Just then a German rifle spoke from the riverbank below, a thousand yards away, where the enemy were watching, and a bullet pierced the Stars and Stripes as the flag fluttered over that slim girlish figure silhouetted against the glory of the eastern sky. Then another bullet came, and another. The enemy had seen Barbara’s manoeuvre. She was betraying an important military secret, and she must die. Wait! With a hostile army below her, not a mile distant, this fearless American girl went on wigwagging her message--letter by letter, slowly, painstakingly, for she was imperfect in the code. As she swept the flag from side to side, signalling, a rain of bullets sang past her. Some cut her dress and some snipped her flowing hair; and finally one shattered the flag-staff in her hands. Whereupon, like Barbara Frietchie of old, this fine young Barbara caught up the banner she loved, and went on waving the news that might save her country, while a hundred German soldiers fired at her. And presently a wonderful thing happened. The power of her devotion touched the hearts of these rough men,--for they were brave themselves,--and, lowering their guns, with one accord, they cheered this little grey-eyed, dimpled farmer’s girl with her hair blowing in the breeze, until the Jersey hills rang. And now the lad in Brownsburg rose to the situation. There were Germans on the opposite bank, a great host of them, making ready to cross the Delaware. General Wood must know this at once--he must come at once. They say that freckle-faced Marshall Frissell, fifteen years old, on a mad motorcycle, covered the twenty miles to Ft. Hill, Pa., where General Wood had his headquarters, in fifteen minutes, and that by seven o’clock troop trains and artillery trains were moving toward the north, winding along the Delaware like enormous snakes, as Leonard Wood, answering the children’s call, hastened to the rescue. I dwell upon these minor happenings because they came to my knowledge, and because the main events of the four days’ battle of Trenton are familiar to all. In spite of the overwhelming superiority of the Germans in men and artillery, the American army, spread along a twelve-mile front on the hills opposite Lambertville, made good use of their defensive position, and for three days held back the enemy from crossing the river. In fact, it was only on the evening of the third day, June 21, that von Hindenburg’s engineers succeeded in completing their pontoon line to the Pennsylvania shore. Again and again the floating bridge was destroyed by a concentrated shell fire from American batteries on the ridge a mile and a half back from the river. American aeroplanes contributed effectively to this work of resistance by dropping explosive bombs upon the pontoons; but, unfortunately, German aeroplanes outnumbered the defenders at least four to one, and soon achieved a mastery of the sky.