of being patient. It was no so
long before I was sure, and then I waited--until I saw that branch
move as no branch of a tree ever did move. I fired then--and got him!
He was away outside of his lines, and that nicht I slipped out and
brought back this outfit. I wanted to see how it was made."

An old, grizzled sergeant of the Black Watch gave me a German revolver.

"How came you to get this?" I asked him.

"It was an acceedent, Harry," he said. "We were raiding a trench, do
you ken, and I was in a sap when a German officer came along, and we
bumped into one another. He looked at me, and I at him. I think he
was goin' to say something, but I dinna ken what it was he had on his
mind. That _was_ his revolver you've got in your hand now."

And then he thrust his hand into his pocket.

"Here's the watch he used to carry, too," he said. It was a thick,
fat-bellied affair, of solid gold. "It's a bit too big, but it's a
rare good timekeeper."

Soon after that an officer gave me another trophy that is, perhaps,
even more interesting than the sniper's suit. It is rarer, at least.
It is a small, sweet-toned bell that used to hang in a wee church in
the small village of Athies, on the Scarpe, about a mile and a half
from Arras. The Germans wiped out church and village, but in some odd
way they found the bell and saved it. They hung it in their trenches,
and it was used to sound a gas alarm. On both sides a signal is given
when the sentry sees that there is to be a gas attack, in order that
the men may have time to don the clumsy gas masks that are the only
protection against the deadly fumes. The wee bell is eight inches
high, maybe, and I have never heard a lovelier tone.

"That bell has rung men to worship, and it has rung them to death,"
said the officer who gave it to me.

Presently I was called back to my party, after I had spent some time
with the lads in their huts. A general had joined the party now, and
he told me, with a smile, that I was to go up to the trenches, if I
cared to do so. I will not say I was not a bit nervous, but I was
glad to go, for a' that! It was the thing that had brought me to
France, after a'.

So we started, and by now I was glad to wear my steel hat, fit or no
fit. I was to give an entertainment in the trenches, and so we set
out. Pretty soon I was climbing a steep railroad embankment, and when
we slid down on the other side we found the trenches--wide, deep gaps
in the earth, and all a