enches. The German searchlights
might blaze upon them at any moment, showing the mark for the
sharpshooters. But Captain Colton pressed his electric torch and the
three in the earthy alcove saw one another well.

"Will you go to Chastel yourself?" asked John of Weber.

"Not at present. I bear a message which takes me in the Forest of
Argonne, but I shall return along this line in a day or two, and it may
be that I can reach the village. If so, I shall tell Mademoiselle Julie
and the Picards that I have seen you here, and perhaps I can communicate
also with Lannes."

"I thank you for your kindness in coming to tell me this."

"It was no more than I should have done. I knew you would be glad to
hear, and now, with your permission, Captain Colton, I'll go."

"Take narrow, transverse trench, leading south. Good of you to see us,"
said the captain of the Strangers.

The Alsatian shook hands with John and disappeared in the cut which led
a long distance from the front. Colton extinguished the torch and the
two sat a little while in the darkness. Although vast armies faced one
another along a front of four hundred miles, little could be heard where
John and his captain sat, save the sighing of the wind and the faint
sound made by the steady fall of the snow, which was heaping up at their
feet.

Not a light shone in the trench. John knew that innumerable sentinels
were on guard, striving to see and hear, but a million or two million
men lay buried alive there, while the snow drifted down continually. The
illusion that the days of primeval man had come back was strong upon him
again. They had become, in effect, cave-dwellers once more, and their
chief object was to kill. He listened to the light swish of the snow,
and thought of the blue heights into which he had often soared with
Lannes.

Captain Colton lighted another cigarette and it glowed in the dark.

"Uncanny," he said.

"I find it more so than usual tonight," said John. "Maybe it's the visit
of Weber that makes me feel that way, recalling to me that I was once a
man, a civilized human being who bathed regularly and who put on clean
clothes at frequent intervals."

"Such days may come again--for some of us."

"So they may. But it's ghastly here, holed up like animals for the
winter."

"Comparison not fair to animals. They choose snug dens. Warm leaves and
brush all about 'em."

"While we lie or stand in mud or snow. After all, Captain, the animals
have