And there the storm of blood and steel was renewed with fiercer energy, until at last, just as night was settling down, the German flank was turned, and they began to retreat in what ultimately was a rout. "A glorious victory! A glorious victory!" was shouted from all sides in the American ranks. It was not the end of the war, by any means, but a dangerous salient had been wiped out, and the American line was straightened, so that now the fighting could go along on more even terms. "Oh, but I am tired!" sighed Jimmy, as he flung himself full length down on the ground when the signal came to cease firing. "I'm all in, too," added Bob. "But we're none of us hurt to any extent," said Franz, binding up a place on his leg where a bit of shrapnel had grazed him. "Won't even get a wound stripe for this," he said, grimly. It was next morning, when the supply wagons had come up with more substantial food, and hot rations, that the good news circulated around. "We're due for a rest billet! Hurray!" "And then I'll have a chance to see about Sergeant Maxwell!" exclaimed Jimmy. That same day, following the one of such fierce fighting, the battalion in which Jimmy and his chums served was ordered to the rear. They would have a week's rest before going into the terrible game again. Jimmy's first action, once he had been relieved from active duty for the time being, was to seek out the hospital whither Sergeant Maxwell had been removed. He went alone, for he did not want to excite the patient by taking in too many chums, should it prove that the man who had held the five thousand francs was in a dangerous physical or mental condition. But, to Jimmy's relief, the doctor's and nurse's reports were favorable. It was more a case of exhaustion than anything else, though the sergeant had been wounded. "Did he tell where he had been ever since he has been missing?" asked Jimmy of a hospital attendant before going in himself to see his friend. "Well he remembered some of it. It seems he was captured while out on a listening post one night, and taken away a prisoner. Instead of sending him to a camp, as the Huns do with most of our poor chaps they get, the Boches kept the sergeant with them, taking him from place to place. It was their idea, I believe, to either force him to desert and join them, or use him as a decoy--or perhaps make him a spy. "Anyhow they kept him with them, and once he was struck and wounded by a beast of a German officer. After that they neglected him and he got terribly run down, though his wound healed. Then, just before the last big fight--the one you say you were in--the sergeant was held a prisoner in the hut where you found him. He was in a bad way and I suppose the Germans thought he'd die when they left him--which they did when our boys knocked the spots off 'em, if you'll excuse my slang." "Oh, I'll excuse it all right!" laughed Jimmy. "It isn't any too strong."