sailing immediately after
the race, there was no time in which to row off the tie. So it was
decided that the names of both ships should be engraved on the cup, and
that the Florida crew should defend the title against a challenging
crew from the British Admiral Craddock's flagship.

By the end of June, the public interest in Vera Cruz had waned, and the
corps of correspondents dwindled until there were only a few left.

Frederick Palmer and I went up to join Carranza and Villa, and on the
26th of July we were in Monterey waiting to start with the triumphal
march of Carranza's army toward Mexico City. There was no sign of
serious trouble, abroad. That night ominous telegrams came, and at ten
o'clock on the following morning we were on a train headed for the
States.

Palmer and Davis caught the Lusitania, sailing August 4 from New York,
and I followed on the Saint Paul, leaving three days later. On the
17th of August I reached Brussels, and it seemed the most natural thing
in the world to find Davis already there. He was at the Palace Hotel,
where a number of American and English correspondents were quartered.

Things moved quickly. On the 19th Irvin Cobb, Will Irwin, Arno Dosch,
and I were caught between the Belgian and German lines in Louvain; our
retreat to Brussels was cut, and for three days, while the vast German
army moved through the city, we were detained. Then, the army having
passed, we were allowed to go back to the capital.

In the meantime Davis was in Brussels. The Germans reached the
outskirts of the city on the morning of the 20th, and the
correspondents who had remained in Brussels were feverishly writing
despatches describing the imminent fall of the city. One of them,
Harry Hansen, of the Chicago Daily News, tells the following story,
which I give in his words: "While we were writing," says Hansen,
"Richard Harding Davis walked into the writing-room of the Palace Hotel
with a bunch of manuscript in his hand. With an amused expression he
surveyed the three correspondents filling white paper.

"'I say, men,' said Davis, 'do you know when the next train leaves?'

"'There is one at three o'clock,' said a correspondent, looking up.

"'That looks like our only chance to get a story out,' said Davis.
'Well, we'll trust to that.'

"The story was the German invasion of Brussels, and the train mentioned
was considered the forlorn hope of the correspondents to connect with
the outside world-