mockingly.

"And gives their ration of rum to Paddy," he added. "Go along, man,
and set your kettles to boiling, while you return thanks that you
know a good thing when you see it."

"Paddy is a great boy," Carew observed, as the little Irishman
saluted them in farewell, then turned and strolled away in the
direction of his quarters.

"And, what's more, a most outrageously good cook," Weldon assented.
"If Paddy's ambition to shoot a gun should ever be fulfilled,
England might gain a soldier; but it would lose a chef of the cordon
bleu."

"If I were to choose, I'd sacrifice his sense of taste for the sake
of keeping his sense of humor," Carew returned. "Not even war can
subdue Paddy."

With a disdainful gesture, Weldon pointed out across the sun-baked
parade ground with the stem of his pipe.

"War! This?" he protested. "It is nothing in this world but a Sunday
school picnic."

And Carew, as his eyes followed the pointing pipe-stem, was forced
to give his assent.

It was now five days since, with scores of their mates, Weldon and
Carew had been passed from their medical examination to the double
test of their riding and their shooting. Elated by their threefold
recommendation, they had lost no time in donning their khaki and
taking up their quarters under the fraction of canvas allotted to
them. The days that followed were busy and slid past with a certain
monotony, notwithstanding their varied routine. From morning stables
at seven until evening stables at six, each hour held its duty, for
in that regular, clock-marked life, recreation was counted a duty
just as surely as were the daily drills.

Carew, trained on the football field, took to the foot drill as a
duck takes to water. Weldon was in his glory on mounted parade. One
summer spent on an Alberta ranch had taught him the tricks of the
broncho-buster, and five o'clock invariably found him pirouetting
across the parade ground on the back of the most vicious mount to be
found within the limits of Maitland. More than once there had been a
breathless pause while the entire squadron had waited to watch the
killing of Trooper Weldon; more than once there had been an utterly
profane pause while the officers had waited for Trooper Weldon to
bring his bolting steed back into some semblance of alignment. The
pause always ended with Weldon upright in his saddle, his face
beaming with jovial smiles and his horse ranged up with mathematical
precision. The delays