The Alaska daily empire., 1918-07-26
INTERESTING LETTER FROM "FR0NT"

proverb of the needle in the hay stack, and then the train stopped and the Colonel of the regiment stepped out with the young man close behind him! It was a surprise to us both, and there was much re- joicing.
 The troops looked splendidly, had stood their long journey well, de spite a two days encounter with subs, during which they downed two without suffering any loss. Our young man was in command of his company all the way over. He does not know whether he will remain in command or be superseded by a senior Lieutenant whoi.will soon ar rive. In any event the morale of the company was splendid and the officers, all fine young fellows, seem ed be much liked and respected by the men, We lunched with the Col onel and one or two other officers in a roadside auberge. The Sous prefet was delighted with the Amer ican troops. The newly arrived regi- ment was then ordered off for a long march to it's billets in a neigh boring village.
 We returned to the town and, at nightfall went out to a little house high on the hills, in which the pre- feet had taken refuge since the Or hnn ,1>,y -1,N,n o,,1 the partial destruction of the town It is a lovely little villa belonging to a chateau and, in the woods. had been constructed a dugout furnished with mattresses etc, in which the family took refuge during the bonn. bardments. It had been a strange experience for them That night we sat upon the terrace watching for the air raids and ready to run into the dugout as these raids come with great suddenness, and the avionq come in very great number, squad ron after squadron, even circling above the house itself. Nothing hap pened, however, save the distant flashes of the cannon and the sig. nals from the lines. So we had a quiet night. s
 The next morning was taken to see five little orphan children whom I promised to take to Paris to be placed in one of our colonies of the Comite puor la Protection das En- fants de Ia Frontiers. The eldest is a dear little girl of eleven and one one-half years, of whom the father was killed in the first year of the war and the mother died in hos pital during the bombardment of a neighboring town. This little girl has since cared for her four little brothers, aged nine, seven. five and three. She never left them and kept them in very good order. She was, indeed. a perfect little mother. The kindly wife of the Prefect had found ybese refugees when the town was evacuated and had placed them in tent with number of others. and had then written to our organi- zation to care for them. telephoned to Paris to complete the necessary arrangements. After an excellent lunch, accompanied by this lady. I went out to the camp and there found my sons company at retreat. He was given liberty until Sunday afternoon and returned with me to spend the night in the villa. It was a very pleasant evening with the kindly family, an English Red Cross lady, who drives car for them and one or two others.
 We slept in the chateau itself fin a couple of rooms reserved for the Sous Prefet's use. It was a very old primitive place but we were very happy to be together. The next day, Sunday. the weather was very beautiful and we spent the morning walking through the woods