Suppose the Germans should demolish those wires with a random shot from some great gun such as the monster which had bombarded Paris at a distance of seventy miles. Such a random shot might demolish Tom Slade, too, but he did not think of that. What he thought of chiefly was the inglorious role he would play if, after shifting his responsibility, he should go riding into Dieppe only to find that the faithful dots and dashes had done his work for him. Then again, suppose the wires should be tapped--there were spies everywhere, he knew that. Whatever might have been the part of wisdom and caution, he was well past Aumale before he allowed himself to realize that he was taking rather a big chance. If there were floods in one place there might be floods in another, but---- He banished the thought from his mind. Tom Slade, motorcycle dispatch-bearer, had always regarded the villages he rushed through with a kind of patronizing condescension. His business had always been between some headquarters or other and some point of destination, and between these points he had no interest. He and _Uncle Sam_ had a little pride in these matters. French children with clattering wooden shoes had clustered about him when he paused, old wives had called, "_Vive l'Amerique!_" from windows and, like the post-boy of old, he had enjoyed the prestige which was his. Should he, Tom Slade, surrender or ask for help in one of these mere incidental places along his line of travel? _What you got to do, you do_, he had said, and you cannot do it by going half way and then letting some one else do the rest. He had read the _Message to Garcia_ (as what scout has not), and did that bully messenger--whatever his name was--turn back because the Cuban jungle was too much for him? _He delivered the message to Garcia_, that was the point. There were swamps, and dank, tangled, poisonous vines, and venomous snakes, and the sickening breath of fever. _But he delivered the message to Garcia._ It was sixty miles, Tom knew, from Aumale to Dieppe by the road. And he must reach Dieppe not later than five o'clock. The road was a good road, if it held nothing unexpected. The map showed it to be a good road, and as far west as this there was small danger from shell holes. Fifty miles, and one hour! Swiftly along the dark road sped the dispatch-rider who had come from the far-off blue hills of Alsace across the war-scorched area of northern France into the din and fire and stenching suffocation and red-running streams of Picardy _for service as required_. Past St. Prey he rushed; past Thiueloy, and into Mortemer, and on to the hilly region where the Eualine flows between its hilly banks. He was in and out of La Tois in half a minute. When he passed through Neufchatel several poilus, lounging at the station, hailed him cheerily in French, but he paid no heed, and they stood gaping, seeing his bent form and head thrust forward with its shock of tow hair flying all about.