shot one hand out and pointed.

"See them," he whispered; "hundreds of men sheltering at the edge of
the wood. But why? What's the reason? And listen to those guns!
German--eh?"

"No. French 75's, without a question," answered Henri when they had
listened for a few moments. "There's nothing else on earth in the
artillery line that snaps and barks quite like our soixante-quinze, and
it seems to me that they are opened in this direction. Hope to
goodness they won't turn their muzzles on this wood, for they would
rake it from end to end with shrapnel. Now let's move on a little. I
can see the men you have pointed out, and without a doubt they are
sheltering under the trees and hiding, I should say, from our gunners.
Let's turn from the road a little and push on to the northern point of
the wood, for in that direction it almost joins with the Bois des
Fosses, and should give us greater opportunities."

They turned slightly to their right, and crept through the mass of
trees not yet levelled by the gun-fire of either of the
combatants--different, indeed, from the Bois des Caures and the
Herbebois, where gigantic German shells had sent trees and earth
hurtling skywards, had severed trunks in all directions, and had left
but a tangled mass of fallen tree-tops and shattered stumps,
smouldering here and there, and masking the trenches and dug-outs and
redoubts obliterated during the earlier fighting, masking, too, the
bodies of those gallant Frenchmen who had given their lives for the
cause, and of the Germans, who had fought to achieve the ambitions of
their Kaiser.

Sneaking forward, and keeping well away from the direction of voices,
it was not long before Henri and Jules discovered a dell--a deep
depression in the ground--heavily wooded and overhung by fir-trees, at
the foot of which splashed a stream, which passed from rock to rock,
twisting and twining as it flowed towards the Meuse traversing the
ground down below.

"Might give us an opportunity of seeing far more than if we went on in
the wood," suggested Jules, again catching Henri by the sleeve.

"Why not? Certainly! Why not?" echoed Henri. "Quite a good idea;
capital! Let's try it."

"Then down we go! Looks like a splendid place," declared Jules as he
gained the stream and splashed into it. "I'll lead, for a change.
Suppose we'd better go cautiously?"

There was, indeed, need of caution all the while, for as they traversed
that narrow gully, a