“What’s become of the Clown Prince?” grinned Frank.
“Oh, he’s skipped too, just the same as papa,” laughed Tom. “They don’t know just yet where he’s gone to, but he’s also among the missing.”
“They’re a precious pair,” grunted Billy. “But it won’t do them any good. The Allies will get after them yet and yank them out of their holes.”
“We’ll hope so,” said Frank. “I’d like to have them both put in a cage and exhibited in every city of the world. But let’s lay off his royal nibs and get down to brass tacks. How do you know we’re going to the Rhine?”
“I don’t exactly know that we are,” confessed Tom. “But I do know that a big army of our men are going, and it stands to reason that since we’re the nearest to the Rhine, we’ll be in the bunch. At any rate, even if our special regiment isn’t going, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble in taking the place of some of the others who would rather go back to the States right away. Are you game to go if we can make it? I am.”
“Same here,” ejaculated Billy.
“I am too,” said Frank a little more slowly. “The only thing is that under other circumstances I’d be anxious to get home on my mother’s account. But I’ve got to stay over here anyway until her property affairs are all closed up. So I’m with the rest of the bunch.”
“Good!” said Tom and Billy in one breath.
“You see it’s this way,” went on Tom, referring to his notes. “The Allies are going to occupy all the German territory on this side of the Rhine. Then in certain parts they’re going to cross the Rhine. You see there are three great crossings, one at Coblenz, one at Mayence and another at Cologne. The Allies are going to occupy a bridgehead eighteen miles in size on the other side of the Rhine at these crossings. That’ll cage up the Heinies so that they couldn’t get back into France and Belgium even if they wanted to.”
“Won’t they feel sore to have Allied soldiers on the sacred soil of Germany!” grinned Billy.