HERO'S STORY
Late that afternoon the Major sat out in the shady courtyard of the hotel,
where vines, potted plants, and a fountain made a cool green garden spot.
He was thinking of his little daughter, who had been dead many long years.
The American child, whom his dog had rescued from the runaway in the
morning, was wonderfully like her. She had the same fair hair, he thought,
that had been his little Christine's great beauty; the same delicate,
wild-rose pink in her cheeks, the same mischievous smile dimpling her
laughing face. But Christine's eyes had not been a starry hazel like the
Little Colonel's. They were blue as the flax-flowers she used to
gather--thirty, was it? No, forty years ago.
As he counted the years, the thought came to him like a pain that he was
an old, old man now, all alone in the world, save for a dog, and a niece
whom he scarcely knew and seldom saw.
As he sat there with his head bowed down, dreaming over his past, the
Little Colonel came out into the courtyard. She had dressed early and gone
down to the reading-room to wait until her mother was ready for dinner,
but catching sight of the Major through the long glass doors, she laid
down her book. The lonely expression of his furrowed face, the bowed head,
and the empty sleeve appealed to her strongly.
"I believe I'll go out and talk to him," she thought. "If grandfathah were
away off in a strange land by himself like that, I'd want somebody to
cheer him up."
It is always good to feel that one is welcome, and Lloyd was glad that she
had ventured into the courtyard, when she saw the smile that lighted the
Major's face at sight of her, and when the dog, rising at her approach,
came forward joyfully wagging his tail.
The conversation was easy to begin, with Hero for a subject. There were
many things she wanted to know about him: how he happened to belong to the
Major; what country he came from; why he was called a St. Bernard, and if
the Major had ever owned any other dogs.
After a few questions it all came about as she had hoped it would. The old
man settled himself back in his chair, thought a moment, and then began at
the first of his acquaintance with St. Bernard dogs, as if he were
reading a story from a book.
"Away up in the Alpine Mountains, too high for trees to grow, where there
is only bare rock and snow and cutting winds, climbs the road that is
known as the Great St. Bernard Pass. It is an old, old road. The Celts
crossed it when they invaded Italy. The Roman legions crossed it when they
marched out to subdue Gaul and Germany. Ten hundred years ago the Saracen
robbers hid among its rocks to waylay unfortunate travellers. You will
read about all that in your history sometime, and about the famous march
Napoleon made across it on his way to Marengo. But the most interesting
fact about the road to me, is that for over seven hundred years there has
been a monastery high up on the bleak mountain-top, called the monastery
of St. Bernard.
"Once, when I was travelling through the Alps, I stopped there one cold
night, almost frozen. The good monks welcomed me to their hospice, as they
do all strangers who stop for food and shelter, and treated me as kindly
as if I had been a brother. In the morning one of them took me out to the
kennels, and showed me the dogs that are trained to look for travellers in
the snow. You may imagine with what pleasure I followed him, and listened
to the tales he told me.
"He said there is not as much work for the dogs now as there used to be
years ago. Since the hospice has been connected with the valley towns by
telephone, travellers can inquire about the state of the weather and the
paths, before venturing up the dangerous mountain passes. Still, the
storms begin with little warning sometimes, and wayfarers are overtaken by
them and lost in the blinding snowfall. The paths fill suddenly, and but
for the dogs many would perish."
"Oh, I know," interrupted Lloyd, eagerly. "There is a story about them in
my old third readah, and a pictuah of a big St. Bernard dog with a flask
tied around his neck, and a child on his back."
"Yes," answered the Major, "it is quite probable that that was a picture
of the dog they called Barry. He was with the good monks for twelve years,
and in that time saved the lives of forty travellers. There is a monument
erected to him in Paris in the cemetery for dogs. The sculptor carved that
picture into the stone, the noble animal with a child on his back, as if
he were in the act of carrying it to the hospice. Twelve years is a long
time for a dog to suffer such hardship and exposure. Night after night he
plunged out alone into the deep snow and the darkness, barking at the top
of his voice to attract the attention of lost travellers. Many a time he
dropped into the drifts exhausted, with scarcely enough strength left to
drag himself back to the hospice.
