CHAPTER XXI
PAYING A DEBT
Frank gave a start of surprise as he saw who his opponent was to be,and Bart, who was acting as Frank's second, leaned over him with a wordof warning.
"Keep your eye peeled, Frank," he advised. "You know what Rabig is andthe way he feels toward you. This is just a scheme of his to get even.He isn't coming up here for a friendly bout. He wants to show you upand knock you out if he can."
"Oh, I don't know," said Frank, unconcernedly. "But if he tries onanything like that I'll give him all he's looking for."
Rabig's second, Werner, one of the few friends he had in the regimentand who like himself was suspected of pro-German leanings, or at leastlukewarmness in the service, took a long time in putting on hisprincipal's gloves, and Bart, who was watching him with the eye of ahawk, stepped across the platform to witness the operation.
"Let me look at those gloves," he demanded.
"What's the matter with them?" growled Werner.
"This is the matter with them," said Bart, as he pointed to the partjust above where the knuckles came and where the stuffing of the glovehad been kneaded aside so that a blow given would be almost like onewith the bare fist.
"None of that skin-tight business here," said Bart.
He pounded the glove until it was normal and then handed it back, notgoing to his own corner, however, until they had been fastened onRabig's hands to his own satisfaction.
"That cur can't play fair in anything," he remarked to Frank as he cameback.
The bell rang and the men came from their corners toward the center ofthe platform.
Frank extended his hand in the customary greeting but Rabig refused totake it. There was a stir in the audience.
"Looks like a grudge fight," remarked one, with quickened interest.
"It does on Rabig's part," assented his neighbor. "But if it comes tothat I'm betting on Sheldon to trim him."
The boxers sparred for a moment, Frank cool and smiling, Rabig surlyand furious. Then Frank found an opening and landed a deft uppercutthat shook Rabig from head to foot.
He rushed at Frank like a mad bull but Frank cleverly side-stepped andcountered with a left to the ear. Of the two Rabig was the heavier andin Camport had won a reputation as a rough and tumble fighter.
Stung by Frank's cleverly planted blows, he threw what little sciencehe had to the winds and the next minute the two were at it, hammer andtongs.
"I'll do you!" Rabig panted, as he slugged right and left, vainlyendeavoring to get through Frank's guard.
"Go as far as you like," retorted the latter, emphasizing the retortwith a left jab that nearly lifted Rabig off his feet.
The bell that announced the end of the round found Rabig winded by hisfurious endeavors. But Frank, though breathing a little heavily, wasserene and confident, as he returned to his corner.
"I told you he was in dead earnest," said Bart, as his principal satdown on his stool for a minute's rest. "Look out for fouls, Frank.He'll do anything to down you."
In the round that followed, Bart's warning was amply justified. Rabigin one of the clinches, as he leaned on Frank's shoulder, tried to biteand he butted continually.
"Cut that out, Rabig," warned Frank in a low tone, after the latter hadtwice used his head as a battering ram. "My patience won't lastforever."
"I'll get you yet!" gasped Rabig.
Once more he drove his head at Frank's chin and the latter, nowthoroughly aroused by the foul tactics, let fly his right and caughthis burly adversary fairly on the point of the jaw.
Down went Rabig like a shot. Frank generously reached out his hand tohelp him to his feet, but Rabig struck it away and just here CorporalWilson intervened.
"That'll do," he commanded. "We don't want any knockout. Sheldonwins."
Frank with a smile and wave of the hand stripped off his gloves andleft the platform, to be pounded and mauled in exultation by hisadmiring comrades.
Meanwhile, Rabig slunk away followed by hisses and jeers at the foultactics that after all had only resulted in the beating he so richlydeserved.
"You trimmed him good, Frank," cried Tom exultantly.
"You went around him like a cooper around a barrel," jubilated Billy.
"I guess if you owed him anything, you've paid the score," chuckledBart. "I've been aching for months to see that bully get what wascoming to him."
"I didn't want to hurt him," said Frank, good-naturedly. "But when hecame butting at me that way and even trying to bite, I simply had tolace him. But even now I haven't a bit of grudge against the fellow."
"He'll sing small after this," prophesied Tom. "But all the same,Frank, keep your weather eye open. He'll do you a mischief if he evergets the chance."
It was just after the noonday mess the next day, and the boys werechatting in front of the mill, when Frank, looking carelessly down theroad, gave a startled exclamation.
