There was but brief respite after the four days' battle of Armistice Day, for the American engineers set all hands vigorously to work on the winter defenses. Around the center village, blockhouses were built on the forest flank, and at front and rear at points distanced from two to three hundred yards one from the other. Coils of barbed wire were transported over the snow from Bereznik and strung in wire aprons between the strong points. Every blockhouse had an automatic rifle or a machine gun, and some at the more important posts had two, all targeted and trained to lay down a devastating, enfilade fire along the connecting wire barriers. A few Colt machine guns that were air cooled arrived, and helped the morale immensely, for they had no difficulty functioning in the very low temperatures. Then, when there was more time, the blockhouses were reconstructed with heavy timbers and piled high with sand so that they became bomb proof to anything except the explosion of a six inch shell, and even along the unfeared river bank there were placed two small blockhouses with machine guns. When the snow mounted high and icy winds stung with the sting of wasps, Toulgas had become a fortress, well nigh impregnable, unless her defenses were penetrated from within, or the attack came in hopelessly overpowering numbers. But scarce had all this preparation commenced, when came glorious news of the Armistice. The war was ended, and it was taken as a matter of course that the coming peace would extend to the war of the Arctic Circle. From the outset the soldiers never had any rampant enthusiasm in this strange conflict with its motives of mystery, but while the struggle in France went on they stilled their questioning doubts and followed the work set out for them by their officers in the uncertain belief that somewhere back of the scenes at Paris or London or Washington those in the high places had charted a wise policy beyond the comprehension of a common soldier; and that in some devious, undisclosed way the campaign in Russia was necessary, was playing its inexplicable part in completing the defeat of the Germans. Even when weeks elapsed and no announcement of change in policy was forthcoming, the men were patient and did not complain. But when at the end of November, Consul General Poole sent word from Archangel that the Americans in North Russia would continue at their tasks to the end, knowledge came to the soldier with stunning reality that the great struggle in which he was prepared to die had no relation to the war with Russia, in which he probably would die, that he was engaged in a war which had no assignable reason for its being, in which many of his companions had already been killed, and the end was not in sight.