[CHAPTER I]
A JOYFUL REUNION
"I suppose we might as well be hiking along," announced Roger Barlow regretfully, as he consulted his watch. "We've lots of time yet, but we'd better be early than late back to camp. We are strangers in a strange land and we've quite a long way to go."
"I'm satisfied to go. I came up here to see Paris and I've seen it. That is, a scrap of it. I guess it would take a long while to get really wise to it. I sure would like to use up a little time poking around la belle Paree. My, but this hash house is a dead place, though! Nobody alive here but us."
Bob Dalton glanced disapprovingly about the unassuming little café in which he and his four Brothers had elected to dine. Its hushed atmosphere oppressed him.
"Oh, Paris is altogether different from what it used to be," informed Sergeant Jimmy Blaise. "It's lost a lot of pep since this war began. Can you wonder?"
"It's lost more than pep," cut in Franz Schnitzel. "It's lost a whole lot of its best citizens. Almost every woman one sees is dressed in black. That tells its own story."
"So think I no many Franche solder more," sighed Ignace Pulinski. "Mos' is died."
"Oh, there are probably a dozen or two left," was Bob's cheering reassurance. "I guess they need the Khaki Boys over here all right enough, though."
"I wish we'd get orders to move on," grumbled Jimmy. "I'm dying to take a ride in one of those 'Eight Horses' affairs—not."