill no Americans. I do not want to kill them."

"Hum, that's a good story to tell now!" said the incredulous officer. "Take 'em to the rear with the other prisoners. Wait, though, this one can't walk. He'll have to have a stretcher. I'll have his wounds patched up. But take the others back. Corporal Hopkins!" he called.

"Corporal Hopkins is wounded, Sir," reported Ned, with a catch in his voice. "He may be dead. He fell just as we stormed this place, Sir!"

"Oh, I did not know that. See to him at once. Here!" he called to some stretcher-bearers who were coming up, "we may need you!"

They hurried forward, and, leaving Nick Schmouder and the other German prisoners under guard, the officer, with Ned, Bob, and some other Americans, went back to where Jerry had been seen to fall. It was just outside of a little defile leading to the dugout where the machine gun had wrought such havoc.

"There—there he is!" faltered Ned, as he pointed to the crumpled-up body of his chum, and Bob turned his face away, for it seemed to be the end of Jerry Hopkins.

There was blood on Jerry's head, and blood had seeped out from his right leg, near the knee. Poor Jerry lay very still, and about him were heaped others, who were unmistakably dead.

The lieutenant bent over the corporal and made a hasty examination. There was relief on his face—relief which was reflected on the countenances of Ned and Bob as he said:

"He's still alive, but badly hurt, I'm afraid. Take him back as gently as you can."

Ned and Bob helped lift him on to the stretcher. Jerry did not move, and so faint was his breathing that there were times when it seemed to stop altogether.

Desperately as Ned and Bob wanted to go back to the dressing station to learn how it fared with their chum, they must stay on duty in the advanced position they had helped to win. It must be consolidated as much as possible before night, or the Germans might launch a counter offensive.

And so, when the Hun machine gun had been turned about, ready to rake any advancing lines of its recent owners, other measures were taken to insure the holding of the position won at such cost.

"I'd like to have a talk with that Nick," said Bob, as he and Ned paused for a moment in their work of digging trenches.

"Yes, isn't it strange to meet him here like this? If he fired any of the shots that did up Jerry Hopkins, why——"

Ned did not finish, but Bob knew what his chum meant.

Feverishly the Americans worked, and to good purpose, for when darkness began to fall they were in strong front trenches with supporting lines back of them, and the artillery was partly in place. If the Germans wanted to take that particular hill again they would have to work for every inch of it.

And now the commissary department got busy, and hot soup and coffee was rushed up to the well-nigh exhausted men. Never was a meal more welcome.

"But it doesn't taste any better than those doughnuts did," declared Bob, as he sat on a pile of dirt, sipping coffee from a tin cup, his face and hands plastered with mud and other dirt.

"You took an awful chance, though, Chunky," said his chum.

"No more than that Salvation Army man did. He was braver than I, because it was my business to be where I was, and he didn't have to if he didn't want to."

"Well, that's so," agreed Ned. "But say, I'm going to see if we can't find out how Jerry is. If he—if he's——"

But he did not have the heart to finish.

As much had been done as was possible that day, after the terrific battle, and with the arrival of fresh reserves those who had borne the brunt of the fighting were sent to the rear to rest. Ned and Bob were among these, and, obtaining permission, they went to the dressing station to learn Jerry's fate.

Their hearts leaped with joy when they were told that, aside from a bad scalp wound and a bullet through the fleshy part of his leg, their chum was all right.

The high-powered bullets do infinitely less damage than the old-fashioned slower-moving sort, and the wound in Jerry's leg was a clean one.

Not so, however, the cut on his head, which was from a piece of burning shell, making a jagged wound that, however, did not touch the bone.

"He'll be back in line again in three weeks," declared the surgeon to Ned and Bob, and those were the happiest words they ever had heard.

The next morning, after a feverish night in which they slept but little, they were allowed to see Jerry, and they found him in better condition, relatively, than themselves. For he had been given a bath and cleaned after his wounds were dressed, whereas Ned and Bob were still caked with the mud, dirt, and grime of battle. But it was honorable dirt, as a Japanese might say. Most honorable and cherished.

"Well, how about you, old man?" asked Ned, as the Red Cross nurse said they might talk a little to their injured chum.

"Oh, I'm all right. Feel fine! Just knocked out a little. Save a few Huns for me for the next rush."

"Oh, we'll do that all right," agreed Bob. "Too bad you had to get yours just as we won the game."

"We won it, so I hear," observed Jerry.

"Yes, cleaned 'em up," went on Ned. "And whom do you guess we caught in the last batch of prisoners?"

"Not Professor Snodgrass!"

"No. But some one who knows him. Nick Schmouder!" exploded Bob.

"What? Not the janitor at Boxwood Hall? The fellow who helped us get the goat upstairs into the physics class?"

"The same!" laughed Ned; and Jerry chuckled so at the recollection of one of the jokes of their college days that the nurse was forced to say she would order his chums away unless he remained more quiet.

"I'll be good!" promised the tall lad. "But that is rich! How did it happen?"

"Don't know," admitted Ned. "I'm going to have a talk with him if I can."

"Let me know what he says," begged Jerry. "I don't suppose you have heard anything about the professor or his quest for the two girls?"

"No," answered Bob. "I guess he'll never find them. It's worse than looking for a cent down a crack in the boardwalk at Atlantic City. But I don't suppose you could convince the professor of that."

"No," agreed Jerry. "I'm mighty sorry, too. You remember what he said about losing the money he had lent to a friend of his and needing this bequest from Professor Petersen. Well, if you see or hear from him let me know. I won't be able to get about for a week—maybe more."

Bob and Ned stayed until the nurse sent them away, but they promised to call again as soon as allowed. Then, as they were relieved from duty, they went to an officer and received permission to talk to the prisoner, Nick Schmouder, after explaining about him.

The man had been a janitor at Boxwood Hall when Ned, Bob, and Jerry attended there. He had been a good friend to the three chums, and, as mentioned, had assisted them in performing what they were pleased to term a "joke."

The boys had forgotten all about him, and it was with the utmost wonder they met him again under such strange and strenuous circumstances.

"How did you come to get into the war?" asked Bob, as he and Ned talked to the prisoner, who was in a wire cage with hundreds of others.

"Oh, it was an accident, yet. I came back to Germany to see my old father, and I was caught here when the war broke out. I had not served my full time in the army, and so I had to go in again. Ach! how I hate it. But tell me—why are you here?"

"The same reason that brought every other good American over," replied Ned sharply. "We want to wipe Prussian militarism off the face of the earth."

"And a good job, I say!" declared Nick Schmouder. "It is like a bad disease germ. One of those bugs Professor Snodgrass used to show me in the microscope. Ah, I wish I was back at Boxwood Hall with him. He was a nice little man."

"Yes, he was," agreed Ned. "And you may see him, if you stay around here."

"See him? Is the professor in the war, too?"

"Not exactly," Bob answered. "He is here on a scientific mission. Something about war noises and insects. But he is after something else, too. A friend of his, Professor Petersen——"

"Professor Emil Petersen?" cried Nick Schmouder in such a strange voice that Ned and Bob stared at him. "Did you say Professor Emil Petersen?"

"I don't know that I mentioned his first name, but it is Emil," answered the stout lad. "Why, do you know him?"

"Know him? Why, he once lived in the same German town where my father and mother lived," declared the former janitor. "They were friends,—my father worked for him and my mother had looked after him when he was sick—and when the professor, who was studying or something, had to go away, he left his two nieces——"

"Two nieces!" burst out Ned and Bob together. "Do you mean Miss Gladys Petersen and Miss Dorothy Gibbs?"

"Yes! Those were the names," announced Schmouder easily. "He left the two nieces with my father and mother. They were nice girls!"

"Listen to that!" cried Ned, thumping Bob on the back. "News at last! We must tell Jerry this!"



CHAPTER XX

A QUEER QUESTION

So unexpected was the news given by the captured Boxwood Hall janitor that for a moment or two Ned and Bob could scarcely believe it. That the information, so much desired and so ardently sought after, should come to them by accident, while, doubtless, Professor Snodgrass was using every energy to that end, seemed scarcely believable. Yet there could be no doubt of it. Still Ned was a bit cautious, and restrained his stout chum from rushing to the hospital to tell Jerry.

"We don't want any mistake in this," remarked Ned. "Are you sure, Nick, that this is the same Professor Petersen whom we mean, the same one Professor Snodgrass means?"

"I don't see how there can be any mistake," declared the former janitor. "I often heard Professor Petersen speak of Professor Snodgrass, and I know him well enough. I could tell him in the dark."

"Yes, I guess that's right," assented Ned.

"But there may be two Professor Petersens—the name is not uncommon in Germany, at any rate."

"There is no mistake," declared Schmouder. "I admit there may be several Professor Petersens, but hardly two who would have nieces named Dorothy Gibbs and Gladys Petersen."

"That seems to clinch it," declared Bob.

