The Cordova daily times., 1916-07-15

nicely as with a pair of scissors. But 1t was not this, or the ball in the hip which was giving him paint was his companion killed at his side.
 It Is no easy thing-this walking through the front trenches. They have tried to floor them, to keep the men raised out of the sticky clay. But the floor is of round saplings. about the thickness of telegraph poles, laid side by side, making a bunny sur face It is all right for the poilu, in his wooden sabots. But for a civilian it is like going over railroad ties. And besides there is the zig-zag, for the trenches turn sharply ever twenty feet-much like excavations one sees In the street for sewer or gas main. Every hundred feet the visitors head strikes one of the heavy timber bridges thrown across the trenches.
 See how this works" said a young officer commanding this section of trench, as he pointed to a cheveaux de-frise balanced above the trench. ready to drop and bar all progress should the Germans break through. The cheveaux-de-frise was a stocky frame laced and wound with ugly barbed wire. A long wire ran away to point of observation.
 Close the trench" shouted the young officer, and the cheveaux-de- frise came tumbling down, fitting ex- actly acress the trench, and immov- able in its barrier of twisted wire.
 Every few feet the clay wall of the trench showed a large black hole the entrance to the subterranean pits where the men sleep and eat and live. General Hellouin wanted the party to see everything-the real living condi- tion of the men so down one of these black holes the guests went. Soon the daylight disappeared and there was darkness of a tunnel, and the damp, earthly smell of being under ground. There was a call for candles, I hsa brightly illuminated as the electric current was turned on for the general and his party. Now the men could be seen plainly, some in the narrow hunks ranged against the clay walls, others at a table with a lantern. At the further end was a small separate hole in the earth-the quarters of the officer commanding the trench. He had put up photographs on the clay sides, one Of them picture of Gen. eral Joffre, and his little table had several books and trinkets.
 Tt is not so bad" he said, with pride. as he showed his things, "and 1t is very practical. and even comfort able. when you get used to it."
 A telephone stood handy to the commander of the section, and the telephone wire, encased in a wire wound rubber hose, could be seen lead ing off to all the notifications of the trench. permitting the commander to communicate with any part of his sec ton. It was a fighting section, and the commander pointed out his poilus coming and going to the guns. Two hours Is the allotted time for a man to work the guns under fire. Then another man takes his place, and then another, with as much regularity as the force and the urgencies of the fighting permit.
 A squad of these men in a trench battery were manoeuvring their guns so as to get good aim. The opening through which the muzzle of the gun propected was only five inches wide, sweeping the field east and west. Steel rails had been utilized for the protective armor, and the muzzle of the gun swung between an upper and lower rail of steel The pit was low, requiring the men to bend double and increasing the weariness of their task. There were hundreds of these guns at intervals, each giving off it's bark and adding to the carnage and de- vastation ahead.
 In heavily wooded ravine stood one of the big guns, inactive for the moment, and covered with tarpaulin. Dense shrubbery in front and above kept the places screened from the ob- servation of enemy field glasses or over.flying aviators. Nearby, in a high tree, an encircling ladder ran up to an observation platform, like the steel observation masts on Ameri- can warships, but all screened in the