lders, and followed Jacques up a ladder into a
loft over the horses. But it was not a bad room. It had two small iron
beds and it was secure from wet and cold.

"You take that," said Jacques, pointing to the bed on the right. "It
belonged to Fritz who was the hostler here with me. He went to the army
at the first call and was killed at Longwy. Fritz was a German, a Saxon,
but he and I were friends. We had worked together here three years. I'd
have been glad if the bullets had spared him. The horses miss him, too.
He had a kind hand with them and they liked him. Poor Fritz! You sleep
in the bed of a good man."

"My eyes are so heavy that I think I'll go to bed now."

"The bed is waiting for you. It's always welcome to one who has walked
all day in the cold as you have. I have more work. I have the tasks of
that poor Fritz and my own to do now. It may be an hour, two hours
before I'm through, but if you sleep as soundly as I do I'll not wake
you up."

John sank into deep slumber almost at once and knew nothing until the
next morning.

CHAPTER VIII

INTO GERMANY

A frosty dawn was just beginning to show through the single window that
lighted up the little room. It opened toward the east, where the light
was pink over the hills, but the upper sky was yet in dusk. John sat up
in bed and rubbed the last sleep out of his eyes. A steady moaning sound
made him think he was hearing again the thunder of great guns, as he had
heard it days and nights at the Battle of the Marne.

The low ominous mutter came from a point toward the north, and glancing
that way, although he knew his eyes would meet a blank wall, he saw that
it was only Jacques, snoring, not an ordinary common snore, but the loud
resounding trumpet call that can only come from a mighty chest and a
powerful throat through an eagle beak. Jacques was stretched flat upon
his back and John knew that he must have worked extremely hard the night
before to roar with so much energy through his nose while he slept.
Well, Jacques was a good fellow and a friend of France, the nation that
was fighting for its existence, and if he wanted to do it he might snore
until he raised the roof!

John sat up. He saw the pink on the eastern hills turning to blue and
then spreading to the higher skies. The day was going to be clear and
cold. He walked to the window and looked up at the skies, seeking for
aeroplanes, after the habit that had now grown upon him. But the sky wa