"Yes, I guess so," agreed his chum. "But what else can you tell us about them, Nick, and where are the girls now?"

The German prisoner shrugged his shoulders.

"As for where they are now, I do not know," he answered. "My father and mother live in a little town not far from Metz. It was there Professor Petersen came sometimes to study and write his books, when he was not in his own country or in your country, lecturing or visiting Professor Snodgrass.

"Just before this terrible war, which I wish with all my heart I had never seen, Professor Petersen came to this little town, bringing for the first time his two nieces. I happened to be there on a visit—I came to see my parents, and now I wish I hadn't.

"No, I will not say that!" quickly exclaimed the man. "I am glad I saw them; but I wish I had sent for them to come to the United States to see me. It would have been safer for them and me, for we shall lose this war—I can see that."

"You said it!" declared Bob, with energy.

"Tell us all you can," urged Ned. "We have a great interest in finding these girls."

"Well, I am sorry I cannot tell you more," replied Schmouder. "As I said, I came back just before the war broke out, was caught and sent to the army. I saw Professor Petersen in my home town then with the two young ladies. There was some story about his having been reconciled to them after a long estrangement, but I did not pay much attention to that.

"All I know is that I saw the young ladies and knew they were the nieces of the professor. They had been traveling in France and Germany, it was said. Then the professor left just before war was declared. He suspected it was coming, and said he had certain investigations he wished to make before the fighting started. He left the two young ladies in charge of my father and mother, telling them he would be back as soon as he could, and that, thereafter, he would look after them."

"What happened next?" asked Bob.

"The war," answered Schmouder succinctly. "That spoiled everything. I had to go away and leave my parents. What has become of them I do not know."

"Haven't you heard from them?" asked Ned.

"Not lately, no. Soon after I was forced to join the army I had a letter, in which they told me they were going farther into Germany to be safer."

"And what about the two girls and Professor Petersen?" Bob queried.

"What happened to Professor Petersen I cannot tell you," was the answer. "As for his two nieces, my father wrote that they had gone on some scientific expedition shortly after the professor left them, and were not expected back for a month."

"Were they scientists too?" asked Ned.

"I believe so," answered the former janitor. "They loved study, as did their uncle. At any rate they, too, went into the interior of Germany just before the war broke out, and what has happened to them I do not know any more than I know what happened to Professor Petersen."

"We can tell you what happened to him," said Ned. "He died in America, and left a lot of money."

"So!" exclaimed Schmouder. "Well, it will do no one any good these terrible days."

"Maybe it will, and perhaps it won't," replied Bob. "At any rate, he left half his fortune to Professor Snodgrass on condition that our friend find the two nieces and give them the other half of the fortune."

"Ach! Well, I shall be glad if the young ladies get something," said Schmouder.

"Yes, but the trouble is they won't get it if they can't be found," said Ned. "And Professor Snodgrass won't get anything, either. Now if you could only tell us where these two girls are to be found, why——"

"That I could not do—no one could in these days!" declared the prisoner earnestly. "I will help you all I can. I am an American at heart, and I hope you will believe me when I say that every gun I fired sent its bullets only into the ground. I could not shoot at my former friends. Germany is no longer a friend to me!"

"Nor to any one else," declared Bob. "Gee! but it's tough to be so near the solution and then to fail."

"Don't give up yet," advised Ned. "We can tell Professor Snodgrass what we have learned, and maybe he can find a way to get in communication with the young ladies. It's a pity Professor Petersen didn't give them half his fortune when he was alive, and save all this bother."

"Yes, it would have been a good idea!" scoffed his chum. "The girls and Professor Snodgrass would have been better off. But, as a rule, people don't do that sort of thing. I haven't noticed your father—nor mine—giving away half of his possessions. However, the money may be lost entirely now. I don't see how it can be paid over, inherited or whatever the term is anyhow, in these days. Maybe the war has wiped out Professor Petersen's fortune."

"I hardly think that," said the former janitor. "He was not a German, and his wealth was not in that country. He was a very careful man, and if he left any money to any one you may be sure it is waiting for them, wherever they are."

"That's the point!" exclaimed Bob. "The money may be all right, but we can't find those for whom it is intended. And if Professor Snodgrass can't locate the girls, all the fortune goes to a humane society."

"Ach! So?" exclaimed Nicholas Schmouder. "Well, it is better that than Germany should get it. Please tell your friends that I did never fire my gun at them—always into the ground," he said wistfully, as the boys turned away from the prisoners' wire cage.

"We'll do the best we can for you," they said. But there was little they could do to make life any easier for their old friend, who, through no fault of his own, was in a bad predicament.

When next they had a chance to visit Jerry the two chums told him all they had heard, and the wounded lad suggested that they should write to Professor Snodgrass at once, urging him to come on and have a talk with Schmouder. This Ned and Bob did, though there was no certainty that their letter would reach the scientist, or that he would be able to obey the instructions in it. They had his last address, but he was, at best, uncertain in his movements, and now, with the great forward movement of the American armies beginning, it was hard for any one to get to the front.

"But we've found out something, anyhow," declared Ned. "The girls are somewhere in Germany, if they are still alive, and it may be possible for Professor Snodgrass to give them half the money and keep the other half for his own necessities."

"Yes, it may, and it may not. I hope it will, though."

Jerry, thanks to the nature of his wounds and to his healthy constitution, made a remarkably quick recovery, and though he was not ready to go back to the front-line trenches when his chums had to report for duty, it was probable that after their next rest period he would join them.

It was hard for Ned and Bob to say good-bye to their chum. They might never meet again, and they knew it. But it was the fortune of war, and had to be borne.

Fate, however, was kind to them, and Ned and Bob were sent to a quiet sector. After some slight skirmishes, which, however, were hard enough on those engaged, they were again sent to the rear to recuperate. There they found Jerry chafing against being kept out of the fighting.

"Feel all right?" asked Ned.

"Sure! Never better. I want to get at the Huns again."

"Didn't hear from Professor Snodgrass, did you?" inquired Bob.

"No. But I wrote to him again. Schmouder has been sent back to the rear to work with other prisoners, but I have his camp location so the professor can interview him if he thinks it needful. And say, a rather queer thing happened while you were away."

"What?" asked Ned.

"Well, Noddy Nixon came to see me."

"He did!" cried Bob. "Well, the nerve of that shrimp! After he took our wood!"

"What did he want?" asked Ned.

"Oh, nothing in particular, as far as I could make out. Just seemed to want to be friendly. Asked me a lot of questions about how I was treated in the hospital and whether I got enough to eat."

"You did, didn't you?" asked Bob.

"Sure. But I don't quite see what Noddy was aiming at. However, I didn't trouble my head much about it until yesterday."

"Why yesterday?" Bob demanded.

"Well, the surgeon who patched me up came and inquired if Noddy was a particular friend of mine."

"Of course you told him he was!" laughed Ned.

"Like fun I did! No, I said I hadn't any use for him, but I didn't go into particulars. After all, Noddy is fighting on our side."

"You mean he's making a bluff at it!" growled Bob. "But go on. Where does the queer part come in?"

"Here," answered Jerry. "The surgeon told me Noddy took him to one side and asked very particularly whether a wound in the hand or one in the foot hurt the most. That's what he wanted to know."

"He did!" cried Ned. "Well, what's queer about that?"

"Don't you see," resumed Jerry, "it looks as though——"

But Jerry never finished that sentence, for as he was speaking came cries of alarm from outside the hospital and the firing of several guns, while some one shouted:

"An air raid! An air raid! The Huns are coming!"



CHAPTER XXI

A VISITOR

Jerry Hopkins, with his two chums and some of the hospital patients who were able to move about, rushed toward the sound of the shouting and firing. Jerry's leg wound was healed, and save for a slight limp he was all right again.

The boys saw a group of soldiers gathered about a battery of guns erected a short time before to repel air raids. And that this was now a time to use the weapons was evident after a glance aloft.

For, hovering just below the clouds, were three big Hun planes, and that they had come over the lines to bomb the American positions was only too evident.

There was no time to stop and inquire how the hostile aircraft had managed to elude the vigilance of the Allied airmen at the front. It was time to act and act promptly, and at once the anti-aircraft batteries opened, while word was quickly telephoned to the nearest aerodrome, so that American, French, or British fliers might ascend to attack the Germans. It was the shooting at the Hun planes with the guns nearest the hospital that had broken in on Jerry's remarks.

"They won't bomb the hospital, will they?" asked Ned, in wonder.

"They're very likely to," declared Jerry. "Then later on they'll claim they couldn't see the red crosses on the roof, or else they'll say they meant to drop bombs on an ammunition dump or a railroad center and they miscalculated the distance—the beasts!"

If the Huns intended to bomb the hospital now it would not be the first time they had done such a dastardly trick. And that they purposed sending down explosives somewhere in the neighborhood was evident from the tactics of the hostile machines.

