The Pacific Coast men had traveled far, clear across the Continent and across the Atlantic. Traveling was in their line. If distance had kept them from reaching the front as soon as some of the eastern divisions, noticeably those praised New Yorkers of the 77th, they would show that they could move fast and stick in the war to the end. The pioneer heritage was theirs; they were neighbors to Alaska, who looked toward Asia across the Pacific: big men who thought big and were used to doing big things. Their people depended upon them for great deeds worthy of their homes beyond the Great Divide. As the National Guard divisions from the Pacific Coast had had the misfortune, through sudden necessities when they were the only available men in depot, to be cut up for replacement, the men of the 91st had as an intact division a special responsibility in upholding the honor of the Coast. They had the stamina which their climate breeds. They were under no apprehension that their inexperience in battle would not enable them to take care of the Germans they met, once they were through the trenches and in the open. As men of the distances, they had imagination which applied all their training to the situations which they would have to encounter. No veterans ever went into action with more confidence than these draft men. The roar of the surf on Pacific beaches, of the car-wheels from the Coast to New York, of the steamship propellers across the Atlantic, was the song of their gathered energy suddenly released in a charge. The wire on their front had not been well cut; but what might have been a justifiable cause for delay they overcame in an intrepidity of purpose supported by a team-play which prevented confusion of their units. Happily the prompt taking by the stalwart Kansans and Missourians of the Vauquois hill positions commanding the 91st's field of advance, which had been the object of the French attacks in 1915, removed a formidable threat on their left. The Germans, who had been told that a division which had never been under fire was on their front, had no thought that it would attempt a serious attack. They were accordingly the more unprepared for the avalanche of man-power which came rushing at them. Relatively few in numbers, waiting on the 5th Guard Division to come up in reserve, they had a painfully urgent desire to start to the rear and meet it on its way forward.