rong.
Only three of them laughed--Roger, Jimmy and Franz. Iggy looked on
almost as uncomprehendingly as did Bob, but Iggy was staring at a dead
German on the floor of the mill--a German he had killed by a bayonet
thrust from behind, when that same German was about to fire his
revolver, pointblank, at Roger. Iggy was filled with many emotions as
he looked at his work--work undertaken and carried out for Liberty.

"What's the matter?" asked Bob, a bit nettled. "Doesn't it look as
though they were after us?"

"I don't know why I laughed," confessed Jimmy. "Sort of nervous, I
guess. But the idea of a German army, or at least several divisions,
coming to capture us five struck me as funny."

"Well, you said we were being surrounded!" protested Bob.

"Well, I meant it, too. But in a general way," went on Jimmy. "I don't
suppose the Huns know we are here. Of course they may realize it after
they find out we've silenced the machine guns. But for the present
this seems to be a big advance. I guess there's going to be some
fierce fighting. They've brought up some of their reserves to stop our
progress, and by the fortunes of war, we're caught in a back current."

"You mean none of our fellows are here?" asked Roger.

"None that you can see," went on Jimmy. "I guess we sort of over-ran
our objective. There must have been a withdrawal and we didn't know
it.

"We were too intent on capturing this mill. And we did, though it
wasn't easy. And now the Germans are coming on, and--well, if we can
stay here long enough, and keep hidden, we may get out of it yet.
But--"

He shrugged his shoulders. It was too much of a question for him to
solve.

"But I don't see that we are completely surrounded," declared Franz,
hopefully, as he gazed from the window.

"Sure not!" broke in Iggy, who now began to comprehend, in a measure,
what was in the wind. "We may out run by der back door yet."

"Not a chance," declared Jimmy. "Look over there!"

He pointed in the direction where their own lines were supposed to be
located--where they probably were, for it was from there that the lads
had come in the rush during the gas attack. But now the way over
which they had hastened, amid fire and smoke and death and wounds, was
occupied by a line of gray. The Germans had slipped down from the left
flank and had cut off the retreat of the five Brothers in the mill.
And as the advancing army was coming on in the shape of a huge
semi-circle toward t