They flew about, so high above the group of buildings containing the wounded and convalescents as to make it difficult to hit them, and appeared to be waiting their best chance to drop a bomb where it would do the most damage.

Meanwhile, nurses and orderlies were moving out their charges into the open, so there would be less likelihood of their being caught in the collapsed structures.

For a few minutes the scene was one of wild confusion, and then army discipline was established and matters went on as they should. Ned, Bob, and Jerry helped in taking out the wounded, while the gun crews increased their fire at the hostile planes.

Suddenly there was a terrific explosion just in the rear of the hospital. It shook the ground and brought forth screams of agonized apprehension on the part of men suffering from shell shock. But either the bomb was misdirected or the Huns were more merciful than they had been on other similar occasions, for the bomb, dropped from one of the aircraft, only tore a big hole in an adjacent field.

"Too close for comfort, though," declared Ned.

"Our boys are gettin' after 'em!" exclaimed Bob, as he and his chums hurried back into the endangered building to assist in taking out more of the helpless ones.

This was true in two senses, for the fire of the anti-aircraft batteries was increasing, and now several Allied airmen were mounting aloft in their swift machines to give battle to the attacking Huns.

It was high time, too, for now bombs were dropping on all sides of the hospital, and there was no telling when the entire building might go down in ruins. Whether the German airmen were deliberately trying to hit the place where wounded men were being saved from death, or whether they aimed their infernal machines at objects near it, could not be said with certainty.

Fiercer and more rapid became the firing from the anti-aircraft batteries established near the hospital for this very purpose, and more Allied planes took the air, seeking to drive off the invaders.

By this time most of the wounded had been carried out and put under trees, in the open, wherever it was considered safest for them.

Though from the ruthless manner in which the Huns waged war no place was immune from their bombs—even in the neighborhood of a hospital.

"Look! Look!" suddenly cried Ned. "They got one!"

"That's right!" echoed Jerry. "They've brought one down!"

Tumbling over and over, in a fashion no airman, however reckless, would dare to imitate as a ruse, was one of the German planes. It had been hit either by a shell from a battery, or the bullets from one of the machine guns on an Allied plane had found a mark.

Then, as the invading machine continued to fall, out of control, it burst into flames, and a small dark object was seen to detach itself from the mass and fall to one side.

"There goes the pilot!" said Bob grimly. "He's done for."

And so he was, and so was his machine. It was a horrible death, but none the less horrible than he had planned for others—and helpless others, too.

"There they go! They've had enough!" shouted Ned, and as he spoke it was seen that the Hun machines, which had been circling about, as though looking for more targets on the ground below, had turned and were speeding toward their own lines, pursued by the American and other machines, eager to visit on them just vengeance.

And then the hospital patients, some of them wounded airmen themselves, watched the battle of the clouds, out of danger now that the Huns were in retreat.

The machines were so high that little could be seen, but some one had a pair of glasses and reported that one of the German craft was disabled and was coming down out of control.

This information afterward proved to be correct. Then during the battle which followed another German machine was set on fire; so that a total of three were destroyed, and another of the six engaged in the raid sent back damaged, and one of its occupants killed.

Nor did the Allied planes come off scatheless. One was shot down and both occupants killed, while another man was wounded. But the hospital had not been bombed, which was the great thing.

"Do you wonder that I'm aching to get back into the fight against such beasts?" asked Jerry, when the patients had once more been carried back to the wards, and Jerry and his chums had resumed their conversation in a quiet place outside.

"Don't blame you a bit," assented Ned. "But we were talking about Noddy Nixon."

"Yes," resumed the tall lad. "I was saying he asked a mighty queer question of the surgeon and I have my own opinion——"

At that moment a smiling Red Cross nurse appeared and said:

"There's a visitor asking to see you, Mr. Hopkins."

"A visitor for me!" exclaimed Jerry.

"Yes, do you wish to see any one?"

"Man or young lady?" asked Ned, with a mischievous smile at his chum.

"Oh, a dear, little, bald-headed man, who peers at you in such a funny way through his big glasses and——"

"Show him in!" cried Ned, Bob and Jerry in one voice.



CHAPTER XXII

AN UNEXPECTED CAPTURE

The smiling Red Cross nurse had no need to mention the name of the visitor. The boys knew him for Professor Snodgrass after that description, which could fit no one else. And the little scientist it proved to be a moment later.

"Ah, here you are, boys!" he murmured, as though he had just parted from them half an hour before, and under ordinary circumstances, instead of the great war being in the background. "I am glad to see you. I want——"

He made a sudden motion toward the smiling, Red Cross nurse, and instinctively she stepped back, with something of a look of alarm on her face.

"One moment—please!" exclaimed the professor. "There is a most beautiful and rare butterfly on your apron. I just want it for my collection," and, a moment later, he had safe in one of his wire boxes the fluttering Papilio.

"Oh, how beautiful!" murmured the nurse. "What are you going to do with the poor thing?"

"Preserve it so that others may gaze on its beauty," answered the professor with a bow. "It will also aid me in my studies. This particular butterfly is one I have long sought, because of the peculiar markings. It is most lucky that I came here to-day."

"Well, it might have been unlucky if you had happened to be hit by one of the German air bombs," said Jerry. "But we're glad to see you. We have good news for you about those two girls."

"Yes, so I understand from your letters. So that janitor has seen them. Well, now I must follow them up and give them their share of the fortune. I came on as soon as I could after hearing from you boys. I thank you for having my interests at heart. Now where can I see this Nick Schmouder and have a talk with him?"

The camp where the German prisoners were detained was not many miles back of the hospital where Jerry had recovered from his wounds, and, as he would be able to travel the next day, and as Bob and Ned could get furloughs, it was decided that the four should make up a party and seek out the former janitor, so that the professor might hear, at first hand, all there was to be said.

These arrangements having been made, transportation provided and the necessary permissions having been secured, the professor and the three Motor Boys, several hours later, sat down to have a long chat and exchange experiences. Professor Snodgrass told how he was progressing with his work of studying the effects of battle noises on insects, and the boys related their stories of fighting and battles.

"And we thought old Jerry was gone when we saw him go down outside the dugout where we captured Schmouder," finished Ned, as a climax to his story.

"I thought so myself," admitted the tall lad. "But I'm as well as ever, and next week I'll be fighting again. What are your plans, Professor?"

"I must try to find those two young ladies. The military authorities have been very good to me. They have said I can go anywhere I like to study the insects, provided I do nothing that would betray any army secrets. And I have been very careful."

That is he was careful not to disobey his instructions, but that he was anything but careful of himself the boys learned later. They heard stories of how he went up to the very front lines of the fighting, so he might be nearer the big guns, and he took with him cages of insects, noting the effect of the concussions of the great cannons on their nervous systems.

Professor Snodgrass would have laughed had you called him a brave man, but he dared as much for his beloved science as others did for their country's honor. And, moreover, only the age limit kept the professor out of the army.

The journey to the prison camp where Nick Schmouder was held took place the next day, and was accomplished without incident worthy of note.

But if Professor Snodgrass hoped to obtain any more information from the former janitor than the boys had about the two missing girls, he was disappointed. For Nick Schmouder could only repeat what he had already told. He was glad to see Professor Snodgrass, and it was quite pathetic to hear the man tell his story about having always fired his gun into the ground to avoid hurting any of those he called his friends.

"I didn't believe there were any good Germans in Germany any more," said Jerry, "but I guess Nick is pretty near one."

So they listened to his stories, and Professor Snodgrass made notes about the girls. He said he would try to get into communication with them through the parents of the former janitor, though the latter did not know, himself, whether his father and mother were still alive.

"Is it not terrible—awful—this war?" he cried. "I wish all my countrymen were prisoners, and then they could no longer fight, and we would have peace."

"Well, if it keeps on we'll soon have most of the Kaiser's army in a cage like this," declared Ned. "Don't worry—we're going to make a good clean-up of it."

"I hope you do," said Schmouder, and many of his fellow prisoners agreed with him.

At present all the professor could do was to depend on some message getting to the missing girls. As they were not prisoners of war it was thought that perhaps some missive might reach them, though all ordinary communication between Americans and Germany was held up.

The girls, though of Swedish parentage, were citizens of the United States, as the fathers of both were naturalized; therefore, the diplomatic channels of Sweden were closed to them, as the money had been left in Professor Snodgrass' care. The Red Cross might aid, as a last resort, and if that failed all that could be done was to wait until after the war and then seek them out, if the two nieces were still alive.

So, having dispatched several letters by different routes, Professor Snodgrass prepared to spend some time with the boys.

"I might as well study the effect here of noises on insects, as to go back where I was," he said. "Here I shall be nearer those two young ladies, if I can ever find a chance to reach them. We are heading toward Metz, are we not?"

"Yes, and we'll get there," declared Jerry, for by this time enough of General Pershing's plans had developed to show that his armies had this town for one of its objectives. But there was still a long way to go.

