Fontanes highroad crosses the byroad to Sainte Lesse they were
halted by a dusty column moving rapidly west--four hundred American mules
convoyed by gendarmerie and remount troopers.

The sweating riders, passing at a canter, shouted from their saddles to
the big gendarme in the market cart that neither Nivelle nor Sainte Lesse
were to be defended at present, and that all stragglers were being
directed to Fontanes and Le Marronnier. Mules and drivers defiled at a
swinging trot, enveloped in torrents of white dust; behind them rode a
peloton of the remount, lashing recalcitrant animals forward; and in the
rear of these rolled automobile ambulances, red crosses aglow in the rays
of the setting sun.

The driver of the last ambulance seemed to be ill; his head lay on the
shoulder of a Sister of Charity who had taken the steering wheel.

The gendarme beside Maryette signalled her to stop; then he got out of the
market cart and, lifting the body of the American muleteer in his powerful
arms, strode across the road. The airman leaped from the market cart and
followed him.

Between them they drew out a stretcher, laid the muleteer on it, and
shoved it back into the vehicle.

There was a brief consultation, then they both came back to Maryette, who,
rigid in her seat and very pale, sat watching the procedure in silence.

The gendarme said:

"I go to Fontanes. There's a dressing station on the road. It appears that
your young man's heart hasn't quite stopped yet----"

The girl rose excitedly to her feet, but the gendarme gently forced her
back into her seat and laid the reins in her hands. To the airman he
growled:

"I did not tell this poor child to hope; I merely informed her that her
friend yonder is still breathing. But he's as full of holes as a pepper
pot!" He frowned at Maryette: "_Allons!_ My comrade here goes to Sainte
Lesse. Drive him there now, in God's name, before the Uhlans come
clattering on your heels!"

He turned, strode away to the ambulance once more, climbed in, and placed
one big arm around the sick driver's shoulder, drawing the man's head down
against his breast.

"_Bonne chance!_" he called back to the airman, who had now seated himself
beside Maryette. "Explain to our little bell-mistress that we're taking
her friend to a place where they fool Death every day--where to cheat the
grave is a flourishing business! Good-bye! Courage! En route, brave Sister
of the World!"

The Sister of Charity