e blushed
and shrank back, timidly. She was not sure that she could say the strange
French words just as the Major had taught them to her, when such a crowd
of soldiers were standing by to hear.

"Oh, _you_ do it, please," she asked.

"If you will tell me the exact words he has been accustomed to hearing,"
answered the orderly.

Lloyd stammered them out, greatly embarrassed, feeling that her
pronunciation must have grown quite faulty from lack of practice under the
Major's careful training. The orderly repeated them in an undertone, then,
turning to Hero, gave the order in a clear, deep voice, that seemed to
thrill the dog with its familiar ring. Instantly at the sound he started
out across the field. Not a thing that had been taught him in his long,
careful training was forgotten.

The first man he found was lying in a ditch, apparently desperately
wounded. Hero allowed him to help himself from his flask, and drag a
bandage from the bags on his back. Then, standing with his hind feet in
the ditch and his fore feet resting on the bank above him, he gave voice
until the men by the ambulance heard him, and came toward him carrying a
stretcher.

"Look at him!" exclaimed Mrs. Walton, who with the party and several of
the officers had walked down to the hospital tent. "He knows he has done
his duty well. Did you ever see a dog manifest such delight! He fairly
wriggles with joy!"

The praise of the men bearing the stretcher, and especially of the
orderly, seemed to send the dog into a transport of happiness. The second
man lay far on the outskirts of the field, hidden by a thicket of hazel
bushes. This time Hero's frantic barking brought no reply. The men acted
as if deaf to his appeals of help, so in a few minutes, evidently thinking
they were beyond the range of his voice, he picked up the man's cap in his
mouth, and ran back at the top of his speed.

"Good dog!" said the orderly, taking the cap he dropped at his feet. "Go
back now and lead the way."

"If that man had really been wounded, and had crawled under that thicket,"
said Colonel Wayne, "we never could have found him alone. Only the sense
of smell could lead to such a hiding-place. The ambulance might have
passed there a hundred times and never seen a trace of him."

The hunt went on for some time; before it closed, every man personating a
killed or wounded soldier was located and carried to the hospital tent.
When the tired dog was finally allowed to res