True to his determination, Jerry went back to the front with his chums, and Professor Snodgrass, by virtue of special permission, accompanied them. The chums were welcomed by their comrades, and once more took up the life of the trenches.

It was one afternoon, just before time for them to be relieved, that Ned, Bob, and Jerry had their attention drawn to a stretch of No Man's Land in front of them, by hearing some of their comrades say:

"Look at the bug-hunter! What in the name of Billie Bejinks is he doing out there? He'll be bowled over by a German bullet just as sure as guns!"

The three lads looked, and, to their surprise and horror, saw Professor Snodgrass with something supported on his back and partly in his arms, walking across No Man's Land in the direction of the German trenches as unconcernedly as though peace had been declared.

"Look at him!" yelled Ned.

"We've got to get him back!" cried Jerry.

An officer, who had heard the commotion, came in from the nearest dugout and asked:

"Who gave him permission to go out there? Is he deserting?"



"Indeed he isn't, Sir," answered Ned. "I guess he must be trying some experiment, or looking for bugs."

"Well it's likely to be his last experiment," was the grim comment, "and about all he'll find will be bullets. Ah, I was afraid so. Look, they are going to capture him!"

As he spoke the Americans, crouching in their trench, saw three German soldiers leap out of their ditch and advance toward the professor. But the latter did not seem in the least afraid. He walked on, for a moment not observing his enemies, who were approaching from one side. Then suddenly he noticed them.

But he did not run, nor did he show any sign of fear, and then the most unexpected thing happened. The Germans suddenly dropped their rifles. Up in the air went their hands, and then they turned and marched straight for the American lines, the professor following behind, and fairly driving them on in some mysterious way. He had made a most unexpected capture.



CHAPTER XXIII

GREAT PREPARATIONS

Watching him from the security of their trench, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, their comrades, and the officers on duty, could scarcely believe their eyes as they saw what had happened. Yet there was no delusion about it. Professor Snodgrass, rashly venturing across No Man's Land toward the German trenches, was coming back and with three prisoners. As Bob said afterward, it was like the advertisements of the circus which boasted of three rings and innumerable clowns.

"Three prisoners! Count 'em. Three!" Bob yelled.

"Well, for the love of hot chocolate!" cried Jerry, "what does it mean?"

"Search me!" answered Ned, succinctly. "Looks as if he had 'em hypnotized!"

And so it did, for the Huns, as they came nearer, wore on their faces looks of stupefied astonishment.

Straight for the trench where his young friends were, Professor Snodgrass marched his prisoners. He was in great danger, but he did not seem to mind that, or even be aware of it. Doubtless it was the latter, but, as a matter of fact, he was within range of the big guns, as well as within shot of rifles or machine guns.

Of course, though, had the Germans opened fire on the professor from their trenches, they would have run the chance of killing their own three men, captives though the latter were. And, too, had the Huns fired there would have at once been answering fire from the Americans, for the latter gunners were always on the alert, and once word was passed up and down the line that the little "bug-hunter" was out in No Man's Land, every man who knew or who had heard of him was ready with his rifle—Ned, Bob and Jerry among them—ready to take full toll in revenge had he been fired on.

But the German trenches were silent, and for good reason, as was learned later, so the professor marched on with his prisoners, the latter never once looking behind them, but walking with their hands high in the air.

And the little scientist was as unconcerned as though he was on his return from some insect-hunting trip. His appearance was a bit unusual, though, and Ned commented on it.

"What's that thing on his back?" asked the stout lad.

"Looks like a magnified haversack of new design," replied Ned.

"The professor hasn't enlisted, has he?" some one asked Jerry. "Not but what he'd make a fine soldier," was the added comment.

"No, I can't imagine what he has on," Jerry answered. "We'll soon find out, though."

On came the professor, and when he had his prisoners at the edge of the first American trench he exclaimed, with a twinkle in his eyes:

"Here you are! Make yourselves at home! Will some one please take charge of—er—these—specimens?" asked the little scientist, and again his eyes twinkled as he looked at the lieutenant who was in command just then.

"Great guns, man alive! Did you go out to get them?" asked the officer.

"Well, not exactly," was the reply. "These men tried to interfere with me in my work, and I simply told them to mind their own business and get out of the way. Bringing them over here seemed the easiest way to get rid of them, so I marched them along. Now I will go back and finish——"

"Oh, no! Excuse me for seeming to be brusk and arbitrary," said the lieutenant smiling, "but I can't permit you to go back. For our own sake, as well as yours. You might precipitate a general engagement, and while we're not running away from anything like that, we are not looking for it just now. Please stay here."

"Very well, I will," mildly agreed the professor. "Perhaps I can as well continue my studies here. But what shall I do with my—my specimens?" and he nodded toward the Germans.

The prisoners were still standing with uplifted hands, gazing at the professor as if the issue of life and death depended on him as far as they were concerned.

"Tell them they may put down their hands," begged the professor of the lieutenant. "They're in your charge now, and you had better give them orders. Besides, I don't speak their language very well."

"Then how in the world did you get them to surrender?" asked the officer. "How did you, alone, without a gun or a sword, or even a hand grenade, capture three Germans?"

"Well, I fancy it was due to this," and the professor motioned to the strange contrivance on his back. "I threatened them with total annihilation if they didn't do as I said and march for these trenches, and they did. Whether they understood me or not I don't know. But up went their hands and on they came."

"Yes, they came on all right," said the lieutenant. "We saw that. But still I don't understand."

At this one of the prisoners spoke.

"Haf ve der lieutnant's bermission to lower our hants?" he asked, speaking with a deep, guttural accent.

"Yes," said the officer curtly. "But first we'll search you. Go through them," he ordered one of his men, and when an automatic pistol and several hand grenades had been taken from each of the prisoners, their hands were allowed to come down. They uttered sighs of relief.

"Now, how did it happen?" went on the officer.

"Ve surrender to suberior force, und dot iss no disgrace," said the German soldier who had first spoken. "Ven ve saw der little man ve try to capture him. But he turned on us, und by der—vot you call machine—on his back mit total destruction threatened us. As ve did not vant to die—vell, ve surrendered. Dot's all!"

"Ja!" murmured his two companions.

"Yes, I guess that is all," said the lieutenant, smiling grimly. "Take 'em to the rear, to the temporary prisoner-cage," he ordered one of his men. And then, when the Germans, with a last wondering and fearful look at the professor, had gone, the lieutenant, turning to the scientist, asked with a smile:

"What sort of infernal machine have you there, anyhow? Does it generate a new kind of gas?"

The professor laughed and unslung the apparatus from his back, where it was carried by means of straps, like those on a haversack.

"No, it isn't a gas machine," he said. "It's just a little apparatus for taking moving pictures of insects. It's as harmless as the chocolate sodas my friend Bob likes so well. I got it up to take views of grasshoppers and crickets, and I wanted to get some pictures this morning of those insects showing them as they hopped about normally. Then, later, I intended to set the machine out in the open space, and leave it there when heavy firing was going on. I hoped to get contrasting pictures then, and show the effect, if any, of the sound of big guns on the creatures. But those Germans spoiled my plans."

"And I fancy you spoiled theirs," said the lieutenant with a laugh. "So you threatened them with your moving-picture machine, did you?"

"Yes, I couldn't think of anything else to do when I saw them confronting me. So I yelled that my machine was a new product of the war, and that unless they did exactly as I said I would at once destroy them, even down to their finger nails, by a blast of terrible fire from the machine. Fortunately they understood my very poor German, mixed with English as it was."

"Yes, very fortunately," said the lieutenant. "We saw them drop their guns and raise their hands, and couldn't understand. But your machine, harmless as it is, doubtless impressed them as very dangerous."

When Ned, Bob, and Jerry, as well as the others, looked at the apparatus, they could understand why an ignorant man, accustomed to obey and do no thinking, took the picture machine for some terrible engine of war. The Motor Boys themselves had not seen it before, as the professor carried it in sections in his luggage, and had only fitted it together and used it that day.

It consisted of a black box, with numerous wires, wheels, levers and projecting tubes. These latter contained lenses and shutters, but the Germans must have imagined devastating fire could spout from them. And so they had surrendered.

"But I can't understand why the others in the trenches didn't open fire on you," said the officer.

They learned, later, the reason for this. It was because the Germans had retired from that particular part of the line. Whether for strategic reasons, or otherwise, could not be learned, but the three prisoners admitted that they, alone, had been left in the trench.

Their orders were to remain quiet, and not to attack, but if the Americans came out of their trenches in force the German sentries were to fire their rifles, as many hand grenades and machine-gun rounds as possible, and then retreat, if they could, to the next line of trenches.

But when Professor Snodgrass approached the lines alone, the Germans, instead of firing, thought they would capture him, and so the trio advanced stealthily on the scientist. The result has been seen.

