"Well," said old Bill, "I know what war is ... I've been through it with
the Boers, and here's one chicken they'll not catch to go through this
one."

Ken Mitchell stirred his cup of tea thoughtfully. "If I was old enough,
boys," said he, "I'd go. Look at young Gordon McLellan; he's only seventeen
and he's enlisted."

That got me. It was then that I made up my mind I was going whether it
lasted three months, as they said it would, or five years, as I thought it
would, knowing a little bit of the geography and history of the country we
were up against.

We were all sitting round the supper table at Mrs. Harrison's in Syndicate
Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta. War had been declared ten days before, and there
had been a call for twelve hundred men from our city. Six hundred were
already with the colors.

Now, to throw up a nice prosperous business and take a chance at something
you're not sure of getting into after all, is some risk, and quite an
undertaking as well. But I had lived at the McLellens' for years and knew
young Gordon and his affairs so well that I thought if he could tackle it,
there was no reason why I shouldn't.

"Well, Bill, I'm game to go, if you will," I said. Bill had just declared
his intention rather positively, so I was a bit surprised when he replied
in his old familiar drawl: