d. Likewise of troops there were very few to be seen. We did
meet one squad of Red Cross men, marching afoot through the dust. They
were all fully armed, as is the way with the German field-hospital
helpers; and, for all I know to the contrary, that may be the way with
the field-hospital helpers of the Allies too.

Though I have often seen it, the Cross on the sleeve-band of a man who
bears a revolver in his belt, or a rifle on his arm, has always struck
me as a most incongruous thing. The noncommissioned officer in charge
of the squad--chief orderly I suppose you might call him--held by
leashes four Red Cross dogs.

In Belgium, back in August, I had seen so-called dog batteries. Going
into Louvain on the day the Belgian Army, or what was left of it, fell
back into Brussels, I passed a valley where many dogs were hitched to
small machine guns; and I could not help wondering what would happen to
the artillery formation, and what to the discipline of the pack, if a
rabbit should choose that moment for darting across the battle front.

These, however, were the first dogs I had found engaged in hospital-
corps employment. They were big, wolfish-looking hounds, shaggy and
sharp-nosed; and each of the four wore a collar of bells on his neck,
and a cloth harness on his shoulders, with the red Maltese cross
displayed on its top and sides. Their business was to go to the place
where fighting had taken place and search out the fallen.

At this business they were reputed to be highly efficient. The Germans
had found them especially useful; for the German field uniform, which
has the merit of merging into the natural background at a short
distance, becomes, through that very protective coloration, a
disadvantage when its wearer drops wounded and unconscious on the open
field. In a poor light the litter bearers might search within a few
rods of him and never see him; but where the faulty eyesight fails the
nose of the dog sniffs the human taint in the air, and the dog makes the
work of rescue thorough and complete. At least we were told so.

Presently our automobile rounded a bend in the road, and the observation
balloon, which until that moment we had been unable to glimpse, by
reason of an intervening formation of ridges, revealed itself before us.
The suddenness of its appearance was startling. We did not see it until
we were within a hundred yards of it. At once we realized how perfect
an abiding place this was for