The Nevada County picayune., 1918-08-01
CHAPTER i-Continued.

in speculation. With fixed bnyonets we went from house to house. door to door, and while the results were negli- Rfble because we found no soldiers we did not come out quite empty-handed. We made the inhabitants deliver all guns and munitions and so forth In their possession. The mayor. accom- panying the soldiers. explained to every citiEen that all found with arms after the search would be punished according to the rules of war and German rules of war in Belgium meant execution.
 An hour might have passed when we were again aroused by the sound of artillery and gunfire. new battle had begun. Whether the artillery was busy on both sides could not be judged from our village. The bombardment was tremendous. The ground shook from the growing and moaning that rolaed backward and forward. always seeming to become stronger.
 Tho ambulance columns now brought tn the first wounded. Cour- iers sped by us. War had set in in ail its phases.
 Darkness came over us before we had finished our house-to-hOuse search. We dragged aN the mattresses. straw sacks and feather beds that we could lay our hands on. to the community school and church to care for the wounded They were made as com fortabie as possible. From other sur rounding villages now came the first fugitives They may have been march ing. for they looked tired and utterly exhausted.
 Women, old men and children were huddied together in one mass. They had saved nothing except their bare lives Tn baby buggies or on wheel barrows these unfortunates carried whatever the rude force of war had left them. In contrast to the fugitives, whom we had met before. these were extremely frightened. appearing to be In mortal terror of their enemy. When ever they looked upon one of us Ger man soldiers they crlnged in terror.
 How different these were from the inhabitants of the village where we had first stopped, who had met us in . friendly. even polite manner. We tried to learn the cause of this fright and discovered that the fugitives had witnessed In their village bitter street fighting. They had become acquainted with wnr-had seen their houses burning had seen their little property destroyed and could not forget the sight of their streets filled with corpses and wounded.
 It dawned upon us that not merely fear gave these people the appearance of hunted animals; there was also hatred toward the invaders who had fallen upon them and driven them from their homes by night.
 In the evening we departed and tried to reach our own regiment. The Belgians had concentrated somewhere to the reRr under cover of darkness. We were quite near the neighborhood of the fortified city of Liege. Many settlements through which we passed stood In flames the inhabitants driven
  children and old men were buffeted about and seemed to be everywhere in the way. Without aims or plans, with out place on which to lay their heads these poor people dragged themselves by.
 Again we reached a village. which to all appearances had been inhabited by conteuted people. Now Indeed nothing but ruins could be seen Wrecked houses and farms. dead sol diers. German and Belgian, and among them many civilians. who had been shot by military order.
 Toward midnight we reached the German lines. The Germans had tried to take village which lay with tn the fortified belt of Liege and was defended tenaciously by the Belgians. Here all forces had to be used In or der to drive the enemy out, house by house and street by street. It was not very dark yet so that we had to Wit ness with all of our senses the terrible fights which developed here It was man-to-man fight. With the butts of our guns, knives, fists. teeth We went against the enemy.
 One of my best friends fought with a giant Belgian. The guns of both had fallen to the ground. They hammered one another with fists. l had just closed an account with a twenty-two- year-old Belgian and was going to as sist nay friend because his antagonist was of superior strength. My friend succeeded suddenly in biting the Bel eian on the chin so deeply that he tore a piece of flesh out with his teeth. The Belgian's pain must have been terri