e Bob's cheek was grazed by a bullet. But they did not have to
drop out of the fighting.

And it was fierce! No other word describes it. They fought, and
fought, and fought again, onward, ever onward. For they must not stop.
The American army did not know that word.

And then, after nearly two weeks of steady fighting, with only such
rest for the exhausted troops as was absolutely necessary, came the
final stage. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, staggering from weariness, took
their places in line one gray morning.

Suddenly about them thundered great salvos of firing. It shook the
very ground. The chums looked at one another in wonder.

"This must be another big show," shouted Jerry. He had to shout to be
heard above the noise.

"It is," said Ned.

And it was. It was the final assault against the last of the German
defenses in St. Mihiel.

"Forward!" came the cry, given after four hours of the greatest
artillery barrage ever laid down. At five o'clock, on the morning of
September 12th, seven American divisions in the front line advanced.
They were assisted by tanks, manned by Americans and French, and there
were groups of wire-cutters and other groups armed with bangalore
torpedoes. "These," says General Pershing, in his report, "went
through the successive bands of barbed wire that protected the enemy's
front line and support trenches, in irresistable waves on schedule
time, breaking down all defenses of an enemy demoralized by the great
volume of our artillery fire, and our sudden approach out of the
fog."

And forward, in their own modest and humble way, with this great army
of liberation went Ned, Bob, and Jerry. Shooting and being shot at
they went forward until the iron strength of the foe was broken, and
the cry sounded:

"They're running away! We've got 'em beat!"

And thus it was. German troops were giving way in a rout. Let General
Pershing tell it in his own simple way:

"Our 1st Corps advanced to Thiacourt, while our 4th Corps curved back
to the southwest through Nonsard. The 2d Colonial French Corps made
the slight advance required of it on very difficult ground, and the
5th Corps took its three ridges and repulsed a counter-attack. A rapid
march brought reserve regiments of a division of the 5th Corps into
Vigneulles in the early morning, where it linked up with patrols of
our 4th Corps, closing the salient and forming a new line west of
Thiacourt to Vigneulles and beyond Fresnes-en-Woevre. At the cost