ere were no stumps, no hacked
trees, no evidences of fire--such as I have often seen in our forests
in British Columbia. The Germans know how to conserve their
resources!

There was no wind or stars, and there were so many roads crossing
and dividing, that it was hard for us to keep our direction. Toward
morning it began to rain, and soon the wet bushes, as well as the
falling rain, had us wet through.

We stopped at last to wait for daylight, for the forest was so dense
we believed we could travel by day with safety. We lit our pipes in
the usual way, to conserve our matches. One match would light both,
when we followed this order. The lighted one was inverted over the
unlighted one. Into the lighted one Ted blew, while I drew in my
breath from the unlighted one. This morning, something went wrong.
Either the tobacco was soggy or I swallowed nicotine, for in a few
minutes I had all the symptoms of poisoning, I wanted to lie down,
but the ground was too wet. So I leaned against a tree, and was very
sorry for myself. Ted felt much the same as I did.

Then we tried to light a fire--we were so cold and wet, and, besides,
we had a few potatoes, carried from a garden we passed the night
before, which we thought we could roast. Hunger and discomfort
were making us bold. Our matches would not light the damp wood,
and we could find no other. We chewed a few oats, and were very
down-hearted. It looked as if lack of food would defeat us this time!

We had so far come safely, but at great expense of energy and time.
We had avoided travelled roads, bridges, houses, taking the smallest
possible risk, but with a great expense of energy. Our journey had
been hard, toilsome, and slow. We were failing from lack of food.
Our clothes hung in folds on us, and we were beginning to feel weak.
The thought of swimming the Ems made us shudder! One thing seemed
clear--we must get food, even if to get it imposed a risk. There was
no use in starving to death.... The recklessness of the slum-cat was
coming to us.

The weather had no mercy that day, for a cold, gray, driving rain
came down as we leaned against a tree, two battered hulks of men,
with very little left to us now but the desire to be free.

* * *

If this were a book of fiction, it would be easy to lighten and
vary the narrative here and there with tales of sudden attacks and
hair's-breadth escapes. But it is not a fancy story--it is a plain
tale of two men