But nothing suspicious developed, and, reassured, they again, at a signal from their leader, moved forward. But new they were no longer on their feet. They were too close to the German line for that. Down on hands and knees they wormed their way along inch by inch, reaching out their hand cautiously for each fresh grip on the uneven ground. Sometimes their hands encountered emptiness and they were warned that they were on the edge of a shell hole. At other times they drew back in instinctive repulsion, as they felt the rigid outlines of a dead body. But whatever detours they had to make, they managed by touch or whisper to keep together, and although their progress was slow it was still progress, and they knew that they were steadily nearing the German lines. Suddenly Frank's extended hand came in contact with a sharp object that he recognized on the instant. It was the barb on a broken strand of wire. They had reached the entanglement protecting a segment of the German trench. Frank had been a trifle in advance of his comrades, and he softly signaled his discovery to the others. In an instant they had stiffened out and lay as rigid as statues. For five minutes not one of them stirred, while they listened for the tread of the sentry who might be stationed behind the wires. Some distance off they could hear the sound of voices in guttural tones, the occasional click of a bayonet as it was slipped into place, the low rumble of what might have been field pieces being moved into position. Now too their eyes came into play, for ahead of them the darkness was threaded with a faint ray of light that rose above the trench, and while it did little more than make darkness visible, it was still sufficient to form a background against which they could have detected the figure of a sentinel. But they drew no false assurance from that fact, for the enemy's patrol might be lying on the ground, as silent as themselves and as watchful, ready to fire in the direction of the slightest sound. It was a nerve-trying situation, but life or death might depend on their self-control, and they stood the test successfully, although poor Tom had an almost irrepressible desire to sneeze, in conquering which he almost broke a blood vessel. Convinced at last that it was safe to move, they commenced to crawl along the outside of the wire, trying by the sense of touch to find out what havoc had been made in it by the American artillery fire and where it would be easiest to break through. They had drawn on rubber gloves, for they knew that the Germans sometimes charged the wires with electricity, and a touch with the bare hand would mean instant death. But that day the fighting had been so fierce and the enemy had been kept so busy in resisting the American onslaught that no such precaution had been taken. And this better than anything else told the boys how badly the enemy had been shaken.