"See you later, old man," said the surgeon's assistant to Jimmy. "Hope you get out of this dump soon."
"Same here," and Jimmy smiled. He did not feel the pain so much now, for he was thinking of something else.
"Bixton!" he said to himself. "Aleck and Wilbur Bixton! Where have I heard that name Bixton before? Was it——Ha! I have it! Back at Camp Sterling! Private Bixton! The rascal we helped send to prison, where he belonged. No wonder that name stuck in my mind! He's in prison still, I'm sure, for he was given a long term for desertion and rascality."
Readers of the first volume of the Khaki Boys series will, no doubt, readily recall the incidents referred to.
"Bixton!" mused Jimmy. "It isn't a common name. And yet there may be more than one who can lay claim to it. I wonder if these two Bixtons in the signal corps can be any relation to the Bixton we knew. Let's see—what was his first name—um—no, I can't recall it. Don't know that I ever heard it. But the Bixton part sticks in my mind.
"And I'm sure these two Bixtons—Aleck and Wilbur—were in the dugout with the suspicious-looking civilians. Now, of course, there may be nothing wrong in that, and yet if they're any relation to Private Bixton, late of Camp Sterling, I shouldn't put it past them to have been up to something crooked. The thing to do is to find out for sure if the two here are related to the one left behind. That's what I'll do as soon as I get on my feet! Say, maybe I'm on the track of as queer a mystery as the poison one back in camp!"
Jimmy was not quite as strong as he had thought, for, after trying to puzzle this out and piece together the various threads of thought in his mind, he felt very much exhausted. A little later he was sent to a temporary hospital, where he remained for three days.
During this time Jimmy had no chance to pursue his inquiries about the Bixtons. But he did a lot of thinking. Meanwhile, the tide of battle lulled, but it was only temporary—everyone knew that.
There came a day when Jimmy could rejoin his friends, and he found Iggy with them ready to welcome him, for the Polish lad had recovered from his injuries sustained in the dugout.
"Well, how do you feel, Jimmy?" asked Roger.