And thus they started on their journey, keeping close to the road, but going just inside the fields and orchards that bordered either side of the highway. They made very good progress, and the Red Cross dog did not feel the weight of Stubby at all. They rested a little after noon, and Button and the Red Cross dog left Stubby behind a straw stack in a barnyard while they sneaked up to the house to see if they could not find something to eat and to carry back to Stubby.
“Bow wow!” barked a big dog, jumping out at them from his kennel. “Who are you that comes prowling around here? Oh, I beg your pardon! I did not notice you wore the badge of a Red Cross dog or I should not have barked, for all Red Cross dogs are welcome in this place and the farmer and his family will do all they can for you. Just go up to the house and when they see you wear a Red Cross badge they will give you a hot supper and a soft bed to sleep on if you care to stay over night. I would go up to the house with you, but, as you see, I am chained. They will bring some dinner to me and I will share it with your friend here, the black cat.”
“I am sure that is very kind of you,” replied Duke, the Red Cross dog. “Since you say the family here is kind to Red Cross dogs, I will walk boldly up to the house.”
“You will find them all I say they are, for my master used to train dogs to be police dogs, and he sold them to the police in Paris. Then when the war began he trained them for Red Cross work. But all his dogs are sold now or gone to war. He was such a good trainer that he got very high prices for his dogs. I should not wonder but that you may have met some of the dogs trained by him if you have been at the front lately, as many of them are in active service there now.”
“Your master’s name could not possibly be Jean Baptiste Frère, could it?”
“That is just what it is!”
“Well, well, well! I declare! That is too queer! My chum was trained by him and lots of the dogs I know. My chum’s name is Sharp Ears, or rather that is what the Red Cross people call him, for he seems to be able to hear things long before any one else can detect the slightest noise. For that reason he is kept on police duty with the sentinels that have to tramp up and down, up and down in the deep woods on guard all night. He will hear or scent an enemy long before he comes in sight, and he always gives warning by pricking up his ears and looking straight into the sentry’s face, but he never barks to betray the sentry to the enemy. Then he turns his face in the direction from which the sound comes. If it is one of our soldiers, he will keep perfectly still. If it is a German, Austrian or any of the enemy soldiers, he will give a scarcely audible growl. He has saved many a sentry’s life by warning him in this way that some one was coming.”
“How can he tell whether it is an enemy or a friend coming when he can’t see them?”
“I asked him that very question, and he said he can always tell a German by the scent as they smell like pigs, and that he had never made a mistake yet.”
“I did not know before that the German soldiers have an odor peculiarly their own.”