e to Jupilles without challenge. Stopping to get a
drink there, I realized what a protest my feet were making against
the strain to which I was putting them. Luckily, a peasant's
vegetable cart was passing, and, jumping on, I was congratulating
myself on the relief, when after a few hundred yards the cart
turned up a lane, leaving me on the road again with one franc less
in my pocket.

There were so few soldiers along this stretch that I drove myself
along at a furious pace, slowing up only when I sighted a soldier. I
was very hot, and felt my face blazing red as the natives gazed
after me stalking so fiercely past them. But the great automobiles
plunging by flung up such clouds of dust that my face was being
continually covered by this gray powder. What I most feared was
lest, growing dizzy, I should lose my head and make incoherent
answers.

Faint with the heat I dragged myself into a little wayside place.
Everything wore a dingy air of poverty except the gracious keeper
of the inn. I pointed to my throat. She understood at once my signs
of thirst and quickly produced water and coffee, of which I drank
until I was ashamed.

"How much!" I asked.

She shook her head negatively. I pushed a franc or two across the
table.

"No," she said smilingly but with resolution.

"I can't take it. You need it on your journey. We are all just friends
together now."

So my dust and distress had their compensations. They had
brought me inclusion in that deeper Belgian community of sorrow.

It was apparent that the Germans were going to make this rich
region a great center for their operations and a permanent base of
supply. There must have been ten thousand clean-looking cattle
on the opposite bank of the river; they were raising a great noise
as the soldiers drove their wagons among them, throwing down
the hay and grain. Otherwise, the army had settled down from the
hustling activities of the morning, and the guards had been posted
for the oncoming evening. I knew now that I was progressing at a
good pace because near Wandre I noticed a peasant's wagon
ahead, and soon overtook it. It was carrying eight or nine Belgian
farm-hands, and the horse was making fair time under constant
pressure from the driver.

I did not wish to add an extra burden to the overloaded animal, but
it was no time for the exercise of sentiment. So I held up a two-
franc piece to the driver. He looked at the coin, then he looked at
the horse, and th