So the American positions had been advanced despite enemy efforts to halt them.
After reporting to General Rhodes and delivering the communication they carried from the commander-in-chief, the lads repaired to the quarters of Colonel O'Neil.
"By George!" exclaimed the colonel, "I certainly am glad to see you fellows again. You have been gone so long that I feared you had come to grief. Where have you been?"
"Well, Colonel," said Hal briefly, "we saw the armistice signed."
"You don't mean it," was the colonel's ejaculation. "You were certainly confounded lucky. It's an event I would like to have seen myself. You must feel pretty important, eh?"
"Not so important that we cannot do a little more before the war ends," Chester said quietly.
"There is still work to be done," returned Colonel O'Neil quietly. "Hear the firing?"
The lads did not need to strain their ears to hear the distant rumble of big guns and the sharp crack of infantry firing, nearer at hand.
"Still at it, eh?" murmured Chester. "You would think that with the end of the war so close at hand, officers and men alike would be content to sit quiet."
"On the contrary, though," laughed Colonel O'Neil, "it would appear that each side is determined to wreak what death and destruction it can before a few written words shall stop this business of wholesale killing and ruin."