“_Dix france, pour tous_,” she answered. (Ten francs for everything.) “Not bad at all. Gettin’ kinda sick of the highway-robbery stuff. Guess you’ll have to pay, George; I’m flat,” said Jimmy. “_Oui_,” answered Neil. He gave Gabrielle three five-franc notes and told her to keep the change. _“Monsieur, vous donney trop!_ (you give too much, monsieur) she told him, insisting that he take what was over and above. “Forget it,” refusing the returned money. “_Merci bien, monsieur_,” answered Gabrielle. _Au revoirs_ were quickly said. The little party of Yanks started off in the general direction of Verdun over the great white highway that many Frenchmen call the “Sacred Road.” “Got any idea where the outfit is, Joyce?” asked O. D., after two kilometers had been left behind with their hobnail tracks. “Heard they’re right near Souilly. Believe they’ll hang there a day or so and then go into the lines. Big stuff on up here. Heard about it?” “Lot of rumors ’bout a big smash, but nothin’ certain. What dope did you get?” asked Jimmy. “Nothin’ but that everybody from the big guys down are looking for a drive to start and go through to Metz. Dope is we start the push on early in September, about the tenth or so. ’Ain’t got any too much time.” “Guess we’ll be right up in the front end of this thing. Better get us some new _chevaux_. I’m tired listening to that ‘Cannoneer on the Wheel,’ stuff,” snorted Rigney. “If it’ll end this _guerre_ any quicker I’m with ’em to drive all winter,” declared Jimmy. O. D. listened to his new friends talk about driving and pushing, and many other things that happen only at the front, with the feeling that he was a rank outsider in their company. They spoke so casually of attacking the Germans and taking Metz that O. D. could not dissuade himself from believing that at times war must be a sort of picnic. Yet something told him that while these men spoke as lightly as they did of fighting they knew the hell of it, too. He wondered again and again if when it came his time to learn, as they had done before him, he would be able to accept the fun and hell just as they did. That thought worried O. D. more than anything else. “How far is that place where you think the outfit is?” asked old Pop Rigney. The five kilometers that brought them to another little village had brought some aches and weariness to his aging limbs. “Another kilometer or two, I guess,” answered Joyce. “Better grab a truck. You don’t know where we’re going,” was Rigney’s suggestion. “Gosh! There’s a Y. M. C. A. sign. Let’s go over and get some cigarettes. No tellin’ if we’ll ever see them again. Gettin’ up close now, you know,” warned Jimmy. “We’re off,” said Neil. The quintet made for the Y. M. C. A. hut. “Any cigarettes?” asked Joyce of the man behind the canteen counter. “Not to-day. All out of smokings,” was the disappointing answer. “Any chocolate or cookies?” questioned Jimmy.