"Well, it was a great piece of work," declared the lieutenant. "Not only the capture, but because we learned that the Germans are falling back. This may change our plans somewhat. I must report to headquarters. And you, Professor Snodgrass, had better come with me."

"But what about my insects?"

"They will have to wait, I'm afraid. Besides, there will be no heavy firing now. Later—well, I'm afraid I can't tell you of that now. It's a secret. But I think you'll soon have a chance to hear all the heavy firing you want."

"I wonder what he meant?" asked Ned, of his chums, as the professor, returning his "infernal" insect moving-picture machine to his quarters went away with the officer.

"Maybe we're going to make a big attack," suggested Bob.

"Perhaps," assented Jerry. "I heard some rumors of it. Well, we'll have to wait and see."

They did not have to wait long, for that day began preparations which, to those who understood, indicated that a great attack was imminent.

Great stores of shell and ammunition were brought up under cover of darkness to the firing line. Big guns were shifted in position and well camouflaged. And there also arrived at the front where the Motor Boys were stationed several batteries of those wonderful French seventy-fives, those guns which did so much to win the war, the secret of which the Germans tried in vain to learn.

It was after several days of hard work, during which they saw little of Professor Snodgrass, that Bob, seeking out his chums one afternoon, said:

"Guess what's up!"

"Can't," Ned replied.

"Go on! Tell us!" cried Jerry.

"We're going to have a lot of doughnuts and chocolate candy!" cried Bob.

"Doughnuts!" shouted Jerry.

"Chocolate!" echoed Ned. "Where is it?"

"Safe," laughed Chunky. "I struck a Salvation Army man with an extra supply and I took all he'd give me. They're hidden in the trench, near where we go on duty, and to-night we'll have a feast!"

"Good for you, Chunky!" cried Jerry. "I always said you were all right!"

"Same here!" added Ned.

And that night, when the three chums were about to go on duty in the dismal trenches, Bob led them to a little place he had hollowed out under a rock, and lined with boards. It was a hiding place known to all three.

"We can stick the stuff in our pockets," he said, "and eat it when we get hungry. Things are so upset, getting ready for a big offensive, I guess, that maybe the rations won't come up on time. But we'll be fixed, anyhow."

He opened the secret place, and then, as he reached his hand in and drew it out empty, a queer look came over his face.

"What's the matter?" asked Jerry.

"It's gone!" faltered Bob.

Consternation showed on the faces of all three. Ned and Jerry made a careful examination of the hiding place after Bob. There was no doubt of it—the treasure was gone! And sweets were really a treasure to the men in the trenches.

"Who took 'em?" faltered Bob.

Jerry looked about, flashed his electric pocket lamp, for the trenches were in the shadow now. Suddenly he picked up a knife, and, as he held it in his hand, he exclaimed:

"Noddy Nixon's! He's been up to his rotten tricks again!"



CHAPTER XXIV

"S. I. W."

There seemed no doubt on the subject, at least in the minds of the three Motor Boys. Bob knew full well that he had left the treat of sweet things in the hole in the wall of his trench. Now the hole was empty, and a knife with Noddy Nixon's name on it was picked up at the very spot. It surely indicated that Noddy had been there, and it needed no very discerning mind, after one was acquainted with the character of Nixon, to say that he was the guilty one.

"What'll we do?" gasped Bob.

"Let's go and accuse him and get the stuff away!" suggested Ned. "Maybe he hasn't eaten it all yet."

"Not much chance but what he has," commented Jerry. "It wouldn't last long with him and his crowd. Still I'm in favor of letting him know we're on to his game. Let's go and have it out with him."

But this was not to be. Just as the three chums were about to go from their part of the trench to that where Noddy Nixon was stationed, the signal sounded for Ned, Bob, and Jerry to take their places on official duty.

"Too late!" exclaimed Bob. "We can't reach him now, and he'll eat it all up."

"The pig!" muttered Ned.

And they had to let the matter rest there. They could not ask to be relieved from trench sentry work to go and get back, possibly, doughnuts and chocolate stolen by Noddy Nixon. It was too trivial a matter from a military standpoint, though to Ned, Bob, and Jerry, forced to be on duty during the long, wet, dreary night, it meant a great deal.

But it was another of the fortunes of war, and it had to be borne.

However, it was not as bad as it might have been, for during the night a relief party came along with hot chocolate, and this was grateful to the lads in the trenches.

"But I'll have it out with Noddy to-day!" declared Bob as he and his chums went off duty in the morning. "I'll turn him upside down; that's what I'll do!"

But again his plans went astray, for orders came from headquarters, shifting many of the regiments, and the three friends found themselves on the move, without a chance to see Noddy.

"But his company moves, too," declared Ned, who had made some inquiries. "He's in the same division we are, and we'll see him when we get settled again."

But they did not see Noddy Nixon again for some time, though they heard of him, and under tragic circumstances.

The guess the boys had made about a great offensive was a correct one. The time had come for the turning point in the war, and the backward movement of the British and French was about to stop. The American forces were increasing, and now General Foch was able to put into practice the strategy he had so long waited for. He could attack, and with great hope of succeeding. The turning point had been reached.

There were rumors and all sorts of stories floating around the camp. Ned, Bob and Jerry had been moved to the north and farther toward the great Hindenburg line which was so soon to be pierced, impregnable though the Germans boasted it.

Professor Snodgrass, too, managed, by means of some influence he possessed, to be allowed to accompany that part of the army to which his young friends were attached. He had not ceased his efforts to locate the two girls, but he realized, as did Jerry and his chums, that it was an almost hopeless proceeding now. However, there was still the study of explosive noises on insects to which the professor could devote himself, and he did.

The boys noted, however, that the strain of his uncertain financial situation was telling on the little man. Cheerful as always, and seemingly oblivious to practical affairs, yet there was at times a strained look about his eyes.

"Yes," he said one day in answer to a question Jerry put, "I have enough for my immediate needs. If I do not get back what I lent to my old friend—and I may even lose more, as I endorsed a note for him to cover a loan from another—and if I cannot use what Professor Petersen left me, I shall have before long to give up my work here, however. And, of course, the trip to the Amazon and the investigations there must be given up."

"I am sorry, Professor. Can't we——" began Jerry.

"Tut, tut!" interrupted Professor Snodgrass, with a kindly smile. "We'll no doubt find the girls—I hope so for their sake as well as my own—and perhaps my friend may be able to adjust his affairs, though I fear——Poor man, poor Albert! It will be a dreadful thing for him to lose all he has and be compelled to start the world over again at his age." And Professor Snodgrass walked away, his personal trouble forgotten in sympathy with his friend, the very man who was the cause of his own anxieties and probable losses.

Vast were the preparations that went on for the advance against the enemy. Never was there such a collection of cannon, large and small. Never was there such a store of powder and shell. The back lines were like a hundred arsenals turned into one. Food, too, there was in great quantities, for it has been well said that an army fights on its stomach, and there must be no lack of nourishment when the troops went forward, as they were destined to do.

All these war-like preparations the three chums noted with every manifestation of delight. They wanted to whip the Hun, and whip him well, and all this argued for success. The soldiers knew they would be well backed-up as they went forward, and forward they were going.

Orders were given that every man must look well to himself personally—to his uniform, his belongings, and his weapons. All gas masks were tested, and those in use for some time, or which showed the least defect, were thrown away and new ones issued. There must be no holding up of the advance once it had begun, because of poison gas. And it could not be doubted but what the Germans would use it lavishly.

Rifles and hand grenades, likewise, were looked to. Everything must be in readiness so there would not be an instant of unnecessary delay. But it was the store of cannon and ammunition back of the firing lines that was most amazing.

The three chums, being sent on duty to the rear one day, had a chance to observe some of the measures being taken there to insure the defeat of the Kaiser's troops. The ground was fairly covered with ammunition boxes and shells—well concealed from hostile airmen, of course, even had they been able to pass that far to the rear. And the guns, large and small, lined up ready for the forward movement, were wheel to wheel for miles and miles in extent. The greatest artillery firing in the history of the world was about to take place.

"If the professor wants to see the effect of a rattle-te-bang on his bugs he'll soon get his chance," said Jerry, and his chums could only agree with him.

"I only wish one thing," remarked Bob, as they prepared to go back to the front, after having accomplished their mission.

"What?" asked Ned.

"I'd like to have it out with Noddy Nixon before the big show. I just want to get one whack at him for taking our wood and those doughnuts and cakes of chocolate. Just one whack!"

But this "whack" Bob was destined never to have.

They again went on duty in the trenches. The day of the great offensive was approaching.

Suddenly a shot rang out in the sector near the three Motor Boys. They started, and Ned exclaimed:

"Can that be the signal for the attack?"

"No, it doesn't begin until to-morrow," said Jerry. "That's one of our own men. Guess his rifle went off by accident."

