. A few rods to the right, a shelled barn was
blazing.

"Have you any wounded?" asked Dr. McDonnell.

"So many we haven't gathered them in," answered the officer. "What is
the use? No one to carry them away."

"I'll carry as many as I can," said the Doctor.

"I'll send for them," replied the captain. He spread his men out in the
search. Three wounded were placed in the car, all of them stretcher
cases.

"Room for one more stretcher case," said Dr. McDonnell; "the car only
holds four."

"Bring the woman," ordered the officer.

His men came carrying an aged peasant woman, grey-haired, heavy, her
black dress soggy with dew and blood.

"Here's a poor old woman," explained the captain; "seems to be a Belgian
peasant. She was working out in the fields here, while the firing was
going on. She was shot in the leg and fell down in the field. She's been
lying on her face there all day. Can't you take her out of the way?"

"Surely," said Hilda.

The old woman was heavier than a soldier, heavier and more helpless.

"The car is full," said Hilda; "you have more wounded?"

The officer smiled.

"Of course," he answered; "here come a few of them, now."

The girl counted them. She had to leave twelve men at that farthest
trench, because the car was full. On the trip back, she jumped down at
the Hoogar dressing-station, and there she found sixteen more men
strewed around in the straw, waiting to be removed. Twenty-eight men she
had to ride away from.

For the first time in that long day, they went past the
Convent-hospital, and on into the city of Ypres itself, down through
the Grand Place, and then abruptly through a narrow street to the south.
Here they found Military Hospital Number Three. The wounded men were
lifted down and into the courtyard. Lastly, the woman.

"Yes, we'll take her," said the good-hearted Tommies, who lent a hand in
unloading the car. But their officer was firm.

"We have no room," he said; "we must keep this hospital for the
soldiers. I wish I could help you."

"But what am I to do with her?" asked Hilda in dismay.

"I am sorry," said the officer. He walked away.

"The same old story," said Hilda; "no place for the old in war-time.
They'll turn us away from all the hospitals. Anyone who isn't a soldier
might as well be dead as in trouble."

The old woman lay on the stretcher in the street. Her mouth had fallen
open, as if she had weakened her hold on things. There was something
beyond