Early next morning, before Horace was awake, Croquier left the house to pick up the first news of the day. When he returned to the frugal breakfast the lad had prepared, however, he had very little information. "All that I can find out," he said, "is that the Sixth Army, under Manoury, is wheeling up to Von Kluck's west flank." "I don't seem to know much about the Sixth Army," said Horace. "Who are in it?" The hunchback gave the details of the divisions as far as they were known. "That's a mighty weak army," commented the boy. "It is," the hunchback agreed, "but it's only supposed to be a covering army, so far as I can make out. It can fall back on the defenses of Paris." "But couldn't Von Kluck surround Paris, then?" The hunchback shook his head. "Impossible," he said. "Von Kluck would have to stretch his line out on a circle ninety miles long--for that's the circumference of the advance trenches beyond the outer fortifications of the city--and to do that would make his line so thin that it could be broken like the paper in a circus-rider's hoop. "I think," he continued, "mark you, I don't know, that Manoury's army is intended to do the same thing that Le Grand Couronne did--to make the Germans think our line is strongest at the two ends, when, in reality, it is strongest in the middle." "Is Joffre doing that so as to weaken the German opposition to our rebound?" "It looks like it," Croquier admitted, "but that sort of thing is hard to find out until weeks, sometimes months, afterward. A generalissimo never lets his plans be known. To-night's news may give some clew. Now, I'm off." As soon as Croquier had started for the factory, Horace set out to put into effect a resolution to which he had come during a wakeful night. He was not going to sit at home idle when Paris was in danger! It was still a little early, so Horace strolled out into the streets. He was living in the northern quarter of the city, and the markets were choked with the vast stores of supplies being hurried in for use in the event of a siege. Enormous herds of cattle were being driven into Paris to graze on the waste spaces kept free of buildings, not to interfere with the fire of the inner forts. A steady stream of people had their faces turned to the southwest, women and children escaping from the threat of war, trekking for distant points of safety, with their goods piled into the bullock carts of the peasant, the pony carriages of the rich, or even in wheelbarrows. In almost every group there were tiny children and babies. It was for their sakes that the flight was made. Where were the men? None were to be seen save those who labored mightily with the supplies being brought in a steady stream into the city. Where were the men? Out on the fortifications, digging trenches, putting up barbed wire entanglements or dynamiting houses in the suburbs which would interfere with the line of fire.