riedly they disentangled a
couple of the supporting poles, laying them so that the telephone wire
passed over them free of the barbed meshes and Tom, mounting his
machine, started at top speed along the road across No Man's Land,
dragging the wire after him. Scarcely had he started when he heard that
wasplike whizzing close to him--once, twice, and then a sharp metallic
sound as a bullet hit some part of his machine. He looked back to see
if the wire carriers were following, but there was not a sign of any of
them except his companion who carried the apparatus, and just as Tom
looked this man twirled around like a top, staggered, and fell.

The last of the Americans were picking their way across the tangle of
fallen wire before the German fire trench. He could see them now and
again amid dense clouds of smoke as they scrambled over the enemy
sandbags and disappeared.

On he sped at top speed, not daring to look around again. He could feel
that the wire was dragging and he wondered where its supporters could
be; but he opened his cut-out to get every last bit of power and sped on
with the accumulating train of wire becoming a dead weight behind him.

Now, far ahead, he could see gray-coated figures scrambling frantically
out of the first line trench, and he thought that the Americans must
have carried the attack successfully that far, in any event. Again came
that whizzing sound close to him, and still again a sharp metallic ring
as another bullet struck his machine. For a moment he feared least a
tire had been punctured, but when neither collapsed he took fresh
courage and sped on.

The drag on the wire was lessening the speed of his machine now and
jerking dangerously at intervals. But he thought of what one of those
soldiers had said banteringly to another--_Stick around at the other end
of it and listen to what you hear_, and he was resolved that if limited
horse power and unlimited will power could get this wire to those brave
boys who were surging and battling in the trenches ahead of him, could
drag it to them wherever they went, for the glorious message they
intended to send back across it, it should be done.

There was not another soul visible on that road now nor in the
shell-torn area of No Man's Land through which it ran. But the lone
rider forged ahead, zig-zagging his course to escape the bullets of that
unseen sharpshooter and because it seemed to free the dragging, catching
wire, affording him little