"That law was made for peace, not for war," said Frank. "When we know as little about where the Germans are as we do, I'm not going to take any chances. We'll ride with lights out, thank you. Come on!"
As they rode along in the growing dusk, close together, Frank told what he had seen.
"That was a good guess, then," said Henri. "But, Frank, how can they know so well what to do? You would think that they had been brought up in this country, those German officers!"
"They might as well have been," said Frank. "I've heard stories of how they prepare for war. They have maps that show every inch of land in this part of France. They know the roads, the hills, even the fields and the houses. They have officers with every regiment who know where ditches are that they can use as trenches, and who have studied the land so that they recognize places they have never seen, just from the maps that they have studied until they know them by heart. And it isn't only France that they know that way, but England, and some parts of Russia, too. Why, I've even heard that they've studied parts of America, around New York and Boston, almost as thoroughly."
Henri cried out in anger.
"That is how they have behaved!" he cried. "They have been planning, all these years, then, to crush France!"
"Oh, cheer up, Harry," said Frank. "I guess you'll find that your French staff officers have returned the compliment. Unless I'm very much mistaken, any one of them could tell you just as much about the country in Alsace and Lorraine, and all through the Rhine Province, as the Germans could of this section. It wasn't so in the last war. Then French officers were losing their way in French territory. That was one reason why the battle at the Speichern was lost—because French reinforcements lost their way. But this time France got ready, too."
"Shall we still make for Le Cateau?"
"There's nothing else to do, until we find out that the staff has changed its location."
Riding along in a light that made men out of the shadows of trees and regiments of the shocked corn in the fields was eerie work. But neither of them was afraid. They were fired by a purpose to serve the cause in which they had enlisted. And they were thrilled, too, by the knowledge of the German force upon which they had spied, themselves unseen.