e bland inquiry, "What are you hunting
for, corpses?"

"No," they responded, pointing to their mouths and stomachs,
"awful hungry. Hunting something to eat."

I bade a mental farewell to my food-supplies as I emptied out my
pockets before these ravagers. I expected everything to be
grabbed with a summary demand for more. From these despoilers
of a countryside I was ready for any sort of a manifestation--any,
except the one that I received. With one accord they refused to
take any of my provisions. I recovered from my surprise sufficiently
to understand that they were thanking me for my good will while
they were constantly reiterating:

"It is your food and you will need every bit of it."

In the name of camaraderie I persuaded each to take a piece of
bread and chocolate. They received this offering with profound
gratitude. With much cautioning and many solemn Auf Wiedersehens
bestowed upon me, I was off again.

Below Vise an entirely new vista opened to me. Tens of thousands
of soldiers were marching over the pontoon bridges already flung
across the river. Perhaps five hundred more were engaged in
building a steel bridge which seemed to be a hurried but
remarkable piece of engineering. It was replacing the old structure
which had been dynamited by the Belgians, and which now lay a
tangled mass of wreckage in the river.

For the next eight miles to Jupilles the country was quite as much
alive as the first four miles were dead. It was swarming with the
military. Through all the gaps in the hills above the River Meuse
the German army came pouring down like an enormous tidal
wave--a tidal wave with a purpose, viz: to fling itself against the
Allies arranged in battle line at Namur, and with the overwhelming
mass of numbers to smash that line to bits and sweep on
resistlessly into Paris. I thought of the Blue and Red wall of French
and English down there awaiting this Gray-Green tide of Teutons.

By the hundreds of thousands they were coming; patrols of cavalry
clattering along, the hoof-beats of the chargers coming with
regular cadence on the hard roads; silent moving riders mounted
on bicycles, their guns strapped on their backs; armored
automobiles rumbling slowly on, but taking the occasional spaces
which opened in the road with a hollow roaring sound and at a
terrific pace; individual horsemen galloping up and down the road
with their messages, and the massed regiments of dust-begrimed
men marching endlessly