ansfixed his bulging throat.

Brewer was down, but Purcell had been reinforced. Soldiers in brown came
on the run, shooting, yelling, brandishing. They closed in on the
Germans, and Dorn ran into that melee to make one thrust at each gray
form he encountered.

Shriller yells along the line--American yells--the enemy there had given
ground! Dorn heard. He saw the gray line waver. He saw reserves running
to aid his squad. The Germans would be beaten back. There was whirling
blackness in his head through which he seemed to see. The laugh broke
hoarse and harsh from his throat. Dust and blood choked him.

Another gray form blocked his leaping way. Dorn saw only low down, the
gray arms reaching with bright, unstained blade. His own bloody bayonet
clashed against it, locked, and felt the helplessness of the arms that
wielded it. An instant of pause--a heaving, breathless instinct of
impending exhaustion--a moment when the petrific mace of primitive man
stayed at the return of the human--then with bloody foam on his lips
Dorn spent his madness.

A supple twist--the French trick--and Dorn's powerful lunge, with all
his ponderous weight, drove his bayonet through the enemy's lungs.

"_Ka--ma--rod!_" came the strange, strangling cry.

A weight sagged down on Dorn's rifle. He did not pull out the bayonet,
but as it lowered with the burden of the body his eyes, fixed at one
height, suddenly had brought into their range the face of his foe.

A boy--dying on his bayonet! Then came a resurrection of Kurt Dorn's
soul. He looked at what must be his last deed as a soldier. His mind
halted. He saw only the ghastly face, the eyes in which he expected to
see hate, but saw only love of life, suddenly reborn, suddenly surprised
at death.

"God save you, German! I'd give my life for yours!"

Too late! Dorn watched the youth's last clutching of empty fingers, the
last look of consciousness at his conqueror, the last quiver. The youth
died and slid back off the rigid bayonet. War of men!

A heavy thud sounded to the left of Dorn. A bursting flash hid the face
of his German victim. A terrific wind, sharp and hard as nails, lifted
Dorn into roaring blackness....

CHAPTER XXIX

"Many Waters" shone white and green under the bright May sunshine. Seen
from the height of slope, the winding brooks looked like silver bands
across a vast belt of rainy green and purple that bordered the broad
river in the bottom-lands. A summer haze fil