and Chester in one breath.

General Joffre tapped the bell on his desk. An orderly entered and
came to a salute.

"Orderly," said General Joffre, handing him the message he had just
written, "have this sent to the war office immediately."

The gallant French commander turned again to his desk, and as the
orderly, Hal and Chester passed from his tent he once more brushed the
moisture from his eyes.

CHAPTER XX.

OFF ON A RAID.

Hal and Chester accepted General Joffre's offer of an automobile to
make their return trip, which consequently did not consume as much
time as their journey to the headquarters of the French
commander-in-chief.

The first thing they did upon their arrival was to report to General
French. The latter listened gravely to their story, and then said:

"I know that I need not caution you to obey General Joffre's
injunction concerning the fate of General Tromp. Let the matter be
forgotten."

The lads saluted and left the tent to hunt up temporary quarters of
their own, for the great army had again come to a halt.

Meanwhile, what of the great driving movement of the allied forces,
which after checking the vast German horde almost at the gates of
Paris, had forced the foe back mile after mile without cessation? A
word of the situation is here necessary.

From the first moment when the allied armies had assumed the
offensive, after being driven back for days by the Germans, they had
continued their steady advance. Such fighting as the world had never
known was in progress continually, for the Germans contested every
inch of the ground.

Time after time the Allies threatened the German lines of
communication, and the Germans were forced to fall back to protect
them, or to be cut off and eventually annihilated, or forced to
surrender. The strategy of General Joffre, condemned by many in the
earlier days of the war, now was beginning to bear fruit, and he was
praised on every hand.

The English, under the command of Sir John French, the chief stumbling
block in the path of the Germans as they advanced on Paris, were
proving their mettle every day. Despite their numerical inferiority to
the enemy, they stood bravely to their herculean task, until now the
whole world realized that they were the real fighting strength of the
allied army.

Each day found the Germans farther and farther from the walls of
Paris. Each day found the Allies pressing the foe more closely. The
great battle