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"The Veteran's Advice" 210 "We've Got Them Licked, Boys!" 222 The War of Fire 232 Saved in a Hail of Shell 242 Attack on a Stranded Tank 256 The Men Whom No Danger Can Daunt 272 The Endless Line of Motor Convoys 294 The Valley of the Dead 304 Listening-Patrol Trapped by a Star-Shell 314 Locating Enemy Sappers on a Listening-Patrol 314 French Tank Cutting Wire 322 Machine-Gun Dog-Team in Belgium 338 Each Kennel Inhabited by One Wise, Silent Dog 338 Message Dog Wearing Gas Mask 342 The Zouave Bugler's Last Call 348 When Hooded Demons Take the Trenches 356 The Approach of Doom 362 Bringing up Food for the Firing-Line through a Poison Gas Cloud 368 The Battle of Demon Faces. Flinging Bombs in a Mist of Green Death 368

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THE WONDER OF WAR ON LAND

CHAPTER I

WHERE THE SHELL STRUCK

The windows rattled ominously as the first vibration from the cannon shook the school.

It was Tuesday, the Fourth of August, 1914.

The master laid down his book and rose. His shoulder crooked forward threateningly.

"The German guns!" he said.

There was a sharp indrawing of breath among the lads seated on the forms.

"It is War! Black, treacherous, murderous war!" exclaimed the master, his voice vibrant with passion. "Those shells, now falling on Belgian soil, are the tocsin for world-slaughter.

"You will remember, boys," he continued, his tones deepening, "that I told you, yesterday, how at seven o'clock on Sunday evening, without any provocation whatever, Germany announced she would invade Belgium on the false pretext that France was planning an advance through our territory.

"The dastardly invasion is accomplished. This morning a German force attacked us at Visé, bombarded the town and crossed the Meuse on pontoon bridges."

"How can Germany invade us, sir?" asked Deschamps, the head boy of the school. "You told us, sir, that Belgium is perpetually neutral by agreement of all the nations of Europe."

"She is so, by every law of international honor, by every pledge, by solemn covenants sealed and sworn to by Germany herself," came the reply. "Civilization, humanity, progress, liberty—all the things which men have fought and died for—depend on the faith of a plighted word. If a man's gauge and a nation's gauge no longer stand—then every principle that has been won by the human race since the days that the cave-man waged war with his teeth crashes into ruin."

"But what shall we be able to do, sir?" asked Horace Monroe, one of the elder boys.

"We can do what the cave-man did when the cave-bear invaded his rude home!" thundered the patriot. "We can fight with every weapon we have, yes, if we have to throw ourselves at the enemy's throat with naked hands. Such of our troops as we could mobilize at a moment's notice are ready, but every man who has served his time in training will be needed. I go to-night!"

"For the front, sir?" asked Deschamps.

"For the cave-bear's throat!"

The room buzzed with an excited whispering.

"Who will take the school, sir?" the head boy asked.

The old reservist looked down at the school, a somber fire glowing in his eyes. His gaze caught those of his pupils, one after the other. Some were bewildered, some eager, but all were alight with the response of enthusiasm.

He put both hands on his desk and leaned far forward, impressively.

"I wonder if I can trust you?" he said.

An expression of wounded pride flashed over the faces of several of the older boys.

"Not one of you can realize," the master continued, speaking in a low tense tone which none of the lads had ever heard him use before, "just what war means. It spells horrors such as cannot be imagined. It turns men into beasts, or—" he paused, "into heroes. There is no middle ground. There is patriotism and there is treachery. Either, one deserves trust, which is honor; or one does not deserve trust, which is infamy."

He looked at the boys again.