and one arm through the roll and he is ready to move on.
A hotter method of carrying a blanket could scarcely be devised, but it
is much preferable to the antique leather equipment that hangs year in
and year out on the armoury walls.

Presently the column moves off along the dusty road, a mere trail
winding through the brush, which, pleasant and green at first, soon is
as drab and sordid as the weltering men along the road. Now and again a
halt is ordered, and we throw ourselves on the roadside while another
battalion passes through to take its turn at the head of the column.
Some artillery waggons pass at the trot, raising clouds of dust and
profanity along the line, and then the piping of a whistle starts the
whole column moving again.

Chalk River is eventually reached and the bivouac formed; then the
joyful shout of "Tea up" is heard. Several buglers at the same time play
the "Men's Mess Call" with variations, and for a while contentment
reigns.

The officers stroll around to the Y.M.C.A. tent and write postcards
home, telling blithely how they are enjoying the lovely weather--not a
cloud in the sky! They mention nothing of the blistered necks and
sunburned noses from which the skin is already peeling. Begbie Lyte,
with a shameless disregard for the truth, buys a postcard of a typical
bunch of troops passing up that very same road, and selecting a figure
well concealed by dust, marks an X over it, and inscribing "This is me"
on the reverse side addresses it to the colonel's daughter.

The cool of the evening soon drives the noisy bathers from the river,
and the camp settles down around the inevitable camp fires until the
warning notes of "Last Post" and "Lights Out" sound.

The moon comes out and shines on long rows of blanketted forms and
stacked rifles, and the only sound is the uneasy stir of the horses and
tossing of an occasional man where the sand flea is already at work.

Such is a typical day at Petewawa.

CHAPTER III

MOBILISATION

It required the outbreak of the war to bring home the inevitable
weakness of such a system, and when the Canadian Parliament announced
the intention of sending a contingent of thirty thousand men, even the
most enthusiastic shrugged their shoulders and said "Impossible."

But the feat not only was accomplished, but nearly trebled in the
accomplishment, and if there is one man who can claim to have arisen as
a Moses from among the people and achieved this mira