it I left the Fusilier officer with
the commander of the first company I met. Then I hurried to the Company
commander.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I am here, to report, sir," I said. "There is no use trying to get in
touch with the Fusiliers. They have been cut off."

"Your orders were to go back until you got in touch with them," he said
gruffly. "Consider yourself under arrest."

A non-commissioned officer and two men, with fixed bayonets, were put on
guard over me. I had disobeyed orders, technically, and during those
first days in France many a stern act was necessary, for the army had to
learn the discipline of war.

I would have been tied to a spare wheel at the back of an artillery
caisson, but as they were leading me away I asked to speak to my sergeant.
I explained to him what had happened and he told my company commander, who
found the officer of the Fusiliers. The latter, meanwhile, had been taken
care of by our officers and was now in condition to talk. He spoke to the
colonel (Col. Grant Duff), explaining just what had happened and telling
him that he had directed me to return to my regiment. I was liberated, but
it was a mighty close escape from disgrace, which, after all, is worse
than death, especially to a soldier.

After that I was sent out to scout on the left flank with my partner,
Troolen, who was of a daredevil disposition and worked in a noisy fashion,
and so when I saw something moving in the brushwood on a ridge we were
approaching, and heard a sound like the trample of horses on the other
side, I cautioned him to remain where he was while I explored it. Troolen
swore he could hear nothing and was for muddling ahead and running into
anything that might be there, but I was in command and I ordered him to
wait. Sneaking from stone to stone and from tree to tree, I worked myself
to a little pocket which seemed scalloped out of the crest of the ridge
and found the ground there all freshly trampled, with other signs that
horses had left it recently. There were no wheel marks, so I knew that it
was cavalry, not artillery. From the marks of the iron shoes I could tell
that they were of a different type from ours.

Uhlans had been there.

I signalled to Troolen and he joined me. Climbing to the crest of the
ridge we saw the enemy in large numbers moving toward the road on which we
were marching, and they were ahead of us. As we hurried toward our
regiment we heard others in the rear