e, tooting every
regimental call he could remember, until the time came when his
perseverance met with reward. He actually found himself installed as
bugler to the little regiment of smartly-uniformed men that was the
pride of the gay Ontario city that Billy called home.

Then it was that the other boys never got Billy on a holiday. When
Victoria Day came the soldiers always went "into camp" for three days,
strict military discipline reigned, and Billy must be with his company.
When Dominion Day arrived the regiment always visited some distant city
to assist in some important patriotic celebration. Thanksgiving Day
always found them in the thick of annual drill, and there was sure to be
a "sham battle" at which poor Billy had to toot the commands, his eyes
blinking and the nerves chasing themselves up and down his back, while
the blank cartridges peppered away harmlessly, and the field-pieces
roared innocently past his ears.

"The boys" usually came with throngs of citizens to see the "sham
fights." They would range themselves on a slope of hills, as near as
possible to the "battlefield," and often above the bellowing guns, above
the colonel's command, above his own shrill bugle calls, Billy could
hear Bert Hooper and Tommy McLean egging him on, sometimes with jeers,
sometimes with admiration, telling him to "Look up plucky now, Billy,
and don't stop your ears with your fingers!" He used to be astonished
at himself that he cared so little whether they teased or cheered. He
seemed to care for nothing in all the world but the Colonel's voice
and his bugle.

Then the day came when he knew there was something greater than the
colonel to be obeyed, something dearer than his bugle to be proud of.
For many weeks the newspapers had teemed with little else but news of
the South African War. Nothing was talked of in all Canada, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, but the battles, the hardships, the
privations, of the gallant British regiments in the far-off enemy's
country. Then came the cry, wrung from England's heart to her colonies,
"Come over and help us!"

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, sprang to their feet like obedient
children, ready and anxious to fight and die for their mother at her
first call.

Billy and his father faced each other--one was sixteen, the other forty.
They did not stand looking at each other as father and son, but as man
and man.

"Billy," said his father, "you don't remember your mother; s