“Do you know the road?” he asked of de Rougemont.

“Not at all.  I’m from the Gironde country.  I’ve been in Paris, but I know little of the region about it.  A good way to reach the front, is it not, Mr. Scott?”

“Fine.  I fancy that we’re hurried forward to make a link in a chain, or at least to stop a gap.”

“And those large birds overhead are scouting for us.”

“Look!  One of them is dropping down.  I dare say it’s making a report to some general higher in rank than ours.”

He pointed with a long forefinger, and John watched the aeroplane come down in its slanting course like a falling star.  It was a beautiful night, a light blue sky, with a fine moon and hosts of clear stars.  One could see far, and soon after the plane descended John saw it rise again from the same spot, ascend high in air, and shoot off toward the east.

“That may have been Lannes,” he said.

“Likely as not,” said de Rougemont.

John now observed General Vaugirard, who sat erect in the front of his automobile, with a pair of glasses, relatively as huge as himself, to his eyes.  Occasionally he would purse his lips, and John knew that his favorite expression was coming forth.  To the young American’s imaginative mind his broad back expressed rigidity and strength.

The great murmuring sound, the blended advance of so many men, made John sleepy by-and-by.  In spite of himself his heavy eyelids drooped, and although he strove manfully against it, sleep took him.  When he awoke he heard the same deep murmur, like the roll of the sea, and saw the army still advancing.  It was yet night, though fine and clear, and there before him was the broad, powerful back of the general.  Vaugirard was still using the glasses and John judged that he had not slept at all.  But in his own machine everybody was asleep except the man at the wheel.

The country had grown somewhat hillier, but its characteristics were the same, fertile, cultivated fields, a small wood here and there, clear brooks, and church spires shining in the dusk.  Both horse and foot advanced across the fields, but the roads were occupied by the motors, which John judged were carrying at least twenty thousand men and maybe forty thousand.

He was not sleepy now, and he watched the vast panorama wheel past.  He knew without looking at his watch that the night was nearly over, because he could already smell the dawn.  The wind was freshening a bit, and he heard its rustle in the leaves of a wood as they pushed through it.

Then came a hum and a whir, and a long line of men on motor cycles at the edge of the road crept up and then passed them.  One checked his speed enough to run by the side of John’s car, and the rider, raising his head a little, gazed intently at the young American.  His cap closed over his face like a hood, but the man knew him.

“Fortune puts us on the same road again, Mr. Scott,” he said.