ning
my regiment; your brother has enlisted; your sister has gone to the Red
Cross. We have given our house to the Government for a hospital. Come
home and join up.' What a man he must be! The dear boy came to see us
and, Larry, he wanted me. Oh, I wish I could have said yes, but somehow
I couldn't. Dear boy, I could only kiss him and weep over him till he
forgot himself in trying to comfort me. He went with the Calgary boys.
Hec Ross is off, too; and Angus Fraser is up and down the country with
kilt and pipes driving Scotchmen mad to be at the war. He's going, too,
although what his old mother will do without him I do not know. But she
will hear of nothing less. Only four weeks of this war and it seems like
a year. Switzer has gone, you know, the wicked devil. If it had not been
for Sam, who had been working around the mine, the whole thing would
have been blown up with dynamite. Sam discovered the thing in time. The
Germans have all quit work. Thank God for that. So the mine is not
doing much. Mother is worried about the war, I can see, thinking things
through."

A letter from Jane helped him some. It was very unlike Jane and
evidently written under the stress of strong emotion. She gave him full
notes of the Reverend Andrew McPherson's sermons, which she appeared
to set great store by. The rapid progress of recruiting filled her with
delight. It grieved her to think that her friends were going to the
war, but that grief was as nothing compared to the grief and indignation
against those who seemed to treat the war lightly. She gave a page of
enthusiastic appreciation to Kellerman. Another page she devoted to
an unsuccessful attempt to repress her furious contempt for Lloyd
Rushbrooke, who talked largely and coolly about the need of keeping
sane. The ranks of the first contingent were all filled up. She knew
there were two million Canadians in the United States who if they were
needed would flock back home. They were not needed yet, and so it would
be very foolish for them to leave good positions in the meantime.

Larry read the last sentence with a smile. "Dear old Jane," he said to
himself. "She wants to help me out; and, by George, she does." Somehow
Jane's letter brought healing to his lacerated nerves and heart, and
steadied him to bear the disastrous reports of the steady drive of the
enemy towards Paris that were released by the censor during the last
days of that dreadful August. With each day of that appallin