The Little Colonel's Hero

by Annie F. Johnston

Dinah made the candy, but the girls pulled it, running a race to see whose would be the whitest in a given time. Their arms ached long before they were done. By the time the boys came stumbling up the hill from their long swim in the creek, it would be hard to say which group was most tired.

"I'm sure we'll all want to turn in early to-night," said Mrs. Walton at supper. Freddy was yawning widely, and Elise was almost asleep over her plate. "You are all tired."

"All but Hero," said Miss Allison, offering him a chicken bone. "He rested while the others played. You'd like to go through your game every day. Wouldn't you, old boy?"

There was no story-telling around the camp-fire that night. They gathered around it, even before the light died out in the sky. Ranald had his guitar and Allison her mandolin, and they thrummed accompaniments awhile for the others to sing. But a mighty yawn catching Margery in the middle of a verse, and Mrs. Walton discovering both Jamie and Freddy sound asleep on the rug beside her, she proposed that they all go to bed an hour earlier than usual.

The Little Captain vowed he was too sleepy to blow a single toot on his bugle, so they went to their tents without the usual sounding of taps. It was not long before every child was asleep, worn out by the day's hard play. Mrs. Walton lay awake sometime listening to the sounds outside the tent. The crackling of underbrush and rustle of dry leaves was familiar enough in the daytime, but they seemed strangely ominous now that the lights were out. She could not help thinking of what the Colonel had told her of the escaped panther. She imagined the panic it would make if it should suddenly appear in their midst. Then she thought of Hero's protecting presence, and, raising herself on her elbow, she looked across the tent to where she knew he lay asleep. At first she could not see even the ruff of white that made the collar around his tawny throat, for the moon had slipped behind a cloud, but as she raised herself on her elbow, and peered intently through the darkness, the faint misty light shone out again, and she saw Hero plainly, the Little Colonel's outstretched hand resting on his broad back. Then she lay down again, this time to sleep, and soon all the little camp was wrapped in the peace and rest of perfect silence.

Half an hour later Hero lifted his head from between his paws and listened. Something seemed calling him. He did not know what. Being only a dog, he could not analyse the thoughts passing through his brain. A restlessness seized him. He longed to be back among the familiar sights and sounds of soldier life. This little play camp, where children tried to make him romp continually, was not home. Locust was not home. This strange new country full of unfamiliar faces and foreign voices was not home. But the orderly's voice reminded him of it. Over there were bearded men and deep voices, and strong hands, guns, and the smell of powder; fife and drum, and canteens and knapsacks; things that he had seen daily in his soldier life.

Was it some call to duty that thrilled him, or only a homesick longing? As he listened with head up, there came ringing, clear and silvery through the night, the bugle notes from the other camp. At the first sound Hero was on his feet. He moved noiselessly toward the tent flap, only partially fastened, and flattening himself against the ground wriggled out.

And if he gave no thought to the little mistress, dreaming inside the tent, if he left without regret the life of ease and loving care to which she had brought him, it was not because he was ungrateful, but because he did not understand. To him his old life woke and called him in the bugle's blowing. To him duty did not mean soft cushions, and idle days, and the following of a happy-hearted child at play. It meant long marches and the guarding of ambulances and the rescue of the dead and dying. A true soldier's heart beat in the dog's shaggy body, and, obedient to his instinct and training, he answered the summons when it sounded. With long, swinging steps he set out in the direction of the bugle-call, taking the road through the woods that the wagon had travelled that day, and down which he had watched the orderly disappear. No, not deserting his duty, but, as he understood it, hurrying back, with faithful heart to the cause that had always claimed him.

Now and then the moon, coming out fitfully from, behind the clouds, shone on his great tawny body, touching the white curls of his ruff with a line of silver. Then he would be lost in darkness again. But he swung on unerringly, until he was almost in sight of the camp. A little farther on a sentry paced up and down the picket-line that ran along the edge of the woods. Hero travelled on toward him, the dry dead leaves rustling under his paws, and now and then a twig crackling with his weight.

The sentry paused and, listened, wondering what kind of an animal was coming toward him in the darkness.