The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1917-05-17

for an extended inspection. About
forty families were encamped on the
floor, with a strange collection of
household paraphernalia. Besides the
door, the only possible ventilation was
a broken window pane. What seemed
to cause particular complaint was the
broken pane, not the ventilation.
You could not help feeling sorry for
these poor mountain folk, driven from
their homes by a a Of which and
about which they knew nothing, and in
which they had no interest. To them
Bucharest vas as far off as Berlin.
Not one but envied the prosperity OF
the Roumanians on the Hungarian side
of the Carpathians. Yet the war had
wrecked their city and their homes.
and strange German soldiers were
marching through their streets in pur.
suit Of the fathers and brothers who
had fled with the Roumanian army
into the mountain Businesses beyond.
So far we had passed column after
column of heavy baggage trains car.
rying provisions and ammunition to
the front. Now our automobile slowed
up, as we picked our way through a
marching regiment. They were a dusty
knapsacks and their winter equipment.
For the nights are bitterly cold in
these passes. Yet they sang as we
passed them and seemed as CHEEKY as
though they were going on a mountain
lark. That is, most of them did. For
some of them it was a hard struggle
with no pleasure ahead.
The head of this column had just
reached the crest and left the road.
For down the other side there was no
need Of following the long windings
over which our automobile had to go
with brakes set. The soldiers scam
pered freely down the bluffs, reaching
the bottom almost as quickly as we
did. But again we had to climb a long
and tedious hill on the other side be-
fore we came to the valley in which
the war operations were now on.
The Darker Side Of Marching.
A week later we made the same trip,
this time following General Won Falken-
J hayn himself on an inspection trip of
this front. And now it rained. The
\ gorgeous beauty Of these wild noun
tain crags, the purple mists that yelled
the garish colors of the peaks, the fas-
I! cination and the splendor Of what
Americans call Indian summer were
0nno NN,orufhior 1,n1 roc,,r,o1 ne 20
by magic, drab colors. The misty rain
beat against us before an icy wind.
The steep roads became perilous with
slippery mud. There was no song from
the soldiers that we passed. Dripping,
soaked, they plodded YEARLY and
! slowly. The horses Of the baggage
trains seemed to feel the same way
about it. The automobile trucks foun-
dered in the mud and many had mar
row escapes. It is no light task to
navigate N of these giant cars on a
crooked, slippery mountain road.
On little shelves of the mountain side
were smoky bivouac fires trying hard
to burn. About them were drenched
soldiers trying to dry their soaked
equipment and uniforms. Here and
there tapped tiny dog tents into which
these soldiers would creep for the
night in the hope that tomorrow would
bring a bit of sunshine.
Wounded Know No Hate.
Around a turn in the road came a
slowly moving, weary OK train. The
oxen seemed to mind the rain less than
the horses. 1t was the contents of the
wagons these oxen pulled slowly and
ponderously through the mud that
made II auto slow down as we passed
them. Each wagon contained q num-
Der of wounded lying in the straw.
Some Of them were covered with rub
Der blankets. All were trying feebly
to smile at us as they passed on this
jolting journey over the mountains
from the battle lines to the hospitals
behind the front.
We found German and Roumanian
side by side. Their enmity seemed to
have ended. Wounded friend and
wounded foe had become brothers.
1t was in this section that the Rou-
manians had attempted to stop the
German advance by blowing up the
road at three abrupt curves. They
had done their work we'll. The explo-
si0ns tore off the whole shelf on Which
the road was carried. But the Ger
mar engineers had done their work
equally well. They hurriedly built up
a wall at about the middle of the de.
stroyed road, then dynamited away q
big chunk of the ~overhanging noun
tain side. This fell against their new
abutment, and in three hours the Ger.
mans were able to put artillery over
the new road.
Of the Earth Family.