ill.

But what could he do unaided and alone? He was wounded and weaponless.

Like a flash the thought came to him of the dead man whose sack was
full of hand grenades.

His body quailed at the thought of the journey back to where the man
lay. But his spirit mastered the flesh.

With his dragging leg one quivering pain, he crawled back. It seemed
ages before he got there, but at last he had secured three of the
grenades and started back for the machine-gun nest.

He had no more than time. Behind him, he heard the well-known cheer of
his regiment. The boys were coming!

The gun crews heard it, too, and they gathered about their weapons,
whose deadly muzzles pointed in the direction from which the rush was
coming.

Supporting himself on one hand and knee, Frank hurled his grenades over
the top of the bush in quick succession. They fell right in the midst
of the startled Germans. There was a terrific explosion and the guns
and crews were torn to pieces. Another instant and the old
Thirty-seventh came smashing its way to victory.

CHAPTER XXV

DRIVEN BACK

Two weeks later and Frank had left the hospital and was back again with
the Army Boys. The injury to his head was found to be not serious, and
the leg although badly wrenched and strained had no bone broken. It
yielded rapidly to treatment, and Frank's splendid strength and
vitality aided greatly in his cure.

There was immense jubilation among the Army Boys when their idolized
comrade resumed his place in the ranks.

"You can't keep a squirrel on the ground," exulted Tom, as he gave his
friend a tremendous thump on the back.

"Or Frank Sheldon away from the firing line," grinned Bart, looking at
his friend admiringly.

"You didn't think I was going to stay in that dinky hospital when there
was so much doing, did you?" laughed Frank. "Say, fellows, if my leg
had been broken instead of just sprained, I'd have died of a broken
heart. I've got to get busy now and get even with the boches for that
crack on the head they gave me. It's a good thing it's solid ivory, or
it would have been split for fair."

"You don't need to worry about paying the Germans back," chuckled
Billy. "You paid them in advance. You don't owe them a thing. Say,
what George Washington did to the cherry tree with his little hatchet
wasn't a circumstance to what you did to the Huns with that axe of
yours. The axe is your weapon, Frank. A rifle doesn't run one, tw