t the rather stern order, but he smiled
and answered:

"Why, I thought, as long as we got back all right, I was relieved from
duty, so I went to get something to eat."

"Something to eat!" exclaimed the lieutenant.

"Something to eat," calmly repeated Bob. "You see it was this way. I
was terribly hungry----"

"Nothing unusual," murmured Jerry, but the stout lad, paying no
attention to the interruption, went on:

"So when I got back with the rest, after we captured the Huns, I
smelled something cooking farther up in our trenches. I knew some of
the fellows on duty there, and I felt sure they'd give me something to
eat. It was liberty links they were cooking, sir, and----"

"Liberty links!" interrupted the lieutenant. "What are those?"

"They used to be called Frankfurters," explained Bob with a grin; "but
since the war that's too German. So I went to get some liberty links,
and I got 'em!" he added with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Well! Well!" exclaimed the lieutenant. And then, as he thought of
what Bob and the others had gone through with that night, he had not
the heart to add more.

"I only meant to run up in a hurry to where they were cooking 'em,"
explained Bob, "and come back with some for my bunkies. But I got to
talking and eating----"

"Mostly eating," murmured Jerry.

"And then I forgot to come back," finished Bob.

"We told him he'd better report, Sir," said one of the escorting
party. "He was with our bunch all right, and when he told us he'd been
out with the night raiders and had slipped off before reporting back,
we told him he'd better report. So we showed him the way, as the
trenches are sort of mixed up around here."

"Very well," said the lieutenant, trying not to smile. "You may go
back to your posts. Everything is explained."

And so Bob was restored to his company again, and in view of the
successful raid no reprimand was given him. The capture of the German
prisoners proved important, as information was obtained that proved of
the greatest value afterward.

Ned's wound turned out to be only a flesh one, but it was painful
enough, and kept him in the hospital a week. He would have fretted
over thus being kept away while Bob and Jerry were fighting, but, as a
matter of fact, his two chums received a rest period at this time, and
so were out of the trenches the same time that Ned was.

But the war was far from won, and every man possible was needed on the
firing line, so that, in d