Like many of their pals from the famous school, these three had gone into the same service together—fighting doughboys, if you please—and at their own request had been directly associated in the same unit from the first hour that they went into training. And it had at all times been a happy trio, for in their days at school they had been inseparable pals. Just at present Harper, by grace of his culinary capabilities, was doing emergency duty in the kitchen because of the temporary illness of one of the regular cooks, but this was more of an advantage than a hardship to his two friends, as a fat sandwich or a couple of hot doughnuts between meals often bore substantial testimony. Tom Walton was thinking of these things when suddenly he was brought back to the realities of life by a loudly shouted “Hi, there!” accompanied by a clatter which sounded like a section of the German army advancing at a tremendous pace. It was all so sudden, the ground so treacherously slippery, that Tom scarcely had attempted to turn when something of tremendous weight and momentum struck him a glancing blow and he went sprawling face downward in the muck, his mackinaw canopying out over him like a miniature dog-tent. Before he could rise and scrape enough of the mud from his eyes to see what was going on, three or four men went galloping by him, one shouting warnings and futile commands, another grunting under the stress of his labors, a third laughing jerkily but uproariously. In shocked surprise and disgusted recognition, Tom, rising monkey-like to all-fours, took in the situation in a single sour glance. He had been bowled over by Maud, the company mule! Maud, evidently, was on another privately-conducted tour of the works—a favorite diversion, by the way—and Maud was objecting strenuously to any curtailment of her pastime, especially in the shape of human company. It was the fourth time in three days that Maud had broken tether, and, so to speak, pulled stakes for another part of Europe—and always somebody got hurt. Tom reflected with some satisfaction that at least he had come off better than “Buck” Granger, who in a pursuit of the escaped Maud the preceding day had attempted a flying flank attack just as Maud perceptibly increased her speed and let fly with her heels. Buck’s pained expression later, when the surgeon had finished plastering and bandaging him up, was: “The ornery cuss caved two of my slats.” “That mule will get killed some day,” Tom muttered to himself, still scraping mud from face and garments. “Fellow won’t stand for this sort of stuff all the time. I believe she’s a German spy anyway, trying to kill off decent Americans the way she does.” And he wended his way sorely toward Harper and the kitchen, while afar off he could hear the continued cry of the hunt as Maud, the incorrigible, cavorted around in the mud, defying sentries, dodging pursuers, having generally what Maud seemed to regard as an all-round good time.