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 battle. 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.
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