the narrowest of narrow gauges, and its
rolling-stock consisted of flat cars three feet wide, drawn by splendid
Percherons. The live stock, the rolling-stock, the tracks, and the trees
on either side of the tracks were entirely covered with white clay. Even
the brakemen and the locomotive-engineer who walked in advance of the
horses were completely painted with it. And before we got out of the
woods, so were the passengers. This railroad feeds the trenches,
carrying to them water and ammunition, and to the kitchens in the rear
uncooked food.

The French marquis who escorted "Mon Capitaine" of the Grand Quartier
General des Armees, who was my "guide philosopher and friend," to the
trenches either had built this railroad, or owned a controlling interest
in it, for he always spoke of it proudly as "my express," "my special
train," "my petite vitesse." He had lately been in America buying
cavalry horses.

[Illustration: _From a photograph, copyright by Medem Photo Service._

"Through these woods ran a toy railroad."

This picture shows President Poincare on the toy railroad en route to
the trenches.]

As for years he has owned one of the famous racing stables in France,
his knowledge of them is exceptional.

When last I had seen him he was in silk, on one of his own
thoroughbreds, and the crowd, or that part of it that had backed his
horse, was applauding, and, while he waited for permission to dismount,
he was smiling and laughing. Yesterday, when the plough horses pulled
his express-train off the rails, he descended and pushed it back, and,
in consequence, was splashed, not by the mud of the race-track but of
the trenches. Nor in the misty, dripping, rain-soaked forest was there
any one to applaud. But he was still laughing, even more happily.

The trenches were dug around what had been a chalk mine, and it was
difficult to tell where the mining for profit had stopped and the
excavations for defense began. When you can see only chalk at your feet,
and chalk on either hand, and overhead the empty sky, this ignorance may
be excused. In the boyaux, which began where the railroad stopped, that
was our position. We walked through an endless grave with walls of clay,
on top of which was a scant foot of earth. It looked like a layer of
chocolate on the top of a cake.

In some places, underfoot was a corduroy path of sticks, like the false
bottom of a rowboat; in others, we splashed through open sluices of clay
and