"And here's something else," put in Billy pointing to where the address would naturally be looked for. "See those letters d-f-o-r——"
"It's dollars to doughnuts that that stands for 'Bradford,'" Frank shouted. "A card from Camport to Tom Bradford. Boys, we didn't guess wrong that day. That was Tom that that brute of a lieutenant was going to hang!"
They were tingling with excitement and delight. To be sure, they did not know what had become of their friend. But he had escaped from this house. He was perhaps within a few miles of them. He was, at any rate, not eating his heart out in a distant prison camp.
Then to Frank came the thought of Rabig. Perhaps Tom hadn't escaped. Perhaps Rabig had added murder to the crime of treason of which they were sure he was guilty.
"Are you sure that you haven't found anything else that would help us in finding our friend?" he asked of the girl, whose face was beaming at the pleasure she had been able to give to her deliverers.
"No," she answered. "There is nothing else. I am sorry."
"Let's take a look around the house again, fellows," suggested Frank. "We may have overlooked something the other day. It's only a chance, but let's take it."
They made a careful circuit of the house, but nothing rewarded the search until Frank, with an exclamation, picked up some pieces of rope that had been lying in the grass not far from the window from which the prisoner had dropped.
"Are these yours?" he asked of the girl who had accompanied them and had been as ardent in the search as themselves.
She examined them.