Coming to a halt by the colonel’s side, Bruce stood expectantly wagging his plumy tail and waiting for the folded message from division headquarters to be taken off his collar.

Usually, on such visits, the colonel made much of the dog.  To-day he merely glanced up abstractedly from his writing, at sight of Bruce’s silken head at his side.  He unfastened the message, read it, frowned and went on with his report.

Bruce continued to wag his tail and to look up wistfully for the wonted petting and word of commendation.  But the colonel had forgotten his existence.  So presently the collie wearied of waiting for a caress from a man whose caresses, at best, he did not greatly value.  He turned and strolled out of the shed.  His message delivered, he knew he was at liberty to amuse himself as he might choose to, until such time as he must carry back to his general a reply to the dispatch he had brought.

From outside came the voices of tired and lounging soldiers.  A traveling kitchen had just been set up near by.  From it arose a blend of smells that were mighty tempting to a healthily hungry dog.  Thither, at a decorous but expectant pace, Bruce bent his steps.

Top-Sergeant Mahan was gazing with solicitous interest upon the toil of the cooks at the wheeled kitchen.  Beside him, sharing his concern in the supper preparations, was Mahan’s closest crony, old Sergeant Vivier.  The wizened little Frenchman, as a boy, had been in the surrender of Sedan.  Nightly, ever since, he had besought the saints to give him, some day, a tiny share in the avenging of that black disgrace.

Mahan and Vivier were the warmest of Bruce’s many admirers in the “Here-We-Comes.”  Ordinarily a dual whoop of joy from them would have greeted his advent.  This afternoon they merely chirped abstractedly at him, and Mahan patted him carelessly on the head before returning to the inspection of the cooking food.

Since an hour before dawn, both men had been in hot action.  The command for the “Here-We-Comes” to turn aside and bivouac for the night had been a sharp disappointment to them, as well as to every unwounded man in the regiment.

When a gambler is in the middle of a winning streak, when an athlete feels he has the race in his own hands, when a business man has all but closed the deal that means fortune to him—­at such crises it is maddening to be halted at the very verge of triumph.  But to soldiers who, after months of reverses, at last have their hated foe on the run, such a check does odd things to temper and to nerves.

In such plight were the men of the “Here-We-Comes,” on this late afternoon.  Mahan and Vivier were too seasoned and too sane to give way to the bursts of temper and the swirls of blasphemy that swayed so many of their comrades.  Nevertheless they were glum and silent and had no heart for jolly welcomings,—­even to so dear a friend as Bruce.

Experience told them that a square meal would work miracles in the way of calming and bracing them.  Hence, apart from stark hunger, their interest in the cooking of supper.