es,
spruce and oaks. Great tangles of their cut boughs were cluttering the
ground, as though a band of gigantic woodcutters had just passed by. The
trunks had been severed a little distance from the ground with a clean
and glistening stroke, as though with a single blow of the axe. Around
the disinterred roots were quantities of stones mixed with sod, stones
that had been sleeping in the recesses of the earth and had been brought
to the surface by explosions.

At intervals--gleaming among the trees or blocking the roadway with an
importunity which required some zigzagging--was a series of pools, all
alike, of regular geometrical circles. To Desnoyers, they seemed like
sunken basins for the use of the invisible Titans who had been hewing
the forest. Their great depth extended to their very edges. A swimmer
might dive into these lagoons without ever touching bottom. Their
water was greenish, still water--rain water with a scum of vegetation
perforated by the respiratory bubbles of the little organisms coming to
life in its vitals.

Bordering the hilly pathway through the pines, were many mounds with
crosses of wood--tombs of French soldiers topped with little tricolored
flags. Upon these moss-covered graves were the old kepis of the gunners.
The ferocious wood-chopper, in destroying this woods, had also blindly
demolished many of the ants swarming around the trunks.

Don Marcelo was wearing leggings, a broad hat, and on his shoulders,
a fine poncho arranged like a shawl--garments which recalled his
far-distant life on the ranch. Behind him came Lacour trying to preserve
his senatorial dignity in spite of his gasps and puffs of fatigue.
He also was wearing high boots and a soft hat, but he had kept to his
solemn frock-coat in order not to abandon entirely his parliamentary
uniform. Before them marched two captains as guides.

They were on a mountain occupied by the French artillery, and were
climbing to the top where were hidden cannons and cannons, forming a
line some miles in length. The German artillery had caused the woodland
ruin around the visitors, in their return of the French fire. The
circular pools were the hollows dug by the German shells in the limy,
non-porous soil which preserved all the runnels of rain.

The visiting party had left their automobile at the foot of the
mountain. One of the officers, a former artilleryman, explained
this precaution to them. It was necessary to climb this roadway very
cau