She took his great head between her little hands and looked earnestly into his eyes as she asked the question.

“Do you wish you were back in the French army, following the ambulances and hunting the wounded soldiahs?  Seems to me you ought to like it so much bettah heah in Kentucky, with, nothing to do but play and eat and sleep, and be loved by everybody.”

“But an army dog can’t get away from his training any easier than a man,” laughed the orderly, as he rode on beside the wagon.  “It is a part of him.  Hero is a good soldier, and no doubt feels a greater joy in obeying what he considers a call to duty, than in riding in the wagon at his ease, with the ladies.”

“You know a great deal, perhaps, of this society for the training of ambulance dogs,” said Mrs. Walton.

“Yes,” he replied.  “I am deeply interested in it.  My brother at home keeps me informed of its movements, and has written me much of Herr Bungartz’s methods.  I think I shall have no difficulty in putting the dog through his manoeuvres, especially as he seems to recognise me and in some way connect me with his past life.”

Fife and drum welcomed the party as they drove into camp, and the party were at once escorted to seats where they could watch the drill and the sham battle.  It was a familiar scene to the General’s little family, and to Miss Allison, who had visited more than one army post.  But some of the girls put their fingers in their ears when the noise of the rapid firing began.  Hero was greatly excited.

Soon after the noise of the sham battle ceased, the field was prepared for the dog’s trial.  Men were hidden behind logs, stretched out in ditches, and left lying as if dead, in the dense thicket that skirted one side of the field, for wounded animals, either men or beasts, instinctively crawl away to die under cover.

With hands almost trembling in their eagerness, Lloyd fastened the flask and shoulder-bags on the dog.  He seemed to know that something unusual was expected of him, and wagged his tail so violently that he nearly upset the Little Colonel.  He watched every movement of the orderly, who, with a Red Cross brassard on his arm, was acting as chief of the improvised ambulance corps.

“Will you give him the order, Miss Lloyd?” he asked, turning politely to the little girl.  Lloyd had pictured this moment several times on the way over, thinking how proud she would be to stand up like a real Little Colonel and send her orders ringing over the field before the whole admiring regiment.  But now that the moment had actually come, she blushed and shrank back, timidly.  She was not sure that she could say the strange French words just as the Major had taught them to her, when such a crowd of soldiers were standing by to hear.

“Oh, you do it, please,” she asked.

“If you will tell me the exact words he has been accustomed to hearing,” answered the orderly.