She looked up at the wall.  A man dressed in a uniform unlike the Italian soldiers was looking down at her.  Lucia called to him just as he jumped to the ground.  She held her breath expecting to see him hurt, but he landed on his feet and ran to her.

“For the love of Pete, what have you got there?” he asked in a language that Lucia did not understand.

She looked up at him bewildered.

“I do not understand what you say, but the soldier is very sick.  Please help me carry him to the convent,” she said hurriedly.

“Hum, well you may be right,” the big man laughed, “but I guess what you want is help.”

He leaned over the wounded Italian.

“Pretty far gone, but there’s hope.  Steady now, I’ve got you.”  He lifted the man gently in his arms and carried him on his back.

Lucia watched him with admiration shining in her eyes.  She followed with the goat through the gate.

Once in the town she could hardly believe her eyes.  Soldiers seemed to be everywhere, shouting and calling from one to the other.  She saw the little guns that were making all the sharp, clicking noises, and she knew that just below, and on the other side of the river, the Austrians were fighting desperately.

They passed many wounded as they hurried along, and to each one the big man would call out cheerily.  Lucia wished she could understand what he said, or even what language he spoke.  It was not German, of course, and she did not think it was French.

“Perhaps he was a tourist?” she asked him shyly, but he shook his head.

“I don’t get you, I’m sorry.  I’m an American, you see.”

“Oh, Americano!” Lucia clapped her hands delightedly.  “I am glad, I thought so, American is the name of the tourists, just as I guessed,” she replied.  “I have heard of Americans and I have seen some in the summer, but they were not like you.”

She looked up in his face and smiled.

The American did not understand a word of her Italian, but he saw the smile, and answered it with a good-natured grin.

“You’re a funny kid,” he said.  “I wish I could find out what you are talking about, and where you got ahold of that queer rig and the goat.”

They had reached the other gate by now, and they hurried through it and to the convent.

Several of the sisters had returned, and there were doctors and nurses all busy in the long room where, the night before, Lucia had left Roderigo and Sister Francesca.

The American laid the soldier down on one of the beds, and hurried to one of the doctors.

“Saw this youngster dragging this man on a sort of stretcher hitched to a goat,” he said.  “He’s pretty bad.  Better look at him.”

The doctor nodded.  Lucia stood beside her soldier and waited.  She was almost afraid of what the doctor would say.  He leaned over him and began taking off his muddy uniform, while the American helped.  When he had examined the wound, he hurried over to a table and came back with a queer looking instrument.  To Lucia it looked like a small bottle attached to a very long needle.