“We’re due for a rest billet!  Hurray!”

“And then I’ll have a chance to see about Sergeant Maxwell!” exclaimed Jimmy.

That same day, following the one of such fierce fighting, the battalion in which Jimmy and his chums served was ordered to the rear.  They would have a week’s rest before going into the terrible game again.

Jimmy’s first action, once he had been relieved from active duty for the time being, was to seek out the hospital whither Sergeant Maxwell had been removed.  He went alone, for he did not want to excite the patient by taking in too many chums, should it prove that the man who had held the five thousand francs was in a dangerous physical or mental condition.

But, to Jimmy’s relief, the doctor’s and nurse’s reports were favorable.  It was more a case of exhaustion than anything else, though the sergeant had been wounded.

“Did he tell where he had been ever since he has been missing?” asked Jimmy of a hospital attendant before going in himself to see his friend.

“Well he remembered some of it.  It seems he was captured while out on a listening post one night, and taken away a prisoner.  Instead of sending him to a camp, as the Huns do with most of our poor chaps they get, the Boches kept the sergeant with them, taking him from place to place.  It was their idea, I believe, to either force him to desert and join them, or use him as a decoy—­or perhaps make him a spy.

“Anyhow they kept him with them, and once he was struck and wounded by a beast of a German officer.  After that they neglected him and he got terribly run down, though his wound healed.  Then, just before the last big fight—­the one you say you were in—­the sergeant was held a prisoner in the hut where you found him.  He was in a bad way and I suppose the Germans thought he’d die when they left him—­which they did when our boys knocked the spots off ’em, if you’ll excuse my slang.”

“Oh, I’ll excuse it all right!” laughed Jimmy.  “It isn’t any too strong.”

“Well, I guess you may see the sergeant now,” said the orderly.  “Only don’t talk to him too much.  He doesn’t like to dwell on what happened to him.  They must have treated him worse than they would a beast!”

“It’s awful!” declared Jimmy.  “But they’ll be made to pay for it!  No, I won’t tax him with any talk of the past.  I just want to see if he knows me and remembers a certain matter.”

“Oh, he’ll know you all right,” returned the orderly.  “As a matter of fact, he has been asking for you.”

“That’s a good sign!” thought Jimmy.

Sergeant Maxwell held out a wan hand to his friend.  “I can’t begin to thank you for what you and the other boys did for me,” he said, weakly.  “If you hadn’t discovered me in that lonely hut I wouldn’t be alive now.”

“Oh, maybe someone else would have found you,” said Jimmy, cheerfully.  “But we’re glad we did.”

“I’ve been wishing you’d come in,” went on the sick sergeant.  “There’s something that’s been worrying me.  It’s about that five thousand francs you gave me to keep for you.”