. He did visit the battlefields, the whole front
line from the Adriatic Sea, along the Piave, Mt. Grappa and the
Trentino, westward to Tonale Pass and northward to Innsbruck, but it was
after the armistice. He made a choice collection of war relics and
photographs, which he subsequently used in his lecture: "Personal
Experiences at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, or How I Won the War
Cross."

He had spent his boyhood on the trails of Pine Mountain, often riding to
mill straddle of a mule. When the family moved to Madison County he
drove a speedy trotter to a side-bar buggy over the turnpike, then in
his own Pierce-Arrow over excellent roads, then in Italy a Y Fiat. He
was educated by gradation to speedy locomotion and was a most competent
judge of good roads.

He knew what he was talking about when he said that there were no other
roads in the world like the old Roman roads of the plain and no other
highways exhibited such engineering skill and perfection as those of the
mountains, north from Brescia along Lake Iseo to Tonale Pass, with its
tunnels, curves and gradual ascents.

How he did enjoy riding over the old Roman road from Bologna to Milan
with Colonel Rocca, telling him about what he had done and had seen! One
of his lectures, descriptive of this road, was reported, and I quote a
portion of it:

"There is no place more attractive in the ripe days of spring than the
Lombardy plain. The old Roman road as direct as the truth and a
straight, though broad, way intersects it as though a great master road
builder with the power of a czar had laid down a hundred-mile rule and,
drawing a single line at an angle of twenty degrees north of west,
declared the survey complete and the route fixed.

"The road is built above and overlooks the plain. No pains in the
original construction of twenty-odd centuries ago, nor since in its
remodification or repair, has been spared towards making it an eternal
highway down which as a vast speedway a half-dozen cars might race
abreast.

"The Po and its tributaries are spanned by great arched bridges of
stone, seemingly cut and placed by Titans of past ages who spent their
full days and plenteous strength and skill in placing stone on stone.

"The whole plan seems laid off with a rule. The distant cloud-capped
Alps to the north, the Apennines of verdant foothills and snow-clad
peaks nearer to the south seem pressing down to meet and clash as two
vast armies contending for the plai