rred to assume the habits of
beasts.

"How, in the name of God," Jeb cried, "could any army stand before such
a blasting as must have been here!"

"Our army did, Monsieur," the driver said quietly. "It not only stood,
but drove the Boche far back."

"Well, I take off my hat to your army!"

"The world does, also, Monsieur," his companion replied; although it was
modestly spoken, without a hint of boastfulness. "We do not fight like
the Boche, Monsieur," he added simply. "Their methods are more like a
mob with a bad conscience; they fight more with a dread of being
defeated than with the honesty of soldiers who have an honest cause."

He then explained to Jeb that these fields, after all, represented
merely the face to face struggle of man and man, and were therefore less
sickening than the devastation they would see farther on, which stood as
a monument to the enemy's vilest cupidity. This became apparent when
they began to cross that stretch of country gloatingly described by
German newspapers as "the empire of death"--meaning a territory seven or
eight miles in width, extending over the entire front, which by order of
"the High German Command" was converted absolutely into waste. Forced by
the Allies to retreat, this "High German Command" conceived that, by
leaving a barrier of desolation and cruelty so terrible, no army would
be hardy enough, or have heart enough, to advance across it. Their
system was complete, as the results now showed--although their
calculations had gone wrong.

"First, Monsieur," he said, "they began by robbing the American Relief
Committee's supplies, immediately following their solemn pledge to
permit this food to succor the starving peasantry; therefore those
pitiable folk, already tragic human wrecks, continued to starve. Next
they killed these peasants' cows to fill their own precious bellies, and
then the little babies began, by slow starvation, to die. But the men,
women, and boys old enough to till the soil, or work in German
factories, were fed and sent away; the girls pretty enough to wait upon
German officers--you know what that means, Monsieur--were dressed in
stolen finery and, weeping, driven to their new positions--six hundred
of them taken from within the space that you are looking on now,
although we have learned that many succeeded in killing themselves. Only
the helpless aged and the babes escaped these brutalities; for they,
being useless, were left to the mercy of the