GROWS AS THE YEARS ROLL ON

CONTENTS
I. A FIGHT IN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE
II. A "LONG HUNTER" COMES TO THE VALLEY
III. THE PEOPLE OF THE MOUNTAINS
IV. THE MOLDING OF A MAN
V. THE PEOPLE OF PALL MALL
VI. SERGEANT YORK'S OWN STORY
VII. TWO MORE DEEDS OF DISTINCTION

SERGEANT ALVIN C. YORK

From a cabin back in the mountains of Tennessee, forty-eight miles from
the railroad, a young man went to the World War. He was untutored in the
ways of the world.

Caught by the enemy in the cove of a hill in the Forest of Argonne, he
did not run; but sank into the bushes and single-handed fought a
battalion of German machine gunners until he made them come down that
hill to him with their hands in air. There were one hundred and
thirty-two of them left, and he marched them, prisoners, into the
American line.

Marshal Foch, in decorating him, said, "What you did was the greatest
thing accomplished by any private soldier of all of the armies of
Europe."

His ancestors were cane-cutters and Indian fighters. Their lives were
rich in the romance of adventure. They were men of strong hate and
gentle love. His people have lived in the simplicity of the pioneer.

This is not a war-story, but the tale of the making of a man. His
ancestors were able to leave him but one legacy--an idea of American
manhood.

In the period that has elapsed since he came down from the mountains he
has done three things--and any one of them would have marked him for
distinction.

SAM K. COWAN.

I
A FIGHT IN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE

Just to the north of Chatel Chehery, in the Argonne Forest in France, is
a hill which was known to the American soldiers as "Hill No. 223."
Fronting its high wooded knoll, on the way to Germany, are three more
hills. The one in the center is rugged. Those to the right and left are
more sloping, and the one to the left--which the people of France have
named "York's Hill"--turns a shoulder toward Hill No. 223. The valley
which they form is only from two to three hundred yards wide.

Early in the morning of the eighth of October, 1918, as a floating gray
mist relaxed its last hold on the tops of the trees on the sides of
those hills, the "All America" Division--the Eighty-Second--poured over
the crest of No. 223. Prussian Guards were on the ridge-tops across the
valley, and behind the Germans ran the Decauville Railroad--the artery
for supplies to a salient still further to the north which the