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Page 52
Bruce, as a rule, when he honored the "Here-We-Comes" with a
visit, spent the bulk of his time with Mahan and old Vivier. But
to-day neither of these friends was an inspiring companion. Nor
were the rest of Bruce's acquaintances disposed to friendliness.
Wherefore, as soon as supper was eaten, the dog returned to his
heap of bedding, for the hour or so of laziness which Nature
teaches all her children to demand, after a full meal,--and which
the so-called "dumb" animals alone are intelligent enough to
take.
Dusk had merged into night when Bruce got to his feet again. Taps
had just sounded. The tired men gladly rolled themselves into
their blankets and fell into a dead sleep. A sentry-relief set
forth to replace the first batch of sentinels with the second.
Mahan was of the party. Though the top-sergeant had been a stupid
comrade, thus far to-day, he was now evidently going for a walk.
And even though it was a duty-walk, yet the idea of it appealed
to the dog after his long inaction.
So Bruce got up and followed. As he came alongside the stiffly
marching top-sergeant, the collie so far subverted discipline as
to thrust his nose, in friendly greeting, into Mahan's slightly
cupped palm. And the top-sergeant so far abetted the breach of
discipline as to give the collie's head a furtive pat. The night
was dim, as the moon had not risen; so the mutual contact of
good-fellowship was not visible to the marching men on either
side of Mahan and the dog. And discipline, therefore, did not
suffer much, after all.
At one post after another, a sentinel was relieved and a fresh
man took his place. Farthest in front of the "Here-We-Comes"
lines--and nearest to the German--was posted a lanky Missourian
whom Bruce liked, a man who had a way of discovering in his deep
pockets stray bits of food which he had hoarded there for the
collie and delighted to dole out to him. The Missourian had a
drawlingly soft voice the dog liked, and he used to talk to Bruce
as if the latter were another human.
For all these reasons--and because Mahan was too busy and too
grumpy to bother with him--Bruce elected to stay where he was,
for a while, and share the Missourian's vigil. So, when the rest
of 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.
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