ould have given a year of good life to turn
over. Merely to turn over. Am I fatiguing m'sieur?" the colonel broke
in.

I prodded him back eagerly into his tale.

"M'sieur is amiable. The long and short of it is that when it became
dark my good lads began to try to rescue my body. Four or five times
that one-twentieth of eye saw a wriggling form work through sand-bags
and start slowly, flat to the earth, toward me. But the ground was
snow-covered and the Germans saw too the dark uniform. Each time a
fusillade of shots broke out, and the moving figure dropped hastily
behind the sand-bags. And each time--" the colonel stopped to light a
cigarette, his face ruddy in the glare of the match. "Each time I
was--disappointed. I became disgusted with the management of that
theatre, till at last the affair seemed beyond hope, and I had about
determined to turn over and draw up my bad leg with my good hand for a
bit of easement and be shot comfortably, when I was aware that the
surface of the ground near by was heaving--the white, snowy ground
heaving. I was close enough to madness between cold and pain, and I
regarded the phenomenon as a dream. But with that hands came out of the
heaving ground, eyes gleamed. A rope was lashed about my middle and I
was drawn toward our trenches." The cigarette puffed vigorously at this
point. "M'sieur sees?"

I did not.

The colonel laughed. "One of my Hurons had the inspiration to run to a
farmhouse not far away and requisition a sheet. He wrapped himself in
it, head and all, and, being Indian, it was a bagatelle to him to crawl
out on his stomach. They were pleased enough, my good fellows, when they
found they had got not only my body but also me in it."

"I can imagine, knowing Hurons, how that Huron enjoyed his success," I
said. "It's in their blood to be swift and silent and adventurous. But
they're superstitious; they're afraid of anything supernatural." I
hesitated, with a laugh in my mind at a memory. "It's not fitting that I
should swap stories with a hero of the Great War, yet--I believe you
might be amused with an adventure of one of my guides." The Frenchman,
all civil interest, disclaimed his heroism with hands and shoulders, but
smiling too--for he had small chance at disclaiming with those two
crosses on his breast.

"I shall be enchanted to hear m'sieur's tale of his guide. For the rest
I am myself quite mad over the 'sport.' I love to insanity the out of
doors and shooting