"As I suppose you fellows have already guessed," he began, "we're going
to-night on a scouting party. We're to find out the condition of the
wire in front of that third trench that the Huns still hold, and we want
to get more exact information about the location of the enemy's machine
guns. Anything else we find out will be welcome, but those are the main
things.

"It's going to be pretty risky work," he continued. "Not but what
there's always plenty of risk about a job of this kind, but to-night
there's more than usual. The fierce fighting to-day has got the enemy
all stirred up and he'll be on the alert. Likely enough he'll have
scouting parties of his own out, and we may run across them in the dark.
Then it will be a question of who is the quicker with knife or bayonet.
Now you boys scatter and get your crawling suits and hoods and masks,
and we'll be ready for business.

"I can see that there'll be no monotony in our young lives to-night,"
observed Frank to Bart, as they obeyed instructions.

"Not that you can notice," agreed Bart. "The corp has quite a little
program marked out for us."

"So it seems."

"And No Man's Land is going to be a little rougher land to-night than it
ever was before," predicted Tom. "That mine explosion hasn't done a
thing to it."

"All the better," chimed in Billy. "There'll be better places to hide in