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Page 46
The dog's opponent scrambled to his feet, helped by a dozen
willing hands and accosted by as many solicitous voices. The
victim's face was bone-gray with terror. His lips twitched
convulsively. Yet, as befitted a person in his position, he had a
splendid set of nerves. And almost at once he recovered partial
control over himself.
"I--I don't know how it happened," he faltered, his rich
contralto voice shaky with the ground-swells of his recent shock.
"It began when I was sitting on the steps, sewing. This dog came
past. He growled at me so threateningly that I came indoors. A
minute later, while I was sitting here sewing, he sprang at me
and threw me down. I believe he would--would have killed me," the
narrator finished, with a very genuine shudder, "if I had not
been rescued when I was. Such bloodthirsty brutes ought to be
shot!"
"He not only OUGHT to be," hotly agreed the chief surgeon, "but
he is GOING to be. Take him out into the street, one of you men,
and put a ball in his head."
The surgeon turned to the panting nurse.
"You're certain he didn't hurt you?" he asked. "I don't want a
newcomer, like yourself, to think this is the usual treatment our
nurses get. Lie down and rest. You look scared to death. And
don't be nervous about the cur attacking you again. He'll be dead
inside of three minutes."
The nurse, with a mumbled word of thanks, scuttled off into the
rear of the church, where the tumbledown vestry had been fitted
up as a dormitory.
Bruce had calmed down somewhat under Mahan's sharp reproof. But
he now struggled afresh to get at his vanished quarry. And again
the Sergeant had a tussle to hold him.
"I don't know what's got into the big fellow!" exclaimed Mahan to
Vivier as the old Frenchman joined the tumultuous group. "He's
gone clean daft. He'd of killed that poor woman, if I hadn't--"
"Get him out of here!" ordered the surgeon. "And clear out,
yourselves, all of you! This rumpus has probably set a lot of my
patients' temperatures to rocketing. Take the cur out and shoot
him!"
"Excuse me, sir," spoke up Mahan, as Vivier stared aghast at the
man who commanded Bruce's destruction, "but he's no cur. He's a
courier-collie, officially in the service of the United States
Government. And he's the best courier-dog in France to-day. This
is--"
"I don't care what he is!" raged the surgeon. "He--"
"This is Bruce," continued Mahan, "the dog that saved the 'Here-
We-Comes' at Rache, and that steered a detail of us to safety one
night in the fog, in the Chateau-Thierry sector. If you order any
man of the 'Here-We-Comes' to shoot Bruce, you're liable to have
a mutiny on your hands--officer or no officer. But if you wish,
sir, I can transmit your order to the K.O. If he endorses it--"
But the surgeon sought, at that moment, to save the remnants of
his dignity and of a bad situation by stalking loftily back into
the hospital, and leaving Mahan in the middle of his speech.
"Or, sir," the Sergeant grinningly called after him, "you might
write to the General Commanding, and tell him you want Bruce
shot. The Big Dog always sleeps in the general's own room, when
he's off-duty, at Division Headquarters. Maybe the general will
O.K. his death-sentence, if you ask him to. He--"
Somewhat quickening his stately stride, the surgeon passed out of
earshot. At the officers' mess of the "Here-We-Comes," he had
often heard Bruce's praises sung. He had never chanced to see the
dog until now. But, beneath his armor of dignity, he quaked to
think what the results to himself must have been, had he obeyed
his first impulse of drawing his pistol and shooting the adored
and pricelessly useful collie.
Mahan,--stolidly rejoicing in his victory over the top-lofty
potentate whom he disliked,--led the way out of the crowded
vestibule into the street. Bruce followed demurely at his heels
and Vivier bombarded everybody in sight for information as to
what the whole fracas was about.
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