en he returned to his nest, which was a nest no longer, he swore
several swears, both large and small, but he was forced to fare like the
rest of us,--on the bare boards.

All this time the pain in my jaw was gradually getting worse. A
swelling had started and I was feeling a little the worse for wear.

It was morning when we reached Abbeville Station, where we were to wait
until night before being able to resume our journey. Here there was a
horrible mass of dead horses--about 500 in all--lying in the railroad
yards; they had died in the cars on the way back for treatment. It was a
fearsome sight.

In an hour or so my face was commencing to throb violently, and I hunted
up the nearest dressing station, which was a casualty clearing station,
and addressed myself to the nurse.

"What's the matter, Canada?" she asked, looking at my jaw.

"Why, I got hit, nurse."

"I can plainly see that, but what makes it that color? It looks like
gangrene! Come in and see the doctor."

He examined me and found there was a piece left sticking there; I would
have to be operated on at once, he said, and there was no time lost
getting down to business. He extracted a small splinter.

"See that this man is put to bed at once; gangrene has just started."

When I got off the table my face was so bound up in bandages that only
my nose and one eye were visible.

"Go to bed, now," said the nurse. "Oh, no, I can't," I said; "I have got
to leave at once."

"No, no, you mustn't do anything of the kind; you must go to bed at once
and have the closest care for some weeks." She fixed up a cot for me in
the station and I went to bed. After lying there for three hours I asked
her if I might go up to the station and get my kit, that I had some
valuable souvenirs I didn't want to lose, and that I would like to
present her with some of them. She let me go, and at the station I saw
some box cars going through. Grabbing my kit, I slung myself aboard and
reached a station by nightfall, where I got off and waited for the
through train, which finally came along. The fellows on board with whom
I had become acquainted on the way down, told me the hospital orderly
was searching for me high and low.

After another wearisome day aboard those unspeakable box-cars, I reached
the base. My jaw, although not throbbing so fiercely, was still
painfully troublesome, and I sought out one of the hospitals and had to
swallow the unwelcome news that the condition of