e came the power of movement to the Kid. He hurled himself off the
bed towards the girl--his girl--his lady of the jasmine. But he was
too late. The second shot was even truer than the first, and as her
head hit the floor she was dead.

Regardless of Rutter the Kid knelt down beside her, and as he did so,
he got it--in the face.

"What the blazes are you doing?" roared an infuriated voice. "Damn
you! you young fool--you've nearly killed me."

Stupefied the boy looked around. The same dug-out; the same officers
of B company; the same beer bottles; but where was the lady of the
jasmine? Where was the man who lay dead in the doorway? Where was
Rutter?

He blinked foolishly, and looked round to find the lamp still burning
and his brother officers roaring with laughter. All, that is, except
the Doctor on whose stomach he had apparently landed.

But the Kid was not to be put off by laughter. "I tell you it happened
in this very dug-out," he cried excitedly. "She killed the swine in
the doorway there, and then she killed herself. This is where she
fell, Doc, just where you're lying, and her head hit the wall there.
Look, there's a board there, nailed over the wall--where her head went.
Don't laugh, you fool! don't laugh--it happened. I dreamed it. I know
that now; but it happened for all that--before the big advance. I tell
you she had light golden hair--ah! look." The Doctor had prised off
the board, and there on the wall an ominous red stain showed dull in
the candlelight. Slowly the Doctor bent down and picked up something
with his fingers. Getting up he laid it on the table. And when the
officers of B Company had looked at it, the laughter ceased. It was a
little wisp of light golden hair--and the end was thick and clotted.

"To-morrow, Kid, you can tell us the yarn," said the Doctor quietly.
"Just now you're going to have a quarter-grain of sleep dope and go to
bed again."

* * * * * *

The following evening the officers of B Company, less the Kid, who was
out, sat round the table and talked.

"What do you make of it, Doc?" asked the Company Commander. "Do you
really think there is anything in the Kid's yarn? I mean, we know he
dreamed it--but do you think it's true? I suppose that tired as he was
he would be in a receptive mood for his imagination to run riot."

For a long while the Doctor puffed stolidly at his pipe without
answering. Then he leaned forwa