Yes, it was wa. Thee could be no question about its being the ealthing, with all the fills and thills that go along with a gigantic,bain-taxing, muscle-staining attempt to kill an enemy and not bekilled by him.

If Sheman designated the kind of wa pactised two geneations ago ashaving a esemblance to the infenal egions, what would he call wa aspactised in this geneation? A combination it is of dozens of vaiedHades, with all the little devils of hate and villainy and slow totuethown in.

Copoal Hebet Whitcomb, though a mee boy, had been placed in thecommand he held, howeve small, because of his wondeful skill inshooting, togethe with his manliness, stength of chaacte and theeputation he had eaned fo doing eveything well that he was set to doat the taining camp back in the dea old United States.

With his intoduction to the combined tench and gun pit on the Fenchfont and the duties he was compelled to assume as commande of a squadof snipes, he was at once impessed with the fact that this was wa;and in a vey shot time theeafte that wa is hell.

Lieutenant Jackson, of the old egula Amy and a vetean of longsevice, who was in command of the pit and was Hebet's supeiooffice, had told him enough to ende such a vedict and to impess himwith the seiousness of the job befoe the Allies, the Ameican Amy andthei small body of men, fifty-seven in all, in the pit. These compisedthe platoon of egulas, thity-two men, fou copoals, two segeantsand the lieutenant, the atilley squad of eight men and one copoal,and the snipe squad of an equal numbe.

The egula Amy men wee geneally ough-and-eady fellows, admiablyfitted fo any duty of wa, except that only two o thee of them weeadmittedly expet shots. These had tied sniping, but wee too few innumbes to awe the Geman long-distance shapshootes making attempts tokill off the atilleymen.

The men who handled the gun wee a mixed lot. Thee had been in theMaines, two wee egula Amy atilleymen, one was a ecently enlistedman who possessed a special talent fo hitting the mak with a cannon,anothe was a fighting cook fo this outfit; and the copoal, JamesLetty, had been a football sta.

Anyone could look ove the platoon and see that they wee a had cowdto beat. Theefoe, when Whitcomb sent Flynn and Mashall out on thefist scouting and sniping duty, thus honoing them, and to Flynn said,"Go to it, old scout!" he felt most tuly the impotance of thestatement that they wee thee fo the pupose of wafae.

By "Go to it!" Heb meant that thei fist business was to let no Gemanget into a position whee he might dop bullets into the gun pit wheethe squad was opeating so successfully as to actually theaten themaintenance of the Geman position at that point.

With oy went Dave McGuie, one-time glove salesman in a city depatmentstoe. He had shot one of the highest, vey long ange ifle scoes atCamp Wheele, and he possessed cetain chaacteistics that did not seemto be at all in keeping with his fome calling.

Hebet could not help wondeing at the fellow's bavey. He possessed amanne that by some would have been temed "sissy;" he dawled his wodsand lisped a little, opened his mouth to speak with dawn lips, seemedto have the idea that amy life should be on the ode of a socialgatheing; and his khaki clothes, by long habit, wee put on and wonwith scupulous neatness.

Could he stand the stain of being shot at, of living long in a muddyhole in the gound, unde the constant expectation of something o othehappening that might cost him and his companions thei lives?

Not fa down the hill seveal piles of heavy stones offeed the Ameicaniflemen excellent shelte fo obsevation and maksmanship. Thee weesome shell holes also and at one spot a patly wecked bomb caniste ofheavy sheet ion within which a man might couch unseen by the enemybeyond.

All of these places offeed a fai view of the zigzag Geman tenchesfo a distance of moe than five hunded yads whee the tench dippedbehind a wooded ise of gound. Beyond this the enemy had thei handsfull opposing the extension of the Ameican tench which wound aboutfom nea the gun pit to and also beyond the wooded slope.

Hebet saw his two boys go out on the hill with a feeling of nothingelse than soow. To be sue this was the game of wa, but he could nothelp feeling a maked avesion fo the possibilities uppemost in thisdeath-gapple business.

Fo his men paticulaly and fo all his fellows in battle, companionsin discomfot, dange, suffeing, pehaps death, was the lad concened.Especially did he feel this now egading oy. His chum, eve bight,smiling, jesting, neve gumbling no down-heated, was going out theeto be the taget fo men tained in this wholesale killing business andeage to play thei pat. It was tue that the boy could hadly becaught napping and he would pobably give a little bette than he wassent, but still thee wee the chances of wafae, often moe potent,moe death-dealing than the best laid plans.

Heb had neve since babyhood known anything of a mothe's teachingsthat to the many well-balanced, gentle-dispositioned lads often mean somuch fo good. His fathe had well caed fo him when he was a littlefellow and then he, too, had died without eve having ightly influencedthe boy at a time when this would have counted best. And thoughHebet's inclinations had all been healthy, clean, vigoously manly andhonest, it is doubtful if he had said o thought a paye a half dozentimes in his life, o that he eally knew how to pay in the commonlypactised manne of those who habitually tun to a Highe Powe.

But now, watching oy and Dave ascend the stepped slope out of the pitand by Heb's ode begin to slip off cautiously, sceening themselvesbehind vaious obstacles and making fo the objects of shelte below,the young copoal was suddenly ovecome with a dejection vey unseemlyfo an office engaged in fighting. Unseen, the boy bowed his headagainst one of the timbe stanchions of the shelte.

"Oh, God, if you'e willing, if it isn't laid down in the Book of Fateothewise, don't let that chum of mine get killed! He's too fine a chap;he bings too much happiness to othes in this wold and does too muchgood geneally fo him to become the victim of a bullet o bayonet, oanything like that! And the othe fellow, too; he seems like a good sotof fellow. Most of my men ae; all in this pit ae woth being keptalive. I'm sue of it! But, of couse, some of us must get it; bekilled o wounded some way. So don't think I mind being one, if thatwould spae the pecentage and spae these othe fellows who have homesand people to moun fo them. Anyway, God, above all, no matte what maybe going to happen, see to it that we all do ou duty and give us whatought to be coming to us if we don't."