"After them, boys!" yelled Frank, leaping to his feet. "They're at the mouth of the alley. I saw the flash from their guns."
He sped for the street with his comrades close upon his heels, their pistols drawn and ready for instant use.
CHAPTER II
WRAPPED IN MYSTERY
The Army Boys looked eagerly about them when they reached the street, but could see no one. It was as though the earth had opened and swallowed the men who had sought their lives.
They scattered and ran in every direction, searching all hallways and side streets for blocks around, but nothing rewarded their endeavors, and it was a bedraggled and exasperated quartette that finally came together again to compare notes and report failure.
"Never saw anything like it in my life!" snorted Tom. "It's as though we were all bewitched. Somebody's wished a jinx on us. Some ghosts are putting up a job on us."
"There was nothing ghostly about that bullet that knocked the flashlight out of my hand or those other bullets that came singing over our heads while we were hugging the ground," said Frank grimly. "If I don't get to the bottom of this, you can call me a Chinaman."
"It gets my goat to think of those Heinies chuckling to themselves because they put one over on us," gritted Billy between his teeth.
"They laugh best who laugh last," growled Bart. "They'll laugh on the other side of their mouth when we lay hands on them."