through, and there would be no hope of our getting to Paris. We’ve got to try some other way around.”

CHAPTER III
DOWN THE SLOPE

Upon hearing this unpleasant news poor Bumpus looked broken-hearted. He seemed to see a host of obstacles confronting him. Paris must have been something like a thousand miles away just then, according to his enlarged view.

“Just like the luck,” he sighed desolately; “things were moving along too fine to last. I had a sneaking idea in my mind something was bound to blow up before long. What under the sun will we do, Thad?”

“Not give up our plan of getting to Paris, for one thing,” replied the leader firmly, with that determined look on his face the others knew so well.

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Giraffe; “that’s the stuff I like to hear! Nil desperandum it is, Bumpus, and we’ll carry it out on that line if it takes all the balance of the summer. Grant said that, but any fellow with a backbone can feel it.”

“First of all,” continued the practical Thad, “I’m meaning to skirmish around some more and find out what can be done. You see, all the passengers have been pulled out of the carriages. Listen to them babble, will you? They are mostly French, and as excitable as wildfire. Everybody wants to get away from the border here in a hurry. Their dear old France lies just over yonder, and they’re bound to travel if it has to be on foot.”

“Oh, my stars!” ejaculated Bumpus, and then he stopped short, remembering that much as he disliked walking any great distance, he should be the last one of the quartette to complain now, for it was his errand that beckoned them on to Paris.

They immediately bestirred themselves. Each fellow was to mingle with the bustling passengers and pick up any and all information possible. Since they knew so little of the language it was hardly likely that Allan, Bumpus or Giraffe would meet with much success; but at least they would be doing their best.

As usual, they depended a great deal on Thad. He had a happy faculty for doing things; moreover, in this case, he was better fitted for catching snatches of conversation on the part of the voluble French people than any one of his comrades.

About ten minutes later Thad made signals to his chums, on catching their eyes, bidding them join him. This they did only too gladly, for up to that moment none of the trio had learned anything worth mentioning.

“It’s going to be all right, I guess,” Thad told them first of all.

“Then you’ve heard of a train we can take, eh?” queried Bumpus eagerly, while a thankful glow began to appear in his eyes.

“Yes,” replied the other; “it seems there’s another road tapping this place that leads to Calais, which, you know, is on the Channel, and the terminus of a boat line coming from Dover over in England.”

“Sure thing,” remarked Giraffe; “and we figured that since England has butted into this war game she must be sending her little army across the Channel, or the Straits of Dover that way, to help her ally France hold the Kaiser in check.”

“Well, they have a great need of every kind of car at Calais, it seems, passenger and freight, to carry men and munitions from there into the interior. So there has been made up a long train of empties that is going to start across country right away, aiming for Calais. And the railway people here have made arrangements to carry all those who want to head that way, if they promise not to kick at the poor accommodations.”

“Well, any port in a storm,” said Giraffe; “we’ll shut our eyes and go in a cattle van if necessary and not say a single word.”

“Only too glad of the chance,” added Bumpus gratefully; “because once we get to Calais we’ll be out of the line of the invading German army; and it ought to be a whole lot easier for us to make Paris from that point than away up here on the border of Belgium.”

“Yes, it would seem so,” Thad added, with a wrinkle across his forehead; as if even at that time he might be having a faint vision of the terrible difficulties they were destined to meet later on while trying to accomplish their object.

“Lead us to it, Thad,” implored the impatient Giraffe.

Already they could see that some of the excited passengers had commenced to move away. The word was being passed along the line that if they chose to head for the city on the Channel there was an opportunity offered, and few, if any, declined the opening, for they were fairly wild to get deeper into their native country.

When the four American scouts, a little later on, found themselves at another station and gazing upon a long string of traffic vehicles they could not keep from exchanging smiles.

It certainly looked as though already the sudden and violent demands made upon all the railways of Northern France for transportation on account of the mobilization of the troops, with their batteries, and horses, had caused a tremendous drain on their limited resources. They did not have these things “down pat” to the minutest detail, as in Germany, where every man, young and old, knew exactly what was expected of him when a certain order went forth, and the whole nation moved like a gigantic machine, in unison.

The cars were of a polyglot type. There were a few “carriages” as they call the passenger cars across the sea, some first-class, others descending the scale rapidly until they reached the lowest depth of unpainted transportation vehicles, no doubt taken hurriedly from the repair shops. So long as they were apparently sound, and would not break down under a strain, they had been drafted into service.

Besides these there were numerous freight vans, much shorter than even the ordinary open flat cars seen on all American railways. Box cars are not in great use abroad, the goods being covered with heavy tarpaulins instead.

Already most of the carriages had been reserved for the women and children. Little did the four boys care about this. The day was pretty hot, and the sun beamed down from a clear sky, but they were well used to this sort of thing, and had no thought of venturing the first complaint.

“Pick out as solid a van as you can find, Thad,” remarked Bumpus, as they started to walk along this string of antequated traffic carriers.

“Yes, please do,” Giraffe chuckled, “for the sake of Bumpus here, who needs to have things good and strong when he travels. No ordinary coach will do for a fellow of his heft. How about that third van, Thad; it looks as if it might be a fair article?”

Apparently the patrol leader thought the same himself, for he proceeded to climb aboard, after tossing his bag and other “duffle” ahead of him. The others copied his example without delay. Men were boarding the train all along the line, picking out their locations as the whim moved them. There was more or less laughter, and no doubt they joked with one another in their native tongue; for never before had the majority ever deigned to travel upon cattle and goods vans.

Men in uniform bustled around to hasten things. From this Thad judged that there had a hurry call come for the means of transportation over at Calais, where possibly British troops and munitions and batteries were landing daily, and must be taken to the front in haste, for the German invasion threatened Paris by now.

“Here we go,” sang out Giraffe, presently; “that must have been the signal from the man in the motor ahead, to start the string moving. Yes, we’re off at last, and over the border in France.”

Bumpus had managed