s when two Gunner officers passed,
and he went after them."

"He knows your badge, at any rate," remarked the colonel to me with
twinkling eyes. "I'm sorry you've had your journey for nothing. But
we'll keep a look-out and send him back if he returns to us."

"I'm going to have another search round the village before I go back,
sir," I responded determinedly. "We're getting warmer."

Turning from the lane into the road that led into the village, I
noticed a groom who had been waiting with his two horses since the
first time I passed the spot. At first he thought he hadn't seen a dog
that looked like a cross between an Airedale and a Belgian sheep-dog.
Then he fancied he had. Yes, he believed it had passed that way with an
R.A.M.C. major. "But those men near that ambulance car will tell you,
sir. They were playing with the dog I saw, about half an hour ago."

Yes, I was really on the trail now. "That's right, sir," remarked the
R.A.M.C. sergeant when he had helped two walking wounded into the
ambulance car. "I remember the dog, and saw the name on the collar....
He followed our major about twenty minutes ago. He's gone across that
valley to Brigade Headquarters.... I don't think he'll be long."

"What's it like up there?" asked one of the ambulance men of a slight,
fagged-looking lance-corporal of the Fusiliers, who had been hit in the
shoulder.

"Hot!" replied the Fusilier. "One dropped near Battalion Headquarters
and killed our sergeant.... I think there are five more of our lot
coming along."

There were two more places to be filled before the ambulance car moved
off. Another Fusilier, wounded in the knee, hobbled up, assisted by two
men of the same regiment, one of them with his head bandaged.

"Hullo, Jim!" called the lance-corporal from the ambulance. "I wondered
if you'd come along too. Did you see Tom?"

"No," responded the man hit in the ankle.

The ambulance moved off. An empty one took its place. It was a quarter
to two, but I was resolved to wait now until the R.A.M.C. major
returned. Three shells came over and dropped near the railway. More
walking wounded filled places in the ambulance.

The major, with "Ernest" at his heels, came back at a quarter-past two.
"Ernest" certainly knew me again. He leapt up and licked my hand, and
looked up while the major listened to my story. "Well, I should have
kept him--or tried to do so," he said. "He's a taking little fellow,
and I've always had a dog until