he cut his way through the crowded ranks.

Then suddenly a great blackness came down upon him and he knew nothing
more.

CHAPTER XXIV

WOUNDS AND TORTURE

When long hours afterward Frank came to himself, he lay for a time
wondering where he was and what had happened to him.

His brain was not clear, and he had the greatest difficulty in
concentrating his thoughts. Little by little he pieced events
together. He remembered the charge made by his regiment, the pocket in
which he had found himself when he had gone too far in advance of his
comrades, the axe with which he had started to cut his way through the
ring of enemies that surrounded him. There his memory stopped.

He must have been wounded. He raised his head painfully and looked
himself over. He did not seem to be bleeding. He put his hand to his
head. There was a cut there and a great lump that was as big as a
robin's egg. The movement set his brain whirling, and he fell back
dizzy and confused.

How thirsty he was! His mouth felt as though it were stuffed with
cotton. His veins felt as if fire instead of blood was in them. His
tongue seemed to be double its normal size. He would have given all he
possessed for one sip of cool water.

He seemed to be alone. There were bushes all about him. He remembered
that he had been fighting on the edge of a wood where there was a great
deal of underbrush. This no doubt accounted for his being alone. Out
in the meadow beyond there were lying a number of dead and wounded, as
he could see by peering through the bushes. There were some dead men
in the bushes, too, but no wounded. It would have been a comfort at
that moment to have had some wounded companions to whom he might speak,
whom he might help, or by whom he might be helped. He felt as though
he were the only living man in a world of the dead.

He tried to rise, but a horrible pain shot through his right leg as he
bore his weight upon it, and it crumpled under him. He wondered if it
were broken. He felt of it carefully. No bone seemed to be broken as
far as he could tell, but the ankle was swelled to almost double its
normal size. He must have strained or twisted it. The mere touch gave
him agony and he was forced to desist.

His fever increased and he was afraid that he was getting delirious.
Some way or other he must get back to his own lines before his senses
left him. He got up on his hands and feet and began to crawl in what