"M'sieur, I am of France. I belong there with the fighting men." His look was a flame, and suddenly I know why he was firing off hot shot at me. I am a surgeon. "What's the matter with your leg?" I asked. The brilliant eyes flashed. "Ah!" he brought out, "One hoped--If M'sieur le Docteur would but see. I may be cured. To be straight--to march!" He was trembling. Later, in the shifting sunshine at the camp door, with the odors of hemlocks and balsams about us, the lake rippling below, I had an examination. I found that the lad's lameness was a trouble to be cured easily by an operation. I hesitated. Was it my affair to root this youngster out of safety and send him to death in the _debacle_ over there? Yet what right had I to set limits? He wanted to offer his life; how could I know what I might be blocking if I withheld the cure? My job was to give strength to all I could reach. "Philippe," I said, "if you'll come to New York next month I'll set you up with a good leg." In September, 1915, Dick and I came up for our yearly trip, but Philippe was not with us. Philippe, after drilling at Valcartier, was drilling in England. I had lurid post cards off and on; after a while I knew that he was "somewhere in France." A grim gray card came with no post-mark, no writing but the address and Philippe's labored signature; for the rest there were printed sentences: "I am well. I am wounded. I am in hospital. I have had no letter from you lately." All of which was struck out but the welcome words, "I am well." So far then I had not cured the lad to be killed. Then for weeks nothing. It came to be time again to go to Canada for the hunting. I wrote the steward to get us four men, as usual, and Lindsley and I alighted from the rattling train at the club station in September, 1916, with a mild curiosity to see what Fate had provided as guides, philosophers and friends to us for two weeks. Paul Sioui--that was nice--a good fellow Paul; and Josef--I shook hands with Josef; the next face was a new one--ah, Pierre Beaurame--one calls one's self that--_on s'appelle comme ca. Bon jour!_ I turned, and got a shock. The fourth face, at which I looked, was the face of Philippe Martel. I looked, speechless. And with that the boy laughed. "It is that M'sieur cannot again cure my leg," answered Philippe, and tapped proudly on a calf which echoed with a wooden sound. "You young cuss," I addressed him savagely. "Do you mean to say you have gone and got shot in that very leg I fixed up for you?" Philippe rippled more laughter--of pure joy--of satisfaction. "But, yes, M'sieur le Docteur, that leg _meme_. Itself. In a battle, M'sieur le Docteur gave me the good leg for a long enough time to serve France. It was all that there was of necessary. As for now I may not fight again, but I can walk and portage _comme il faut_. I am _capable_ as a guide. Is it not, Josef?" He appealed, and the men crowded around to back him up with deep, serious voices. "Ah, yes, M'sieur."