“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.

Bruce was himself again.  Now that the detested man in woman’s clothes had gone away, there was no sense in continuing to struggle or to waste energy in a show of fury.  Nevertheless, in his big heart burned deathless hatred toward the German who had kicked him.  And, like an elephant, a collie never forgets.

“But,” Vivier was demanding of everybody, “but why should the gentle Bruce have attacked a good nurse?  It is not what you call ‘make-sense.’  C’est un gentilhomme, ce vieux!  He would not attack a woman less still a sister of the Red Cross.  He—­”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” glumly assented the downhearted Mahan.  “But he did.  That’s the answer.  I saw him do it.  He knocked her down and—­”

“Which nurse was she?” asked a soldier who had come up after the trouble was over.

“A new one here.  I don’t know her name.  She came last week.  I saw her when she got here.  I was on duty at the K.O.’s office when she reported.  She had a letter from some one on the surgeon-general’s staff.  But why Bruce should have gone for her to-day—­ or for any woman—­is more than I can see.  She was scared half to death.  It’s lucky she heard the surgeon order him shot.  She’ll suppose he’s dead, by now.  And that’ll cure her scare.  We must try to keep Bruce away from this end of the street till he goes back to headquarters to-morrow.”