His old acquaintance and fellow-townsman, Paul, was in the same company with him. Back in the little home town before the war they had been enemies. They had both been bad men, crooks and drunkards, and had at one time tried to kill each other. For years they had hated and had as little to do with each other as possible. It all started over an insignificant something, but nevertheless the dislike had grown until it had become very bitter and each was continually on the lookout to find a chance to do the other a mean turn when possible. They had cursed each other many a time when their paths crossed, but as far as possible they had tried to avoid meeting. But when the war came they had been placed together side by side as comrades in the battle. Their officers had told them that they were not to think of self now, because their fight was for _La Belle France_. Day after day they drilled together and week after week performed the hard labor which was allotted them, side by side, until at last they outgrew their ancient antipathy, and finally became bosom friends. Then they were sent to the trenches. Together they held the line in the same fire bay, and hour after hour both looked into the muzzles of the German guns. They had on different occasions gone "over the top" together, and neither of them had been hurt at all. At last, however, early one morning when the Germans made a mighty charge, fate was against both. The bombardment had been blinding and when the Boches came tearing "over the top" these two sturdy poilus stood their ground and held the enemy back. A German was just about to make a lunge at Louis when Paul, with a spring, jumped in front of him, receiving a bayonet thrust in his lung, and also a terrible wound in his ankle. Louis had been painfully wounded in his left shoulder. His wound was not dangerous but Paul was about "done in," and was breathing hard as he had lost a large amount of blood from the hole in the lower part of his leg. Here the narrator's eyes began to fill with tears. "I couldn't let the poor fellow bleed to death after he had saved my life. I tore up my shirt into bandages and tied them around his leg, and then so they would not come off and also to keep his feet warm I took my socks and pulled them on his feet. What else could I do? I tried to fix up his injured lung also, but--" and then the tears burst forth and he sobbed like a baby. "It didn't do any good and Paul lies over there now." I glanced over in the direction where he pointed and sure enough there was Paul, bandaged up with strips of shirt and wearing a pair of socks over the bandages. But the black angel had already come to him. He had "gone West."