rank. "That was the very best day's work you
ever did."

"Got the goods on him at last," exulted Bart.

"The only man in the old Thirty-seventh that has played the yellow
dog," commented Billy. "The regiment's well rid of him. He'll never
dare to show his face again."

"He can fight for Germany now," said Frank, "and if he does, I only
hope that some day I'll run across him in the fighting."

"You won't if he sees you first," grinned Billy. "He doesn't want any
of your game."

Tom had left one thing till the last.

"By the way, Frank," he remarked casually, "I ran across a fellow in
the German prison camp who came from Auvergne, the same province where
you've told me your mother lived when she was a girl. He said he knew
her family well."

"Is that so?" asked Frank with quick interest. "What was his name?"

"Martel," replied Tom.

"Why that's the name of the butler who used to be in my mother's
family!" cried Frank. "Colonel Pavet was telling me that he had been
captured, and had died in prison. I was hoping that he was mistaken in
that, for the colonel said he had information that might help my mother
to get her property."

"The colonel is right about the man's dying," replied Tom, "for I was
with him when he died."

"It's too bad," said Frank dejectedly.

"I shouldn't wonder if he did not know something," said Tom, "for he
seemed to have something on his mind. He told me one time that his
imprisonment and sickness happened as a judgment on him."

"If we could only have had his testimony before he died," mourned Frank.

"I got it," declared Tom triumphantly.

CHAPTER XXIII

CUTTING THEIR WAY OUT

Frank sprang to his feet.

"What do you mean?" he cried.

"Just this," replied Tom, taking the confession from his pocket. "He
told me the whole story and there it is in black and white, names of
witnesses and all."

Frank read the confession with growing excitement, while his comrades
clustered closely around him.

"Tom, old scout!" Frank exclaimed, as the whole significance of the
confession dawned upon him, "you've done me a service that I'll never
forget. Now we can see our way clear, and my mother will come into her
rights."

"I'm mighty glad, old boy," replied Tom with a happy smile. "I've held
on to that paper through thick and thin, because I knew what it would
mean to you and your mother. But now," he went on, "I've been
answering the questions of all this bunch and tu