e were dull thuds, and there was a ripping, tearing sound as the
steel slashed its way through the tough cloth. Along the swaying line
rushed the young soldiers, stabbing to right and left as they went.

Now their weapons were directed downward with deadly force, and they
sank them into the forms on the ground with such energy that the earth
beneath was torn and gashed, and the muzzles of the guns, to which
the stabbing bayonets were attached, made deep impressions on the
yielding forms.

"There's a German on the ground! Get him!"

Again the cry rang out, and again the rushing, charging line surged
forward, and then there followed once more the thuds which told of the
cold steel going through and through and----

Then from the center of one of the charging lines there came a laugh
as a lad, having driven his keen weapon home with too much force,
being unable to free it, raised on his gun a large sack stuffed with
hay, the fodder bristling out of one of the gashes he had made.

"That's the stuff, Chunky! Go to it!" yelled his laughing comrades.
"If you can't get a German any other way, stick him on the end of your
bayonet, bring him back to camp, and feed him to death!"

"Silence in the ranks!" cried the sergeant who was drilling the young
soldiers of Camp Dixton in bayonet practice. For this is what it was,
and not a charge on some Hun position; though from the fervor with
which the boys went at it, and the fierce commands of their officers,
a person hearing, and not seeing, might be inclined to believe that it
was actual warfare.

And it was, as nearly as it could be approximated, for the sacks
stuffed with hay or other yielding material, suspended on framework
as is a football dummy or scattered over the ground, were called
"Germans," by the drilling officers.

And, at the command: "There's a German on the ground! Get him!" it was
the part of the prospective soldier to rush at the recumbent sack and
stab it through and through with all his might, trying to put into the
stroke all the force he would put into a similar one when he should
attack the enemy.

"You got your man all right, Chunky!" observed a tall, bronzed lad,
standing next to the stout youth who had used his bayonet with such
force that he carried off one of the sacks as a trophy. "You must be
feeling pretty strong today."

"Oh, let up, can't you, Jerry?" begged the badgered one. "The ground
was soft under that sack, and I didn't think the stee