For at last we were going forth officially to the front. No sentry could stop us. No officer could "detain" us--there was no fear of prison at our journey's end. It had been decided by Père Joffre himself; and "Himself" had appointed the Captain, whose orders were to remain with us even after our return to Paris, where he would wait to place the magic visé of the État Major upon our despatches, thus preventing any delays at the regular Bureau de Censure. Comfortable rooms had been reserved in hotels of little villages behind the trenches. Far in advance meals had been commanded to be ready at the hours of our arrival. Every detail of each day's program had been carefully arranged. And in case we did become accidentally separated from our Captain, each of us carried a pass issued by the Ministry of War bearing our photographs and in dramatic language fully accrediting us as correspondents to the armies of the Republic. So we lighted our cigars and lolled at our ease, feeling our own importance just a bit as each sentry saluted respectfully the Captain's silken brassard. In the company of Captain Blank I have secured the greatest part of the cable copy that the war has furnished me, but on that first ride through the snow fields of Northern France, I little realized that on my return to Paris I would send America the most important cable that I had ever filed in my life: for it was the first detailed description of the French army permitted for publication after the battle of the Marne. Many times during that trip we asked each other what "news" there was in all that we saw that was worth cabling, when a five-cent postage stamp would carry it by letter. It was all interesting, some of it decidedly exciting; but not once did we witness a general engagement of the army. There was no storming of forts, no charges of the cavalry, no capitulation of troops. It was just the deadly winter waiting in the trenches, with the sentries who never slept at the port-holes and the artillery incessantly pounding away at the rear. I decided that there was nothing worth cabling in the story. When I returned to Paris, and a steam-heated apartment, the reaction on my physical forces was so great that I went to bed for several days with the grippe. As I impatiently fumed to get to work on the story of my trip, it suddenly dawned upon me that it was a cable story after all. Why, it was one of the biggest cable stories possible--it was the story of the French army. I had just been permitted a real view of it, the first accorded any correspondent in so comprehensive a manner. I had followed a great section of the fighting line, had been in the trenches under fire, and had received scientific, detailed information regarding this least known of European forces.