lished by the French government to sell at cost to the soldiers. There we were able to buy enough jam, butter, and cheese to make our own rations palatable. Although the rich Americans often bought out the store to the last can, the French soldiers never complained, never reminded us that this was a French canteen run by the French Government for the French Army. Yet French soldiers could not buy even a cigarette in our Y. M. C. A.'s.

All this time we were learning more and more about the Boche and his wily ways. We had picked up bits of Boche equipment, looked over positions they had left, and watched their shells burst. What we most wanted, however, was to see them in the wild state, that is, not prisoners, but within their own lines. Consequently, everyone was anxious to go out to the Observation Post.

On the way out, the first 500 yards lay in the open. Then one entered the Boyau Barret, a deep, well-kept communication trench. For more than a kilometer it twisted toward the front line. A narrow duck- board walk ran along the bottom of the trench, past dugouts, under a narrow-gauge railroad, past a sign that marked the Chemin des Dames, and finally to a second-line infantry trench.

A few hundred yards down this trench lay O. P. (observation post) Renard. Two dugouts, built deep into the hillside, and an iron box with slits for observation built into the side of the trench, formed this O. P. Peering out, we could see a deep valley through which ran the Aisne canal and the Ailette river in front of us, and then another ridge. The valley was

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