At that of course every one showed the most intense interest. Thad, on looking in the quarter indicated by Giraffe’s extended finger, quickly announced that the tall scout’s eagle eye had not deceived him.
“Yes, that’s the tower, most certainly,” he said, in a satisfied way; “which fact tells us we’re on the outskirts of Paris at last.”
“Everything seems pretty peaceful here, I should say,” Bumpus remarked, just as though he may have been indulging in some sort of wild fancy founded on the mad scenes which history describes as having racked the French capital at the time of the Commune, a hundred and more years back.
“Oh! we’ll find Paris pretty quiet, with so many people gone, and business dead,” Allan ventured to say; “but all the same I’m anxious to take a turn about the place now we’re here. I’ve been studying that little guide book we got hold of, and set down a lot of things we ought to see, before we leave for the good old United States.”
Under the belief that the great German army of invasion might succeed in investing the capital, tens of thousands of the best inhabitants had departed for points further south; indeed, even the French Assembly had abandoned Paris and gone to a safer place, so that the legislative branch of the government should not suffer in case of a siege, as in the previous experience.
As they continued to glide along the smooth avenue, surrounded by scenes of constantly increasing beauty such as can be found in few other places on earth, the four comrades of the khaki felt a sense of peace fill their hearts. They seemed to be far removed from those terrible battlefields upon which they had so lately looked; and it was hard to realize that only a score or so of miles separated the invading German army from the goal which they had set out to capture and hold as a prize.
Bumpus lay back in his comfortable seat and dreamed dreams. He had little doubt but that he would be able to find his mother without much trouble, and to him that September day seemed like the end of a bad dream. All the dreadful things that had passed in review before their eyes he would now try to forget, since they had been but a means to an end. Soon they would find themselves threading the streets and broad avenues of the great metropolis, and looking upon the myriads of fluttering tri-color flags which would be given to the breeze as the citizens learned of the wonderful battle which their idol Joffre had won on the banks of the Marne.
And here, having safely arrived at their goal, we may leave them, in the hope that at no distant day it may once again be our pleasure to meet Thad and his gallant chums in the pages of still another volume, in which shall be described further interesting and profitable adventures that are likely to come their way.
THE END