“Scotti!” they called. “Scotti!”
Dick ran to the cave entrance and called out to the men above, “Look out! There still may be some more in the woods below.”
But no shot came from there, and Max, Vince, and Slade scrambled down the hill into the cave.
“What kept you so long?” Dick asked.
“Well, first we waited to see just what went on at the dam,” Vince said. “It went out—every bit of it—dam, power house, water, and all! It was beautiful to watch. And then on the way back here we ran into a few Germans. We didn’t have any guns ourselves, but we sort of took them by surprise and handled them with bare knuckles. That’s where Max picked up the gun he used on the fellow that was about to visit you. Only one of the Germans we met had a gun and that’s it. The others were so panicky because of the flood that they’d forgotten them. But that little tussle delayed us a bit. Sorry.”
“Wonder where Tony is?” Dick mumbled. But before anyone had time to answer they heard the pounding of many feet. They grabbed up guns and waited at the entrance tensely. Then Vince let out a war whoop that rang through the woods.
“It’s our boys!” he shouted. “It’s our own Army!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AFTERMATH
They were all in the town of Maletta again, two months later. It looked cleaner and neater than when they had first seen it, for the townspeople and the U. S. Army engineers had done a first-rate job of cleaning out the mud and trash left by the flood waters.