He was now approaching the line between France and Germany, and Metz lay only eleven miles beyond.  The beauty of the clear cold day endured.  There was snow on the hills, but the brilliant sun touched it with a luminous golden haze, and the crisp air was the breath of life.

He swung along at a great gait for one who walked.  Life for months without a roof had been hard, but it had toughened wonderfully those whom it did not kill, and John with a magnificent constitution was one of those who had profited most.  He felt no weariness now although he had come many miles.

About one o’clock in the afternoon he sat on a stone by the roadside and ate with the appetite of vigorous youth good food from his knapsack.  While he was there a German sergeant, with about twenty men in wagons going toward Metz, stopped and spoke to him.

“Hey, you on the stone, what are you doing?” asked the sergeant.

John cut off a fresh piece of sausage with his clasp knife and answered briefly and truthfully: 

“Eating.”

The sergeant had a broad, red and merry face, and facing a man of good humor he was not offended.

“So I see,” he said, “but that wasn’t what I meant.”

John, without another word, took out his passport, handed it to him and went on eating.  The sergeant examined it, handed it back to him and said: 

“Correct.”

“I show it to everybody,” said John.  “When a man speaks to me I don’t care who he is, or what he is, I hand it to him.  I, Jean Castel, as you see by the name on the passport, don’t want trouble with anybody.”

“And a wise fellow you are, Castel.  I’m Otto Scheller, a sergeant in the service of his Imperial Majesty and the Fatherland.”

“You look as if you had seen much of war, Sergeant Scheller, but I am a dealer in horses and I am happiest where the bullets are fewest.”

“It’s an honest confession, but it does not bespeak a high heart.”

“Perhaps not, but sometimes a horse-dealer is more useful than a soldier.  For instance, the off horse of the front wagon has picked up a stone in his left hind foot, and if it’s not taken out he’ll go lame long before you reach Metz.”

“Donnerwetter!  But it’s true.  You do know something about horses and you have an eye in your head.  Here you, Heinrich, take that stone out, quick, or it won’t be good for you!”

“And the right horse of the third wagon has glanders.  The swelling is just beginning to show below the jaw.  It’s contagious, you know.  You’d better turn him loose, or all your horses will die.”

“Donner und blitzen!  See Fritz, if it’s true.  It’s so, is it?  Then release the poor animal as Castel says, and put in one of the extras.  See, you Castel, you’re a wizard, you hardly glanced at the horses, and you saw what we didn’t see, although we’ve been with them all day.”

“I’ve grown up with horses.  It’s my business to know everything about them, and maybe your trade before the war didn’t bring you near them.”