big bullying Austria to-day. But run down now; hurry, hurry; the launch
will be ready in a few minutes, and if you are not ready you know Daddy
won't wait."

But they were ready and with the round dozen, which with the visitors
constituted the Murray household at their island home, they filled the
launch, Jim at the wheel. It was a glorious Sunday morning and the whole
world breathed peace. Through the mazes of the channels among the
wooded islands the launch made its way, across open traverse, down long
waterways like rivers between high, wooded banks, through cuts and gaps,
where the waters boiled and foamed, they ran, for the most part drinking
in silently the exquisite and varied beauty of lake and sky and woods.
Silent they were but for the quiet talk and cheery laughter of the
younger portion of the company, until they neared the little town,
when the silence that hung over the lake and woods was invaded by other
launches outbound and in. The Kenora docks were crowded with rowboats,
sailboats, canoes and launches of all sorts and sizes, so that it took
some steering skill on Jim's part to land them at the dock without
bumping either themselves or any one else.

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Isabel, whose sharp eyes were darting everywhere.
"There's the Rushbrooke's lovely new launch. Isn't it beautiful!"

"Huh!" shouted Helen. "It is not half as pretty as ours."

"Oh, hush, Helen," said the scandalised Isabel. "It is lovely, isnt it,
Jane? And there is Lloyd Rushbrooke. I think he's lovely, too. And who
is that with him, Jane--that pretty girl? Oh, isn't she pretty?"

"That's Helen Brookes," said Jane in a low voice.

"Oh, isn't she lovely!" exclaimed Isabel.

"Lovely bunch, Isabel," said Jim with a grin.

"I don't care, they are," insisted Isabel. "And there is Mr. McPherson,
Jane," she added, her sharp eyes catching sight of their Winnipeg
minister through the crowd. "He's coming this way. What are the people
all waiting for, Jane?"

The Reverend Andrew McPherson was a tall, slight, dark man, straight but
for the student's stoop of his shoulders, and with a strikingly Highland
Scotch cast of countenance, high cheek bones, keen blue eyes set deep
below a wide forehead, long jaw that clamped firm lips together. He came
straight to where Mr. Murray and Dr. Brown were standing.

"I have just received from a friend in Winnipeg the most terrible news,"
he said in a low voice. "Germany has declared war on Russia and