"Feels pretty good to be back in harness, doesn't it, Hal?" asked Chester, as, accompanied by a small body of men, they rode slowly along. "Great " replied his friend enthusiastically. "And it looks as if we were to see action soon." "Yes, it does look that way." The little body of British troopers, only forty-eight of them all told, with Hal Paine and Chester Crawford as their guides, were reconnoitering ten miles in advance of the main army along the river Marne in the great war between Germany and the allied armies. For several hours they had been riding slowly without encountering the enemy, when, suddenly, as the little squad topped a small hill and the two boys gained an unobstructed view of the little plain below, Hal pulled up his horse with an exclamation.