fierce voice.

The half-starved fellows shuffled into a single rank; their faces
were wreathed in sheepish smiles. Jack noticed that a Bavarian
helmet and side-arm hung from the knapsack of one, a mere
freckled lad, downy and dimpled. Tricasse drew his sabre, turned,
marched solemnly along the front, wheeled again, and saluted.

Jack lifted his cap; Lorraine, her arm in his, bowed and smiled
tearfully.

"The dear, brave fellows!" she cried, impulsively, whereat every
man reddened, and Tricasse grew giddy with emotion. He tried to
speak; his emotion was great.

"In my capacity of ex-pompier," he gasped, then went to pieces,
and hid his eyes in his hands. The "Terrors of Morteyn" wept with
him to a man.

Presently, with a gesture to Tricasse, Jack led Lorraine down the
slope, past the spring, and on through the forest, three
"Terrors" leading, rifles poised, Tricasse and the others
following, alert and balancing their cocked rifles.

"How far is your camp?" asked Jack. "We need food and the warmth
of a fire. Tell me, Monsieur Tricasse, what is left of the two
chateaux?"

Lorraine bent nearer as the old man said: "The Chateau de Nesville
is a mass of cinders; Morteyn, a stone skeleton. Pierre is dead.
There are many dead there--many, many dead. The Prussians burned
Saint-Lys yesterday; they shot Bosquet, the letter-carrier; they
hung his boy to the railroad trestle, then shot him to pieces. The
Cure is a prisoner; the Mayor of Saint-Lys and the Notary have
been sent to the camp at Strassbourg. We, my 'Terrors of Morteyn'
and I, are still facing the vandals; except for us, the Province
of Lorraine is empty of Frenchmen in armed resistance."

The old man, in his grotesque uniform, touched his bristling
mustache and muttered: "Nom d'une pipe!" several times to steady
his voice.

Lorraine and Jack pressed on silently, sorrowfully, hand in hand,
watching the scouts ahead, who were creeping on through the
trees, heads turning from side to side, rifles raised. They
passed along the back of a thickly wooded ridge for some
distance, perhaps a mile, before the thin blue line of a
smouldering camp-fire rose almost in their very faces. A low
challenge from a clump of birch-trees was answered, there came
the sound of rifles dropping, the noise of feet among the leaves,
a whisper, and before they knew it they were standing at the
mouth of a hole in the bank, from which came the odour of
beef-broth simmering. Two or three