him an almost
uncanny power of sizing up his fellowmen. And he had long ago decided
that this was the sort of thing his untried lieutenant would be likely
to do, in just such an emergency. Wherefore his flagrant breach of
discipline in shoving his palm across the mouth of his superior officer.

And as he was committing this breach of discipline, he heard the
Missourian's strangled gasp of:

"Why didn't anybody ever tell me Germans was covered with fur?"

In a flash Mahan understood. Wheeling, he stooped low and flung out
both arms in a wide-sweeping circle. Luckily his right hand's
fingertips, as they completed the circle, touched something fast-moving
and furry.

"Bruce!" he whispered fiercely, tightening his precarious grip on the
wisp of fur his fingers had touched. "Bruce! Stand still, boy! It's YOU
who's got to get us clear of this! Nobody else, short of the good Lord,
can do it!"

Bruce had had a pleasantly lazy day with his friends in the first-line
trenches. There had been much good food and more petting. And at last,
comfortably tired of it all, he had gone to sleep. He had awakened in a
most friendly mood, and a little hungry. Wherefore he had sallied forth
in search of human companionship. He found plenty of soldiers who were
more than willing to talk to him and make much of him. But, a little
farther ahead, he saw his good friend, Sergeant Mahan, and others of
his acquaintances, starting over the parapet on what promised to be a
jolly evening stroll.

All dogs find it hard to resist the mysterious lure of a walk in human
companionship. True, the night was not an ideal one for a ramble, and
the fog had a way of congealing wetly on Bruce's shaggy coat. Still, a
damp coat was not enough of a discomfort to offset the joy of a stroll
with his friends. So Bruce had followed the twelve men quietly into No
Man's Land, falling decorously into step behind Mahan.

It had not been much of a walk, for speed or for fun. For the humans
went ridiculously slowly, and had an eccentric way of bunching
together, every now and again, and then of stringing out into a
shambling line. Still, it was a walk, and therefore better than loafing
behind in the trenches. And Bruce had kept his noiseless place at the
Sergeant's heels.

Then--long before Mahan heard the approaching tramp of feet--Bruce
caught not only the sound but the scent of the German platoon. The
scent at once told him that the strangers were not of his own a