Tom panted; "only my arm is worse than your
old mud-guard. We're a pair of---- Can't you speak?" he added breathing
the deadly fatigue he felt and putting his foot upon the pedal.
"What--do--you--say? Huh?"

And then _Uncle Sam_ answered.

"Tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r---- Never mind your arm. Come
ahead--hurry," he seemed to say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO--"

Swiftly along the sun-flecked road sped the dispatch-rider. In the
mellow freshness of the new day he rode, and the whir of his machine in
its lightning flight mingled with the cheery songs of the birds, whose
early morning chorus heartened and encouraged him. There was a balm in
the fragrant atmosphere of the cool, gray morning which entered the soul
of Tom Slade and whispered to him, _There is no such word as fail._

Out of the night he had come, out of travail, and brain-racking
perplexity and torturing effort, crossing rushing waters and matching
his splendid strength and towering will against obstacles, against fate,
against everything.

As he held the handle-bar of _Uncle Sam_ in that continuous handshake
which they knew so well, his right arm felt numb and sore, and his
whole body ached. _Uncle Sam's_ big, leering glass eye was smashed, his
mud-guard wrenched off, and dried mud was upon his wheels. His rider's
uniform was torn and water-soaked, his face black with grime. They made
a good pair.

Never a glance to right or left did the rider give, nor so much as a
perfunctory nod to the few early risers who paused to stare at him as he
sped by. In the little hamlet of Persan an old Frenchman sitting on a
rustic seat before the village inn, removed his pipe from his mouth long
enough to call,

"_La cote?_"

But never a word did the rider answer. Children, who, following the good
example of the early bird, were already abroad, scurried out of his way,
making a great clatter in their wooden shoes, and gaping until he passed
beyond their sight.

Over the bridge at Soignois he rushed, making its ramshackle planks
rattle and throw up a cloud of dust from between the vibrating seams.
Out of this cloud he emerged like a gray spectre, body bent, head low,
gaze fixed and intense, leaving a pandemonium of dust and subsiding
echoes behind him.

At Virneu an old housewife threw open her blinds and seeing the dusty
khaki of the rider, summoned her brood, who waved the tricolor from the
casement, laughing and calling, "_Vive l'Ame