"Good!" exclaimed Dunton. "That means that we're still in the occupied zone. We'll just ask this bird where we are."
Inquiring of the sentry, they learned that they had landed at Montabaur, which was on the very edge of the zone occupied by the American Army. The sentry gave them directions as to the best way to reach camp. They arrived there without further mishap, and separated, the two friends hastening to their barracks, and Dunton to his headquarters to make a report on the loss of the balloon.
Great was the joy of Tom and Billy at seeing their comrades safe and sound, as they had been under intense anxiety concerning them.
"But we might have known better than to have worried about you," said Billy finally, after he and Tom had heard the story of their adventure. "I had a hunch all along that you'd both come piking along sometime to-night or to-morrow, and after this, I refuse to worry in any degree about you. It serves you right, anyway, for going up without us."
"Well, in the future, you can go up without me all you want to," laughed Frank. "How about it, Bart?"
"You said it," acquiesced Bart heartily. "I'm off that parachute stuff for all time. I know when I've had enough, and this is one of the times."
"The way it looks around here," said Billy soberly, "it isn't going to be necessary to go up in the air to find excitement. All the evening we've been hearing reports of big riots going on in Coblenz, and everybody says we're likely to be called out to- morrow to do a little suppressing act."
CHAPTER XIII
GERMAN RIOTING
For once rumor had not overstated things. The most turbulent rioting the city had ever seen started the next day, and, in spite of all the efforts of the authorities, seemed to increase in intensity as the day wore on. The German authorities seemed to be utterly helpless to cope with the situation, and finally the American troops had to be called upon to quell the disturbances.