ance,
reaching Paris after a ride of three hundred and twelve hours. The
routed and disorganized French Army straggled back to Germany, to
Austria and to France. When Christmas Day that year came down over
Europe, less than five thousand men were alive of the four hundred and
fifty thousand who had started six months before to carry the eagles of
Napoleon over Russia. It was the most splendid campaign and the most
spectacular rout in history, and the foe who fought the battles that
defeated the Great Emperor was--The Weather."

CHAPTER V

THE RUNAWAY KITE

The sunset pictures made a better showing as lithographs than even their
young creator could have hoped, and the _Issaquena County Weather
Review_ became a source of personal pride to every one in the
neighborhood. The farmers and planters vied with each other in giving
information of weather happenings and the little publication was never
short of "copy."

"Dan'l," said Fred to his chief assistant, one day, "I'm going to print
an article on 'Weather Superstitions.'"

"Yas, suh," said the darky, wondering what was coming.

"And you're going to write it."

"Ah write it? Sho', now, you'se jokin', Mistah Fred. Ah can't even write
my own name."

"I know that. You don't need to write, Dan'l. You're going to collect
every rhyme and proverb and saying about the weather you can hunt up in
the neighborhood. Get Mammy Crockett to tell you all she knows. Then you
must repeat it to me. I'll write it down word for word, and it'll be
your article."

"If yo' wrote it down, it wouldn't be mine," objected Dan'l.

"Oh, yes, it would," the editor-in-chief assured him, "some of the
greatest authors in the world dictate their books."

So Dan'l went all around the neighborhood, announcing that he was a
"sho' enough autho' now," and so full of delight that there was no
holding him in at all. He proved a good collector of superstitions,
moreover, and when at last the article came out in the _Review_, it was
so complete and so original that it was reprinted in one of the big
Folk-Lore Magazines.

The visit of the journeyman printer had been of great value. Fred had
been shown just how the work should be done and his pride was involved
in keeping the paper up to the standard. Moreover, the Irishman had
secured a large box of discarded type from a printing firm in Vicksburg,
and had forwarded this to the boys. Fred returned the courtesy by
mailing Mike a copy of the _Re