Soon the rattle of rifle bullets and machine gun fire close at hand caught her attention. A turn in the road brought her in sight of a big armored French car that stood disabled in the middle of the road. The engine had been smashed by a shell. The Germans were firing at it from cover some distance away. The French soldiers were firing away from the protection of the armor with their machine guns and their rifles, but they were handicapped by the immobility of the car, and the Germans were gradually encircling them. Three of the eight Frenchmen forming the crew of the car lay dead in the road, killed while they had exposed themselves in an attempt to repair the engine. Mlle. Duclos saw three German soldiers rise from cover and advance in an effort to rush the car. They were shot down, but she saw that in a few more minutes the Frenchmen must be overwhelmed. Taking in the situation at a glance, the experienced motorist sped up to the injured car and backed up her machine before she stopped. "Get in," she cried to the French soldiers, "or you will be taken in another minute." The five Frenchmen jumped into Mlle. Duclos's car with their rifles. Under a rain of bullets she sped back by the way she had come. Luckily they all escaped, and a turn in the zigzag road soon put them out of danger. The Germans must have taken possession of the car in a leisurely manner after the escape of the French. It was precious booty to them. Probably they tried to repair it, and, finding that impossible, started to tow it back. The Frenchmen were not satisfied to escape with their lives and leave their car behind. Mlle. Duclos had noted carefully the direction of the surrounding roads. After running back a short distance she found a road that would lead them to the one that the Germans would follow on their way back. The French officer in charge of the party insisted on taking the steering wheel of the car, but Mlle. Duclos demonstrated that she was the only one who could get the best speed out of her car. Thus she forced them to let her stay in the place of danger. Behind a pile of rocks that marked the meeting of the roads they lay in wait for the returning Germans. Up the road came the Germans tugging at a rope that drew the great disabled French armored car. There were about forty of them, practically half a company, minus the men who had already fallen in the fight. It was impossible for the five Frenchmen to cope with them in any ordinary fight. Only surprise and stratagem could hope to meet the situation. III--SHE PLUNGES HER MOTOR INTO THE GERMANS Mlle. Duclos immediately suggested that she should drive the car straight down on the unsuspecting Germans. Her opportunity for a great action had come. She seized it. Down hill upon the toiling Germans flew the great 60-horsepower car. Straight as an arrow it went, with the weight of its two tons multiplied a hundred times by its speed and downward course.