"It makes me grit my teeth to think of the humane way we treat the men we capture, and then compare it with the way the Huns treat our soldiers," said Frank bitterly. "Look at the German prisoners we saw working on the roads that time we went away on furlough. Plenty of food, kind treatment, good beds. Why, lots of those fellows are living better than they ever did in their own country. They're getting fat with good living." "Nothing like that in German prison camps," growled Bart. "Horrible food, mouldy crusts, rotten meat, and not enough of that to keep body and soul together. In a few months the men are little more than skeletons. They work them sixteen or eighteen hours a day in all kinds of weather. They set dogs on them and prod them with bayonets. Did you read of the forty they tortured to death by swinging them by their bound arms for hours at a time in freezing weather?" "It's no mistake to call the Germans Huns," snapped Billy, clenching his fists. "No," agreed Frank, "but it's rough on the Huns." CHAPTER V NICK RABIG TURNS UP "Guess who's here," said Billy a few mornings later, as he came up to Bart and Frank. "Give you three guesses." "That's generous," remarked Frank. "Well, I'll bite. Who is it? The Kaiser?" "Come off." "The Crown Prince?" "Quit your kidding." "I know," said Bart. "Hindenburg." "Blathering boobs, both of you," pronounced Billy. "But with your limited intellects one ought to be patient. I'll give you one more chance. Think of the fellow you like the least in all the world." "Nick Rabig!" the others exclaimed in one breath. "Right," grinned Billy. "I knew that would get you. Nick seems to be as popular with you as poison ivy at a church picnic." "What cat dragged it in?" groaned Bart. "Our unlucky day," growled Frank. "I knew something would happen when I picked up the wrong shoe this morning." "But how did he get back?" asked Bart, his curiosity overcoming his repugnance. "Came in on his own feet," replied Billy. "Escaped, so he says, after performing prodigies of valor. To hear Nick talk you'd think he'd wiped out half the German army." His comrades laughed. "I suppose we ought to kill the fatted calf," said Frank sarcastically. "Where's the calf?" asked Bart. "Unless we take Billy here," he added as an afterthought. He dodged the pass that Billy made at him, and just then Fred Anderson, another young soldier, strolled up. "Heard the news?" he inquired. "About Nick Rabig? Yes," replied Frank. "Billy's just been telling us about it." "Bad news travels fast," growled Bart. "Nick doesn't seem to cut much ice with you fellows," commented Fred. "I never thought much of him myself, but you seem to have it in for him especially. I suppose it's because he tried to play that dirty trick on Frank in the boxing bout."