At dawn the vultures signalled the retreat and the green-gray wave of Death rolled forward with incredible swiftness. By noon their greatest guns, each drawn by fifty magnificent horses, had been brought up and were sweeping into position along the low hills that would form their new battleline. Our commander made up his mind to pot at least one of those guns. He planted a battery of heavy artillery to sweep the road that curved gracefully over these hills. A clump of trees concealed its presence from the circling scouts. The moment the huge siege gun swept into view--its fifty horses plunging forward with steady leaps, their sides a lather of white foam--our battery roared a salvo and four shells sang in chorus. The gunners lifted their glasses and watched. Every shell struck within dead range of the long line of plunging horses. A cloud of smoke and dust rose high on the crest of the hill and when it lifted the tangled mass of torn and mangled horses and men blocked the way. A second salvo landed squarely in the wreck and blew the tangled mass into fragments--the glasses could no longer find a moving object. The vultures circled above the hidden battery, their signals flashed and then from five different points behind the hills the shells began to shriek. In thirty minutes they were silenced and torn to bits. But two men were left alive to reach headquarters with the brave story. The second battle began in earnest at three o’clock in the afternoon. The pitiful story was repeated. With remorseless accuracy their guns tore our men to pieces. They held their own just half a mile beyond the range of our artillery. All night our men clung blindly to their position and at the dawn of the third day the enemy’s infantry in solid formation, their bayonets flashing, moved swiftly and silently into line for their first charge. A hundred machine guns were concentrated to relieve them. They formed at their leisure in plain view of our ragged trenches. Our field artillery got their range and began to pour a storm of shrapnel on their ranks. They closed up the gaps with clock-like precision and moved forward at double quick. Round after round of our artillery failed to stop them. The ranks closed automatically. They were cheering now--the breeze wafted their cries across the little valley that separated them from our trenches: “For God and Emperor!” When the ranks in front fell, the mass behind rushed over their bodies and shouted again: “For God and Emperor!” Our machine guns were mowing them down as wheat falls beneath the teeth of a hundred singing harvest machines on the prairies of Minnesota.