"We'll put a torpedo under him and blow him through the roof," added Bart.
"Now men," said the sergeant, "put on your masks and go inside, one after the other. There's no danger if you've learned to put them on perfectly. But if there's any sloppy work, the fellow that's careless will find it out soon enough, and he'll get all that's coming to him."
"Not much nourishment in that," muttered Billy under his breath. "Suppose the mask's defective, got a hole in it or something like that."
"If it is, it's better to find it out now than when we're actually in the trenches," answered Frank. "I suppose that's the real reason for this test. Here's hoping that no shoddy contractor had put one over on the government."
They filed into the grim little room after having adjusted their masks with especial care and stood crowded closely together looking in their ghostly attire like so many spectres.
It was a grisly five minutes that seemed more like an hour to each one of them. The dead silence added to the discomfort of the occasion. Death seemed to be all around them, reaching out to them with its skeleton fingers. They were in the "valley of the shadow," and it sobered them.
It was an immense relief when the knock of the sergeant on the door summoned them forth and the test was over. And there was great satisfaction when it was learned that all the masks had held and shown that they could be relied on.
Once out in the clean, sweet air and under the blue sky that never before had seemed so beautiful, the boys tore off their masks in a hurry.
"Now I feel like a respectable member of society and not like one of the Ku Klux Klan!" exclaimed Bart, as he looked around on the flushed bronzed faces of his comrades. "My, but it's good to be out of this hideous rig. I'd like to throw it into the river," he added digging his fingers viciously into the unoffending mask.
"You'll be glad enough to have it some day before long," prophesied Frank. "Then you'll count it the best friend you have."