ore of a cur than the dog is. But you'll never
know how near I came to kicking you yesterday, when I caught you
mangling that filthy spy. And Brucie, if I had kicked you, well--I'd be
praying at this minute that the good Lord would grow a third leg on me,
so that I could kick myself all the way from here to Berlin!"

CHAPTER VI. The Werewolf

When Bruce left the quiet peace of The Place for the hell of the
Western Front, it had been stipulated by the Mistress and the Master
that if ever he were disabled, he should be shipped back to The Place,
at their expense.

It was a stipulation made rather to soothe the Mistress's sorrow at
parting from her loved pet than in any hope that it could be fulfilled;
for the average life of a courierdog on the battle-front was tragically
short. And his fate was more than ordinarily certain. If the boche
bullets and shrapnel happened to miss him, there were countless
diseases--bred of trench and of hardship and of abominable food--to
kill him.

The Red Cross appeal raised countless millions of dollars and brought
rescue to innumerable human warriors. But in caring for humans, the
generosity of most givers reached its limit; and the Blue Cross--"for
the relief of dogs and horses injured in the service of the
Allies"--was forced to take what it could get. Yet many a man, and many
a body of men, owed life and safety to the heroism of some war-dog, a
dog which surely merited special care when its own certain hour of
agony struck.

Bruce's warmest overseas friends were to be found in the ranks of the
mixed Franco-American regiment, nicknamed the "Here-We-Comes." Right
gallantly, in more than one tight place, had Bruce been of use to the
"Here-We-Comes." On his official visits to the regiment, he was always
received with a joyous welcome that would have turned any head less
steady than a thoroughbred collie's.

Bruce enjoyed this treatment. He enjoyed, too, the food-dainties
wherewith the "Here-We-Comes" plied him. But to no man in the army
would he give the adoring personal loyalty he had left at The Place
with the Mistress and the Master. Those two were still his only gods.
And he missed them and his sweet life at The Place most bitterly. Yet
he was too good a soldier to mope.

* * * * *

For months the "Here-We-Comes" had been quartered in a "quiet"--or only
occasionally tumultuous--sector, near Chateau-Thierry. Then the
comparative quiet all at once