EDITH SELLERS. _LONG ODDS._ BY BOYD CABLE. This story belongs to an officer of the Canadians who at the time of its happening was playing a part in the opening months of the war as a private in the French Foreign Legion. In that capacity he saw a good deal of the men of our first Expeditionary Force, and although he is full of good stories of their amazing doings, he tells this particular one as perhaps the best and most typical example he met of the cold-blooded contempt of certain death, the calm indifference to consequences, the matter-of-fact tackling of the impossible which were such commonplaces with the old Regular Army in the first days, and which perhaps were the main factors in the performance of so many historic feats of arms. It was during the Retreat, in the middle of that constant series of forced marches and hard fighting, when the remnants of retiring regiments were inextricably mixed, when the wounded were left behind, and the unwounded who were unable to keep up with their column or who strayed from it in the darkness found themselves blundering about the countryside, dodging groups of enemy cavalry and columns of enemy infantry, being fed and guided by the French villagers, working always towards the sound of the guns and struggling to rejoin their own army, that three just such stragglers after a careful reconnaissance ventured into the outskirts of a tiny French hamlet. One, the Canadian (who had been in Paris on the outbreak of war and, fearing that it would be months before a British force could take the field, had signed on in the French Foreign Legion and so made sure of an early and ample dose of the fighting), wore the picturesque dress of a private of the Legion; another was a French infantry of the Lines-man, and the third a private of a British infantry regiment. The ‘khaki,’ for no particular reason, except that he apparently took it for granted that it should be so, more or less took command of the party, while the Canadian, who spoke fluent French, acted as interpreter both between the party and the French ‘civvies,’ as the local inhabitants were indiscriminately described by the Englishman, and in conveying the orders of the self-appointed C.O. to the non-English-speaking ‘piou-piou.’ Enquiry of the villagers brought the information that there were no Germans in the hamlet, that a party of Uhlans had ridden through towards the south an hour before, and that nothing had been seen of any Germans since. ‘Good enough,’ said the khaki man on hearing this. ‘I’m just about ready for a shut-eye myself after trekkin’ all last night. We’d better lie up till it’s gettin’ dark again, and then shove on an’ see if we can get the touch with our own push. You might ask ’em if this dorp has anythin’ goin’ in the way o’ rations—rooty an’ cheese an’ a pot o’ beer would just suit my present complaint.’