ined houses, which had been their abode--their
prison, in fact, since their capture,--stood Professor Snodgrass and
the two young ladies.

"Oh, can you believe it, Gladys!" exclaimed Miss Gibbs. "It doesn't
seem possible, does it, that we are saved?"

"No, but I am beginning to believe that it is not a dream any more.
Those American soldiers are real, aren't they?"

"They are, indeed, young ladies," said the professor. "At last I shall
be able to go back to my collection, and finish, I hope, the moving
pictures of insects under the influence of big guns. Oh, I shall also
hope to take you to safety with me," he added, as he thought of his
wards. "If only the boys were here!"

"What boys do you mean?" asked Miss Petersen. "You have so often
spoken of 'the boys,' but you have never mentioned who they were."

And this was true, for, just as the professor had been on the point of
doing so, he and the girls had been captured by the Germans, and,
since then, he had not had the heart to speak of his friends.

"Well, I can tell you now," he said as he and the two nieces of
Professor Petersen watched the victorious troops go marching by.
"There are three boys--three young men, American soldiers who----"

The professor paused, and looked hard at a certain group of marching
Americans. He took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them on again
to stare with all his power at three youths who swung along with the
_sang-froid_ of veterans.

"Why!" exclaimed Professor Snodgrass. "Why--bless my--bless--why, it's
Ned, Bob, and Jerry themselves!" he fairly shouted. "Oh, there they
are! There are the boys themselves!" and he rushed forward, tears of
joy for the moment dimming the glasses he had so carefully cleaned a
moment ago.

"There are the boys. Jerry! Ned! Bob! Here I am! And here are the
girls! Hurrah! Hurrah for the U. S. A.! Hurrah for President Wilson!
Hurrah for General Pershing! Down with the Germans! The United States
and the Allies forever! Hurrah!"

There was a laugh in the ranks of the marching Americans. Most of them
did not catch all that the little, excited, bald-headed man said, but
they laughed at his enthusiasm and loved him. But Ned, Bob, and Jerry
heard.

"It's him!" yelled Bob.

"It's the professor!" cried Ned.

"And the girls are with him!" added Jerry.

The lieutenant of the boys' company, seeing that something unusual was
in the wind said:

"You may fall out. Join us later. We'll probably stay