"And there's Franz, too," he told himself. "But he's been missing so long now that it's hardly possible he'll ever come back—at least, until after the war is over and prisoners are exchanged."
But Bob was to meet Franz Schnitzel sooner than he expected, and under strange circumstances.
"Well, I wonder what the next move will be," remarked Bob to a fellow soldier one day about a week after the big advance in which Roger and Jimmy had been lost sight of. Since that time there had been only slight engagements between patrols of the Americans and the Huns.
"Oh, there'll be more fighting," was the answer from a young soldier named Harry Blondell, with whom Bob had become friendly. "There's got to be more fighting. I guess our officers are laying pipes for another big scrap that'll carry us clear into Germany."
"That would be some advance!" laughed Bob. "But, at the same time, the Boches may be planning to come through our lines again."
"Well, we'll be ready for 'em," declared Harry. "I never felt better in all my life. This hard fighting and living in the mud and wet seems to agree with me."
"Glad you're fit!" declared Bob. "The Kaiser'll probably be worried when he hears you're ready to take the field again against his divisions."
"No doubt!" chuckled Harry.
The truth of the matter was that, aside from wounds, the health of the American soldiers was excellent in spite of adverse conditions due to the climate. They could be wet to the skin day after day, and yet few of them took colds, and many of them were delicate lads who, up to a few months before, would not have thought of going out in the rain without rubbers and an umbrella.
It was one evening when Bob and Iggy, together with many of their comrades, were preparing to go on duty for their night tricks that a rumor started somewhere in the trenches to the effect that a big battle impended on the morrow.