The Boy Scouts on the Trail | Page 5

voice in the most stirring of all patriotic airs--the Marseillaise.
With a will they joined him, English, American and French, for all were there. Slowly, still singing, they followed the master from the class-room, and gathered outside in the open air of the school yard. And from other rooms, from all over the school, masters and boys poured out to join them and to swell the chorus. Outside, in the street, a passing battalion of the infantry of the line, made up of smiling young soldiers, heard and took up the chorus, singing as they marched.
There was no need of questions from those who heard the singing. In a moment the discipline of the school went by the board. And, when the song was done, they still remained together, waiting. In ten minutes, M. Donnet appeared from the door of his own house. But now he was transformed. He was in the uniform of his rank, his sword was by his side; a servant carried his bags. He strode through the ranks of cheering boys to the gate, saluting right and left as he did so.
CHAPTER III
THE CALL TO ARMS
"This does not yet mean war!"
So M. Donnet had cried, in a final word of warning, meaning, if possible, to do his part in the government's plan, still in force, of restraining the passions of the French people. No. It did not mean war. Not quite. But it meant that war was inevitable; that within a few hours, at the most, mobilization would be ordered. This was on Saturday. And that evening Germany declared war on Russia. Within an hour posters were everywhere. The general mobilization had been ordered.
The teachers in that school were young men. On the word they went. Each knew what he had to do. Each had his little book of instructions. He needed no orders. The mere fact that mobilization had been ordered was all he needed to know. He knew already where he must report, where his uniform and his equipment would be given to him, and which regiment he was to join. He was a soldier by virtue of the three years, or the two, he had spent already with the colors. He did not have to be drilled; all that had been done. He knew how to shoot, how to live in camp, how to march. If he was a cavalryman, he knew how to ride; if an artilleryman, how to handle the big guns.
And as with the teachers, so it was with the other men about the school,--the gardeners, the servants, all of them. Within an hour of the time when the order was issued, they were on their way and the school was deserted, save for boys and one or two old men, who bewailed the fact that they were too old to fight. In the streets St. Denis looked like a deserted village. All the young men were going.
Swiftly preparations were made to close the school. Madame Donnet, left in charge when her husband went, called the boys together.
"You must get home," she said. "Here you cannot stay. There will be no way to care for you. And soon, too, the school will be used as a hospital. So it was in 1870. I shall stay, and I shall prepare for what is to come. M. Donnet telegraphed yesterday to all the parents, bidding them be ready for what has come. I will give money for traveling expenses. And in happier times we shall meet again."
Save for the friendly offer Henri had already made, Frank Barnes might well have been in a sorry plight. And, indeed, he offered now to let his chum withdraw his invitation.
"I have plenty of money, Harry," he said. "And if I go into Paris, to the American ambassador, or the consul, he will see that I am all right until my uncle comes. Your family won't want a guest now."
But Harry wouldn't hear of this.
"Now more than ever!" he said. "It will be different. True--not as we had planned it before this came. But you shall come, and perhaps we shall be able to do something for France with the Boy Scouts. We shall see. But this much is certain--I think we shall not be able to go to Amiens at once. Amiens is in the north--it is that way that the soldiers must go, soldiers from Paris, from Tours, from Orleans, from all the south. It is from the north that the Germans will come. Perhaps they will try to come through Belgium. So, until the troops have finished with the railways, we must wait. We will go to my aunt in Paris."
And go they did to Madame Martin, Henri's aunt, who lived in a street between the Champs Elysees and the Avenue de l'Alma, not