rique!_"

Their cheery voices and fraternal patriotism did cause Tom to turn his
head and call,

"_Merci. Vive la France!_"

And they answered again with a torrent of French.

The morning was well established as he passed through Chuisson, and a
clock upon a romantic, medieval-looking little tower told him that it
lacked but ten minutes of five o'clock.

A feeling of doubt, almost of despair, seized upon him and he called in
that impatient surliness which springs from tense anxiety, asking an old
man how far it was to Dieppe.

The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in polite confession
that he did not understand English.

In his anxiety it irritated Tom. "What _do_ you know?" he muttered.

Out of Chuisson he labored up a long hill, and though _Uncle Sam_ made
no more concession to it than to slacken his unprecedented rate of
speed the merest trifle, the difference communicated itself to Tom at
once and it seemed, by contrast, as if they were creeping. On and up
_Uncle Sam_ went, plying his way sturdily, making a great noise and a
terrific odor--dogged, determined and irresistible.

But the rider stirred impatiently. Would they ever, _ever_, reach the
top? And when they should, there would be another hamlet in a valley,
another bridge, more stupid people who could not speak English, more
villages, more bends in the road, still other villages, and
then--another hill.

It seemed to Tom that he had been travelling for ten years and that
there was to be no end of it. Ride, ride, ride--it brought him nowhere.
His right arm which had borne that tremendous strain, was throbbing so
that he let go the handle-bar from time to time in the hope of relief. It
was the pain of acute tiredness, for which there could be no relief but
rest. Just to throw himself down and rest! Oh, if he could only lay that
weary, aching arm across some soft pillow and leave it there--just leave
it there. Let it hang, bend it, hold it above him, lay it on _Uncle
Sam's_ staunch, unfeeling arm of steel, he could not, _could_ not, get
it rested.

The palm of his hand tingled with a kind of irritating feeling like
chilblains, and he must be continually removing one or other hand from
the bar so that he could reach one with the other. It did not help him
keep his poise. If he could only scratch his right hand once and be done
with it! But it annoyed him like a fly.

Up, up, up, they went, and passed a quaint, old, thatch-roofed house.