ly end in providing "more work for the undertaker,
another little job for the casket-maker," and that he washed his
hands of all responsibility for our fate. But by two American
flags mounted on the windshield, and the explanatory legends
"Service Consulaire des Etats-Unis d'Amerique" and "Amerikanischer
Consular dienst" painted in staring letters on the hood, we
hoped to make it quite clear to Germans and Belgians alike
that we were protected by the international game-laws so far
as shooting us was concerned.

Now the disappointing thing about our trip was that we didn't
encounter any Uhlans. Every one had warned us so repeatedly
about Uhlans that we fully expected to find them, with their
pennoned lances and their square-topped schapskas, lurking
behind every hedge, and when they did not come spurring out to
intercept us we were greatly disappointed. It was like making a
journey to the polar regions and seeing no Esquimaux. The smart
young cavalry officer who bade us good-bye at the Belgian
outposts, warned us to keep our eyes open for them and said,
rather mournfully, I thought, that he only hoped they would give us
time to explain who we were before they opened fire on us. "They
are such hasty fellows, these Uhlans," said he, "always shooting first
and making inquiries afterward." As a matter of fact, the only Uhlan
we saw on the entire trip was riding about Brussels in a cab,
smoking a large porcelain pipe and with his spurred boots resting
comfortably on the cushions.

Though we crept along as circumspectly as a motorist who knows
that he is being trailed by a motor-cycle policeman, peering behind
farmhouses and hedges and into the depths of thickets and
expecting any moment to hear a gruff command, emphasized by
the bang of a carbine, it was not until we were at the very outskirts
of Aerschot that we encountered the Germans. There were a
hundred of them, so cleverly ambushed behind a hedge that we
would never have suspected their presence had we not caught the
glint of sunlight on their rifle-barrels. We should not have gotten
much nearer, in any event, for they had a wire neatly strung across
the road at just the right height to take us under the chins. When we
were within a hundred yards of the hedge an officer in a trailing grey
cloak stepped into the middle of the road and held up his hand.

"Halt!"

I jammed on the brakes so suddenly that we nearly went through
the windshield.

"Get out of the autom