"He isn't shot yet at any rate," remarked Fred Andon, who sat near by. "I guess the fighting was so hot all day yesterday that they didn't have time to attend to him. Likely enough he's down in the prisoners' pen waiting for the court-martial." "Let's go down and see after we've finished our chow," suggested Billy. "That is if you fellows ever get through eating. Look at Tom stowing it away. He'd eat his way through the whole quartermaster's department if he was let." "And he's the fellow that they wouldn't let enlist because of his teeth," gibed Bart. "They didn't know Tom." "I'm not the only one that got a raw deal," replied Tom, with whom it was always a sore point that he had been refused when he wanted to enlist, but had been accepted in the draft. "There's a drafted man here who was telling me the other day that he walked ninety miles to enlist. And do you know what the enlistment board did to him?" "What?" was the query. "Turned him down because he had flat feet," responded Tom. "Told him he wouldn't be able to stand a five-mile hike." There was a roar of laughter. "I heard another good one," chimed in Billy. "A fellow wanted to enlist, and the examining board wanted to reject him because he had a cast in his eye. 'Oh, that's all right,' he drawled, 'I allus shets that eye anyway when I shoot.' That made them laugh and he got by." In high spirits they finished their meal, and as they were off duty for the next hour or two, made their way down to that quarter of the field where the prisoners' camp was placed. Behind the barrier at the point nearest them they saw one bulky captive, who was munching contentedly the food that had been given him, and who had none of the woe-begone expression that a man in his position is commonly expected to show. "See him shovel it in," laughed Billy. "He doesn't seem to have a care in the world," remarked Bart. "Probably glad to be behind our machine guns instead of in front of them," conjectured Tom. "Hello, Heinie!" said Frank good-naturedly. "Hello yourself," came the answer. "Do you speak English?" asked Frank in surprise. "A little," replied the German, and proceeded to prove it by answering, although in rather a halting manner, the questions they put to him. No, he at any rate had not wanted the war. He was a skilled mechanic in one of the munition factories. There had been a strike on account of bad conditions and he had been one of the leaders. The Government had seized him and bundled him off to the front. He was glad to be captured. After the war the Kaiser would see that men were born to be something else than cannon fodder. "Well," remarked Frank as they moved along, "there's one fellow at least that doesn't cry: '_Hoch the Kaiser_.'" "Seems good to see it so full," remarked Bart with great satisfaction, as he saw the large number of Germans who had been captured in the fierce fighting of the day before.