d listening.

"What is--that?" Count von Herzmann asked at last.

"The beginning of the end," Cowan answered. "You wondered when it would
come. Soon now. Nearly five thousand heavy calibre guns are blowing your
trenches to bits, and will continue until we go over in the morning."

"So?" The German's face was a picture of pained surprise. "So the attack
comes here? Gott! Had I known--had _we_ known." He paused,
obviously pained, then again resumed his jesting poise. "You can be
sure, Major, that I regret I am not on the receiving end of your
artillery preparation and that I shall be unable to meet your squadron
with my Circus to-morrow morning over the lines."

"I dare say," was Cowan's reply as he turned to the sergeant in charge
of the Military Police detail. "Sergeant, take charge of the prisoner
and deliver him to First Corps Headquarters. And make sure that he does
not escape."

The sergeant saluted, grinning expansively.

"He's got a fat chance to get away from _me_, sir," he said. "I'm
the spy bustin'est baby in this man's army."

"You will treat him with courtesy," Cowan ordered. "He is a brave man."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied. "So was Nathan Hale, sir--but he got
shot just the same."

CHAPTER XIII

The Last of the Big Shows

1

The following morning had no dawning. A light rain had fallen during the
night and a heavy, obliterating fog arose from the wet earth, blanketing
hill and valley alike. So dense was it that troops in the front lines,
peeping over the top in anxious nervousness as they awaited the zero
hour, saw nothing but a wall of white that made the shell-tortured land
before them more mysterious than any dream of battle ever fancied.

What did it hold? Where were the German lines? And just what had been
the effect of this five hour tornado of screaming shells?

Machine guns, under cover of the fog, were boldly mounted on the trench
parapets. They danced and chattered on their tripods as they pounded
forth streams of lead upon the unseen enemy positions.

Zero hour at last! Along the line officers blew shrill whistles, or
some, calmer than the others, gave the signal with a confidently
shouted, "Let's go!"

Over the trench tops poured thousands of khaki clad warriors, sallying
forth in the most resolute endeavor ever attempted by American troops.

They had not advanced ten feet from the trenches before the fog
swallowed them, magically, and many were never to retrace