Many of these men were his well-remembered friends and comrades.
Mahan and Vivier, and one or two more, he had grown to like--as
well as he could like any one in that land of horrors, three
thousand miles away from The Place, where he was born, and from
the Mistress and the Master, who were his loyally worshiped gods.

Moreover, being only mortal and afflicted with a hearty appetite,
Bruce loved the food and other delicacies the men were forever
offering him as a variation on the stodgy fare dished out to him
and his fellow war-dogs.

As much to amuse and interest the soldiers whose hero he was, as
for any special importance in the dispatch he carried, Bruce had
been sent now to the trenches of the Here-We-Comes. It was his
first visit to the regiment he had saved, since the days of the
Rache assault two months earlier. Thanks to supremely clever
surgery and to tender care, the dog was little the worse for his
wounds. His hearing gradually had come back. In one shoulder he
had a very slight stiffness which was not a limp, and a
new-healed furrow scarred the left side of his tawny coat.
Otherwise he was as good as new.

As Bruce trotted toward the group that so recently had been
talking of him, the Missouri recruit watched with interest for
the dog's joy at this reunion with his old friends. Bruce's snowy
chest and black-stippled coat were fluffed out by many recent
baths. His splendid head high and his dark eyes bright, the
collie advanced toward the group.