They made a good pair.
Never a glance to right or left did the rider give, nor so much as a perfunctory nod to the few early risers who paused to stare at him as he sped by.

In the little hamlet of Persan an old Frenchman sitting on a rustic seat before the village inn, removed his pipe from his mouth long enough to call, "_La cote ?_" But never a word did the rider answer.

Children, who, following the good example of the early bird, were already abroad, scurried out of his way, making a great clatter in their wooden shoes, and gaping until he passed beyond their sight.
Over the bridge at Soignois he rushed, making its ramshackle planks rattle and throw up a cloud of dust from between the vibrating seams.
Out of this cloud he emerged like a gray spectre, body bent, head low, gaze fixed and intense, leaving a pandemonium of dust and subsiding echoes behind him.
At Virneu an old housewife threw open her blinds and seeing the dusty khaki of the rider, summoned her brood, who waved the tricolor from the casement, laughing and calling, "_Vive l'Amerique!_" Their cheery voices and fraternal patriotism did cause Tom to turn his head and call, "_Merci.

Vive la France!_" And they answered again with a torrent of French.
The morning was well established as he passed through Chuisson, and a clock upon a romantic, medieval-looking little tower told him that it lacked but ten minutes of five o'clock.
A feeling of doubt, almost of despair, seized upon him and he called in that impatient surliness which springs from tense anxiety, asking an old man how far it was to Dieppe.
The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in polite confession that he did not understand English.
In his anxiety it irritated Tom.

"What _do_ you know ?" he muttered.
Out of Chuisson he labored up a long hill, and though _Uncle Sam_ made no more concession to it than to slacken his unprecedented rate of speed the merest trifle, the difference communicated itself to Tom at once and it seemed, by contrast, as if they were creeping.