There was a little excitement, but what had caused it the boys could not learn at the time, as they must stay at their posts. But a little later, when their lieutenant came through the trench, Ned, saluting, asked:

"Did one of our sharpshooters get a Hun, Sir?"

"No," was the answer. "It wasn't that. Private Nixon was shot."

"Noddy Nixon shot!" gasped Bob. "How?"

"S. I. W.," was the terse reply of the officer, as he passed on.



CHAPTER XXV

THE BLACK BOX

The three chums, standing in the wet and muddy trench, looked at one another as this significant remark was made. Bob either did not catch what was said, or did not understand, for he asked his companions:

"What did he say?"

"S. I. W.," repeated Jerry.

"Self-inflicted wound," translated Ned. "So Noddy Nixon did that to himself to get out of the big battle! Well, it's just like the coward! I'm glad he isn't in our company!"

"So am I," added Jerry.

"Self-inflicted wound," repeated Bob.

"Well, he's out of the fighting now," declared Ned, "though he'll have the worst time he ever had in his life. He'd better be dead by a Hun shell."

Silence fell upon the three in the trench while, not far from them, they could hear the commotion caused as Noddy was taken away to a hospital. And there, for some time, he remained safely if not comfortably in bed, while his companions endured the mud and the blood of the trenches, meeting death and wounds, or just escaping them by a hair's breadth to drive back the hordes of the Boches.

But over Noddy's cot, and over that of several men on either side of him was a placard with the significant letters:

S. I. W.

"Self-inflicted wound." One of the most terrible tragedies of the war—more tragic, even, than the death of the gallant boys on the day the armistice was signed, yes, within an hour of it. For those letters indicated a disgrace that seldom, if ever, could be wiped out.

Briefly it meant that a soldier afraid of going into action with his comrades, went to some secluded place and, aiming his gun or pistol at some extremity—a hand or a foot—where a wound was likely to be slight and not very painful, pulled the trigger. Then followed the story that a stray German bullet, coming over the top of the trench as the man exposed himself, had done the deed.

But the nature of the wound, the character of the bullet, and, above all, the appearance of the man himself, told the real story. Sometimes the victims would say their weapon went off by accident as they were cleaning it, and this was perhaps worst of all, for it put the canker of doubt into genuine cases of this sort, and there are bound to be some such in every army.

So Noddy was carried away to the hospital, and "S. I. W." was inscribed over his cot.

As to the causes leading up to the self-inflicted wounds they are many and varied. Sometimes a soldier may become fear-crazed, and irresponsible for his act. Other men are just plain "yellow," clear through, and ought never to have gone into the fighting. They should have confessed cowardice at first, though, of course, that would be hard.

Sometimes, though rarely, these "S. I. W." cases "came back." That is, they were given a chance to redeem themselves and went to the fighting front with a song on their lips and undaunted courage in their eyes. And then, if they died doing their duty they were absolved. But it was a desperate chance.

Every one recognized that there was an element of doubt in these cases, but as for Noddy Nixon, when his significant question to the surgeon as to the relative pain of a hand or foot wound was recalled, he was condemned already. He had shot himself slightly in the left foot. He was dishonorably discharged when he was cured, and sent home, and, therefore, did not trouble the Motor Boys again, nor did Bob get his revenge for the stolen articles.

Ned, Bob, and Jerry did not feel much like talking after they learned what had happened. They had no love for Noddy Nixon, and he had treated them exceedingly badly in the past, as well as tormenting them since they had been associated in the army. But they knew that nothing they could have done or said would have been half as effective punishment as that which he had brought on himself. Henceforth, among decent men, he was an outcast; a pariah.

The long night passed. Sentries were changed, a watch was kept to forestall any attack on the part of the Germans, but none came. Save for the occasional clash of a night patrol, or the false alarm of some one on listening post, there was little action during the hours preceding the great offensive.

Their tour of duty ended, Ned, Bob, and Jerry sought rest in the dugout. There, with but few more comforts than in the trenches, they waited until the time should come again for them to go out and take a "mud bath," as Ned called it.

For it rained often, and the trenches never seemed to dry. Still at this stage of the war there were more comforts for the men on the firing line than when France and England first opposed the advance of the gray hordes.

"When does the big show start?" asked Ned, as he and his chums came out of the dugout for a few hours' stay farther behind the lines. "I thought the bombardment was to begin this morning."

"Must be delayed for some reason," said Jerry with a yawn. "Come on, let's go somewhere and sit down. We'll know when it's time for the shindig to start."

"Let's see if we can find the professor," suggested Bob. "We may have hard work to get word to him after the fighting begins."

This seemed a good plan, and it was followed. Professor Snodgrass was billeted temporarily in a farmhouse on the edge of a little French village near which the boys were on duty. Thither they went, and found their friend poring over books and papers.

"Well, how goes it?" asked Jerry, after they had all shaken hands.

"Well, indeed," was the answer. "I have not yet found the young ladies, but I expect to, soon. I have heard that Mr. Schmouder, the father of the janitor, who was looking after them, and who knew something of their plans, moved from his home town, outside of Metz, lately, and started farther back into Germany."

"Then I should think it would be harder than ever for you to trace them," suggested Ned.

"No, I think it will be easier," said the professor, but he did not explain how.

"Getting the results you expected from the insect noise campaign, Professor?" asked Jerry.

"Yes, my boy. It is a complete success. I even have some moving pictures taken with my new machine that helped me capture the Germans. Wait, and I will show you."

He seemed as cheerful as though no cloud of financial trouble hung over his head and as though the World War were being fought to give him opportunity to test the effect of noise on the crickets. He turned to a table in his room, and began delving in a mass of things. To get at something he wanted to exhibit to the boys, he set in the middle of the floor a small, black box.

Just as he did that a soldier, evidently an officer of some kind in the French army, stepped into the room, and in a mixture of French and English asked if Professor Snodgrass was there.

"I am he," answered the scientist.

"Ah, zen you will please come with me," said the soldier. "You are wanted at ze headquarters."

"Wanted at headquarters!" repeated the professor. "What for?"

"Zis will explain," and the officer handed a note to Professor Snodgrass.

As the professor read it a smile came over his face.

"Ah, I understand," he said. "I will come at once. Boys, we will let the insect pictures wait a minute. Perhaps you will be interested in my latest discovery. Come, I am ready to go," and he picked up the black box from the floor and stood in waiting.

The officer looked a little dubiously at the object in the professor's hand, and then at the three boys.

"My orders did not include—zem!" he said, indicating Ned, Bob, and Jerry, "nor—zat!" and he pointed to the box.

"This has to come," replied the professor. "It is part of what I proposed. As for my friends, I will be responsible for them."

"Very well, sair!" and the Frenchman bowed and led the way.

Wonderingly the boys followed Professor Snodgrass, and presently found themselves at field headquarters. A company of French soldiers were standing about, and while waiting for the summons to the presence of the headquarters officer who had sent for him, Professor Snodgrass set down on the ground the black box he had brought.

Then he suddenly saw a curious insect crawling along and became intent on its capture. The boys were watching him and paid no attention to the black box until they heard some one yell:

"Look out, boys! It's an infernal machine in there—a bomb! He's a spy and he's going to blow up the whole place. It's an infernal machine—I can hear the buzzing of the battery inside."

An American soldier, who had approached the box and had leaned over to inspect it, leaped away and began running as he cried out his warning. There was consternation among the officers and men outside the headquarters building, and Professor Snodgrass, pausing in his search for the elusive insect, gazed up in surprise at the commotion.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"Some one says there's a bomb in that black box of yours," explained Jerry.

"If there is, get it out of the way! Douse it in water. Throw it away. Look out!" yelled several.

One or two soldiers started for the black box, and others with ready bayonets for the professor, for there had been a number of spies discovered of late in that sector.

"Don't touch that box!" cried the professor. "Don't open it! Keep away from it!"

And, as he hurried toward it, the soldiers leaped back.



CHAPTER XXVI

A DISAPPEARANCE

"Halt!"

It was the ringing voice of one of the officers speaking, and so sharp was the tone that even Professor Snodgrass paused in his movement toward the black box.

"Don't go any further," went on the officer, who stood dominating the scene. "Some one secure that man, and then we'll dispose of the box. Take good care of him!" and he pointed to the scientist.

Ned Slade, Bob Baker, and Jerry Hopkins looked in astonishment at one another. What could it all mean?

"Zere must be some mistake," said the French officer who had escorted the professor to headquarters.

"Mistake? No!" exclaimed the American officer who had ordered a halt in the proceedings. "But it would be a mistake if we let him get near that black box. I heard all that was said. If that is a bomb the best way to let him carry out his plan would be to set it going, even if he destroyed himself. Some spies are capable of that."

"Spy!" cried Jerry, instinctively, forgetting that he was speaking to a superior officer. "Professor Snodgrass isn't a spy!"

"No, I am sure he is not!"

