ho had been looking at them
wonderingly. "Oh, then hurry! For they are going to hang him. They
put a rope over the tree near the well and said they would hang him
when they got through eating and drinking."

Hang Tom! If there had been any hesitation before, there was none now.
The chums would have run every step of the way if the corporal had not
restrained them. As it was they covered the mile in double-quick time.

As they came to where the farm bordered on the woods and caught sight
of the house, their eyes turned with dread toward the well. An
exclamation of heartfelt relief broke from them. The rope was there as
the girl had said, but no hideous burden dangled from it.

No one was in sight, and a death-like silence brooded over the place.
They waited in the shelter of the trees. Perhaps the enemy had
recovered and was waiting for them with a force three times their own.

Five minutes passed. Then the corporal gave an order.

"Fix bayonets! We're going to rush the house."

There was a sharp click.

"Charge!"

With a cheer they rushed across the brief space that separated them
from the house and up to the open door.

The corporal looked in.

"Put up your guns, boys," he said quietly. "We've got them."

The others crowded after him into the long low-ceiled room. The enemy
had been delivered into their hands. There, sprawled over the floor in
all sorts of ungainly attitudes among the smashed furniture, were the
invaders in various stages of stupor. Some of them opened their eyes
at the sudden interruption and stared hard at the newcomers. The
lieutenant himself sat at the table on which his head had fallen
forward.

But the Army Boys did not tarry long. A word of permission from the
corporal and they bounded up the narrow stairs and burst into the room
where the girl had said Tom had been left.

The room was empty!

They searched and called frantically.

"Tom! Tom! Where are you? Come out! It's friends, Frank, Billy,
Bart!"

They looked in every cranny and corner of the house upstairs and then
down. Then they rushed out to the barn. Then with fear at their
hearts they sounded the well.

All was to no purpose. Tom--if it had really been Tom--might have
vanished into thin air for any trace they found of him.

Where had he gone? What had become of him? Or, worst of all, what had
the enemy done to him?

There was no answer, and at last they rejoined their comrades in the