Crazy place to build a house! And the people in it--probably all they
could do was to shrug their shoulders in that stupid way when asked a
question in English.

He was losing his morale--was this dispatch-rider.

But near the top of the hill he regained it somewhat. Perhaps he could
make up for this lost time in some straight, level reach of road beyond.

Up, up, up, plowed _Uncle Sam_, one lonely splinter of shingle still
bound within his spokes, and his poor, dented headlight bereft of its
dignity.

"I've an idea the road turns north about a mile down," Tom said to
himself, "and runs around through----"

The words stopped upon his lips as _Uncle Sam_, still laboring upward,
reached level ground, and as if to answer Tom out of his own
uncomplaining and stouter courage, showed him a sight which sent his
faltering hope skyward and started his heart bounding.

For there below them lay the vast and endless background of the sea,
throwing every intervening detail of the landscape into insignificance.
There it was, steel blue in the brightening sunlight and glimmering here
and there in changing white, where perhaps some treacherous rock or bar
lay just submerged. And upon it, looking infinitesimal in the limitless
expanse, was something solid with a column of black smoke rising and
winding away from it and dissolving in the clear, morning air.

"There you are!" said Tom, patting _Uncle Sam_ patronizingly in a swift
change of mood. "See there? That's the Atlantic Ocean--that is. _Now_
will you hurry? That's a ship coming in--see? I bet it's a whopper, too.
Do you know what--what's off beyond there?" he fairly panted in his
excitement; "do you? You old French hobo, you? _America!_ That's where
_I_ came from. _Now_ will you hurry? That's Dieppe, where the white[2]
is and those steeples, see? And way across there on the other side is
America!"

For _Uncle Sam_, notwithstanding his name, was a French motorcycle and
had never seen America.

[2] Dieppe's famous beach.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A SURPRISE

Down the hill coasted _Uncle Sam_, bearing his rider furiously onward. A
fence along the wayside seemed like a very entanglement of stakes and
pickets. Then it was gone. A house loomed up in view, grew larger, and
was gone. A cow that was grazing in a field languidly raised her head,
blinked her eyes, and stood as if uncertain whether she had really seen
something pass or not.

They were in the valley now and