"Forty lives saved is a good record. You may be sure that in his old age
Barry was tenderly cared for. The monks gave him a pension and sent him to
Berne, where the climate is much warmer. When he died, a taxidermist
preserved his skin, and he was placed in the museum at Berne, where he
stands to this day, I am told, with the little flask around his neck. I
saw him there one time, and although Barry was only a dog, and I an
officer in my country's service, I stood with uncovered head before him.
For he was as truly a hero and served human kind as nobly as if he had
fallen on the field of battle.
"He had been trained like a soldier to his duty, and no matter how the
storms raged on the mountains, how dark the night, or how dangerous the
paths that led along the slippery precipices, at the word of command he
sprang to obey. Only a dumb beast, some people would call him, guided only
by brute instinct, but in his shaggy old body beat a loving heart, loyal
to his master's command, and faithful to his duty.
"As I stood there gazing into the kind old face, I thought of the time
when I lay wounded on the field of Strasburg. How glad I would have been
to have seen some dog like Barry come bounding to my aid! I had fallen in
a thicket, where the ambulance corps did not discover me until next day. I
lay there all that black night, wild with pain, groaning for water. I
could see the lanterns of the ambulances as they moved about searching for
the wounded among the many dead, but was too faint from loss of blood to
raise my head and shout for help. They told me afterward that, if my wound
could have received immediate attention, perhaps my arm might have been
saved.
"But only a keen sense of smell could have traced me in the dense thicket
where I lay. No one had thought of training dogs for ambulance service
then. The men did their best, but they were only men, and I was overlooked
until it was too late to save my arm.
"Well, as I said, I stood and looked at Barry, wondering if it were not
possible to train dogs for rescue work on battle-fields as well as in
mountain passes. The more I thought of it, the more my longing grew to
make such an attempt. I read everything I could find about trained dogs,
visited kennels where collies and other intelligent sheepdogs were kept,
and corresponded with many people about it. Finally I found a man who was
as much interested in the subject as I. Herr Bungartz is his name. To him
chiefly belongs the credit for the development of the use of ambulance
dogs, to aid the wounded on the field of battle. He is now at the head of
a society to which I belong. It has over a thousand members, including
many princes and generals.
"We furnish the money that supports the kennels, and the dogs are bred and
trained free for the army. Now for the last eight years it has been my
greatest pleasure to visit the kennels, where as many as fifty dogs are
kept constantly in training. It was on my last visit that I got Hero. His
leg had been hurt in some accident on the training field. It was thought
that he was too much disabled to ever do good service again, so they
allowed me to take him. Two old cripples, I suppose they thought we were,
comrades in misfortune.
"That was nearly a year ago. I took him to an eminent surgeon, told him
his history, and interested him in his case. He treated him so
successfully, that now, as you see, the leg is entirely well. Sometimes I
feel that it is my duty to give him back to the service, although I paid
for the rearing of a fine Scotch collie in his stead. He is so unusually
intelligent and well trained. But it would be hard to part with such a
good friend. Although I have had him less than a year, he seems very much
attached to me, and I have grown more fond of him than I would have
believed possible. I am an old man now, and I think he understands that he
is all I have. Good Hero! He knows he is a comfort to his old master!"
At the sound of his name, uttered in a sad voice, the great dog got up and
laid his head on the Major's knee, looking wistfully into his face.
"Of co'se you oughtn't to give him back!" cried the Little Colonel. "If he
were mine, I wouldn't give him up for the president, or the emperor, or
the czar, or _anybody!_"
"But for the soldiers, the poor wounded soldiers!" suggested the Major.
Lloyd hesitated, looking from the dog to the empty sleeve above it.
