For half an hour they crept forward, often stopping to rest. At such times Pep would crowd up close and put a kiss on his master’s cheek.
Now that the responsibility had been partly taken from him, Pep noticed his own wound more and more. His broken leg was swelling badly, and once when he caught it in the underbrush it made him yelp with pain.
Finally, when they had been traveling slowly for about an hour, he sank down with a doleful howl and could go no further.
“What’s the matter with the dog, Bill?” asked the man ahead. “He seems to have gone limp.”
“I guess he’s all in,” returned Bill. “Just set down this stretcher and I will go back for him.” So Bill went back for Pep and took him up tenderly in his arms.
“What are you going to do with him now you have rescued him?” asked the other.
“He’s going in the stretcher,” returned Bill decidedly. His companion grumbled and expostulated against carrying a dog, but Bill was determined and as usual he had his own way.
“Why, if it had not been for ’im we would not have found the doctor at all.”
So it came about that Pep had the honor of riding in a stretcher just like any other wounded soldier, and that with his beloved master. He snuggled down under the man’s arm, and watched the boughs above brush by. He was so tired and exhausted that for once he forgot he was a little soldier on guard and fell asleep, and did not awake until they reached the road.
“It’s all right, old Pup,” said his friend Bill. “We’ve got to the ambulance. You was the last straw that nearly broke our backs. But I am glad we took you. You are well worth saving.”