ully in the ground where a
moment earlier Bruce and the police-dog had waged their death-battle.

"That settles it!" muttered the colonel.

And he went to make ready for such puny defense as his men might hope
to put up against the German rush.

While these futile preparations were still under way, terrific
artillery fire burst from the Allied batteries behind the hill,
shielding the Here-We-Come trenches with a curtain of fire whose lower
folds draped themselves right unlovingly around the German lines. Under
cover of this barrage, down the hill swarmed the Allied reserves!

"How did you get word?" demanded the astonished colonel of the
Here-We-Comes, later in the day.

"From your note, of course," replied the general he had questioned.
"The collie--old Bruce."

"Bruce?" babbled the colonel foolishly.

"Of course," answered the general. "Who else? But I'm afraid it's the
last message he'll ever deliver. He came rolling and staggering up to
headquarters--one mass of blood, and three inches thick with caked
dirt. His right side was torn open from a shell-wound, and he had two
machine-gun bullets in his shoulder. He's deaf as a post, too, from
shell-shock. He tumbled over in a heap on the steps of headquarters.
But he GOT there. That's Bruce, all over. That's the best type of
collie, all over. Some of us were for putting him out of his misery
with a shot through the head. We'd have done it, too, if it had been
any other dog. But the surgeon-general waded in and took a hand in the
game--carried Bruce to his own quarters. We left him working over the
dog himself. And he swears Bruce will pull through!"

CHAPTER IV. When Eyes Were No Use

"Yes, it's an easy enough trade to pick up," lectured Top-Sergeant
Mahan, formerly of the regular army. "You've just got to remember a few
things. But you've got to keep on remembering those few, all the time.
If you forget one of 'em, it's the last bit of forgetting you're ever
likely to do."

Top-Sergeant Mahan, of the mixed French-and-American regiment known as
"Here-We-Come," was squatting at ease on the trench firing-step. From
that professorial seat he was dispensing useful knowledge to a group of
fellow-countrymen-newly arrived from the base, to pad the
"Here-We-Come" ranks, which had been thinned at the Rache attack.

"What sort of things have we got to remember, Sergeant?" jauntily asked
a lanky Missourian. "We've got the drill pretty pat; and the trench
instructi