It was strange, in the evening light, to work out along the road between lines of poplar trees. Dim forms kept passing them--two by two, each couple with a stretcher and its burden. An old farm cart came jogging by, wrenching its body from side to side as it struck invisible hummocks and dipped into shell holes. It was loaded with outstretched forms of men, whose wounds were torn at by the jerking of the cart. In companies, fresh men, talking in whispers, were softly padding along the road on their way to the trenches, to relieve the staled fighters. The wide silence was only broken by the occasional sharp clatter and ping of some lonely sniper's rifle. It was ten o'clock of the evening, and the ambulance had gone out one mile beyond the hamlet of Hoogar. The Doctor and Hilda alighted at the thick wood, which had been hotly contended for, through the seven days. It had been covered with shell fire as thoroughly as a fishing-net rakes a stream. They waited for Woffington to turn the car around. It is wise to leave a car headed in the direction of safety, when one is treading on disputed ground. A man stepped out of the wood. "Are you Red Cross?" he asked. "Yes," said Dr. McDonnell, "and we have our motor ambulance here." "Good!" answered the stranger. "We have some wounded men in the Chateau at the other side of the wood. Come with me." "How far?" asked Hilda. "Oh, not more than half a mile." They seeped along over the wet wood road, speaking not at all, as snipers were scattered by night here and there in the trees. They came to the old white building, a country house of size and beauty. In the cellar, three soldiers were lying on straw. Two of them told Hilda they had been lying wounded and uncared for in the trenches since evening of the night before. They had just been brought to the house. She went over to the third, a boy of about eighteen years. He was shot through the biceps muscle of his left arm. He was pale and weak. "How long have you been like this?" asked the girl. "Since four o'clock, yesterday," he whispered. "Thirty hours," said Hilda. Dr. McDonnell made a request to the officer for help. He gave four men and two stretchers. They put the boy and one of the men on the stretchers, and hoisted them through the cellar window. Woffington and McDonnell took the lantern and searched till they found a wheelbarrow. The third man, wounded in the shoulder, threw an arm over Dr. McDonnell, and Woffington steadied him at the waist. He stumbled up the steps, and collapsed into the barrow.