ir.

Always keeping his eyes on the sky, across which the clouds were
drifting, he suddenly found himself on the edge of a rolling strip of
open country sloping gradually down in what he imagined to be the
direction of the British line; but to attempt to cross it would have
been suicidal, for a rain of German shells burst furiously among the
neglected fields.

The wood, straggling out still eastward, seemed to indicate the route
he must follow; and, without knowing it, he crossed the identical road
our troops had taken earlier in the day when they went up to the capture
of Bazentin village.

If he could only pass the limit of the German barrage he had an idea
that he would find himself among friends before long; and he was right,
although the manner of his meeting them was very unexpected.

He paused as the trees suddenly came to an end, and was astonished to
see a riderless horse trotting towards him. His astonishment increased
as he recognised the saddlery to be British. There was no other living
creature in sight. A waving wheatfield, among which some scarlet poppies
were growing, marked the skyline, beyond which the ground fell away, and
far off in the distance across the wheat was the top of another wood.

"That's a trooper's mount if ever I saw one," said Dennis. And as the
mare, with nostrils distended and ears set forward, neighed loudly, he
jumped out of his concealment and caught her rein.

"Whoa, little lady--steady!" he said soothingly. "Ah, if you could only
speak, and tell me where you have come from!"

He had some difficulty in bringing her to a stand, for she was quivering
from the effects of recent alarm; and he saw a red smear on the leather
wallets, and the saddle flap on the near side had been cut by a bullet.

As he placed his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up, rifle fire
suddenly opened from somewhere beyond the ridge of the wheat. He was
down again in an instant, and leading the mare cautiously forward
through the corn.

Craning his neck above the waving grain, he saw the white line of a
trench farther down the slope, and beyond it, retiring at a hand gallop,
a row of brown dots in extended order, which he knew to be British
cavalry!

A glance had shown him that there was a machine-gun in the trench, and
his course was clear now. He must warn the horsemen if they did not know
it already; and, turning the mare, he led her back out of sight of the
enemy and, mounting, rode off in