And how he Dined with the Admiral. We were cruising off Callao on the Pacific station when it all happened, and I daresay there are a good many others who will recollect all about it as well as myself. But to explain the matter properly I must go back a little in my dates; for, instead of Callao at the commencement of my yarn, you must read Calabar. You see, I was in the Porpoise at the time, a small... more...

CHAPTER I—THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway.  The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light.  A vast silence reigned over the land.  The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it... more...

CHAPTER IFIRST IMPRESSIONS “Oh, dear, what if she shouldn’t meet me!” sighed Betty Wales for the hundredth time at least, as she gathered up her bags and umbrella, and followed the crowd of noisy, chattering girls off the train. “So long, Mary. See you to-morrow.” “Get a carriage, Nellie, that’s a dear. You’re so little you can always break through the crowd.” “Hello, Susanna! Did... more...

CHAPTER I "The Huns are coming!" exclaimed Frank Sheldon, as from the American front line his keen, gray eyes searched a broad belt of woodland three hundred yards away. "Bad habit they have," drawled his special chum and comrade, Bart Raymond, running his finger along the edge of his bayonet. "We'll have to try to cure them of it." "I think they're getting over it... more...

CHAPTER I. TERRIBLE ODDS. “Feels pretty good to be back in harness, doesn’t it, Hal?” asked Chester, as, accompanied by a small body of men, they rode slowly along. “Great!” replied his friend enthusiastically. “And it looks as if we were to see action soon.” “Yes, it does look that way.” The little body of British troopers, only forty-eight of them all told, with Hal Paine and... more...

A DISCOVERY In the great public square of the ancient city of Liege, in Belgium, a troop of Belgian Boy Scouts stood at attention. Staffs in hand, clad in the short knickerbockers, the khaki shirts and the wide campaign hats that mark the Boy Scout all over the world, they were enough of a spectacle to draw the attention of the busy citizens of Liege, who stopped to watch them admiringly. Their... more...

CHAPTER I A NEW USE FOR A DICTAPHONE The rain fell in torrents over the great battlefield, as Hal Paine and Chester Crawford, taking advantage of the inky blackness of the night, crept from the shelter of the American trenches that faced the enemy across "No Man's Land." In the trenches themselves all was silence. To a spectator it would have seemed that the occupants were, either dead or... more...

SERIOUS NEWS "As long as I can't be at home," said Harry Fleming, "I'd rather be here than anywhere in the world I can think of!" "Rather!" said his companion, Dick Mercer. "I say, Harry, it must be funny to be an American!" Harry laughed heartily. "I'd be angry, Dick," he said, finally, "if that wasn't so English—and so funny! Still, I... more...

"For Uncle Sam" "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their——" It was that old practice sentence of typists, which is as old as are typewriting machines, and Joe Harned, seated before the told-style, noisy, but still capable machine in Philip Burton's telegraph office, had rattled it off twenty-five times and was on his twenty-sixth when suddenly, very... more...

CHAPTER I BLOWN BACK "What's that, Schnitz?" "What's what!" "That noise. Sounds like a party coming along the communication trench!" The talk was in tense whispers, and the listening was now of the same tenseness. Two khaki-clad Sammies stood on the alert in the muddy ditch, dignified by the title, "trench," and tried to pierce the darkness that was like a pall... more...