pot two million determined soldiers were
facing one another, bent on slaughter unparalleled. The Battle of the
Marne was even then opening, with the fate of fair Paris trembling in
the balance.

One thing they soon noticed, which was that the road they were following
now seemed to keep even with a railway line, over which trains were
passing at a dizzy speed, all heading in the same direction, toward
Paris.

Every time one of these was sighted the boys could see that the
passengers were wholly soldiers. Sometimes they wore the blue coats of
the French, with the beloved red trousers, which have been so dear to
the hearts of the fighting men of the republic from away back to the
time of Napoleon; then again the dull khaki of the British regulars
predominated. They occupied first-class carriages, freight vans, cattle
cars--anything sufficed so long as it allowed them to get closer to
where a chance for glory awaited them.

All these things kept the boys in a constant condition of expectancy. As
the morning wore away and they continued to make good headway Josh even
found himself indulging in the hope that they would reach the scene of
activity before many hours had elapsed.

Once, when they had halted at a wayside farmhouse to see if anything in
the shape of a lunch could be secured for love or money, he even called
the attention of his two mates to a faint rumbling far away in the
distance.

"As sure as you live, fellows," Josh went on to say eagerly, "that must
be made by some of those monster guns the Germans are rolling along with
them, meaning to batter down the forts defending Paris, just like they
did the steel-domed ones up at Liege and Namur in Belgium, as we know
happened."

Rod was not quite so positive about it. They had covered many miles,
because of good roads, and the few obstacles encountered, but he hardly
believed they could be so close to Paris as that.

"I can see something low down ahead of us that may be clouds," Hanky
Panky now asserted.

"More'n likely that's the smoke of the battle that's raging over
yonder," declared the positive Josh, who always had to be wrestled with
before he could be convinced that he was wrong.

"No matter which is the correct solution of the puzzle," laughed Rod,
not wishing to take sides against either of his chums, "we're meaning to
go ahead after we see if we can get some grub at this little farmhouse."

Fortune played them a kind stroke, for the farmer's wi