“To save my brother I could,” said Nellie simply. “I would do anything for him!”
“I know you would,” murmured Bessie.
“But it would just be throwing yourself away!” exclaimed Jack, coming to the help of his chum, who was gazing helplessly at him in this new crisis. “Tell her, Mrs. Gleason,” he went on, “that it is utterly impossible, even if the army authorities would let her. Even if she should give herself up to the Germans, they wouldn't keep any agreement they made to exchange her brother. They'd simply keep both of them.”
“Yes, I think they would,” said Mrs. Gleason. “It is out of the question, my dear,” and gently she laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. “That is very fine and noble of you, but it would be wrong, for it would not save your brother, and you would certainly be made a prisoner yourself. And of the horrors of the German prison—at least some where the infantrymen have been kept, I dare not tell you. I imagine it must be better where the airmen are captured,” she went on, for she feared that if she painted too black a picture of what Harry might suffer his sister would not be held back by anything, and might sacrifice herself uselessly.
“But what am I do?” asked Nellie, helplessly. “I want Harry so much! We all want him! Oh, isn't there something? Can't you save him?” and she held out her hands appealingly to Torn and Jack.
There was a moment of silence, and then Tom burst out with:
“Well, I may as well speak now as later, and I'll tell you what I've made up my mind to do. Yes, it's a new plan I've worked out,” he went on, as Jack looked at him curiously. “I haven't told even you, old man, as it wasn't quite ready yet. But it's a scheme that may succeed, now that we know definitely where Harry is, from what the German patrol said. He isn't so far away as when we dropped the packages in the prison camp, though we don't yet know that he was there at the time we did our stunt. However, if this new plan succeeds we may have a chance to find out.”
“How?” asked Nellie, eagerly.
“By talking to Harry himself.”
“How are you going to do that?” demanded Bessie.