Horace, through his experience on the battle front, had learned that a motor-cyclist's greatest usefulness is at dawn or a little before. This is due to that fact that, when an army is on the move, telegraph cable is laid from division to brigade headquarters and from brigade to battalion headquarters, as soon as these positions are determined for the night. This is done from cable wagons and the Signal Corps men are so deft that the cable can be laid as fast as horses can canter. At about three o'clock in the morning, if headquarters are going to move, this cable is picked up, ready for use the coming night. Enemy assaults, however, are likely to begin at dawn and these may cause a change in the dispositions already decided on. It is then that the motor-cyclist dispatch-rider is especially valuable. At three o'clock this morning of Sunday, September 6, Horace got up, put on the dead man's uniform, trundled out his motor-cycle and whizzed to General Gallieni's headquarters. The place was buzzing with activity and Horace realized that grave news must have come in on the military telegraph wires. He was hailed at once. "You're just what we've been looking for!" A list of addresses was handed him. "These are the names of taxicab companies and garages who haven't answered their 'phones; probably shut up at night. Find some one, any one, every one! Rout them out and tell them to rush every cab and car they've got to those section points." "What for?" asked Horace, already in the saddle, and moving off. "Troop movements. Hurry!" Through the still, night-enshrouded streets of Paris, the boy sped. It was a dangerous ride. Round every corner and shooting along every street, taxis and motors were speeding, driven by half-awake chauffeurs. All night long, troops had reached Paris by train. They were needed at Meaux, forty miles from Paris, where Manoury was attacking. If they marched, they could hardly reach the battle that day and would be too wearied to fight. But forty miles, to a fleet of motor-cars, was different. By five o'clock that Sunday morning, four thousand taxis, motor-busses and motor-cars were speeding from Paris to Meaux. Men rode on the front, on the back and hung on to the springs. Twelve and fourteen men piled into and on a taxicab. The motor-busses carried sixty and seventy, men hanging on by the straps of their rifles, jammed into window frames. They looked like insects on a plant. Inside they were packed like herrings in a cask. But they roared with delight at taking a taxi to the front. By noon, Manoury's army had been reënforced by 70,000 troops. The army was, however, lamentably weak in artillery, for field guns cannot be loaded into taxicabs! [Illustration: _Courtesy of "Panorama de la Guerre."_ THE MEN WHOM NO DANGER CAN DAUNT. The voice of the High Command is in the hands of the Signal Corps: broken telephone and telegraph wires must be repaired in spite of shot and shell.]