"In a hurry to get back are you?" laughed Frank. "Well, I don't blame you, old man. Billy tells me that Alice has been crying her pretty eyes out ever since you disappeared. But I suppose we'll have to hang around here for a few days yet. There's a lot to be done in cleaning out the Spartacides and getting the town in proper condition. The lieut. won't go back till he's finished the job. But you needn't worry, for by this time he's telephoned the whole thing over to Coblenz, and the authorities there know that you're safe and sound. It's a safe bet that Alice has already learned the good news."
Frank's conjecture turned out to be correct, for it was nearly a week before the lieutenant concluded that his work in the town was done. Then the column took up its march in a jubilant mood, for their comrade, who was a prime favorite in the regiment, had been rescued and the work had been done in the deft and finished way that marked the traditions of the American Army.
Tom and Billy slipped away as soon as they could obtain leave after they reached the city, and there was not any doubt in any one's mind as to their destination. Nor on their return to the barracks that night, bubbling over with glee and high spirits, was there any question but that their visit had been a thoroughly satisfactory one. If traces of his captivity were still visible in Tom's rather hollow cheeks and shrunken waistband, they had entirely disappeared from his manner.
His comrades had of course told him of their adventure in connection with the trap door, and he was all agog with interest in their recital of their battle with the rats, scars of whose bites were still visible as evidence if any had been necessary.
"It must have been some fight!" he remarked, with a touch of envy. "Gee! I'd like to have been with you. Too bad, though, that you didn't find out what you went after. Of course you're not going to give it up?"
"You bet your life we're not!" answered Frank emphatically. "Give it up isn't in our dictionary. We're going to search that place again, rats or no rats, only the next time we'll have clubs and be ready for them."
"That's the way to talk!" cried Tom. "That'll give me a chance to get in on the game."
"I don't know that the rats will trouble us next time," put in
Billy. "You'll remember that it was only after we got past that
place where the light was that we came across them in any numbers.
Their stamping ground seemed to be further on."
"That seems likely enough," agreed Bart. "The light being there showed that somebody had been using the passage without hindrance. We simply had the hard luck to get in the quarter where the rats were thickest. At any rate, well take another chance."
That chance was not as soon in coming as they had hoped for, however, for Coblenz was now seething with unrest. The disorders that were prevalent all over Germany were manifesting themselves in the region of the Rhine. Scarcely a day passed without an outrage of some kind being reported. Several American soldiers were found stabbed in the street by unknown assassins. Agitators from Berlin were slipping into the city and trying to stir up insurrection. It was feared that the sharp lesson given on a previous occasion would have to be repeated.