halt at the very first kilometer of their march, near the bridge over
the canal of the Rhone and Rhine. The order of march had been badly
planned and still more badly executed, so that the entire 2d division
was collected there in a huddle, and the way was so narrow, barely
more than sixteen feet in width, that the passage of the troops was
obstructed.

Two hours elapsed, and still the 106th stood there watching the
seemingly endless column that streamed along before their eyes. In the
end the men, standing at rest with ordered arms, began to become
impatient. Jean's squad, whose position happened to be opposite a
break in the line of poplars where the sun had a fair chance at them,
felt themselves particularly aggrieved.

"Guess we must be the rear-guard," Loubet observed with good-natured
raillery.

But Chouteau scolded: "They don't value us at a brass farthing, and
that's why they let us wait this way. We were here first; why didn't
we take the road while it was empty?"

And as they began to discern more clearly beyond the canal, across the
wide fertile plain, along the level roads lined with hop-poles and
fields of ripening grain, the movement of the troops retiring along
the same way by which they had advanced but yesterday, gibes and jeers
rose on the air in a storm of angry ridicule.

"Ah, we are taking the back track," Chouteau continued. "I wonder if
that is the advance against the enemy that they have been dinning in
our ears of late! Strikes me as rather queer! No sooner do we get into