lamoring chorus behind him and he heard one brazen
youngster boldly mimicking his manner of asking if the roads were good.
These children lived in tumble-down houses which were all but ruins, and
played in shell holes as if these cruel, ragged gaps in the earth had
been made by the kind Boche for their especial entertainment.

A mile or two west of Chalons the rider crossed the historic Marne on a
makeshift bridge built from the materials of a ruined house and the
remnants of the former span.

On he sped, along the quiet, moonlit road, through the little village of
Thibie, past many a quaint old heavily-roofed brick cottage, over the
stream at Chaintrix and into Vertus, and along the straight, even
stretch of road for Montmirail. Not so long ago he might have gone from
Chalons in a bee-line from Montdidier, but the big, ugly salient stuck
out like a huge snout now, as if it were sniffing in longing
anticipation at that tempting morsel, Paris; so he must circle around it
and then turn almost straight north.

At La Ferte, among the hills, he paused at a crossroads and, alighting
from his machine, stood watching as a long, silent procession of wagons
passed by in the quiet night, moving southward. He knew now what it
meant to go into the West. One after another they passed in deathlike
stillness, the Red Cross upon the side of each plainly visible in the
moonlight. As he paused, the rider could hear the thunder of great guns
in the north. Many stretchers, borne by men afoot, followed the wagons
and he could hear the groans of those who tossed restlessly upon them.

"Look out for shell holes," he heard someone say. So there were
Americans in the fighting, he thought.

He ran along the edge of the hills now on the fifteen-mile stretch to
Meaux, where he intended to follow the road northward through Senlis and
across the old trenches near Clermont. He could hear the booming all the
while, but it seemed weary and spent, like a runner who has slackened
his pace and begun to pant.

At Meaux he crossed the path of another silent cavalcade of stretchers
and ambulances and wounded soldiers who were being supported as they
limped along. They spoke in French and one voice came out of an
ambulance, seeming hollow and far off, as though from a grave. Then came
a lot of German prisoners tramping along, some sullen and some with a
fine air of bravado sneering at their guards.

The rider knew where he was going and how to get there