Turning, Peter slithered along on all fours after Dick and Sacobie. The startled Huns lighted up their front as if for a national fête; but Peter chanced it and kept on going. A shrapnel shell exploded overhead with a terrific sound, and the fat bullets spattered in the mud all round him. He came to another and larger crater and was about to skirt it when a familiar voice exclaimed: "Come in here, you idiot!" There was Dick and Frank Sacobie standing hip-deep in the mud and water at the bottom of the hole. Peter joined them with a few bushels of mud. A whiz-bang whizzed and banged red near-by, and the three ducked and knocked their heads together. The water was bitterly cold. "Did you think you were on your way to the barns to milk?" asked Dick. "Don't you know the machine guns are combing the ground?" "I'll remember," said Peter. "New work to me, and I guess I was a bit flustered. I wonder where Dave Hammer has got himself to." "Some hole or other, sure," said Sacobie. "Don't worry 'bout Dave. He put three bombs into them. I counted the busts. Fritz will quiet down in a few minutes, I guess, and let us out of here--if our fellows don't get gay and start all the artillery shootin' off." Our fellows did not get gay, our artillery refrained from shooting off, and soon the enemy ceased his frenzied musketry and machine gunning and bombing of his own wire and the harmless mud beyond. So Peter and Dick and Sacobie left their wet retreat and crawled for home. They found Sergt. Hammer waiting for them at the hole in the wire. He had already given the word to the sentry; and so they made the passage of the wire and popped into the trench. Hammer reported to Mr. Scammell, who was all ready to go out with another patrol; and then the four went back to their dugout in the support trench, devoured a mess of potatoes and onions, drank a few mugs of tea and retired to their blankets, mud and putties and all. That was the night of the 3d of December. In the battalion's summary of intelligence to the brigade it read like this: "Night of 23d-24th, our patrols active. Small patrol of four, under 106254 Sgt. D. Hammer, encountered ten of the enemy in front of the German wire. Bombs were exchanged and six of the enemy were killed or wounded. Our patrol returned. 2.30 A. M. Lieut. Scammell placed tube in hostile wire which exploded successfully. No casualties." The next day passed quietly, with a pale glimmer of sunshine now and then, and between glimmers a flurry of moist snow. The Germans shouted friendly messages across No Man's Land and suggested a complete cessation of hostilities for the day and the morrow. The Canadians replied that the next Fritz who cut any "love-your-enemy" capers on the parapet would get what he deserved. "Peace on earth!" exclaimed the colonel of the 26th. "They are the people to ask for it, the murderers! No, this is a war with a reason--and we shoot on Christmas Eve just as quick as on any other day."