ere we
had crossed the open. It was Hell. In the red glare of the fire the
stretcher bearers hurried here and there with the dying, while others who
had been placed behind the hay-stacks for shelter burned to death when the
stalks caught fire. The few who could, crawled away from the fire. Those
of us who were able to do so, pulled others to safety, and many a man had
his hands and face badly burned, rescuing a helpless comrade.

The next morning we went at them again. In the first rush, I felt a sudden
slap against my thigh. It did not feel like anything more than a blow from
an open palm. I thought nothing more of it until after the fight, when
some one told me I was bleeding. A bullet had struck the flesh of my
thigh. The slight wound was dressed at the regimental station, and I was
ready for duty again.

That night I was assigned to outpost duty between the lines. The German
artillery had so covered the roads and the bridge, that for two days the
supply wagons had been unable to come up. I was almost starved. My stomach
ached incessantly from sheer hunger and I was weak from the bleeding of my
wound. It seems terrible, looking back at it, but, during the night, while
my partner watched, I crawled out and searched the dead for rations. I
found none. Fifty paces from our post lay a dead artillery horse. We had
to eat--or drop. What could we do? Wriggling on my belly like a snake, I
drew myself toward the smelling carcass, cut off enough with my jackknife
to do the section, brought it back, and we ate it.

There followed days of lying in the trenches. Every time one of us showed
a head above the surface of the earth a single shot would ring out, and
more than once it accomplished its mission. Two or three times I almost
caught it myself. At last I made up my mind that the sniper must be in a
sugar factory building which showed clearly above a ridge on the right
front of our position. Jock Hunter and I volunteered to go there and
investigate. Working our way under cover of a wooded patch, we reached the
factory yard where we encountered an old Frenchman who seemed to be the
owner of the place.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"Have you seen a sniper anywhere about here?" I asked.

"No," he answered in a surly manner, "and you get out of here."

"We'll get out," I retorted, "and _you'll_ get with us."

I searched the factory building from cellar to roof but wasn't able to
discover anything incriminating. I didn