d 'Beady' Watson,
gunner. "A cannon will stay put when you fix it. There's our piece out
on the flat car and she's all lashed and blocked. It would take a wreck
to budge her off that flat. I wish the B. C. had let me ride with the
old gun out there. It would be a little colder but a lot healthier. Try
to go to sleep in here and you'll wake up with a horse sitting on you."

"Where do you suppose we are going anyway?" asked Slater, fuse cutter in
the same section. "I'm strong for travel, but I always like to read the
program before we start to ramble. For all we know we might be on our
way to Switzerland or Italy or Spain or Egypt or somewhere."

"Why don't you go up and ask the Captain?" suggested Boyle, corporal in
charge of the car. "Maybe the Colonel gave him a special message to
deliver to you about our dusty-nation. You needn't worry though. They
ain't going to bowl us out of France for some time yet."

"Well, if we're just joy-riding around France," replied Slater, "I hope
we stop over to feed the horses at Monte Carlo. I've heard a lot about
that joint. They say that they run the biggest crap game in the world
there, and the police lay off the place because the Governor of the
State or the King or something, banks the game. They tell me he uses
straight bones and I figure a man could clean up big if he hit the game
on a payday."

"Listen, kid, you've got this tip wrong," said Shoemaker. "If there's
anything happens to start a riot among these horses, you are going to
find that you're gambling with death. And if we ever get off this train,
I think we have a date with Kaiser Bill."

"I've got a cousin somewhere in the German army. He spells his
'Shoemaker' with a 'u.' My dad told me that my grandfather and this
cousin's grandfather had a business disagreement over a sauerkraut
factory some time before the Civil War and my grandfather left Germany.
Since then, there ain't been no love lost between the branches of the
family, but we did hear that Cousin Hans had left the sauerkraut
business and was packing a howitzer for the Kaiser."

"Well, I hope we come across him for your sake," said Watson. "It's
kinda tough luck to get cheated out of a big business like that, but
then you must remember that if your cousin's grandfather hadn't pulled
the dirty on your grandfather, your grandfather might never have gone to
America and most likely you'd still be a German."

"I guess there's some sense in that, too," replied