So, after hours of sanguinary fighting, the orders came to fall back, and the Americans, who had been standing like the army of Thomas at Chickamauga, fifty years previous, reluctantly obeyed, and fell slowly back to new positions, their faces always toward the foe. "What kind of a fool stunt is this?" growled Tom, who, with his comrades, had been in the thick of the fight. "We had it all over those fellows, even if they were two or three times as many, and here we are retreating, when we ought to go ahead and lick the tar out of them." "Don't growl and complain, Tom," soothed Frank, whose left hand was bleeding where a bullet had zipped its way across it. "They'll get the licking all right when the time comes." "It's good dope to give back a little sometimes," added Bart. "It's like boxing. When a blow comes straight at your stomach you bend back and that takes half the force away from the blow. Don't worry the least little bit about this fight. We may be bending a little, but we're not breaking, and before many hours we'll be standing the Heinies on their heads." But the promise was not fulfilled that day, and when, night came after hours of tremendous struggle, the Allied forces had not regained their lost ground. As darkness fell the combat lessened, and finally ceased altogether, as far as infantry attacks were concerned, although all through the night the artillery kept up a fire of greater or less intensity. The boys of the regiment to which the Camport boys belonged were in rather a sober mood when they gathered around their field kitchens that night and partook of the food that was served out to them. They had not lost a gun, but they had yielded ground, and a great many of their comrades would never again answer the roll call. But their fighting spirit was at as high a pitch as ever, and they could scarcely wait till the morrow to get their revenge. Frank and his chums had come through the day unscathed, except for the injury to Frank's hand and a mark across Billy's temple where a bullet had ridged the skin. Perhaps it was due to the fortune that is said to attend the brave, for they had borne themselves like heroes and had been stationed at one of the most fiercely battered portions of the line. "I suppose they're gloating over this in Berlin to-night," said Tom gloomily, as they sat at the roots of a great tree whose bark and branches had been stripped from it by a storm of shells. "And groaning over it in New York," added Billy. "He laughs best who laughs last," said Bart. "To-morrow's a new day. Just watch our smoke." "We'll eat 'em alive," prophesied Frank confidently, as he nursed his wounded hand. "Like John Paul Jones, we've just begun to fight." "Do you fellows remember what General Corse said one time when Sherman asked him if he could hold out?" asked Bart. "What was it?" asked Billy. "He said: 'I've lost one eye and a piece of an ear, but I can lick a brigade or two yet,'" answered Bart.