"Well, if they are Americans, why don't they talk the American language then?" he demanded. Hearing this, I was sorry I had neglected in my youth to learn Choctaw. Still dubious of us, he came now and stood in the aisle, rocking slightly on his bolster legs and eying us glassily. Eventually a thought pierced the fog of his understanding. He hauled his saber out of its scabbard and invited us to run our fingers along the edge and see how keen and sharp it was. He added, with appropriate gestures, that he had honed it with the particular intent of slicing off a few English heads. For one, and speaking for one only, I may say I was, on the whole, rather glad when he departed from among us. When we grew tired of watching the troop trains streaming south we fought the flies, and listened for perhaps the tenth time to the story of Stevens' experience when he first fell into German hands, six days before. Stevens was the young American who accompanied Gerbeaux, the Frenchman, and Hennebert, the Belgian, on their ill-timed expedition from Brussels in an automobile bearing without authority a Red Cross flag. Gerbeaux was out to get a story for the Chicago paper which he served as Brussels correspondent, and the Belgian hoped to take some photographs; but a pure love of excitement brought Stevens along. He had his passport to prove his citizenship and a pass from General von Jarotzky, military commandant of Brussels, authorizing him to pass through the lines. He thought he was perfectly safe. When their machine was halted by the Germans a short distance south and west of Waterloo, Stevens, for some reason which he could never understand, was separated from his two companions and the South-African negro chauffeur. A sergeant took him in charge, and all the rest of the day he rode on the tail of a baggage wagon with a guard upon either side of him. First, though, he was searched and all his papers were taken from him. Late in the afternoon the pack-train halted and as Stevens was stretching his legs in a field a first lieutenant, whom he described as being tall and nervous and highly excitable, ran up and, after berating the two guards for not having their rifles ready to fire, he poked a gun under Stevens' nose and went through the process of loading it, meanwhile telling him that if he moved an inch his brains would be blown out. A sergeant gently edged Stevens back out of the danger belt, and, from behind the officer's back another man, so Stevens said, tapped himself gently upon the forehead to indicate that the Herr Lieutenant was cracked in the brain.