trol; but occasionally we met
a party marching in something like military formation, led by an
officer, grave with responsibility. One company, I remember, got in
our way and for a long time could not get out of it. Their officer had
been drilling them carefully and they were all most anxious to obey
his orders. The difficulty was that he could not recollect at the
moment what orders he ought to give to get them out of our way. He
halted them to begin with. Then in firm tones, he commanded a
half-right turn and a quick march. We had to back our car to avoid
collision with the middle part of the column. Their officer halted
them again. We offered to go back and take another route to our hotel;
but the officer would not hear of this. He told his men to stand at
ease while he consulted a handbook on military evolutions. In the end
he gave the problem up.

"Get out of the way, will you," he said, "and form up again when the
car is past."

This was unconventional, but quite effective. The men--and it is to
their credit that not one of them smiled--broke their formation,
scattered to right and left and reformed after we had passed. This
took place in a narrow side street in which there was very little
traffic. I recognized the wisdom of the officer in choosing such a
place for his manoeuvres.

In the main streets the business of the town seemed to be going on
very much as usual. It was Saturday afternoon. Shops and offices were
closing. Young men and girls passed out of them and thronged the trams
which were leaving the centre of the city. They took very little
notice of the soldiers or the police. In the poorer streets women with
baskets on their arms were doing their weekly shopping at the stalls
of small butchers and greengrocers. Groups of factory girls marched
along with linked arms, enjoying their outing, unaffected apparently
by the unusual condition of their streets. The newspaper boys did a
roaring trade, shrieking promises of sensational news to be found in
the pages of the _Telegraph_ and _Echo_.

Marion became intensely excited.

"Doesn't it look just as if the town had been captured by an enemy,"
she said, "after a long siege?"

"It hasn't been captured yet," said Bob.

I have often tried to understand how it was that Bob Power came to
take the active part he did in the fighting which followed, and how he
came to be in command of a body of volunteers. He had not, so far as I
know, any actual hatred of t