CHAPTER XVI
"TAPS"
The corporal of the guard went running in the direction of the shot, andhere and there an inquiring head, was thrust out of a tent.
"Only a dog shot, sir," he was heard to call out in answer to someofficer's question, as he passed back down the line. "Sentry took him fora wild beast escaped from the show."
Somebody laughed in reply, and the men who had been aroused by the noiseturned over and went to sleep. They did not know that the corporal hurriedon down to the guard-house, and that as a result of his report there was ahasty summons for the surgeon. They did not know that it was Hero whom thesentry bent over, gulping down a feeling in his throat that nearly chokedhim, as he saw the blood welling out of the dog's shaggy white breast, andslowly stiffening the silky hair of his beautiful yellow coat.
The surgeon knelt down beside the dog, and as the clouds hid the moonagain, he turned the light of his lantern on the wound for a carefulexamination.
"That was a cracking good shot, Bently," he said. "He never knew whatstopped him."
The sentry turned his head away. "I wouldn't have been the one to takethat dog's life for anything in the world!" he exclaimed. "I'd pretty nearas soon have killed a man. It never entered my head that any tame animalwould come leaping out of the woods that way at this time of night. Heloomed up nearly as big as a lion when the moon shone out on him. The nextminute it was all dark again, and I heard his big soft feet come patteringthrough the leaves, straight on toward me. It flashed over me that it mustbe one of those escaped circus animals, so I just let loose and blazedaway at him."
The surgeon stood up and looked down at the still form at his feet. "It'stoo bad," he said. "He was a grand old dog, the finest St. Bernard I eversaw. How that little girl loved him! It will just about break her heartwhen she finds out what's happened to him."
"Don't!" begged the sentry, huskily. "Don't say anything like that. I feelbad enough about it now, goodness knows, without your harrowing up myfeelings, talking of the way _she's_ going to feel."
As the surgeon started on, the sentry stopped him. "For heaven's sake,Mac, don't leave him lying there on the picket-line where I've got to seehim every time I pass. Send somebody to take him away. I'm all unnerved. Ifeel as if I'd shot one of my own comrades."
The surgeon looked at him curiously and walked on. Nobody was sent to takethe dog away, but a little while later the sentry was relieved from duty,and another soldier kept guard over the silent camp, pacing back and forthpast the Red Cross Hero, sleeping his last sleep under the light of thesentinel stars.
Somebody draped a flag across him before the camp was astir next morning."Well, why not?" the man asked when he was joked about paying so muchattention to a dead dog. "Why not? He was a war dog, wasn't he? It's nomore than his due. I was the man he found in the ditch yesterday. As faras his intention and good will went, he did as much to save me as if I hadbeen really lying there a wounded soldier. When he came leaping down thereinto the ditch after me, licking my face in such a friendly fashion andholding still so that I could help myself to the flask and bandages, Ithought how grateful a fellow would feel to him if he were really rescuedby him that way. It was all make-believe to me, but it was dead earnest tothe dog, and he did his part as faithfully as any soldier who ever wore auniform."
"You're right," said a young lieutenant, sitting near. "If for no otherreason than that he was in the service of the Red Cross, he has a right tothe respect of every man that calls himself a soldier, no matter what flaghe follows."
Later in the morning, when the orderly rode into the little picnic camp,the girls were away. They were down by the waterfall digging ferns andmosses to take home. "We are thinking of breaking up camp this afternoon,"Mrs. Walton told him. "The weather looks so threatening that I have sentfor the wagonette to come for us, and I was about to send over to yourcamp to see if Hero had wandered back there. He has not been seen sincelast night. He was lying by Lloyd's cot just before I went to sleep, butthis morning he is nowhere to be found. Lloyd is distressed. I told herthat probably the drill yesterday awakened all his love for the old life,and that he might have been drawn back to it. Was I right? Have you seenhim?"
"Yes," said the orderly, hesitating. "I saw him, but I find it hard totell you how and where, Mrs. Walton." He paused again, and then hurriedon with the explanation, as if anxious to have it over as soon aspossible.
