ward acknowledged that they had never heard anything so
terrifying in their lives.

Having sent over their letter of introduction, our boys followed in
person with a shout and a dash. Over the top and through the wire
entanglements of No Man's Land they fairly leaped their way. Hundreds
of tons of barbed wire had been woven and interwoven between posts
driven into the ground. These posts were in rows and usually stood
about three feet out of the ground. The rows were four feet apart.

Then through the trenches of the German front line they swept, and out
across the open country which lay between them and the Forest. The
marks of the four years' conflict were everywhere visible: the
blackened and splintered remains of trees, the grass-covered
shell-holes, the ruined towns and the wooden crosses, silent markers
of the tombs of the dead. Besides these were the fresh holes in the
fields and on the hillside where our guns had literally blasted the
whole face of the ground.

The shell-holes ranged from the washtub size made by the 75's to the
great fissure-torn holes made by the big naval guns, and which would
make an ample cellar for an ordinary dwelling house. I have seen
horses which had fallen into these great holes shot and covered over
because they could not be gotten out without a derrick.

In the Forest proper our boys encountered machine-gun nests, artillery
pieces of every caliber, and the Boche with whom the woods were
infested. Besides the opposition of an active enemy, were the natural
barriers of deep ravines, stony ridges and cliffs, and in many places
an almost impassable barrier of dense underbrush and fallen limbs and
trees.

Through all of this, however, our boys pushed that first great day,
ignoring every danger which they were not compelled to conquer in
their rapid advance. When they emerged from the Forest they swept down
the hillside, through the gas-filled valley, and stormed the ridges
beyond. On the crest of one of these ridges was Montfaucon, a strongly
fortified position, said to have been one of the observation towers
of the Crown Prince during the four years of the war. Having
surrounded and taken this stronghold, they swept on through the next
valley and having reached their objective ahead of schedule, dug
themselves in while the fire of German guns pierced and depleted their
ranks.

Whatever military critics may say, our hearts thrill with pride for
these heroes, who being given an ob