This was another officer speaking, one well known to the professor, and who knew him. In fact, it was this officer who had summoned the former instructor of Boxwood Hall to headquarters.

"Don't arrest the professor," went on the latter officer. "As for his black box, handle it just as he tells you."

"But, Colonel Lacombe," protested the officer who had interfered in the proceedings. "Surely you——"

"I understand it perfectly, Major Dustan," was the smiling reply. "I'm sure you'll find it all a mistake when I explain, or rather, when Professor Snodgrass explains. That is why I sent for him. Will you come this way, if you please, Professor? And bring the black box——"

At that instant the little scientist, who appeared to have recovered his composure on the appearance of his friend, the colonel, pointed to the black box which, all this while, had remained on the ground in front of the group of headquarters buildings.

"Look out!" shouted Professor Snodgrass. "The box has been opened by mistake. They're coming out! Run, everybody!"

Turning, he caught hold of Bob, who was nearest him, and began pulling him along.

The flight of the professor was contagious. Every one near turned and fled, and Jerry, looking over his shoulder, saw what seemed to be a black cloud of smoke coming from the black box.

The heart of the tall, young soldier seemed to fail him. After all, had a mistake been made? Was it possible that a spy was using the innocent and sometimes absent-minded professor for some base and terrible end? Could there have been a substitution made, and one of the harmless boxes of the scientist exchanged for a deadly bomb which he had, unwittingly, introduced at headquarters, so that, exploding, it might kill a number of valuable officers?

These thoughts flashed through Jerry's mind as he ran along beside Ned. The black cloud from the box was becoming more dense.

"Maybe it's only a smoke bomb," thought Jerry. "Or perhaps the powder, or whatever is in it, has become wet, because of so much rain, and is only burning instead of exploding. I hope so."

Then came a yell from some one. It was followed by several other cries of physical distress.

"Maybe it's a new kind of poison gas the Germans have taken this means to set off," mused Jerry as he leaped along. "But I don't smell anything. Could it be possible that spies have played this trick on the professor?"

Jerry well knew that even with all his absent-mindedness and his blind devotion to science, that Professor Snodgrass would never, willingly, do anything to harm the Allied cause.

And yet——

More yells came from the soldiers that had been gathered around the black box and who fled when Professor Snodgrass gave the alarm. And the yells began to come from some of the officers, too. They were not above giving vent to either pain or surprise.

And then suddenly Jerry felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck. At first he thought it might have come from some missile, discharged noiselessly from the black box. He clapped his hand to the seat of the pain and at once became aware that he had struck and crushed some small insect. It came away in his hand, twisting and curling in its death agony, and the pain in Jerry's neck increased.

"Why!" he cried as he saw the bug. "Why, it's a wasp! A wasp!"

"Of course it is!" said Professor Snodgrass, flapping his arms about his head, and Jerry now saw the reason. A number of vicious wasps were buzzing about them.

"They're wasps, with the worst stings of any I ever saw!" yelled the professor. "That's why I want to get away. I was stung by one of them once, and I'll never forget it. Look out! Here come more of 'em!"

There was a cloud of the wasps flying about Bob, Jerry, and the professor now, and the tall lad noted that the insects were also hovering around other soldiers and officers. There was a black cloud of them near the small case that had caused such a scare.

"Was that what was in the black box?" asked Jerry, as he dodged a wasp that seemed about to alight on his nose.

"Yes. Wasps," asserted the scientist. "The most war-like wasps I have been able to discover in this part of Europe. They are a cross breed of the Vespidae Polistes, Eumenes, and Odynerus, and for stings are not to be equalled."

"Wasps!" cried Jerry, as he swung and swatted at some still buzzing around him. "What in the world did you expect to do with them, Professor Snodgrass? And why did you have them in the black box?"

"I had them to show to one of the headquarters officers," was the answer. "But I think I had better postpone the explanation until we get rid of our pursuers. Let's go under those bushes. I think we shall be safe then," and the professor unceremoniously dived under a clump of shrubbery, an example followed by Jerry and some of the others.

Ned and Bob, who had managed to accompany the professor and their tall chum, were stung several times before they, also, found shelter beneath the thick leaves, and howls of pain from a number of soldiers indicated that they, too, felt the stings of the insects.

For a while there was as bad a rout of the headquarters staff as if the Germans had overwhelmed it. But finally the insects were dispersed, most of them flying off to the woods, while those that remained were beaten off, so that the officers and men began to drift back again. The professor and the Motor Boys came out of hiding, and then curious looks began to be cast at the scientist and the black box, which was now empty. The displaced cover showed how the wasps had gotten out.

"Is this the new weapon for causing a German retreat that you promised to show me?" asked the colonel of the professor, trying not to smile as he put the question.

"Yes," answered Professor Snodgrass, "it is. I am sorry, but I am afraid there are no specimens left to show you. Some one must have tampered with the fastening of the case, and the insects came out."

"I can offer personal testimony that they came out," said the colonel, trying not to squirm. "They came, they saw, and they conquered. And all I have to say is that I thank you for your interest in the matter, but that we shall have to decline to add your new and very efficient, but uncontrollable, weapon to the Allied armament."

"Does that mean you can't use the wasps?" asked the professor.

"I'm afraid it does," said the colonel. "You see they are too uncertain—like the poison gas the Germans first used. It came back on them. The wasps might do that to us."

"Yes," agreed the little scientist, "they might."

And then, as the last of the insects disappeared, and the headquarters staff came back from various places of refuge, Professor Snodgrass explained.

He had long wanted to do something to help the Allied cause, and thought perhaps it might be along the line of his studies of insects. Then the idea of wasps had come to him. He knew the vicious nature of the insects, and how fearlessly they would attack anything in their way. It was his idea that many thousands of the wasps might be propagated in artificial nests and loosed on the German armies preceding an attack by the Allies. The wasps would certainly cause disorder, if not a rout, he thought, and so he had communicated his idea to his friend, the colonel.

That is, he had communicated the fact that he had the idea, but he had not disclosed the nature of the "new weapon," as he called it in a note. Always willing to test anything new, the colonel had sent for the professor, inviting him to bring a model of the "new weapon" with him. The officer supposed the "weapon" might be a gun, projectile or powder.

"The idea was a good one in theory," said Jerry, as he and his chums went back with the professor, who carried the now empty black box.

"And it worked out all right in practice," declared Ned. "I never saw a quicker retreat."

"The only thing that spoils it, as the colonel said," added Bob, "is the inability of a wasp to distinguish between a friend and a foe. If they could be trained, now——"

"We'll delegate that to you," put in Ned.

"No, thanks! I'm stung badly enough as it is."

And the professor, sadly shaking his head over the failure of his scheme, went back to work further on his plan of making moving pictures of insects hopping about under the stimulus of the noise of big guns.

But for many a day the story of the wasps at headquarters was told up and down the firing line.

It was about a week after this, when preparations for the big attack had almost reached completion, that the three chums, having an hour or so to spare, thought to call on Professor Snodgrass. They went to the little house in the French village where he had been staying, and inquired for him.

"He has disappeared, Messieurs," answered the old woman who looked after the place.

"Disappeared!" echoed the boys blankly.

"Yes, Messieurs. He went out yesterday morning without his hat to chase after a butterfly he saw in the garden, and he did not come back. He has disappeared. I am sorry, for he was a nice man, though a trifle queer at times."

"Well, what do you know about that?" gasped Jerry, while his chums looked at him in wondering amazement.



CHAPTER XXVII

ST. MIHIEL

"What are we going to do?" asked Bob.

"What can we do?" Ned returned.

"Let's go after him and bring him back!" exclaimed the excitable Bob. "Maybe the Germans have him!"

"Then we'll not easily get him," said Jerry. "And, as a matter of fact, we can't even try."

"Why not?" asked Ned.

"Because we can't leave. All furloughs have been stopped these last three days. We may go into action any minute. If the professor is in trouble we can't help him."

"That seems hard," murmured Bob.

"It is," agreed Jerry. "But it's the fortune of war. We're here to fight, and we've got to do that when the time comes. It may be that the professor has only wandered off among our own soldiers, or those of the French or English, after a butterfly or some other bug."

"But without his hat!" exclaimed Bob.

"And gone more than a day!" added Ned.

"Those things wouldn't worry him," said Jerry. "Half the time he forgets his hat, and it is midsummer now. As for being gone more than a day, he's often spent longer than that chasing a single flea. He is used to camping out, and he'll get along somehow. We'll just have to let him go, that's all."

"I suppose so," agreed Ned; "but it's too bad."

It was, but there was nothing they could do. The professor might wander into the enemy's territory and be captured, or he might come safely back to the little French village.

"Though if he doesn't come back what are we to do with his things and about Professor Petersen's nieces?" asked Ned.

"The best we can," advised Jerry.

"After the war, if we're alive, we can look for the girls," suggested Bob.

