“No, sir,” declared Ben promptly. “First I know that dog was here—he musta followed us.”
Such a brazen, impossible falsehood must have given the lieut chills and fever. “Followed you, eh!” he stormed. “That’s mighty reasonable, isn’t it, when officers were watching everything that came aboard!”
“Well—” Ben tried to help his explanation by details.
But the officer impatiently waved his words away. “Keep still! I don’t want to hear any more of your prevarications. That dog must be got rid of at once. Tell Canwick he will hear from this without delay.” And the puffy little runt stamped away to finish his tour of inspection.
As soon as he left the compartment, Ben hurried out to find me, and a few minutes later I discovered him parked for patient waiting in front of the General’s door. He lost no time in recounting what had happened and ended his recital with, “So you just beat this guy to it and tell the Gen. all about the works!”
Well, I couldn’t decide what to do, but finally came to the conclusion that I could do nothing else but put it up to the General, although I wasn’t as confident of his judgment as Ben seemed to be. I don’t know how Ben knew so much about my boss, but he seemed to have implicit faith in him. Maybe it was as my partner says, “A man can’t get to be a General unless he’s a real human being!”
So I interrupted the General’s home work in French and proceeded to tell him how my pet dog had followed me to camp, had been sent home and chained, had broken out and come a hundred miles through a snowstorm to rejoin me the night we left for Hoboken. “And now the Lieutenant has discovered him under my bunk and threatens to get rid of him.”
“Well, sergeant, you did disobey orders, didn’t you?” he observed, but not unkindly. Just sort of a paternal reproof.
“Yes, sir.” I replied frankly. “But I’m willing to do anything, sir—anything at all, to get the dog home safely. I’ll ship him back the day we land. Or—” I hated to say the rest, but he kept looking at me as if waiting for me to finish so I had to go on. “Or, if you say to get rid of him,—why—well—I’ll do whatever you say, sir.” My voice must’ve sounded rather jerky for a hard-boiled soldier.
My heart skipped several beats before he answered, but when he said, “He must be a pretty good dog to behave himself under such circumstances.” I immediately felt relieved, for I knew then that he wouldn’t uphold Chilblaines.