come
away. But he knew he could not obey, and he stood silent saying no
word of the tumult it raised in his heart.

The next day the news that the drum had sent over the hills came to
Orchard Glen. England was in the war and she would in all probability
call for a Canadian contingent. Indeed Algonquin had not waited to
know, but was going to offer one herself whether the rest of Canada was
loyal or not. And on the very day that Britain entered the Great War,
this little obscure town, set far away north in a ring of forest and
lake, was calling her sons to go over seas and help the Mother Land.
And it was the sound of her drums that had penetrated to the hills of
Orchard Glen and had set Gavin Grant's heart throbbing in time to its
beat.

Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had gone into town that morning with her milk as
usual, and on her return she went out to the hay field to see if her
two underlings had been attending to business in her absence. Marthy
and Trooper Tom were good friends and they were not working so hard
that they were unable to have a little friendly chat. The Woman bore
down upon them.

"Well, if ever there was a time when there should be no hangin' round
an' palaverin' that time is jist right now," she declared. "What d'ye
think's the latest?"

The two men looked at her, Marthy undisturbed, Trooper alert and eager.

"England's into the war, that's what! Yes, sir, and Sam Holmes didn't
keep her out of it neither. And they were enlistin' fellows in
Algonquin last night, an' they say that Burke Wright--For the love o'
goodness, has the boy gone clean off his head?"

"Sufferin' Moses!" cried Marthy, standing with his fork suspended.

For Trooper had turned his face to the heavens and uttered the
ear-splitting war whoop that he had learned on the prairies. He threw
his fork up into the air so that it turned a complete somersault, and
came down and stuck neatly in the coil of hay, gave another whoop, and
was off to the barn in wild leaps.

The two stood staring after him. "He didn't get into a bees' nest did
he?" asked Marthy looking around in bewilderment. The Woman threw up
her hands in sudden enlightment.

"I'll bet--I'll bet he's off!" she gasped. "He's off to the war an'
the hayin's hardly over, an' the harvest jist comin' on! If that don't
beat----"

But Trooper gave not a thought to either haying or harvest. He was in
frantic haste lest he be too late for that fortunate band of recruits