rank. "There wasn't one of
his troopers left alive. But I'll bet that not one of them was sorry
he was there."

"I'm glad that motorcycle carried double," replied Bart. "I'd have
been cheated out of a lot of lovely fighting if it hadn't."

They fought desperately, savagely, their bodies tired to the breaking
point, but their courage never failing. And at last they won out. The
armies rejoined each other. The gap was closed. And Frank and Bart
rejoiced beyond measure that they had been able to do their part in the
closing.

"Some fellows have all the luck," remarked Billy, when they had
rejoined their regiment two days later, and were telling him all about
it. "Now if that coin we flipped had only come down heads instead of
tails----"

"Stop your grouching," laughed Frank. "You'll have all the fighting
that's good for you by the time we've driven the boches over the Rhine."

CHAPTER XVII

THE MINED BRIDGE

For several days the drive continued. At first it had been quite as
successful for the Germans as they could have hoped. Their initial
surprise had carried them a long way into French territory, and this
had involved the capture of a considerable number of men and guns.

But they had fallen far short of their ambitious aims. They had not
rolled up the Allied armies. They had not reached Paris. They had not
captured the Channel ports.

The Allied armies had stretched like an elastic band, but had not
broken. They knew now what the enemy's plans were and they were
rapidly taking measures to check them.

The Germans had had a great advantage in being under a single command.
There was no clash of plans and opinions. If they wanted to transfer a
part of their forces from one point to another they could do so.

With the Allies it had been different. There had been a French army, a
British army, an Italian army, a Belgian army, a Russian army and
latest of all an American army. They had tried to work together in
harmony and in the main had done so. But the British naturally wanted
above all to prevent the German armies from reaching the coast where
they could threaten England. The French were especially anxious to
prevent Paris being captured. Either side was reluctant to weaken its
own army by sending reinforcements to the other.

But the German success in the first days of the drive changed all this.
The Allies got together and appointed General Foch as the supreme
commander of all