Part 29 (1/2)

”Or Frank Sheldon away from the firing line,” grinned Bart, looking at his friend admiringly.

”You didn't think I was going to stay in that d.i.n.ky hospital when there was so much doing, did you?” laughed Frank. ”Say, fellows, if my leg had been broken instead of just sprained, I'd have died of a broken heart. I've got to get busy now and get even with the boches for that crack on the head they gave me. It's a good thing it's solid ivory, or it would have been split for fair.”

”You don't need to worry about paying the Germans back,” chuckled Billy. ”You paid them in advance. You don't owe them a thing. Say, what George Was.h.i.+ngton did to the cherry tree with his little hatchet wasn't a circ.u.mstance to what you did to the Huns with that axe of yours. The axe is your weapon, Frank. A rifle doesn't run one, two, three, compared with it.”

”I'll admit that the axe work was good as a curtain raiser,” remarked Tom. ”But the real show was when those machine guns and their crews were blown to pieces. That made the work of the regiment easy.”

”It was cla.s.sy work,” agreed Will Stone, who came along just then and heard what they were talking about.

”How are the tanks?” asked Frank of the newcomer. ”I suppose old Jumbo is just spoiling for a fight.”

”I guess he is,” replied Stone, with a touch of affection in his voice for the monster tank that he commanded, ”and from all I hear he's going to get lots of it.”

”I guess we all are,” said Bart.

”All little pals together,” hummed Billy.

”And it's going to be a different kind of fighting,” went on Stone.

”The tide is turning at last. The Hun has been doing the driving. Now he's going to be driven.”

”Glory hallelujah!” cried Billy.

”Do you think that General Foch is going to take the offensive?” asked Bart eagerly.

”It looks that way,” replied Stone. ”Of course, I'm not in the secrets of the High Command, and only General Foch himself knows when and where he's going to strike. But by the way they're ma.s.sing tanks here I think it will be soon. They're gathering them by the hundreds in the woods, so that the movement can't be seen by enemy aviators. When the blow comes it will be a heavy one. And do you notice the way the American divisions are being brought together here? That means that they'll take a big part in the offensive. Foch has been watching what our boys have been doing, and he's going to put us in the front ranks.”

”Better and better,” chortled Billy. ”That boy's got good judgment.