Today we went on outpost duty, posting our squads at proper vantage points along the further edge of our old familiar field, beyond the trenches where Vera was trapped. The lieutenant took us out, explaining as he went, dropping a squad on every-other rise of the ground, and leaving its corporal to post his men. Soon we were strung out along half a mile of rough country, a railroad in our front, and beyond it the enemy's territory. Looking from our vantage-point it was hard to suppose that the barren pasture was hiding all our men. Of them we saw but two, an advance post lying on the hither side of the railroad embankment, peering over the top, and our squad's own foremost man at his place where he could command a railroad cut. The rest were hidden in little hollows, in scattered clumps of pine, or in patches of scrub oak. After a while along came the visiting patrol, directed by each squad onward to the next, and so covering the whole front. And last came the captain, inspecting each post, and when he was satisfied, sending us back with orders to pick up the rest of our platoon and re-form by the trenches. An incident of this short march. Randall, when we routed out Squad Six, produced his last cigarette. His front rank man asked him for half. "No one divides a cigarette," said Randall, borrowed a match from the man, and lighted the cigarette himself. Our Lucy, after watching this in silent amazement, took out his cigarette-box, found he had but one smoke, and handed it over. Really, if he becomes a man Randall should have half of the credit. This afternoon we have at last made a beginning on another part of our work, the use of the rifle. Some few days ago the captain called for those of us who had used high-powered rifles; he has since been weeding them out, till he has a couple of dozen of them to use as coaches. Today we went "on the galleries," which is a convenient phrase for the use of small-bore rifles against small targets at short range. At the bottom of the drill field we hung on wires small wooden frames on which were tacked paper targets; behind was the low railroad embankment, behind that the lake. Our rifles were in every detail like the service pieces, except the smaller bore. We used dummy cartridges as long as the gun usually requires, but so made as to receive much smaller cartridges, carrying weak charges of powder--if you understand the lingo, they were "22 shorts." One gang of us was kept at work perpetually loading these gallery cartridges, and assembling them in clips of five; another gang was steadily tacking new targets on the frames; and bunch by bunch we were moved from these duties to the more interesting one of shooting the cartridges and spoiling the targets.