in popped a little Algerian, as
black as the ace of spades. On recognizing that we were Scots, he held out
his hand and said:

"My name's MacPherson; what's yours?"

He made himself right at home, and we shared our bully beef and biscuit
with him. We had just been warming it. Our black "Scotsman" insisted on
staying with us, and so we adopted him as a sort of mascot.

Shortly after we took up our new position in the line, a German sniper
began to annoy us, and continued to do so almost ceaselessly. Every time
anything showed so much as an inch above the crest, it drew fire, and a
number of our men were shot passing traverses. There was a wood near our
position, and we were pretty sure the fire was coming from there although
we could not locate it. The Algerian was a crack shot, and wanted to prove
it, so he went to our lieutenant and said:

"Me get sniper, if you like."

"Go ahead," said the lieutenant, half jokingly.

It seemed ridiculous to think of "MacPherson"--with his tiny body and his
face of a black angel "getting" anybody.

The little Algerian disappeared. At the end of three hours, after we had
all given him up as lost or strayed, he returned, clutching a small
untidy package rolled in a French newspaper.

"Well, then, he didn't eat you up, did he?" some one asked.

The little Algerian understood English poorly, but he generally got the
gist of things. This time he evidently thought he had been asked whether
he had eaten up the sniper.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed; "me no _eat_ sniper, but _git_ him. Look here."

Very gingerly he unrolled his sheet of newspaper and, as evidence that he
had landed his man, exposed to view a human ear. He wanted to present the
ear to the lieutenant, but the officer declined the honour.[1]

There was much night-patrol work to do on the Aisne. Often we ran into
German reconnaissance patrols. One night I was scouting with another man.
Five or six hundred yards from our lines, we came upon a boche sentry. He
was a big, heavy fellow, and I remember thinking that he looked as if the
hard army life had not yet worked the surfeit of beer out of his system.
He was leaning on the parapet, and appeared to be asleep. We wanted to get
beyond, as he was on the German advance listening post, but, as a
reconnaissance patrol must conceal from the enemy all evidence of its
proximity, we dared not shoot him. So we crawled to one side of him, and
my partner, who was slightly ahead, gave him a