rance with the Boy Scouts. We shall
see. But this much is certain--I think we shall not be able to go to
Amiens at once. Amiens is in the north--it is that way that the soldiers
must go, soldiers from Paris, from Tours, from Orleans, from all the
south. It is from the north that the Germans will come. Perhaps they
will try to come through Belgium. So, until the troops have finished
with the railways, we must wait. We will go to my aunt in Paris."

And go they did to Madame Martin, Henri's aunt, who lived in a street
between the Champs Elysees and the Avenue de l'Alma, not far from the
famous arch of triumph that is the centre of Paris. At the station in
St. Denis, where they went from the school, they found activity enough
to make up, and more than make up, for the silence and stillness
everywhere else. The station was choked with soldiers, reservists
preparing to report on the next day, the first of actual mobilization.
Women were there, mothers, wives, sweethearts, to bid good-bye to these
young Frenchmen they might never see again because of war.

And there was no room on the trains to Paris for any save soldiers. The
gates of the station were barred to all others, and Frank and Harry went
back to the school.

"I know what we can do, of course," said Harry. "It isn't very far.
We'll leave our bags here at the school, and make packs of the things we
need. And then we'll ride in on our bicycles. We were stupid not to
think of that before."

That plan they found it easy to put into execution. They had meant to
abandon their bicycles for the time being, at least, but now they
realized what a mistake it would have been to do that, since with every
normal activity cut off by the war, the machines were almost certain to
be their only means of getting from one place to another, in the
beginning at least.

Mounted on their bicycles, they now found their progress easy. The roads
that led into Paris were crowded, to be sure. They passed countless
automobiles carrying refugees. Already the Americans were pouring out
of Paris in their frantic haste to reach the coast and so take boat to
England. On Saturday night automobiles were still allowed to leave
Paris. Next morning there would be a different story to tell.

In Paris, when they began to enter the more crowded sections, they saw
the same scenes as had greeted them in St. Denis, only on a vastly
larger scale. Everywhere farewells were being said. Men in uniforms were
a