"Will you go to Chastel yourself?" asked John of Weber.

"Not at present. I bear a message which takes me in the Forest of
Argonne, but I shall return along this line in a day or two, and it may
be that I can reach the village. If so, I shall tell Mademoiselle Julie
and the Picards that I have seen you here, and perhaps I can communicate
also with Lannes."

"I thank you for your kindness in coming to tell me this."

"It was no more than I should have done. I knew you would be glad to
hear, and now, with your permission, Captain Colton, I'll go."

"Take narrow, transverse trench, leading south. Good of you to see us,"
said the captain of the Strangers.

The Alsatian shook hands with John and disappeared in the cut which led
a long distance from the front. Colton extinguished the torch and the
two sat a little while in the darkness. Although vast armies faced one
another along a front of four hundred miles, little could be heard where
John and his captain sat, save the sighing of the wind and the faint
sound made by the steady fall of the snow, which was heaping up at their
feet.

Not a light shone in the trench. John knew that innumerable sentinels
were on guard, striving to see and hear, but a million or two million
men lay buried alive there, while the snow drifted down continually. The
illusion that the days of primeval man had come back was strong upon him
again. They had become, in effect, cave-dwellers once more, and their
chief object was to kill. He listened to the light swish of the snow,