nded just
in front of the leaders and knocked them both out with their driver;
at the same time the gun was jerked off the road into a muddy ditch.
Almost simultaneously another shell killed one of the wheelers, and
there we were with one horse left to get the gun out of the ditch and
along a road that was almost as bad as the ditch itself.

"It looked hopeless, and it was on the tip of my tongue to give orders
to abandon the gun, when suddenly out of the blue there appeared on
the bank above us a horse, looking unconcernedly down at us.

"In those days loose horses were straying all over the country, and
I took this to be one from another battery which had come to us for
company.

"I turned to one of the men. 'Catch that mare quick.'

"In a few minutes we had the harness off the dead wheeler and on the
new-comer. Pull? Gentlemen, if you could have seen those two horses
pull!

"We'd just got a move on the gun when another shell came and seemed
to burst right on top of the strange mare. I heard a terrified squeal,
and through the smoke I saw her stagger and with a mighty effort
recover herself. I ran round and saw she'd been badly hit over the eye
and had a great tearing gash in the neck. We never thought she could
go on, but she pulled away just the same, with the blood pouring off
her, till finally we got the gun out and down the road to safety.

"I got knocked out a few minutes later, and from that day to this I've
often wondered what had happened to the mare that had served us so
gallantly. I know now. There she stands before you. I'd know her out
of a thousand by the white blaze; and if there was a doubt there's her
blind eye and the scar on her neck.

"That's all, gentlemen; but I'm going to ask the man who buys her to
remember her story and to see that her last days are not too hard."

She fell at a good price to a splendid type of West Country farmer,
and the auctioneer whispered to me, "I'm glad old Carey's got her.
There's not a man in the county keeps his horses better."

"Old Carey" came up to me as we were moving off. "I had a son in
France," he said, "in the gunners, too, but he hadn't the luck of the
old mare"--he hesitated a moment and his old eyes looked steadily into
mine--"for he'll never come back. The mare'll be all right, Sir," he
went on as he walked off, "easy work and full rations. I reckon she's
earned them."

* * * * *

"The bride was given away