"Look what's coming, fellows!" he cried.
They came up all standing and looked in the direction indicated.
"By the great horn spoon!" ejaculated Tom. "Have I got the deliriumtremens?"
"It's a nightmare," declared Billy.
Up the dusty road was coming the weirdest creation that the boys hadever seen. It looked like a great hulking rhinoceros. It moved alongslowly and ponderously, as though it were straining under a burden tooheavy to be borne.
The sun reflected from its sides showed that it was coated with metal.There were openings in the armor through which the muzzles of machineguns protruded. Around its huge wheels there passed what seemed to bea broad endless chain that formed a path on which the wheels traveled.There was no driver to be seen and it came lumbering along like a blindmonster feeling its way. But although its progress was leisurely itwas sure, and the boys as they watched it gathered an impression ofalmost irresistible force.
"I've read of the car of Juggernaut," muttered Tom as it came nearer,"and I guess this must be it."
"It's going into the ditch!" exclaimed Bart, as the monster gave alurch into a deep depression at the side of the road.
"It'll topple over sure!" prophesied Billy.
But the prophecy proved false for the car righted itself from an almostimpossible angle and came on as doggedly as before.
Just before it got to where the boys were standing it came to a halt, adoor opened and a young fellow of about their own age leaped out.
He was strong and well built, with hair that crisped in curly wavesclose to his head and a pair of merry blue eyes that spoke of fun andgood fellowship.
"Hello, fellows!" he exclaimed, waving the formality of an introductionand wiping the perspiration from his forehead. "My, but it's hot inthere!"
They crowded round him in eager curiosity.
"Where did you dig up this rig?" asked Billy. "Is it real or is it alla hideous dream?"
The newcomer laughed.
"You don't seem to be stuck on my pet," he grinned. "I'll admit sheisn't much on beauty, but when she comes to scrapping she's a holyterror."
"She looks it," agreed Frank. "I'd hate to have her bump up against mewhen she was in a bad temper."
"That's the way the Huns feel," laughed their new acquaintance. "Theyhaven't any use for tanks. You ought to see the way we got 'em in thebattle of the Somme."
"Were you there?" asked Tom.
"Very much there," was the answer. "This old rascal of mine was rightin the thick of it."
"You English have all the luck!" exclaimed Bart enviously.
"English nothing," replied the operator. "I'm an American just as youare. My name is Stone, Will Stone, and I was born in Detroit."
"Bully!" exclaimed Frank, and there was a general handshake andintroductions all around.
"But how did you get over here before the rest of us?" queried Bart.
"Well," laughed Will, "you know Windsor in Canada is just across theriver from Detroit and I slipped across and enlisted with the Canadiantroops.
I knew a good deal about automobiles--everybody in Detroitdoes, because there are so many plants there--and when these tanks wereready for use and they called for volunteers I was Johnny-on-the-spot."
"You chose a hot branch of the service, all right," commented Tom. "Ifyou were looking for excitement I guess you got it."
"You're a good guesser," grinned Will. "When you're climbing overtrenches and crashing through walls and rooting up trees, with bulletspattering against the sides like hailstones on a roof, the fellow whocan't get enough excitement out of it is pretty hard to please. Butcome along, you fellows, and I'll show you over the old shebang if youcare to look at it."
They needed no second invitation, and for the next half hour there wasa volley of questions and answers as they examined the offensive anddefensive qualities of the grim monster that had carried consternationinto the German ranks.
"Well, so long, fellows," said Will, when at last he climbed into thetank and set its unwieldy bulk in motion. "Here's hoping that we meetagain soon."
"In Berlin, if not sooner!" Frank shouted after him.
A few days later one of the French colonels visited the camp. Afterhis formal reception by the American officers he made a tour ofinspection, going among the men, looking over the barracks and askinginnumerable questions.
There was an absence of pomp and ceremony about him that wascharacteristic of the French officers who, perhaps more than those ofany other nation, live on terms of simple comradeship with their men,and the boys, to use Billy's phrase, "cottoned to him" at once.
Unfortunately he knew little English and as the boys knew still lessFrench, conversation was halting and difficult. The officer's delightthen, can be imagined when, on addressing a question to Frank, thelatter responded in French as pure as his own.
"Why, my boy," said Colonel Pavet, "you speak as though you were a sonof France."
"A stepson, perhaps," replied Frank, smilingly. "For my mother is adaughter of France!"