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Show TELLS OF WILD MOTOR RIDE OVER A SHELL-SWEPT ROAD the seams of my pants for the same reason. ' Get in," said he. I never' saw a car so difficult to mount, so high to climb, but I got I here. The driver cranked it and we started away with gay, nonchalant waves of the hand. We had to climb a hill. I suggested that maybe the engine needed a little tinkering before we tried it, but the driver thought not. I could have found troubles in rtiat engine that would have held us there a week. But. we went on. All of a sudden the air filled up with the holler of a shell. It busted vehemently, vehe-mently, but I didn't see it. I was where I couldn't see, with my head down among the control levers. A few pieces of roof and debris settled on my back, but I was not annoyed. The more that settled there the better I would be protected. "Shall we go on?" the driver asked. "I'm just a passenger," said I with steady courage. "I can't jump out while you are moving at this rale, anyhow." Knew It Was, a Roof. Another shell landed, this time on the roof at our very elbow so to speak. I didn't have time to join the levers again, so I saw It. It landed op a roof, because I saw the roof just b)ore it landed. I will never see that roof again. Our acquaintance was brief. As I looked the roof moved away from there hastily. It sought divers destinations, many of which were in, at or around us. Tiles and plaster and dust filled the air. "Mister," said I, "step on her. She's standing still." "We're doing sixty an hour if we're doing an inch," he said. It was not true. I can prove it. It took us 32 minutes, actual count, to pass a tree. Afterwards the driver told me It wasn't a tree, but a woods several kilometers long, but he was mistaken. I know a single tree wlien I see it, nnd I counted that tree again and again. "I hope," I said, "that the soldiers get this tobacco. I hope they get it ' soon. Let's see, they're in dugouts, aren't they? A'ou don't need to bother about takicg it to them. I'll do that. I haven't chatted with these boys for quite a while, and much as I dislike the closeness of a dugout I think I can sacrifice myself today nnd slay down with them a little while. By the way. It's a dugout with a thick roof. Isn't It?" "Mister," said he gravely, "the man that gits Into that dugout first is the fastest runner in the A. E. F.-Y'. M. C. A." Which was true. I am the champion sprinter. started, and we continued. We continued con-tinued so rapidly that the scenery looked like a green fog, for Fritz was not through. A shell landed alongside the road and a telephone wire dropped across our faces. If it had been a range of mountains it wouldn't have stopped us. People who saw us pass will never know what we were. It will remain a mystery to them to their dying days. We were a pale streak, a very pale streak. We were not traveling for pleasure, we were on business. Our immediate business waa to go away from there, and our next immediate business was to fill the flivver with cigarettes and chocolate from the Y. M. C. A. warehouse ware-house and get It back to the boys back there. It was several kilometers to the warehouse, but we did It in ten flat by the watch, arriving In a state of profound calm. We were not milled. Nobody would have known we were excited except for a few minor matters. mat-ters. Of course we were knocking splinters off our teeth with the chnt-terlng chnt-terlng we felt It our duty to do; we were a trifle imle, say as pale as fresh snow. Aside from this with our hearts beating so they sounded like a dilapidated camion engine, with our hair stnndlng out like spines on an angry an-gry porcupine, our appearance and bearing were normal. "Going Back?" "Sure." With nonchalance we filled our ton-neau ton-neau with supplies. "Going back?" somebody asked. The driver looked at me and I looked at lhe driver. "Back?" said he. "Oh, he means back," I said easily. "A'ou understand back. That way." "They're shelling the road," said the manager of the wnrehouse. "Indeed." said 1. "Shelling? Why. we hadn't noticed It. Itegular shells? We Just come down the road. It was peaceful peaceful as a cow pasture." pas-ture." "So you're going right back, eh?" "Sure." said the driver, standing with his legs far apart so his knees couldn't bit. "Of course," said I, hanging onto By CLARENCt. &. KOLLAND. Paris. A mdi can be only to frightened. Affor that he dies suddenly, sudden-ly, or laughs. Or both. Also, no matter mat-ter how scf-red you nre, curiosity survives. sur-vives. If a shell Is coining, you want to see It land. If It Is going to swat you, you want to see how It goes about It. We were going liack from the front back. The battle was behind us. Privately each one of us didn't care how much farther behind us it got. It could pick up its belongings and move away from us as fast as we were moving mov-ing away from It If tt wanted. Nobody No-body would hear a protest from any of us. At a crossroads our meteoric progress prog-ress was halted by a young and severe soldier with M. P. on his sleeve. "You can't pass," he said ; "they're shelling the rond ahead." He didn't need to tell us. We knew It. As a matter of fact we could have told him things about that road being shelled that he would never know. A shell came screaming over our heads to "wham" down alongside the road a hundred yards beyond. It wasn't a big shell. In a calmer moment, mo-ment, and at a greater distance, I might have admitted that It was a little lit-tle shell, an Insignificant shell, a negligible neg-ligible three-Inch shell. But when It went over my head I was willing to take oath that It was a 42 centimeter. When I was dug out of the ditch Into which I had dived and the mud scraped out of my eyes I took a last 00k down the road. Cap as Shock Absorber. Something was paining me in the region re-gion of the knees. Also there was a sound resembling that made by Brother Broth-er Bones In the minstrel show. Minute examination demonstrated that the pain was caused by the knees assaulting, assault-ing, each ' other venomously. I stuck my cap between them as a shock absorber ab-sorber and looked again. It was a busy little road. It was not a popular road. Everybody on It had taken a dislike to It and was moving uwny with enthusiasm. In the distance dis-tance were three German prisoners and one American prlvnte. Tin; private pri-vate was on a horse. It looked a very fast horse, but the Germans were having hav-ing trouble with It. It kept getting In their way. Thy stumbled over It. "Wham" came another shell. It's explosion was almost drowned out by the sounds of concussion al my side. They were caused by the beating o-gether o-gether of the knees of the driver of the Y. M. C. A. car and by those of 11 buck private. Their note was different, differ-ent, and the meter dissimilar, but the air was much the same. I could not finite make out w hich accomplished the most knocks to the minute, nor which was loudest. Several ration carts were approaching. approach-ing. It was no slow, dignified, matronly matron-ly progress. Anybody who believes a team of mules Is Incapable of speed should have been then; to see. The ''11-tion ''11-tion carls were filled with hard lack. The hard tack was as scared as any-lhlng any-lhlng else, and was trying to keep up to (he cart but It was out of luck. It had no arms to hang on with. The air was full of bard lack. It flowed nut behind those ration carls like a ribbon. II was a snowstorm of hard lack, ami nobody paused to ask where It fell. Ditches Are Popular. Every ditch was unbelievably popular. popu-lar. It didn't have lo be a deep ditch nor a clean ditch.' Any common or garden variety of dllch would do. A 1 six fool man was perfectly able to con-' ecu I himself In a sl Inch ditch. Mends i would poke up. and iiunllier shell, would land. Immediately II would become be-come a Krene of desolation, a lifeless waste. Al'ler awhile an airplane went overhead over-head lo locale lhe hall cry 1 1 1 f 1 1 was causing all lhe rumpus. Then the bat tery Slopped. "Go ahead." said lhe M. I'. "They're through now." He Is the last M. V. I .shall ever be-llev. be-llev. This Is positive. lie meant well, nnd spoke truth according ti ids lights, but Ids lights were dim. We , |
