Excerpt
CHAPTER I THE FLASH FROM THE GUNS
"I tell you, Bart, I don't like the looks of things," remarked Frank Sheldon to his chum, Bart Raymond, as the two stood on a corner in the German city of Coblenz on the Rhine.
"What's on your mind?" inquired Bart, as he drew the collar of his raincoat more snugly around his neck and turned his back to the sleet-laden wind that was fairly blowing a gale. "I don't see anything to get stirred up about except this abominable weather. It's all I can do to keep my feet."
"It is a pretty tough night to be out on patrol duty," agreed Frank. "But it wasn't that I was thinking about. It's the way these Huns have been acting lately."
"Are you thinking of that sergeant of ours that was found stabbed to death the other night?" asked Bart, with quickened interest.
"Not so much that," replied Frank, "although that's one of the things that shows the way the wind is blowing. But it's the surly way the whole population is acting. Haven't you noticed it?"
"There certainly is a difference," admitted Bart. "Everything was peaches and cream when we first came. The people fairly fell over themselves in trying to tell us how glad they were to have the Americans here instead of the French and English. Now they're getting chesty again. A couple of fellows passed me a little while ago who looked at me as if they'd like to slip a knife into me if they dared."
"They hate us all right," declared Frank. "It makes them sore as the mischief to have Americans keeping the watch on the Rhine. They're mad enough to bite nails every time they're reminded of it."
"And that's pretty often," laughed Bart, "for they can't go out into the street without seeing an American uniform somewhere. We've got this old town pretty well policed, and if any trouble starts we'll put it down in a jiffy."
"Well, trouble's coming all right," prophesied Frank. "There are lots of new faces in the city, fellows who seem to have come from the outside. You know Germany's being ripped up the back everywhere by mobs, and the red flag is flying in Berlin. I have a hunch that these outsiders have come to start the same thing here."
"If they do they'll get more than they bargained for," said Bart grimly. "They'll find they're monkeying with a buzz saw. What our fellows would do to them would be a sin and a shame. But here come Tom and Billy, if I'm any sort of a guesser."
"Right you are," replied Frank, as he descried two uniformed figures approaching, their heads bent away from the icy gale which was increasing in fury as the night wore on.
"Hello, fellows," was the greeting that came from one of the newcomers, as they came into the flickering light of the street lamp, near which Frank Sheldon and Bart Raymond were standing. "This is a dandy night to be out patrolling—I don't think."
"A good night for ducks, Tom," replied Frank with a laugh.
"For polar bears, if you ask me," put in Billy Waldon, Tom's companion, as he shook the drops from his raincoat. "How would it be to be back in the barracks just now lapping up a smoking hot cup of coffee?...