, he's been begging me and the
doctor not to send him back to the hospital. Did ever ye hear the like,
and him with a lump as big as the palm of my hand cut from his head to
the bare bone, and bleeding like a stuck pig in an apoplexy?"

The Colonel looked at him vacantly, his mind between this and the other
problem of the Brigade's message.

"And that's not all that's in it," went on the Padre. "The doctor was
telling me that there's been a round dozen of the past two days'
casualties begging that same thing--not to be sent away till we come
out of the trenches. And to beat all, McRory, when he was told he was
going just the minute the ambulance came, had a confab with the
stretcher bearers, and I heard him arguing with them about 'his share,'
and 'when they got the Gineral,' and 'my bit o' the fifty thousand
francs.' It has me beat completely."

By now the Colonel was completely bewildered, and he began to wonder
whether he or his battalion were hopelessly mad. It was extraordinary
enough that the men should have dug so willingly and well, and without
a grumble being heard or a complaint made.

It was still more extraordinary that more or less severely wounded men
should not be ardently desirous of the safety and comfort and feeding
of the hospitals; and on the top of all was this mysterious message of
a sap apparently being made by his men voluntarily and without any
sanction, much less the usual required pressure.

A message came from Captain Conroy, in the forward trench, to say that
Riley was coming up to headquarters and would explain matters.

Riley and the explanation duly arrived. "Ould Prickles," inclined at
first to be mightily wroth at the unauthorized digging of the sap,
caught a twinkle in the Padre's eye; and a modest hint from the Little
Lad reminding him of the speed and excellence of the new trenches,
construction turned the scale. He burst into a roar of laughter, and
the Padre joined him heartily, while the Little Lad stood beaming and
chuckling complacently.

"I must tell the Brigadier this," gasped the O.C. at last. "He might
have had a cross word or two to say about a sap being dug without
orders, but, thank heaven, he's an Irishman, and a poorer joke would
excuse a worse crime with him. But I'm wondering what's going to happen
when they reach their General and find no francs, and no watch, and not
even a General; and mind you, Riley, the sap must be stopped at once. I
can't be having good