e, "I was feeling sober enough myself
till I came in here, but the sight of you fellows sitting around for all
the world like death-heads at an Egyptian feast was too much for me. And
then," he added, "I have always found it better to laugh than to cry."

Waggoner looked at him with a grim smile, and there was a gleam in
Spiltdorph's eyes, though he tried to conceal himself behind a cloud of
smoke. Peyronie's good humor was infectious.

"Let me see," continued the Frenchman, "when was it the first detachment
left the fort?"

"The twenty-ninth of May," answered Waggoner shortly.

"And what day is this?"

"The eleventh of June."

"And how far have we come?"

"Five miles!" cried Waggoner. "Damn it, man, you know all this well
enough! Don't make me say it! It's incredible! Five miles in thirteen
days! Think of it!"

I heard Spiltdorph choking behind his cloud of smoke.

"Oh, come," said Peyronie, "that's not the way to look at it. Consider a
moment. It is one hundred and fifty miles to Fort Duquesne, so I am told.
At five-thirteenths of a mile a day, we shall arrive there nicely
in--in--let me see."

"In three hundred and ninety days!" cried Spiltdorph.

"Thank you, lieutenant," and Peyronie bowed toward Spiltdorph's nimbus.
"I was never good at figures. In three hundred and ninety days, then. You
see, we shall get to Fort Duquesne very comfortably by the middle of July
of next year. Perhaps the French will have grown weary of waiting for us
by that time, and we shall have only to march in and occupy the fort."

Waggoner snorted with anger.

"Come, talk sense, Peyronie," he said. "What's to be done?"

Peyronie smiled more blandly than ever.

"I fancy that is just what's troubling the general," he remarked. "I met
Colonel Washington a moment ago looking like a thunder-cloud, and he said
a council of war had been called at the general's tent."

"There was need of it," and Waggoner's brow cleared a little. "What
think you they will do?"

"Well," said Peyronie deliberately, "if it were left to me, the first
thing I should do would be to cut down Spiltdorph's supply of tobacco and
take away from him that great porcelain pipe, which must weigh two or
three pounds."

"I should like to see you do it," grunted Spiltdorph, and he took his
pipe from his lips to look at it lovingly. "Why, man, that pipe has been
in the family for half a dozen generations. There's only one other like
it in Germany."

"A most for