"Pretty slim chance of finding 'em," murmured Ned.

"It wouldn't do much good, anyway, if we can't find the professor. The money was not left to us to divide," was Jerry's comment.

Jerry had spoken truly when he said that all leave had been stopped, for now were beginning the final great assaults of the American and Allied armies that were, if not actually to overwhelm the Huns, at least to approach so nearly that state that there was a distinction without a difference.

And it was well that Ned, Bob, and Jerry returned to their station when they did, for not ten minutes later the general order to move forward was given up and down the long line.

"Forward!" was the battle cry—the watchword that was to guide them all. "Forward!"

Forward they went, against Germany's best troops. Forward against a relentless and almost impregnable foe. Forward in the name of Humanity, Freedom, and Right. Forward all!

And as Ned, Bob, and Jerry marched with their comrades up to the firing lines there began that great movement of American troops which took part in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient—the wiping out of the great wedge the Germans had driven into France. And with the wiping out of this there began the final battle—the cleaning of the Argonne Forest which brought an end to the war.

For some time General Pershing and his general staff had looked forward to the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient. With that out of the way it meant the concentration of the American divisions in their own zone.

Late in August the line, beginning at Port sur Seille, east of the Moselle, and extending to the west through St. Mihiel, thence north to a point opposite Verdun, was placed under the supervision of the American commander. Later the American sector was extended across the Meuse to the western edge of the Argonne Forest, and included the Second Colonial French, which held the point of the salient and the Seventeenth French Corps, which occupied the heights above Verdun.

As Ned, Bob, and Jerry marched on with their comrades they saw, or became aware of, the immensity of the preparations needed to make this movement a success. For they had to move against a German position second to none in strength. To quote General Pershing:

"The preparation for a complicated operation against the formidable defenses in front of us included the assembling of divisions and of corps of army artillery, transport, aircraft, tanks, ambulances, the location of hospitals, and the molding together of all of the elements of a great modern army with its own railheads, supplied directly by our own Service of Supply. The concentration for this operation, which was to be a surprise, involved the movement, mostly at night, of approximately 600,000 troops, and required for its success the most careful attention to every detail.

"The French were generous in giving us assistance in corps and army artillery, with its personnel, and we were confident from the start of our superiority over the enemy in guns of all calibers. Our heavy guns were able to reach Metz and to interfere seriously with German rail movements. The French Independent Air Force was placed under my command which, together with the British bombing squadrons and our air forces, gave us the largest assembly of aviation that had ever been engaged in one operation on the western front."

It must not be imagined that all this great army went forward in a day or two, or that the battle lasted but a short time. On the other hand, it was a fight, tooth and nail, for almost every foot of the way. The battle line from Les Esparages, around the nose of the St. Mihiel salient to the Moselle River was about forty miles, and was greatly strengthened by artificial defenses. This gives some idea of the task ahead of General Pershing. If you will picture to yourself a distance from your own home, as you sit reading this, to some point distant forty miles, in the woods or mountains, and then figure this forty miles occupied by advancing troops, fighting against a ruthless foe, you will have some idea of the battle of St. Mihiel.

And it was forward into this battle that Ned, Bob, and Jerry and their comrades moved. It would be impossible to tell all that happened—of the surging forward into the face of devastating fire; of the men who fell at the sides of the chums, killed or desperately wounded; of the terrible and awful sights they saw. For days they fought on. Gaining ground here, losing, perhaps, a little there, hiding all night in rain-filled shell-holes, being driven out, but going back to recapture them again. On and on they went.

They were weary to death, but they kept on, and, for a wonder, such is sometimes the fortune of war, neither Ned, Bob, nor Jerry was seriously wounded. They received minor knocks, scratches, and bruises, and once Bob's cheek was grazed by a bullet. But they did not have to drop out of the fighting.

And it was fierce! No other word describes it. They fought, and fought, and fought again, onward, ever onward. For they must not stop. The American army did not know that word.

And then, after nearly two weeks of steady fighting, with only such rest for the exhausted troops as was absolutely necessary, came the final stage. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, staggering from weariness, took their places in line one gray morning.

Suddenly about them thundered great salvos of firing. It shook the very ground. The chums looked at one another in wonder.

"This must be another big show," shouted Jerry. He had to shout to be heard above the noise.

"It is," said Ned.

And it was. It was the final assault against the last of the German defenses in St. Mihiel.

"Forward!" came the cry, given after four hours of the greatest artillery barrage ever laid down. At five o'clock, on the morning of September 12th, seven American divisions in the front line advanced. They were assisted by tanks, manned by Americans and French, and there were groups of wire-cutters and other groups armed with bangalore torpedoes. "These," says General Pershing, in his report, "went through the successive bands of barbed wire that protected the enemy's front line and support trenches, in irresistable waves on schedule time, breaking down all defenses of an enemy demoralized by the great volume of our artillery fire, and our sudden approach out of the fog."

And forward, in their own modest and humble way, with this great army of liberation went Ned, Bob, and Jerry. Shooting and being shot at they went forward until the iron strength of the foe was broken, and the cry sounded:

"They're running away! We've got 'em beat!"

And thus it was. German troops were giving way in a rout. Let General Pershing tell it in his own simple way:

"Our 1st Corps advanced to Thiacourt, while our 4th Corps curved back to the southwest through Nonsard. The 2d Colonial French Corps made the slight advance required of it on very difficult ground, and the 5th Corps took its three ridges and repulsed a counter-attack. A rapid march brought reserve regiments of a division of the 5th Corps into Vigneulles in the early morning, where it linked up with patrols of our 4th Corps, closing the salient and forming a new line west of Thiacourt to Vigneulles and beyond Fresnes-en-Woevre. At the cost of only 7,000 casualties, mostly light, we had taken 16,000 prisoners and 443 guns, a great quantity of material, released the inhabitants of many villages from enemy domination, and established our lines in a position to threaten Metz. This signal success of the American First Army in its first offensive was of prime importance. The Allies found they had a formidable army to aid them, and the enemy learned finally that he had one to reckon with."

And that was the battle of St. Mihiel.



CHAPTER XXVIII

IN ARGONNE FOREST

"Well, I reckon we get a rest now, don't we?" asked Bob of his two chums, as they were ordered to report to a certain point with others of their command.

"A rest?" cried Ned. "Say, Chunky, I'm going to take a leaf out of your book and wish for something to eat."

"I guess we'll get that, but I doubt if we get much rest," put in Jerry Hopkins. "I can smell something cooking, but I don't see 'em getting any beds ready for us."

And Jerry proved a true prophet, for there was refreshment for the battle-worn troops—hot food which they very much needed.

"Have we got to fight some more?" asked Bob, as he ate his rations with every indication of appetite.

"I should say so!" cried Jerry. "Why, we've got to take the Argonne Forest yet, and that's going to be worse than this."

And it was.

Without giving his divisions a rest, which he dared not do, General Pershing, on the day after the capture of St. Mihiel, sent some of them toward the area back of the line between the Meuse River and the western edge of the Forest of Argonne. Though the fighting to gain St. Mihiel had been terrific, with this out of the way the German line was still intact from Switzerland to the east of Rheims. The general attack, all along this line, was with the hope of cutting it, and the part assigned to the American armies was, as the hinge of the Allied offensive, directed toward important railway communications of the German armies through Mezieres and Sedan.

Knowing that the Germans realized what it would mean to them to lose the Argonne Forest, General Pershing and his staff made every preparation for success. To this end as much secrecy as possible marked the advance of the Americans.

Says General Pershing:

"We expected to draw the best German divisions to our front, and to consume them, while the enemy was held under grave apprehension lest our attack should break his line, which it was our firm purpose to do."

Ringing words that will go down in history to the honor of America!

And with this advance, fighting as they went, Ned, Bob, and Jerry, and thousands of their brave comrades, dashed forward into what was to be one of the bloodiest and most desperate engagements of the war. To let General Pershing tell the story in part, by quoting again from his wonderful report:

"On the night of September 25th our troops quietly took the place of the French who thinly held the line in this sector, which had long been inactive. In the attack which began on the 26th we drove through the barbed-wire entanglements and the sea of shell craters across No Man's Land, mastering all the first-line defenses. Continuing on the 27th and 28th, against machine guns and artillery of an increasing number of enemy reserve divisions, we penetrated to a depth of from three to seven miles and took the village of Montfaucon and its commanding hill and Exermont, Gercourt, Cuisy, Septsarges, Malancourt, Ivoiry, Epinonville, Charpentry, Very, and other villages. East of the Meuse one of our divisions, which was with the 2d Colonial French Corps, captured Marcheville and Rieville, giving further protection to the flank of our main body. We had taken 10,000 prisoners, we had gained our point of forcing the battle into the open, and were prepared for the enemy's reaction, which was bound to come, as he had good roads and ample railroad facilities for bringing up his artillery and reserves.