Whitney's face was tense, though his interest in the matter could hardly be personal. There was something that stirred the imagination in the sight of the intent, quiet throng that awaited the result of a crisis not of their making. They had had no say in the quarrel that began far off in the obscure East; but one could not doubt that they meant to make it their own. Their stern gravity caused Andrew a half-conscious thrill of pride.

After all, they sprang from British stock and he knew what kind of men they were. He had seen the miles of wheat that covered the broken, prairie waste, cities that rose as if by magic in a few months' time, and railroads flung across quaking muskegs and driven through towering rocks, at a speed unthought of in the mother country. He had heard the freight-trains roaring through the great desolation between the Ottawa and the Western plains, where no traffic would ever be found, and had wondered at the optimism which, in spite of tremendous obstacles, had built eight hundred miles of track to link the St. Lawrence to the rich land beyond. These Canadians were hard men who tempered with cool judgment a vast energy and enthusiasm, and the mother country's foes would have to reckon with them.

There was a strange, dead silence, as the board was replaced and the bold black letters stood out in the lamplight. So far as Andrew could afterward remember, the bulletin read:

War inevitable. England must keep her word!

Kaiser's armies marching. British fleet sails with sealed orders.

A few cablegrams followed, and when they were read a deep murmur rose from the crowd; but there was no strong excitement. These were not the men to indulge in emotional sentiment; their attitude indicated relief from suspense, and steady resolve. Perhaps it was characteristic that the man who had stopped the car waved his hand to the driver.

"Now you may go ahead," he said.

Breaking into groups, they began to talk, and Andrew caught snatches of their conversation.

"A big thing, but we're going to put it through," said one. "If you hadn't fired out Laurier, we'd have been rushing our own fleet across the ocean now."

"Well," his neighbor replied, "we've got the boys. We want to call a city meeting right off. Manitoba can't be left behind."

"Manitoba's all right!" another declared. "We'll send them all the flour they want, besides men who can ride and shoot. They'll put the Maple Leaf right up to the front. But we want to hustle before Regina and Calgary get a start on us."

The man turned to a companion and the two moved off. They were followed by other groups, and as one passed, Andrew heard an exultant voice.

"I tell you what happen. Vive la belle alliance!"

Whitney and Andrew crossed the emptying street and walked toward the station. "I guess you noticed they didn't talk about the Old Country's program," Whitney remarked. "It's what Manitoba and the West are going to do that interests them. My notion is that it will be something big."

"One feels that," Andrew agreed. "Somehow, it's stirring."

"And it's contagious. When they hoist the flag you'll see some of the boys from our side riding across the frontier to the rally."

"You're bound to keep neutral," Andrew objected.

"Officially, yes. But when a man can drop a flying crane with the rifle and bust a wild range horse, they won't ask if he was born in Montana or Saskatchewan."

They walked up Main Street and it was obvious that the news had spread, for talking men blocked the sidewalk here and there, and the wide windows of the hotels were full. When they reached the station, Whitney went off to check their baggage, and Andrew sat down, rather disconsolately, in the great waiting-room. The damp weather had affected his knee, and he frowned as he stretched it out, for his aches reminded him painfully of his disadvantages. While he sat there, a summer-evening train from Winnipeg Beach arrived and a stream of smartly-dressed excursionists passed through the hall breaking off to ask for the latest news. Their keen interest was significant, and Andrew felt downcast. Canada approved the Old Country's action and meant to do her part; but he was useless, nobody wanted him.

Moodily lighting a cigarette, he recalled his youthful ambitions, for he had meant to follow where his ancestors had led. It was not for nothing that their crest was the flying spur, and their traditions had fired him to the study of difficult sciences, which he had mastered by dogged determination rather than cleverness. His heart was in his work; he meant to make a good horse-artilleryman; and he had thrilled with keen satisfaction when the examiners placed him near the top of the list. Then came the momentous day in Ennerdale that altered everything. Six months after the accident he had resigned his commission, knowing that he would never walk quite straight again.

Well, all that was done with; but now, when Britons everywhere were springing to arms, he was good for nothing. He reflected gloomily that he might as well stay in Canada. Yet, if he were in England, there was a chance that something might turn up for him to do.

Besides, there was little Elsie. . . .

Whitney came swinging across the marble floor of the waiting-room just as an official at the door announced that their train was ready to start.

CHAPTER III
THE SOLWAY SHORE

There was a light wind from the westward, and the flood tide, running east, smoothed the sea to a faintly wrinkled heave, when the Rowan crept across Wigtown Bay on the southern coast of Scotland. Andrew lounged at the tiller while Whitney sat in the cockpit, holding a tray on which were laid out a pot of smoke-tainted tea, several thick slices of bread, sardines, and marmalade.

Whitney wore a woolen sweater—which had been white a few days before but now was a dingy gray—new blue trousers, already streaked with rust, and an expensive yachting cap which had got badly crushed. His hands were not immaculate, and there was a soot-smear on his face.

"This kind of yachting's not quite what I've been used to," he remarked. "On Long Island Sound you don't get the sea we ran into coming round the head last night; and when we went cruising in small craft we always hired somebody to do the dirty work."

"There's not much room for a paid hand on board the Rowan," Andrew replied hesitatingly. "Still, if you'd like—"

"You don't want a man."

"He would be rather in the way, and I don't know what he'd find to do, except the cooking."

"And hauling the dinghy up a muddy beach, taking out the kedge on a stormy night, and pulling twenty fathoms of heavy chain about when you shift your moorings! I could think of a few other trifles if I tried; but I won't insist. It looks as if I were going to get some muscle up."

Whitney thought his companion had a private reason for dispensing with a paid hand; and an extra man was certainly not needed for open-water navigation, for Andrew had shown himself quite capable of sailing the Rowan alone. After searching the Glasgow yacht-agents' registers for a boat of sufficiently light draught, they had bought the Rowan at an Ayrshire port; and Whitney got a surprise when his partner drove her through the furious tide-race that swirls around the Mull of Galloway, in a strong breeze of wind. He had confidence in the little yacht after that. She was thirty-two feet long, low in the water, and broad of beam, but her mast was short and her canvas snug: Whitney knew the disadvantages of a long heavy boom. Her deck was