"Well," she declared, at last, "I wouldn't give him up while the country
is at peace. I'd wait till the last minute, until there was goin' to be an
awful battle, and then I'd make them promise to let me have him again when
the wah was ovah. Just the minute it was ovah. It would be like givin'
away part of your family to give away Hero."
Suddenly the Major spoke to the dog in French, a quick, sharp sentence
that Lloyd could not understand. But Hero, without an instant's
hesitation, bounded from the courtyard, where they sat, into the hall of
the hotel. Through the glass doors she could see him leaping up the
stairs, and, almost before the Major could explain that he had sent him
for the shoulder-bags he wore in service, the dog was back with them
grasped firmly in his mouth.
"Now the flask," said the Major. While the dog obeyed the second order, he
opened the bags for Lloyd to examine them. They were marked with a red
cross in a square of white, and contained rolls of bandages, from which
any man, able to use his arms, could help himself until his rescuer
brought further aid.
The flask which Hero brought was marked in the same way, and the Major
buckled it to his collar, saying, as he fastened first that and then the
shoulder-bags in place, "When a dog is in training, soldiers, pretending
to be dead or wounded, are hidden in the woods or ravines and he is taught
to find a fallen body, and to bark loudly. If the soldier is in some place
too remote for his voice to bring aid the dog seizes a cap, a
handkerchief, or a belt,--any article of the man's clothing which he can
pick up,--and dashes back to the nearest ambulance."
"What a lovely game that would make!" exclaimed Lloyd. "Do you suppose
that I could train the two Bobs to do that? We often play soldiah at
Locust. Now, what is it you say to Hero when you want him to hunt the men?
Let me see if he'll mind me."
The Major repeated the command.
"But I can't speak French," she said in dismay. "What is it in English?"
"Hero can't understand anything in English," said the Major, laughing at
the perplexed expression that crept into the Little Colonel's face.
"How funny!" she exclaimed. "I nevah thought of that befo'. I supposed of
co'se that all animals were English. Anyway, Hero comes when I call him,
and wags his tail when I speak, just as if he undahstands every word."
"It is the kindness in your voice he understands, and the smile in your
eyes, the affection in your caress. That language is the same the world
over, to men and animals alike. But he never would start out to hunt the
wounded soldiers unless you gave this command. Let me hear if you can say
it after me."
Lloyd tripped over some of the rough sounds as she repeated the sentence,
but tried it again and again until the Major cried "Bravo! You shall have
more lessons in French, dear child, until you can give the command so well
that Hero shall obey you as he does me."
Then he began talking of Christine, her fair hair, her blue eyes, her
playful ways; and Lloyd, listening, drew him on with many questions, till
the little French maiden seemed to stand pictured before her, her hands
filled with the lovely spring flowers of the motherland.
Suddenly the Major arose, bowing courteously, for Mrs. Sherman, seeing
them from the doorway, had smiled and started toward them. Springing up,
Lloyd ran to meet her.
"Mothah," she whispered, "please ask the Majah to sit at ou' table
to-night at dinnah. He's such a deah old man, and tells such interestin'
things, and he's lonesome. The tears came into his eyes when he talked
about his little daughtah. She was just my age when she died, mothah, and
he thinks she looked like me."
The Major's courtly manner and kind face had already aroused Mrs.
Sherman's interest. His empty sleeve reminded her of her father. His
loneliness appealed to her sympathy, and his kindness to her little
daughter had won her deepest appreciation. She turned with a cordial smile
to repeat Lloyd's invitation, which was gladly accepted.
That was the beginning of a warm friendship. From that time he was
included in their plans. Now, in nearly all their excursions and drives,
there were four in the party instead of three, and five, very often.
Whenever it was possible, Hero was with them. He and the Little Colonel
often went out together alone. It grew to be a familiar sight in the town,
the graceful fair-haired child and the big tawny St. Bernard, walking side
by side along the quay. She was not afraid to venture anywhere with such a
guard. As for Hero, he followed her as gladly as he did his master.