"Not much chance of that," put in Tom. "It's more likely to be the other way. What's Hindenburg doing now but retreating?"
"But it's a long, long way before he'll get back to the Rhine," replied Peterson. "And in the meantime it looks as if Russia was getting ready to quit. I tell you, boys, if we get into it, the work of winning the war will be on our shoulders. And it won't be a cinch any way you look at it."
"Not a cinch perhaps," agreed Frank thoughtfully, "but I wouldn't have any doubt about how it would come out in the long run. I'd back America to whip the world."
"So would I," came back Peterson promptly, "if it were just a question of man against man. But this is a war of machinery. The day's gone by when a man could grab a musket and run out to meet the other fellow who, as a rule, wasn't any better prepared than he was. Now it's a matter of cannon, and machine guns, and liquid fire, and poison gases, and all the rest of it. The Germans have those things and know how to use them. We haven't got them and wouldn't know how to use them if we had. Why, a single German army corps has more machine guns than we have in the whole United States!"
"Of course we're not prepared," broke in Hal Chase. "But we've got plenty of company in that. Who in the world was prepared except Germany? She caught all Europe asleep. If three years ago anyone had said this war was coming we'd have thought him crazy."
"Yes," agreed Tom. "That's true enough and you can't blame the rest of the world too much. But there's no excuse for us being caught this way. We've watched this thing developing for the last two years and coming closer and closer to us all the time. It was a dead sure thing that sooner or later we would get in it. And yet we've been like a man who sees the house next door burning and doesn't take any steps to protect his own."
"Well," said Frank, "what's past is past and there's no use crying over spilled milk. There's no use either in asking who has been to blame. That can be settled after the war. What we Americans have got to do is to buck up, stand shoulder to shoulder, and fight as Americans always have fought when they've got into a scrap."
"Sure thing," agreed Bart. "But just now it would be like a man fighting with his bare fists against another fellow that's got a gun. He might be brave enough, but the other fellow's bullet would get to him before his fist could land."
"It isn't the first time we've been in this fix," said Tom. "But somehow or other we've always managed to come through on top. See how it was in 1812. We didn't have any navy and England had the greatest fleet in the world. But we built the ships and made the guns, and knocked spots out of the other fellows."
"Yes," said Hal, "and Perry won the battle of Lake Erie with ships made from trees that a hundred days before had had birds' nests in them. And what we did once we can do again."