r mothers and sweet
sisters tumbled over one another to hear and bless the world's new Joan
of Arc, and marched in hundreds to recruiting stations with a fearful
song of Revenge.

"Then she went to Italy! and though she spoke in a foreign tongue, the
crowds understood and the Italians, passionate to the extreme, rose in
storm--and Italy declared war!

"Italy got busy early in June, invading the Tyrol and smashing Pola on
the Adriatic. Then its armies worked north, finding the great Austrian
fortresses abandoned and destroyed, the big guns having been removed to
be used against the Russians.

"Greece, when it found that Turkey was in danger of being smashed,
joined with the Allies. It hung fire for a bit as its king was a
relative of the Kaiser, but the people got sore, and at an election sent
a popular Premier in who got the Greeks into the firing line.

"The principal Balkan States are also joining in the rumpus, as I guess
they're anxious to be in the "top dog" so as to get some pickings after
the scrap. Then in August we got the tip to get the big move on."

CHAPTER XVII.

How the Great War Ended.

I remember how Nap sparked up as he described the happenings of the past
fortnight.

"We got the tip to prepare for the 'Grand Advance,'" he said. "Our stunt
was to thoroughly screen from German aerial reconnaissance all our
movements between Rheims and Metz; and so for a week the air actually
swarmed with our 'planes. Gee! but the smash-up of aircraft was awful.
We lost quite a collection, but the Germans must have very few left. And
the way we went about it was a caution! We had a real aerial
fandango--smashing bridges, trains, railway stations and any old thing.
You see our commandants untied us--let us loose. Why one of my 'goes'
was the bust up of the big balloon and 'plane 'deepo' at Laon; but in
chasing a Taube three days ago I came to grief right here--engine
trouble, sure."

"But what was the game, Nap?" I asked excitedly. "What was the reason of
your aerial razzle?"

"Simple enough, Jefson," he replied, "we were screening a big transfer
of our forces towards Metz. You see, the Germans, during June and July,
had been pushed back to a line along the Lys, where they dug in on the
right bank and waited.

"The great new armies Kitchener had in training during the winter were
to be flung at that German line between Courtrai and Antwerp, to try and
force their way through Belgium to Liege.

"We