advancing lines of its recent owners, other measures were taken
to insure the holding of the position won at such cost.

"I'd like to have a talk with that Nick," said Bob, as he and Ned
paused for a moment in their work of digging trenches.

"Yes, isn't it strange to meet him here like this? If he fired any of
the shots that did up Jerry Hopkins, why----"

Ned did not finish, but Bob knew what his chum meant.

Feverishly the Americans worked, and to good purpose, for when
darkness began to fall they were in strong front trenches with
supporting lines back of them, and the artillery was partly in place.
If the Germans wanted to take that particular hill again they would
have to work for every inch of it.

And now the commissary department got busy, and hot soup and coffee
was rushed up to the well-nigh exhausted men. Never was a meal more
welcome.

"But it doesn't taste any better than those doughnuts did," declared
Bob, as he sat on a pile of dirt, sipping coffee from a tin cup, his
face and hands plastered with mud and other dirt.

"You took an awful chance, though, Chunky," said his chum.

"No more than that Salvation Army man did. He was braver than I,
because it was my business to be where I was, and he didn't have to
if he didn't want to."

"Well, that's so," agreed Ned. "But say, I'm going to see if we can't
find out how Jerry is. If he--if he's----"

But he did not have the heart to finish.

As much had been done as was possible that day, after the terrific
battle, and with the arrival of fresh reserves those who had borne the
brunt of the fighting were sent to the rear to rest. Ned and Bob were
among these, and, obtaining permission, they went to the dressing
station to learn Jerry's fate.

Their hearts leaped with joy when they were told that, aside from a
bad scalp wound and a bullet through the fleshy part of his leg, their
chum was all right.

The high-powered bullets do infinitely less damage than the
old-fashioned slower-moving sort, and the wound in Jerry's leg was a
clean one.

Not so, however, the cut on his head, which was from a piece of
burning shell, making a jagged wound that, however, did not touch the
bone.

"He'll be back in line again in three weeks," declared the surgeon to
Ned and Bob, and those were the happiest words they ever had heard.

The next morning, after a feverish night in which they slept but
little, they were allowed to see Jerry, and they found him in bette