"When Spell went down I was over a hundred feet away from him. Before he
became unconscious he tried to crawl back to the trench from which he
had come. But evidently he was confused and went down in plain sight of
the Huns.
"I didn't care very much for the man, as I told you before, but I could
not see him remain there exposed to the fire of the enemy, and so
without thinking twice I jumped up out of the trench and ran across the
ground to where he was lying. The shells had torn the soil dreadfully,
so that I had considerable difficulty in reaching him.
"I placed him on my shoulder, and just then several Huns began firing at
us. One bullet grazed my side, giving me a deep scratch, and another
went through the cloth of Spell's coat. I stumbled down into a shell
crater with the man and had all I could do to drag him and myself out.
Then I plunged forward again, and just as the Huns let out several more
shots, both of us stumbled down into the trench, and the rescue, if you
might call it such, was over."
"Well, I think that was a grand thing to do, Dad!" burst out Jack, his
face beaming. "Simply grand!"
"You couldn't beat it for pluck!" said Fred.
"And that's how you won the medal?" broke in Andy. "Fine!"
"You certainly deserved it," added his twin. "Gee! but suppose those
Huns had plugged you when you were carrying the fellow!"
"And that's how I got him back to the trenches," went on Dick Rover. "He
was taken to the field hospital, and there his injuries were found to be
slight, and in a few days he was back on the firing line again."
"He ought to have been mighty thankful," declared Martha, who sat close
by, holding her father's hand.
"He was thankful; and for that reason he did something which may have an
important bearing on my future business dealings," answered Dick Rover.
"He said he had no relatives of any kind, and he then and there made a
will whereby if anything happened to him all that he possessed in this
world should go to me."
"And then he was killed?" questioned Mrs. Rover.
"Yes. Just two days after his return to duty we were making another
advance. Spell was in one part of the field while I was in another.
Suddenly I saw him running off to a place just in front of where our
squad was located. Then he made a turn as if to come toward us, and just
at that instant he threw up his hands and fell forward on his face."
Here Dick Rover paused and dropped his eyes. No one cared to speak, and
for an instant there was utter silence.
"When the skirmish was over we had gained our position, and a few hours
later the body of Lorimer Spell was picked up and carried to the rear,"
went on Jack's father. "A bullet had struck him in the back of the head,
and death must have been instantaneous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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