you." He knew of the pact of friendship existing among the
five Brothers. "Take some one with you. But crawl--don't try to walk."

"I won't, sir. May Sergeant Barlow come along?"

"Yes. But come back if we get the order to advance again."

"I will, yes, sir!"

Swinging around on his stomach, and calling to Roger, telling him
of the permission received, Jimmy Blaise started toward the rear to
rescue, if possible, the Polish lad.

"But I'm afraid we'll find him done for," confided Jimmy to Roger.
"The shell must have landed right in front of him. It made a hole as
big as a house."

"Poor Iggy!" murmured Roger.

CHAPTER III

SENT TO THE REAR

Roger Barlow, who was slightly behind his comrade in their queer
progress back toward the shell hole near which the Polish lad had been
seen to fall, observed his fellow sergeant come to a halt.

"What's the matter--hit?" cried Roger anxiously. And this well might
have been the case, since, though there was a lull in the fighting
immediately in front of Company E, there were plenty of stray bullets,
not to mention pieces of shrapnel and bits of high explosive shells,
that might have reached the crawling lad.

"Hit? No, not yet," answered Jimmy. "I'm going to try, if it's safe,
to make a little better progress than this, though. This is too slow.
Poor Iggy may be dead before we get to him."

"Probably is," commented Roger.

"Oh, can the gloomy stuff!" snapped Jimmy. Afterward he admitted that
his nerves were pretty well strained. In fact that was the condition
of all of them. "You're almost as bad as Franz," went on Jimmy.

"Well, I don't want to be too hopeful," returned Roger. "But what are
you going to do, anyhow?"

"This," answered his chum. He drew his rifle up close beside him, took
off his tin hat, stuck it on the end of his bayonet, and cautiously
raised it well above the ground. It received no bullets, as might have
been expected.

"Come on, we can run for it!" cried Jimmy.

"What makes you think so?" asked his chum. "Didn't the lieutenant tell
us to lie on our faces?"

"Yes, but that was before the fighting ceased in front of us. Fritz
is having all he can attend to on either wing of our advance, and,
for the time being we're not being molested. If the Huns were in any
strength directly ahead of us, or to our rear as we are now, that tin
helmet would look like a sieve by this time. It's safe enough to get
up and run for it. And we've got to hus