thwise. Now he
slipped it through the ring in the dog's collar.

"Give it to Roberts," he said.

The big collie turned and set off at a hand-gallop.

"Good!" approved the guest. "Bruce didn't seem to be in any doubt as to
what you wanted him to do. He knows where Roberts is likely to be?"

"No," said the Master. "But he can track him and find him, if Roberts
is anywhere within a mile or so from here. That was one of the first
things we taught him--to carry messages. All we do is to slip the paper
into his collar-ring and tell him the name of the person to take it to.
Naturally, he knows us all by name. So it is easy enough for him to do
it. We look on the trick as tremendously clever. But that's because we
love Bruce. Almost any dog can be taught to do it, I suppose. We--"

"You're mistaken!" corrected the guest. "Almost any dog CAN'T be taught
to. Some dogs can, of course; but they are the exception. I ought to
know, for I've been where dog-couriers are a decidedly important
feature of trench-warfare. I stopped at one of the dog-training schools
in England, too, on my way back from Picardy, and watched the teaching
of the dogs that are sent to France and Flanders. Not one in ten can be
trained to carry messages; and not one in thirty can be counted on to
do it reliably. You ought to be proud of Bruce."

"We are," replied the Mistress. "He is one of the family. We think
everything of him. He was such a stupid and awkward puppy, too! Then,
in just a few months, he shaped up, as he is now. And his brain woke."

Bruce interrupted the talk by reappearing on the veranda. The folded
envelope was still in the ring on his collar. The guest glanced
furtively at the Master, expecting some sign of chagrin at the collie's
failure.

Instead, the Master took the envelope, unfolded it and glanced at a
word or two that had been written beneath his own scrawl; then he made
another penciled addition to the envelope's writing, stuck the twisted
paper back into the ring and said--

"Roberts."

Off trotted Bruce on his second trip.

"I had forgotten to say which train you'll have to take in the
morning," explained the Master. "So Roberts wrote, asking what time he
was to have the car at the door after breakfast. It was careless of me."

The guest did not answer. But when Bruce presently returned,--this time
with no paper in his collar-ring,--the officer passed his hand
appraisingly through the dog's heavy coat and looked keenl