the road by explodin'
shells, an' then went back. Owens told of two of his company who
rushed a bunch of Germans, killed eight of them, an' captured their
machine-gun. Before that German charge a big shell came over an'
kicked up a hill of mud. Next day the Americans found their sentinel
buried in mud, dead at his post, with his bayonet presented.

"Owens was shot just as he jumped up with his pards to meet the
chargin' Germans. He fell an' dragged himself against a wall of
bags, where he lay watchin' the fight. An' it so happened that he
faced Dorn's squad, which was attacked by three times their number.
He saw Dorn shot--go down, an' thought he was done--but no! Dorn
came up with one side of his face all blood. Dixon, a college
football man, rushed a German who was about to throw a bomb. Dixon
got him, an' got the bomb, too, when it went off. Little Rogers, an
Irish boy, mixed it with three Germans, an' killed one before he was
bayoneted in the back. Then Dorn, like the demon they'd named him,
went on the stampede. He had a different way with a bayonet, so
Owens claimed. An' Dorn was heavy, powerful, an' fast. He lifted an'
slung those two Germans, one after another, quick as that!--like
you'd toss a couple of wheat sheafs with your pitchfork, an' he sent
them rollin', with blood squirtin' all over. An' then four more
Germans were shootin' at him. Right into their teeth Dorn
run--laughin' wild an' terrible, Owens said, an' the Germans
couldn't stop that flashin' bayonet. Dorn ripped them all open, an'
before they'd stopped floppin' he was on the bunch that'd killed
Brewer an' were makin' it hard for his other pards.... Whew!--Owens
told it all as if it'd took lots of time, but that fight was like
lightnin' an' I can't remember how it was. Only Demon Dorn laid out
nine Germans before they retreated. _Nine!_ Owens seen him do it,
like a mad bull loose. Then the shell came over that put Dorn out,
an' Owens, too.

"Well, Dorn had a mangled arm, an' many wounds. They amputated his
arm in France, patched him up, an' sent him back to New York with a
lot of other wounded soldiers. They expected him to die long ago.
But he hangs on. He's full of lead now. What a hell of a lot of
killin' some men take!... My boy Jim would have been like that!

"So there, boys, you have a little bit o