"I was trying to get to my feet when four or five of the nearest Moros, brandishing their knives, swooped down upon me. It would have been all over with me, if one of our fellows, a big fighting Irishman named Hennessy, hadn't come plunging through the crowd swinging his rifle round his head like a flail. They went down like bullocks hit with an axe. They simply couldn't get inside the circle made by that gun and by the time he had knocked down a half dozen or more, our boys had rallied and had the beggars on the run." "Phew, but that was a close shave!" ejaculated Frank. "Close is right," agreed Fred. "I'd certainly have cashed in right then and there if it hadn't been for Hennessy. I told him that he had saved my life and that I owed him more than I could ever repay, but he wouldn't have it so. The joke of it was that I think he was really grateful to me for giving him a chance for such a lovely scrap. He told me that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much since the last time he had gone to the fair at Tipperary." There was a general laugh. "If it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have had your chance now to get a hack at the Huns," remarked Bart. "No," assented Fred, "and that would certainly have been hard luck. But to get back where we started from, I want to put it up to you fellows that what the Frenchman said was true. We can't take this practice too seriously. Especially bayonet practice. We've had lots of proof that the Germans don't like cold steel. They're brave enough, but the French and English put it all over them in bayonet work." "That's right," agreed Frank, "and it's up to us to show that Uncle Sam's boys can do the same." The hand grenade throwing was of special interest to the boys and was the one most readily mastered. This was due chiefly to the fact that it had points in common with baseball. Many of the boys were proficient in the great national game. The firm of Moore and Thomas had maintained its own nine, and in the season before they had carried off the championship of the commercial teams in Camport. Frank had officiated in the pitcher's box and had an assortment of curves and drops together with great speed that had been the chief factors in the winning of the pennant. Bart had "dug them out of the dirt" at first base. Billy Waldon, too, had been as quick as lightning in "winging them down" from short. So that their throwing arms were fully developed and they took up this new and grimmer game with the skill born of long practice. "This ought to be nuts for us when we get to the trenches," remarked Billy, as he cut loose with a grenade in practice that landed within two feet of the object aimed at.