"Great Scott, man! You’ve sent your flash, haven’t you?" "Yes; but I want to add a few details." "Well, let me get in a few words ahead and I’ll gladly relinquish the wire again." "Not much," said Stubbs. "I have the wire now and I intend to keep it for the next hour if I have to file the first chapter of Genesis." "Stubbs," pleaded Jennings, "don’t be a hog. I’ve got to get word to The World. You know that." "Then you should have got your own information," declared Stubbs. Meantime, the little war correspondent had been scribbling busily, from time to time passing sheets of paper to the operator, who sat with his hand on the key. Suddenly there was the sound of confusion without. A moment later half a dozen men rushed into the room. Stubbs smiled, as he recognized other war correspondents. "I’m a little ahead of you, fellows," he said good-naturedly. "Now, I intend to keep this wire for the next hour. Then I shall release it to Jennings here. He’ll probably do his best for you." The other correspondents smiled sickly smiles. They were beaten and they knew it. True to his words, Stubbs ceased writing an hour later and Jennings captured the wire. Stubbs turned to Hal and Chester. "Come," he said, "let’s be moving. I think I have redeemed myself." And he had, as later events were to prove; for The New York Gazette was the first paper in America to announce the fact that the armistice had been signed. *CHAPTER XXVIII* *THE END DRAWS NEAR* "WHEE-E-E-E-E-OU-O-O-O-O—BANG!" Chester raised himself to a sitting position in his funk hole and looked over at Hal. "Gosh all fishhooks! Looks like this was all a fake about the war being over at 11 o’clock this morning," he said. "Those shells don’t sound like the end of the war to me. Do they to you?" Hal admitted that they did not. The burst had almost covered both lads with earth and had been to close to allow either of them any peace of mind. "Down!" shouted Chester and again Hal rolled himself into a knot and wished that his funk hole was as many inches deeper. He had seen days when such a funk hole would have been sufficiently deep, but on that day of all days—half an hour before the end of the war—a forty-foot well wouldn’t have been any too deep. Hal’s calculation was a bit off. The shell came whistling in, like the weird cry of a hungry beast, and exploded in the hollow below the funk holes in which Hal and Chester found themselves, throwing up a geyser of earth and rocks that did no harm to anyone. "That guy’s as wild as a hawk," came a cry from a nearby hole. "I could do better than that myself, and I ain’t no artilleryman, either." "You talk like you wanted him to shoot closer," Hal called back. "That was plenty close enough for me." The next shell broke on the brow of the hill. Then came a whole shower of them, each one singing its own little tune that struck terror to the hearts of the bravest.