In all the war there was not a month more difficult than January of 1918. The camp and the town were in the clutch of the most cruel weather that part of the world had ever seen. Again and again in these weeks, the miles of switches and sidings in the valley were blocked with long trains of cars filled with coal, with every conceivable kind of freight for the camp, as well as with materials needed for the shipyards and overseas. Although every effort was made to keep tracks clear for troop trains, every now and then, one filled with tired and shivering men would be held up. They sang--oh, yes, they always sang; but you could not go among them and not know that the singing often hid frightened and homesick hearts. The town itself, surrounded as she was by mines underlaid with coal, was suffering. Sabinsport was startled to find some of her own families in actual danger of death by freezing. In a town which all its life had been accustomed to wait until the last minute and then call up and ask that a load of coal be delivered at once, and to get it as it would get its roast from the butcher's, it was natural that many prosperous families were low in fuel supplies. It was hard for the man of influence then not to throw aside all sense of responsibility for anybody but his family. Queer stories of the tricks that men played in order to get coal, headed for their neighbors, were told. And as for the poor, they waited in long lines, with pails and scuttles, to get their little lot, and many a time went home without it. Unreasonably enough, storm and snow classed themselves in Sabinsport's mind as part of the war, and her uneasiness grew. Was it all to be like this--failure, sorrow, shame, suffering? Was she never to see anything orderly, sufficient, successful? Was there nothing in war that was brave, glorious and stirring? Sabinsport was seeing only the fringe of the great undertaking, and it looked ragged enough in the early part of 1918.