rce of White Guards was left at Visakagorka,
and one at Trufanagora, and Priluk and the main White Guard outer
defense of Pinega established at Pelegorskaya.

Like the whole expedition into Russia of which the Pinega Valley force
was only one minor part, the coming of the Allied troops had quieted the
areas occupied but, in the hinterland beyond, the propaganda of the wily
Bolshevik agents of Trotsky and Lenine succeeded quite naturally in
inflaming the Russians against what they called the foreign bayonets.

And here at the beginning of winter we leave this handful of Americans
holding the left sector of the great horseshoe line against a gathering
force, the mutterings of whose Red mobs was already being heard and
which was preparing a series of dreadful surprises for the Allied forces
on the Pinega as well as on other winter fronts. Indeed their activities
in this peace-loving valley were to rise early in the winter to major
importance to the whole expedition's fate and stories of this flank
threat to Archangel and especially to the Dvina and Vaga lines of
communication, where the Pinega Valley merges with the Dvina Valley, was
to bring from our American Great Headquarters in France the terse
telegram: "Just where is the Pinega Front?"

It was out there in the solid pine forests one hundred fifty miles to
the east and north of Archangel. Out where the Russian peasant had
rigged up his strange-looking but ingeniously constructed sahnia, or
sledge. Where on the river he was planting in the ice long thick-set
rows of pines or branches in double rows twice a sled length apart.
These frozen-in lines of green were to guide the traveller in the long
winter of short days and dark nights safely past the occasional open
holes and at such times as he made his trip over the road in the
blinding blizzards of snow. Out there where the peasant was changing
from leather boots to felt boots and was hunting up his scarfs and his
great parki, or bearskin overcoat. That is where "G" Company, one
hundred strong, was holding the little, but important, Pinega Front at
the end of the fall campaign.

XI

WITH WOUNDED AND SICK

Lest We Forget S. O. L. Doughboy--Column In Battle And No Medical
Supplies--Jack-Knife Amputation--Sewed Up With Needle And Thread From
Red Cross Comfort Kit--Diary Of American Medical Officer--Account Is
Choppy But Full Of Interest.

Some things the doughboy and officer from America will never have grace