ning them, and testing their reports by the
map.

"Not seen you for a long time, Reimers!" he laughed, as the battery
marched by. "Just look; these chaps climb like monkeys!"

Reimers nodded gaily to his lively friend. It was indeed a pleasure to
watch the agile hussars.

"Wait a bit!" said Ottensen, "I'll ride a little way with you." He
asked Senior-lieutenant Frommelt politely for permission, and sent his
men back in charge of a sergeant. Then he joined the battery,
chattering away gaily in his droll, staccato fashion, and making his
horse leap the ditch from time to time. He sat his magnificent steed
splendidly, and with his slender, neatly-made figure, looked the
perfect model of a cavalry officer.

Reimers looked at him with honest admiration and pleasure.

"Your hussars are smart fellows!" he said.

Ottensen smiled, well pleased, and said: "Well, perhaps so!"

"They climb the trees well," continued the artilleryman.

"I should think so!" said Ottensen. "Trees, corn-stacks,
church-towers, roofs of houses, telegraph-posts, and devil knows what
besides--mountain-tops too, only there aren't any hereabouts."

"Perhaps there will be during the man[oe]uvres."

The hussar let his single eye-glass fall, and showed an astonished
face.

"Man[oe]uvres, my dear fellow? Why, all's plain sailing in them!"

"How do you mean? Plain sailing?"

"The rendezvous all fixed up beforehand, with friends on the enemy's
side; simultaneous luncheons arranged for when possible. Every detail
settled in advance."

The little hussar suddenly burst out laughing: "Reimers! my dear
fellow!" he cried, "don't pull a face like a funeral march! Do you mean
to say you didn't know it? You didn't? Well!"

Reimers asked him: "But what do you take to be the object of the
man[oe]uvres?"

"Object? Oh, there is plenty of object!"

"Surely the object of the man[oe]uvres is to get the nearest possible
approach to the conditions of actual warfare?"

"All rot!" declared the hussar. "You're still just the same old
bookworm as ever; an incorrigible old wool-gatherer! The object of the
man[oe]uvres is the most deadly punctuality in the meeting of the two
opposing parties, and not the training of young cavalry lieutenants in
scouting. The object is attained by careful consultations beforehand.
Oh, yes! I was once just such another innocent youth as you, dear boy.
Shall I ever forget it, my first scouting expedition, with no
rendezvous? On and o