ge of his bayonet. "We'll have
to try to cure them of it."

"I think they're getting over it to some extent," remarked Tom
Bradford, who stood at Frank's left. "The last time they tried to rush
us they went back in a bigger hurry than they came. What we did to
them was a shame!"

"They certainly left a lot of dead men hanging on our wires," put in
Billy Waldon. "But there are plenty of them ready to take their
places, and the Kaiser's willing to fight to the last man, though you
notice he keeps his own precious skin out of the line of fire."

"I think Frank's getting us on a string," chaffed Tom, when some
minutes had passed in grim waiting. "I don't see any Heinies. Trot
out your Huns, Frank, and let's have a look at them."

"You'll see them soon enough," retorted Frank. "I saw the flash of
bayonets in that fringe of woods and I'm sure they're massing."

"Do you remember that little thrilly feeling that used to go up and
down our spines when we were green at the war game?" grinned Bart. "I
feel it now to some extent, but nothing to what I did at first."

"That's because we've tackled the boches and taken their measure,"
commented Frank. "We know now that man for man when conditions are
equal we can lick them. The world had been so fed up with stories
about Prussian discipline that it seemed as though the Germans must be
supermen. But a bullet or a bayonet can get them just like any one
else, and when it comes to close quarters, the American eagle can pick
the pin feathers out of any Prussian bird."

"It isn't but what they're brave enough," remarked Bart. "When they're
fighting in heavy masses they're a tough proposition. But they've got
to feel somebody else's shoulder against theirs to be at their best.
Turn a hundred of them loose in a ten-acre lot against the same number
of Americans, where each man had to pick out his own opponent, and see
what would happen to them."

"They wouldn't be in it," agreed Tom with conviction. "Put a Heinie in
a strange position where he has to think quickly without an officer to
help him, and he's up in the air. Take his map away from him and he's
lost."

"Even when you talk of his mass fighting being so good, perhaps you're
giving him too much credit," said Billy grudgingly. "He goes into
battle with his officer's revolver trained on him, and he knows that if
he flinches he'll be shot. He's got a chance if he goes ahead and no
chance at all if he doesn't.