An Unexpected Encounter

"You want to send your despatches?" asked Georges. "You could ride on to Saarbrück and telegraph from there. Will you? Then hunt up the regiment later. We are to see a little of each other, are we not, old fellow?"

"Not if you're going Prussian-hunting across the Rhine. When you come back crowned with bay and laurel and pretzels, you can stop at Morteyn."

They nodded and clasped hands.

"Au revoir!" laughed Georges. "What shall I bring you from Berlin?"

"I'm no Herod," replied Jack; "bring back your own feather-head safely--that's all I ask." And with a smile and a gay salute the young fellows parted, turning occasionally in their saddles to wave a last adieu, until Jack's big horse disappeared among the dense platoons ahead.

For a quarter of an hour he sidled and pushed and shoved, and picked a cautious path through section after section of field artillery, seeing here and there an officer whom he knew, saluting cheerily, making a thousand excuses for his haste to the good-natured artillerymen, who only grinned in reply. As he rode, he noted with misgivings that the cannon were not breech-loaders. He had recently heard a good deal about the Prussian new model for field artillery, and he had read, in the French journals, reports of their wonderful range and flat trajectory. The cannon that he passed, with the exception of the Montigny mitrailleuses and the American gatlings, were all beautiful pieces, bronzed and engraved with crown and LN and eagle, but for all their beauty they were only muzzle-loaders.