the party moved
along to the next sentry-go, the dog remained. The Missourian was only
too glad to have him do so. It is tedious and stupid to pace a desolate
beat, alone, at dead of night, after a day of hard fighting. And the
man welcomed the companionship of the dog.

For a time, as the Missourian paced his solitary stretch of broken and
shrub-grown ground, Bruce gravely paced to and fro at his side. But
presently this aimless promenade began to wax uninteresting. And, as
the two came to the far end of the beat, Bruce yawned and lay down. It
was pleasanter to lie there and to watch the sentinel do the walking.

Stretched out, in a little grass-hollow, the dog followed blinkingly
with his soft brown eyes the pendulumlike progress of his friend. And
always the dog's plumed tail would beat rhythmic welcome against the
ground as the sentry approached him.

Thus nearly an hour wore on. A fat moon butted its lazy way through the
smoke-mists of the eastern skyline.

Then something happened--something that Bruce could readily have
forestalled if the wind had been blowing from the other direction, and
if a dog's eyes were not as nearsighted as his nose is farsmelling.

The Missourian paused to run his hand caressingly over the collie's
rough mane, and moved on, down the lonely beat. Bruce watched his
receding figure, drowsily. At the end of ninety yards or more, the
Missourian passed by a bunch of low bushes which grew at the near side
of a stretch of hilly and shellpocked ground. He moved past the bushes,
still watched by the somewhat bored dog.

It was then that Bruce saw a patch of bushshadow detach itself from the
rest, under the glow of the rising moon. The shadow was humpy and
squat. Noiseless, it glided out from among the bushes, close at the
sentry's heels, and crept after him.

Bruce pricked his ears and started to get up. His curiosity was roused.
The direction of the wind prevented him from smelling out the nature of
the mystery. It also kept his keen hearing from supplying any clue. And
the distance would not permit him to see with any distinctness.

Still his curiosity was very mild. Surely, if danger threatened, the
sentinel would realize it. For by this time the Shadow was a bare three
feet behind him near enough, by Bruce's system of logic, for the
Missourian to have smelled and heard the pursuer. So Bruce got up, in
the most leisurely fashion, preparatory to strolling across to
investigate. But at al