much about how the boys are faring.  They are being wholesomely and plenteously fed; they are warmly clothed, they are cheerful and uncomplaining as they know this is war and for that reason know exactly what they must expect.  To the soldier who must at times sleep with but the canopy of heaven as a covering, and the earth as a mattress, a box freight car that shields him from the rain and wind is a real luxury, and he accepts it as such.

“There need not be any worry back home as to the maintenance of our colored soldiers over here.  They receive the same substantial fare the white soldier receives, and the white soldier travels from point to point in the same box freight cars as afford means of passage for colored soldiers.  In short, when it comes to maintenance and equipment, and consideration for the comfort of the American soldier, to use a trite saying, ’the folks are as good as the people.’  There is absolutely no discrimination, and the cheerfulness of those 1,000 boys whose freight cars became, in imagination, Pullman palace cars, was the proof to me that the colored boys in the ranks are getting a fifty-fifty break.”

“Two more stories have come to me,” continues Mr. Tyler, “to prove that our colored soldiers preserve and radiate their humor even where shells and shrapnel fly thickest.  A colored soldier slightly wounded in the Argonne fighting—­and let me assure you there was ‘some’ fighting there—­sat down beside the road to wait for a chance to ride to the field hospital.  A comrade hastening forward to his place in the line, and anxious for the latest news of the progressing battle, asked the wounded brother if he had been in the fight; did he know all about it, and how were things going at the front.  ‘I sure does know all about it,’ the wounded man replied.  ‘Well, what’s happened to them?’ quickly asked the trooper on his way to the front.  ‘Well, it was this way,’ replied the wounded one, ‘I was climbin’ over some barbed wire tryin’ to get to those d—­n Boches, and they shot me; that’s what I know about it.’

“A company water cart was following the advancing troops when a German shell burst in the ditch almost beside the cart.  The horse on the shell side was killed, and the driver was wounded in the head.  While the blood from his wound ran freely down his face, the driver took one look at the wreckage, then started stumbling back along the road.  A white lieutenant who had seen it all stopped the driver of the cart and said: 

     “The dressing station is—­”

“Before he could finish his sentence, the wounded driver, with the blood flowing in rivulets down his face, said:  ’Dressing station hell; I’m looking for another horse to hitch to that cart and take the place of the one the shell put out of commission.’

     “That was a bit of nerve, grim humor and evidence of fidelity to
     duty.  A mere wound in the head could not stop that driver from
     keeping up with the troops with a needed supply of water.”