With the utmost caution he tiptoed back, and finding the room, not without some difficulty, bent over the sleepers. They were dead with sleep and he had to shake them to get them wide awake, but the news he whispered to them had them on edge and ready for action in an instant.

They crowded together for a whispered conference.

"What would we better do?" asked Billy.

"There's just one thing to do," said Frank, "and that is to nab the whole bunch. That is," he went on, "if we find that they're really hatching mischief, as Bart thinks. I've picked up enough German in the last few months to be able to understand what they're talking about, and on a pinch I could even talk with them after we've got them under our guns."

"But are you sure we have any right to arrest them?" asked Bart, a little doubtfully.

"Sure we have," answered Frank promptly. "You said they were armed, didn't you?"

"Yes," replied Bart.

"That's all the excuse we need then to nip this thing in the bud,"

Frank answered. "It's against regulations for the Germans to carry arms in the zone occupied by the American army, and any one who does is liable to arrest on sight. See that your guns are all right, fellows, and come along. I have a hunch that we're going to give these plotters a surprise party. But we'll listen first and make sure before we pinch them."

Bart went in advance to show the way, and his comrades crept after him, drifting along like so many ghosts.

The conference was still in progress, but it had somewhat changed its character. When Bart had been listening, it had been a debate in which all were taking more or less part. Now the man with the red beard was making a speech. He had taken the red flag from the gun muzzle and waved it from time to time to punctuate his remarks. He had worked himself up into a pa.s.sion as he progressed.

His eyes were bulging, his face inflamed, as he poured out a torrent of words that evidently carried away his hearers, to judge from their rapt attention and the frequent e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns that burst from them.

The Army Boys listened for several minutes, and then at a sign from Frank drew back a little distance, while he spoke to them in whispers.

"It's what I thought," he murmured. "That fellow is an agitator from Berlin who has come to stir up trouble in the Coblenz district. He's urging these men to start an uprising that will take the American troops by surprise and wipe them out. From something he said I have an idea that he was concerned in the plot to blow up Ehrenbreitstein. He's as dangerous as a rattlesnake, and we've got to get him.

"Now," he went on, "just back me up when I give the word. They're nine to our four, but we have the advantage of surprise. Follow my lead and we'll bag them all right."

CHAPTER VI

THE BAFFLED PLOTTERS

When the Army Boys got back to the room the orator was winding up his speech. He finished with an eloquent peroration, and his hearers broke into applause as the last word left his lips.

Frank leaped into the room with his rifle leveled directly at the leader.

"Hands up!" he shouted.

At the same instant, the rest of the Army Boys followed their leader, their rifles sweeping the room.

The effect of the sudden entrance of the Army Boys was electric.

With a roar of rage and chagrin, the conspirators made as though they would rush on the intruders. But the wicked looking muzzles of the army rifles and the look of determination in the faces of the boys who held them produced a change.

Slowly the hands went up until all were raised above their heads.

"Hold them there now," commanded Frank. "The first one who moves is a dead man."

Most of them could not understand the words, but as they looked into Frank's eyes they had not the slightest doubt of his meaning, and they stood like so many statues, only their eyes and the working of their features betraying the impotent anger that possessed them.

"Now, Tom," said Frank, without removing his eyes from those of the German leader, "go over these men and take whatever weapons they may have, while the rest of you keep the bunch covered."

Tom laid aside his rifle and did the work with promptness and thoroughness, and his search was rewarded by a considerable collection of knives and pistols. To these he added the rifles that had been leaning against the wall, and removed the lot from the room.

"They haven't anything left more dangerous than a toothpick," he reported to Frank, with a grin, as he picked up his rifle and resumed his place.

"Fine and dandy," remarked Frank.

"Now," he went on, addressing the prisoners, "back up to that wall and sit down on the floor. Quick now! _Sitzen Sie sich.

Verstehen Sie?"_

They understood, and showed that they did by obeying, though if looks could kill Frank would have been blasted by the venomous glance that the German leader shot at him.

Only then did Frank permit himself to relax. He lowered his rifle with a sense of relief.

"We've got them corralled now," he remarked to his comrades. "Let your rifles down, boys, but keep your eyes on them. If any one of them tries to make a break, we can pot him before he gets to his feet."

"Well, now that we've got them what are we going to do with them?"

asked Billy.

"Sort of white elephant on our hands it seems to me," said Tom, in some perplexity.

"No more sleep for any of us to-night, I guess," observed Bart.

"Oh, I don't know," said Frank. "Two of us will be enough to guard these fellows at a time, while the others get a few winks. I think I'll question the fellow who seems to be running this shooting match and see if I can get anything out of him."

He motioned to the leader to get to his feet and come forward, which the latter did with a thunderous frown on his face.

Frank had a faint hope that the man would be able to speak English, in which case his task would be comparatively easy. But when he asked the captive in German whether he could speak English, the latter replied with a surly negative.

So Frank was compelled to muster his limited vocabulary and pick out enough German to make himself understood. In that language, then, the questioning proceeded.

"What were you men doing here?" asked Frank.

"By what authority do you ask me?" the prisoner responded. "Since when has it been a crime for Germans to meet together on German soil?"

"That depends on the purpose of the meeting," answered Frank. "You may be on German soil, but just now you are under American laws, and they don't allow such meetings unless permission is received in advance. Besides, Germans are forbidden to have arms. How about those weapons we've just taken away from you?"

"If there are any laws like that they ought to be broken," replied the prisoner impudently.

"Don't get gay with me now," said Frank, with an ominous glitter in his eyes. "We taught your armies a lesson not long ago, and you'll find that we can teach you civilians just as easily."

"Our armies were not beaten," the man answered with a sudden flare of rage. "They could have fought for years if it had not been for the hunger at home."

"They gave a pretty good imitation of beaten armies then," said Frank sarcastically, "and I had an idea that the Americans had something to do with the beating. But that's neither here nor there. What were you planning to do at Coblenz?"