person is due the fact that the piece at last reached
the range,--a stretch of trackless snow, with no sign of another gun.
The carriage had taken the wrong road, and missed the battalion, which
had given up the journey and returned to camp.

Regimental firing succeeded battalion, and brigade succeeded regimental.
Hikes, with blanket rolls on the carriages and packs on the men's backs,
were frequent. One of these, through Plantain les Forges and Plelan,
took the road along the edge of the forest in which the heroes of the
lays of Brittany, according to legend, once lived, and fought, and had
high adventures. Other preparations for service at the front followed.
With the departure of the 51st Artillery Brigade, of the 26th Division,
for the front, we began to look forward to the day when we should
entrain.

Late in January we were issued gas masks, both British and French.
Sergeant Bolte and Corporal Holton were appointed Gas N. C. O.'s for the
battery. On February 6 the men tested their masks in an abri filled with
chlorine gas, some coming out just in time to give an exhibition
gas-mask drill before our new brigade and divisional commanders,
Brigadier-General McKenstrie and Major-General Menoher. An officer from
the British army gave us a more vivid acquaintance with the effects of
gas in warfare in some lectures at the Y. M. C. A.

After the 51st Brigade had left the camp, the Q. M. details at the
railroad station at Guer fell to the 67th Brigade. Until the day of our
leaving, our time was thenceforth largely occupied with details which
spent the day unloading rations, forage and fuel at Guer. Since these
gave the men an opportunity to get meals in the town, and sometimes to
spend the evenings there, these details were not unpopular.

Saturday, February 9, following a mounted inspection, in which the
regiment was equipped as for the field, we considered ourselves on our
way to war. The guard that night began the wearing of steel helmets.
Duffle bags were ordered packed. The following evening they were
collected, and taken to the railroad station at Guer. Long will the men
of Battery E remember the night they were hauled out of bed twice to
push the wagons out of the mud, the night they unwittingly gave their
last farewell to their duffle bags, which they expected to see so soon,
yet were to see again never.

At the end of January, Harry Overstreet, who had been with the battery
on the Mexican border, rejoined, af