r?"

"Hunting for your knife. I dropped mine yesterday, when that
shell exploded in the cut-off. I darned near dropped my old nut!"

"Shucks, that wasn't anything. Don't keep blowing about it--shows
you're a greenhorn."

Claude stripped off his shirt and slid into the pool beside
Gerhardt. "Gee, I hit something sharp down there! Why didn't you
fellows pull out the splinters?"

He shut his eyes, disappeared for a moment, and came up
sputtering, throwing on the ground a round metal object, coated
with rust and full of slime. "German helmet, isn't it? Phew!" He
wiped his face and looked about suspiciously.

"Phew is right!" Bruger turned the object over with a stick. "Why
in hell didn't you bring up the rest of him? You've spoiled my
bath. I hope you enjoy it."

Gerhardt scrambled up the side. "Get out, Wheeler! Look at that,"
he pointed to big sleepy bubbles, bursting up through the thick
water. "You've stirred up trouble, all right! Something's going
very bad down there."

Claude got out after him, looking back at the activity in the
water. "I don't see how pulling out one helmet could stir the
bottom up so. I should think the water would keep the smell
down."

"Ever study chemistry?" Bruger asked scornfully. "You just opened
up a graveyard, and now we get the exhaust. If you swallowed any
of that German cologne--Oh, you should worry!"

Lieutenant Hammond, still barelegged, with his shirt tied over
his shoulders, was scratching in his notebook. Before they left
he put up a placard on a split stick.

No Public Bathing!! Private Beach

C. Wheeler, Co. B. 2-th Inf'ty.

. . . . . . . . . .

The first letters from home! The supply wagons brought them up,
and every man in the Company got something except Ed Drier, a
farm-hand from the Nebraska sand hills, and Willy Katz, the
tow-headed Austrian boy from the South Omaha packing-houses.
Their comrades were sorry for them. Ed didn't have any "folks" of
his own, but he had expected letters all the same. Willy was sure
his mother must have written. When the last ragged envelope was
given out and he turned away empty-handed, he murmured, "She's
Bohunk, and she don't write so good. I guess the address wasn't
plain, and some fellow in another comp'ny has got my letter."

No second class matter was sent up,--the boys had hoped for
newspapers from home to give them a little war news, since they
never got any here. Dell Able's sister, however, had enclosed a