“Well, Buddy, coming to get yours?” called Private Drew, as Blake and Joe, their cameras over their shoulders, walked toward the cook wagons from which came fragrant odors.

“Haven’t heard any invitations yet,” returned Blake, grinning.

“Come in with us!”

“Over this way!”

“Here you are for the big feed!”

The cries came from a number of different groups of Uncle Sam’s soldiers who were fighting in France.  For Blake, Joe and Charlie were generally liked, and though they were not supposed to mess with the soldiers, they did so frequently, and had many a good meal in consequence.

“We’re going to get records of your appetites to show the folks back home,” observed Blake, as he and Joe set up the machines.  “There’s a report that you’re gradually wasting away from lack of pie and cake.”

“Watch me waste!” cried a vigorous specimen of American manhood.  “Just watch me waste!” And he held aloft a big plate heaped high with good and substantial food, while, laughing, Blake and Joe made ready to get the views.

There was much fun and merriment, even though a few miles away there was war in its grimmest aspect But if one thought of that all the while, as Captain Black said, none would have the nerve and mental poise to face the guns and finally overcome the Huns.

Following the taking of the scenes around the mess hall, others were made showing the boys in khaki at bayonet practice, at the throwing of hand grenades, and other forms of war exercises.

“I guess these will do for peaceful scenes,” said Captain Black, when Joe and Blake reported to him what they had accomplished.  “And now do you feel equal to a little more strenuous work?”

“Yes, sir.  In what way?” returned Blake.

“On the firing line again.  I know you’ll keep it to yourselves, but we are going to have a big engagement in a day or so.  We are all primed for it and it will be on a big scale.  The Government wants some films of it, if you can get them, films not so much to be shown in public as to be official records of the War Department.  Do you boys feel equal to the task?”

“That’s what we’re here for!” exclaimed Blake.

“How about you, Duncan?” asked the captain of Joe.  “Is your side all right?”

“Oh, yes!  I’d never know I’d been hurt.  I’m game, all right!”

“Well, it will be in a day or so.  None of us knows exactly when, as those higher up don’t let us into all of their secrets.  Too many leaks, you know.  We want to surprise Fritz if we can.”

This gave the moving picture boys something further to think about and to plan for, and when they had taken the reels of exposed film, showing the dinner scenes, from their cameras, they made the machines ready for more strenuous work.

“I think I’ll put an extra covering of thin sheet steel on the film boxes,” said Charlie, talking the matter over with his two chums.  “A stray bit of shrapnel might go through them now and make a whole reel light-struck.”