"He was shot last night by mistake on the picket-line. The sentry is allbroken up over it, poor fellow, and the whole camp regrets it more than Ican tell. You see, after yesterday's performance we almost claimed the dogas one of us. Colonel Wayne has made me the bearer of his deepest regrets.He especially deplores the occurrence on account of the dog's littlemistress, knowing what a great grief it will be to her. He wishes, if youthink it will be any consolation to her, to give Hero a military funeral,and bury him with the honours due a brave soldier."
"I am sure that Lloyd will want that," said Mrs, Walton. "She willappreciate it deeply, when she understands what a mark of respect to Herosuch an attention would be. Tell Colonel Wayne, please, that I gladlyaccept the offer in her behalf, and will send Ranald over later, toarrange for it."
The orderly rode away, and Mrs. Walton turned to her sister, exclaiming,"Poor little Lloyd! I confess I am not brave enough to face her grief whenshe first hears the news. You will have to tell her, Allison. You know herso much better than I. We might as well hurry the preparations forleaving. No one will care to stay a moment longer, now this has happened.It will cast a gloom over the entire party."
"Maybe it would be better not to tell her until after she gets home,"suggested Miss Allison. She had soothed the childish griefs of nearlyevery child in the Valley, at some time or another, but she felt that thiswas the most serious one that had fallen to her lot to comfort.
"I'm sure it would be impossible to get Lloyd away from here without Hero,unless she knew," was the answer. "I heard her tell Kitty this morningthat nobody could make her go without him. She said if he wasn't back bythe time we were ready to start, we could go on without her, and she wouldhunt for him if it took all fall."
While they were still discussing it the boys came running back to campmuch excited. They had met the orderly.
"Oh, the poor dog!" mourned Keith. "What a shame for the poor old fellowto be shot down that way. It seems almost as bad as if it had been one ofus boys that was killed."
Ranald and Rob joined in with praise of his many lovable traits, talkingof his death as if it were a lifelong friend they had lost; but Malcolmturned away with an anxious glance to the woods, where he could hear thelaughing voices of the girls.
"Poor little Princess Winsome," he thought. "It will nearly break herheart," and he wished with all the earnestness of the real Sir Feal, thatby some knightly service, no matter how hard, he could save his littlefriend from this sorrow.
The girls came strolling up, presently, so occupied with their spoils thatno one noticed the boy's serious faces but Lloyd. The moment she caughtMalcolm's sympathetic glance she was sure something had happened to Hero.
"Oh, what is it?" she began, the tears gathering in her eyes as she feltthe unspoken, sympathy of the little group. Leaving Mrs. Walton to tellthe other girls, Miss Allison drew Lloyd aside, saying as she led her downtoward the spring, an arm around her waist, "I have a message for you,Lloyd, from Colonel Wayne. Let's go down to the rocks by ourselves."
A sympathetic silence fell on the little circle left behind as they heardLloyd cry out, "Shot my dog? Shot _Hero?_ Oh, he ought to be killed! Howcould he do such a cruel thing!"
"But he feels dreadfully about it," said Miss Allison. "The orderly saidthat, big, strong man though he was, the tears stood in his eyes when hesaw what he had done, and he kept saying, 'I wouldn't have done it for theworld.'"
Nearly all the girls were crying by this time, and Malcolm turned his headso that he could not see the fair little head pressed against MissAllison's shoulder, as she clung
to her sobbing.
"Think how it must have hurt poah Hero's feelin's," Lloyd was saying, "togo back to their camp so trustin' and happy, thinkin' the men would be soglad to see him, and that he was doin' his duty, and then to have one ofthem stand up and send a bullet through his deah, lovin' old heart. Oh, Ican't _beah_ it," she screamed. "Oh, I can't! I can't! It seems as if itwould kill me to think of him lyin' ovah there all cold and stiff, withthe blood on his lovely white and yellow curls, and know that he'll nevah,nevah again jump up to lick my hands, and put his paws on my shouldahs.He'll nevah come to meet me any moah, waggin' his tail and lookin' up intomy face with his deah lovin' eyes. Oh, Miss Allison! I can't stand it!It's just breakin' my heart!" Burying her face in Miss Allison's lap, shesobbed and cried until her tears were all spent.
