The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1919-03-20

did not get to the hotel till about II
and ! just made it and that was all.
After / had lain down for about half
an hour felt much better and did not
even feel sleepy so ! just sat up and
smoked because it was too late to go
out and start anything on my own
hook. Well, guess ! must have doz-
ed off little or something because
was startled all of sudden by the
darndest sound that ever heard. 1t
sounded like about thousand wildcats
all piled into one. And then the lights
went out. l, Of course, went to the
window to see what all the excitement
was about. All could see was a lot
of dark shadows scampering in the
direction of a great mound of dirt
that l had seen in front of the hotel
ond there began the most awful racket
that you ever heard. About dozen
anti-aircraft guns around the town
began to work and the searchlights
were flashing in eevry direction.
just managed to get the thought thru
my nut that it was an air raid when
the machine guns cut loose and some
of them were firing incendiary bullets.
You could see the streams of different
colored flashes from the guns. Some
were blue, some green but the biggest
part Of them were just the plain
white. And all the time you could not
hear yourself even think. l made a
chump of myself along with all the
other Annex boys in town and got
out in the street where could see the
excitement. Well, after chasing up
and down the street and not finding
anything or anybody but ourselves we
burst forth in beautiful (?) song and
started to make the rounds of the diff
ferent bombproof shelters to see what
we could see In most of thtSn they
We're all huddled and dark and crowd
ed so that there was not much to see
but in one of them, the one right in
front of the hotel, there were not
many people and they had light in
there, although it was shielded so that
it could not be seen from the outside
We wandered through the place and at
the far end we discovered Miss Y. M.
c. A. Now she is a girl about the
size of your sister Rose. A great,
tall, well built girl and her hair was
bobbed. Her hair was black and she
had great black eyes that shone like
fire in the half-darkness But the
funny part Of it was that she was
there with nothing on but her night
gown and in coming into the dugout
she had torn it so that it did not do
her a bit of good. I guess she ex-
pected us all to laugh and the rest Of
the fellows did and went on looking
the rest Of the crowd over. They
thought that she was some French
girl, I guess, and Just one of the
crowd. Well, saw my chance to
make myself still more solid with her
and went up and asked her if she
would not take my coat to help keep
her warm. She took it and thanked
me very nicely and made the remark
that she wished that she ha} some of
her own clothes. I told her that Il
would get them for her if she would
tell ma where her room was. She re-
fused at first, saying that she did not
want me to take any unnecessary
risk. but when l convinced her that
we had been chasing all over town
and intended to go still further any
way she told me the number of her
room. l went up and got the clothes
and brought them back. thought
that I had everything that she would
want but when I got them to her !