and during a ten-minutes' interview with Vivia he did not say more than a dozen words.

On the 4th of November Peter read in the Fredericton Harvester that recruiting had begun in the city of St. John for the 26th Infantry Battalion, a newly authorized unit for overseas service. The family circle at Beaver Dam sat up late that night. Peter talked excitedly, and the others listened in silence. Dick's eyes shone in the lamplight.

Peter drove over to Stanley early the next morning and there took the train to Fredericton, and from Fredericton to St. John. He felt no military thrill. Loneliness and homesickness weighed on him already—loneliness for his people, for the wide home kitchen and bright sitting-room, for his own fields.

He reached the big city by the sea after dark. The traffic of the hard streets, the foggy lights and the heedless, hurrying crowds of people added bewilderment to his loneliness. With his baggage at his feet, he stood in the station and gazed miserably around.

Peter Starkley did not stand there unnoticed. Dozens of the people who pushed past him eyed him with interest and wondered what he was waiting for. He was so evidently not of the city. He looked at once rustic and distinguished. But no one spoke to him until a sergeant in a khaki service uniform caught sight of him.

"I can't make you out," said the sergeant, stepping up to him.

"'I CAN'T MAKE YOU OUT,' SAID THE SERGEANT."

"I can place you," he said. "You're a sergeant."

"Right," returned the other. "And you're from the country. Your big felt hat tells me so—and your tanned face. But I can see that you're a person of some importance where you come from."

Peter blushed. "I am a farmer and a trooper in the 8th Hussars, and I have come here to enlist for overseas with the new infantry battalion," he said.

"That's what I hoped!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Come along with me, lad. You are for the 26th Canadian Overseas Infantry Battalion."

The sergeant, whose name was Hammer, was a cheery, friendly fellow. He was also a very keen soldier and entertained a high opinion of the military qualities of the new battalion. On reaching the armory of the local militia regiment, now being used as headquarters of the new unit, Hammer led Peter straight to the medical officer. The doctor found nothing the matter with the recruit from Beaver Dam. Then Hammer paraded him before the adjutant. Peter answered a few questions, took a solemn oath and signed a paper.

"Now you're a soldier, a regular soldier," said the sergeant and slapped him on the back. "Come along now, and in half an hour I'll have you fitted into a uniform as trim as my own."

Within a month Peter Starkley had distinguished himself as a steady soldier; he had attained to the rank of lance corporal, and then of corporal. His steadiness was largely owing to homesickness. Of his few intimates the closest was Sergt. Hammer.

Jim Hammond did not join the regiment until close upon Christmas. He was found physically fit; and, as a result of a request made by Peter to Hammer and by the sergeant to Lieut. Scammell, and by the lieutenant to the adjutant, he became a member of the same platoon as Peter. Not only that, he became one of Hammer's section, in which Peter was a corporal.

Peter felt that he should like to be good friends with Jim Hammond, but he did not give a definite reason even to himself for that wish. Jim, in his own person, was not attractive to him. Peter felt misgivings when Jim, within two days of donning his uniform, began to grumble about the severity of the training. Three days later Dave Hammer, in his official capacity as a section commander, fell upon Jim Hammond in his official capacity as a private soldier. Reason and justice, as well as authority, were with the sergeant. Jim came to Peter that evening.

"Look a-here, who does Dave Hammer think he is, anyhow?" he asked.

"I guess he knows who he is," replied Peter.

"Well, whoever he is," Hammond declared wrathfully, "I won't be bawled out by him. I guess I'm as good a man as he is—and better."

"You'll have lots of chances, from now on, to show how good a man you are. Acting as you did on the route march this afternoon doesn't show it."

Hammond's face darkened.

"Is that so?" he retorted. "Well, I'll tell you now I didn't come soldiering to be taught my business by you or any other bushwhacker from Beaver Dam. You got two stripes, I see. I'd have two stars if I took to licking people's boots the way you do, Peter Starkley."

Peter bent forward, and his lean face hardened, and his dark eyes glinted coldly.

"I don't want to have trouble with you, Jim," he said, and his voice was no more than a whisper, "but it will happen if you don't look out. I don't lick any man's boots! If I hear another word like that out of you, I'll lick something—and that will be you! Do you get me?"

He looked dangerous. Hammond tried to glare him down, but failed. Hammond's own eyes wavered. He grunted and turned away. The next morning he applied for a Christmas pass, which was refused on the ground that the men who had joined first should be the first to receive passes. He felt thoroughly ill-used.

CHAPTER II
JIM HAMMOND DOES NOT RETURN TO DUTY

PETER STARKLEY got home to Beaver Dam for New Year's Day on a six days' pass. Jim Hammond had also tried to get a pass, but he had failed. Peter found his homesickness increased by those six days; but he made every effort to hide his emotions. He talked bravely of his duties and his comrades, and especially of Dave Hammer. He said nothing about Jim Hammond except when questioned, and then as little as possible.

He polished his buttons and badges every morning and rolled his putties as if for parade. The smartness of his carriage gave a distinction even to the unlovely khaki service uniform of a British noncommissioned officer. He looked like a guardsman and felt like a schoolboy who dreaded the approaching term. He haunted the barns and stables of the home farm and of his own place and tramped the snow-laden woods and blanketed fields. In spite of his efforts to think only of the harsh and foreign task before him, he dreamed of clearings here and crops there. The keen, kindly eyes of his parents saw through to his heart.

One day of the six he spent in the village of Stanley. He called first at Hammond's store, where he tried to give Mr. Hammond the impression that he had dropped in casually, but as he had nothing to sell and did not wish to buy anything he failed to hoodwink the storekeeper. Mr. Hammond was cordial, but seemed worried.

He complimented Peter on his promotion and his soldierly appearance.