It was a subdued little party that rode back to the Valley, a few hourslater. Not only sympathy for Lloyd kept them quiet, but each one mournedthe loss of the gentle, lovable playfellow who had come to such anuntimely end after this week of happy camp life with them.
* * * * *
Under the locusts that evening, just as the sun was going down, came thetread of many marching feet. It was the tramp, tramp of the soldiers whowere bringing home the Little Colonel's Hero, All the men who had beenmost interested in his performances the day before, had volunteered tofollow Colonel Wayne, and the long line made an imposing showing, as itstretched up the avenue after him.
Lloyd watched the approach from her seat on the porch beside her father.All the camping party were waiting with her, except the four boys who rodeat the head of the procession, Ranald and Malcolm first, then Rob andKeith. Lloyd hid her eyes as Lad and Tarbaby came into view behind them.
"Look," said her father gently, pointing to the flag-draped burden theydrew. "How much better it was for Hero to have been shot by a soldier andbrought home with military honours, than to have met the fate of anordinary dog--been poisoned, or mangled, by a train, as might havehappened, or even died of a painful, feeble old age. The Major would havechosen this? so would Hero, if he could have understood."
There was more comfort in that thought than in anything that had been saidto her before, and Lloyd wiped her eyes, and sat up to watch the ceremonythat followed, with a feeling of pride that made her almost cheerful.
On they came to the beat of the muffled drum, halting under a greatlocust-tree that stood by itself on the lawn, in sight of the librarywindows, like a giant sentinel. There the boys dismounted to lower Herointo the grave that Walker and Alec had just finished digging. Then thecoloured men, spreading the sod quickly back in place, stepped aside fromthe low mound they had made, and Lloyd saw that it was smooth and green.She started violently when the soldiers, drawn up in line, fired a partingvolley over it, but sat quietly back again when the Little Captain steppedforward and raised his bugle. The sun was sinking low behind the locusts,and in the golden glow filling the western sky, he softly sounded taps."Lights out" now for the faithful old Hero! The last bugle-call thatsounded for him was in a foreign land, but it was not as a stranger and analien they left him.
The flag he followed floats farther than the Stars and Stripes, waveswider than the banner of the Kaiser. It is a world-wide flag, that flag ofperpetual peace which bears the Red Cross of Geneva. In its shadow,whether on land or sea, all patriot hearts are at home, and under thatflag they left him.
* * * * *
A square white stone stands now under the locust where the Little Captainsounded taps at the close of that September day. On it gleams the RedCross, in whose service all of Hero's lessons had been learned. But thedaily sight of it from her bedroom window no longer brings pain to theLittle Colonel. Hero is only a tender memory now, and she counts the RedCross above him as another talisman, like the little ring and the silverscissors, to remind her that only through unselfish service to others canone reach the happiness that is highest and best.
Time flies fast under the locusts. Sometimes to Papa Jack it seems onlyyesterday that she clattered up and down the wide halls with hergrandfather's spurs buckled to her tiny feet. But if he misses the charmof the baby voice that called to him then, or the childish mischievousnessof his Little Colonel, he finds a greater one in the flower-like beauty ofthe tall, slender girl who stands beside the gilded harp, and sings tohim softly in the candle-light. And it is Betty's song of service that isoftenest on her lips:
"My godmother bids me spin, That my heart may not be sad; Sing and spin for my brother's sake, And the spinning makes me glad."
She knows that she can never be a Joan of Arc or a Clara Barton, and hername will never be written in America's hall of fame, but with the sweetambition in her heart to make life a little lovelier for every one shetouches, she is growing up into a veritable Princess Winsome.
Often as she sings, Betty closes her book to listen, thrilled with the oldfeeling that always comes with the music of the harp. It is as if she were"away off from everything, and high up where it is wide and open, andwhere the stars are." The strange, beautiful thoughts she can find nowords for still dance on ahead, like shining will-'o-the-wisps, but sheknows that she shall surely find words for them some day, and that manybesides the Little Colonel will sing her verses and find comfort in hersongs.
To both Betty and Lloyd the land of Someday and the happy land of Now lievery close together in their day-dreams, as side by side they go toschool these bright October mornings, or stroll slowly homeward in thegolden afternoons, under the shade of the friendly old locusts.