, he was checked. Mahan did not release that
feverishly tight hold on his mane, but merely shifted to his collar.

Bruce glanced back, impatient at the delay. But Mahan did not let go.
Instead he said once more:

"CAMP, boy!"

And Bruce understood he was expected to make his way to camp, with
Mahan hanging on to his collar.

Bruce did not enjoy this mode of locomotion. It was inconvenient, and
there seemed no sense in it; but there were many things about this
strenuous war-trade that Bruce neither enjoyed nor comprehended, yet
which he performed at command.

So again he turned campward, Mahan at his collar and an annoyingly
hindering tail of men stumbling silently on behind them. All around
were the Germans--butting drunkenly through the blanket-dense fog,
swinging their rifles like flails, shouting confused orders,
occasionally firing. Now and then two or more of them would collide and
would wrestle in blind fury, thinking they had encountered an American.

Impeded by their own sightlessly swarming numbers, as much as by the
impenetrable darkness, they sought the foe. And but for Bruce they must
quickly have found what they sought. Even in compact form, the
Americans could not have had the sheer luck to dodge every scattered
contingent of Huns which starred the German end of No Man's Land--most
of them between the fugitives and the American lines.

But Bruce was on dispatch duty. It was his work to obey commands and to
get back to camp at once. It was bad enough to be handicapped by
Mahan's grasp on his collar. He was not minded to suffer further delay
by running into any of the clumps of gesticulating and cabbage-reeking
Germans between him and his goal. So he steered clear of such groups,
making several wide detours in order to do so. Once or twice he stopped
short to let some of the Germans grope past him, not six feet away.
Again he veered sharply to the left--increasing his pace and forcing
Mahan and the rest to increase theirs--to avoid a squad of thirty men
who were quartering the field in close formation, and who all but
jostled the dog as they strode sightlessly by. An occasional rifle-shot
spat forth its challenge. From both trench-lines men were firing at a
venture. A few of the bullets sang nastily close to the twelve huddled
men and their canine leader. Once a German, not three yards away,
screamed aloud and fell sprawling and kicking, as one such chance
bullet found him. Above and behind, sounded