through the fields to the nearest track. There they hid in a clump of bushes near the top of a grade and awaited the first north-bound train. Finally it came-a small locomotive, puffing up laboriously with twenty-five heavily laden cars behind. Smith had been trained in "flipping" freights in the C. & G. yards back in his home town, and so even in the dark, he found it easy to swing onto the first car. From his position on the endsill, he reached the top of the tender, crawled up, and tossed a few bars of soap into the water tank. Then he dropped off and rejoined his companions, who had been busy ripping up a few rails and hiding them in the woods. Reunited, the squad moved on westward to the next railroad. A long grade curving up a river bank, murmur of firing gave warning to Smith that a battle was impending; and he lay hidden with his men on the top of a heavily wooded hill watching the trains rolling by toward the north all afternoon, and formulating plans. When night fell, the little band extin NEARLY A TON OF DESTRUCTION The havoc that could be wrought in the interior of a vessel by this fourteen-inch shell is hard to imagine. with the curve toward the river, gave them a chance to vary the trick somewhat. One detachment hid at the bottom of the curve, and removed a few rails when the train had passed; Smith swung onto the head car when it was reaching the top of the grade, doctored the engine with soap, shut off the angle-cock, and after getting down on the brakebeams, hobo fashion, disconnected the hose coupling and uncoupled the cars from the train. None of the boys waited to watch the cars roll back down the grade and over the bluff into the river, nor did they stop to see either engineer's frantic efforts to move his locomotive when the soap suds DARDANELLES COPYRIGHTINTERNAT. NEWS SOME of the most unique fea tures of modern warfare have come to light in the stupendous task undertaken by the allies of forcing the Dardanelles. Hidden dangers, new and dreadful methods of destruction, battleships firing over land and mountain to strike at their foes-the whole enterprise is titanic and epic in nature. It is aptly symbolized by the huge upburst of water marking a mine explosion that is pictured on this page. But it has what might be regarded as a lighter side as welllighter, not in danger, but in that nothing gigantic is involved. For instance, until one realizes that the marksmen shown on this page are shooting at floating mines, COPYRIGHT UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD life preservers both around their bodies and their necks because of their constant danger, one would think that they were only having a little sport. Another activity that seems simple but is fraught with danger is that of laying mines, shown on this page. Should a contact mine swing back against the vessel, it would mean death for all men aboard. And then there are episodes that are really humorous. Small boys who called "Get a horse" at the unfortunate motorist whose machine broke down in the. early days of the automobile, I would feel the old instinct coming back, if they could only see the proud monoplane shown in the view being towed home ignominiously. All in all, the operations in the Dardanelles offer every variety of thrill and interest to the observer, mixing humor, danger, and death in fascinating fashion. |