The men stood watching his face, curiously twisted and quivering. Then without a word Duff seized his pack, and swung into the trail, every man following him in his order. Without pausing, except for a brief half hour at noon, and another later in the day for eating, they pressed the trail, running what rapids they could and portaging the others, until in the early evening they saw, far away, a dirty blur on the skyline.

"Hurrah!" yelled Fielding. "Good old firebus, waiting for us."

"Somebody run ahead and hold her," said Duff.

Barry flung his pack down and started away.

"Come back here, Barry," cried Knight. "You're not fit. You're all in."

"That's right, too," said McCuaig. "I guess I'll go."

And off he set with the long, shuffling, tireless trot with which, for a hundred years, the "runners of the woods" have packed their loads and tracked their game in the wilds of northwestern Canada.

CHAPTER VII

BARRICADES AND BAYONETS

The city of Edmonton was in an uproar, its streets thronged with excited men, ranchers and cowboys from the ranches, lumberjacks from the foothill camps, men from the mines, trappers with lean, hard faces, in weird garb, from the north.

The news from the front was ominous. Belgium was a smoking waste. Her skies were black with the burning of her towns, villages and homesteads, her soil red with the blood of her old men, her women and children. The French armies, driven back in rout from the Belgian frontier, were being pounded to death by the German hordes. Fortresses hitherto considered impregnable were tumbling like ninepins before the terrible smashing of Austrian and German sixteen-inch guns. Already von Kluck with his four hundred thousand of conquering warriors was at the gates of Paris.

Most ominous of all, the British army, that gallant, little sacrificial army, of a scant seventy-five thousand men, holding like a bulldog to the flank of von Bulow's mighty army, fifty times as strong, threatened by von Kluck on the left flank and by von Housen on the right, was slowing down the German advance, but was itself being slowly ground into the bloody dust of the northern and eastern roads of Northern and Eastern France.

Black days these were for the men of British blood. Was the world to see something new in war? Were Germans to overcome men of the race of Nelson, and Wellington and Colin Campbell?

At home, hundreds of thousands were battering at the recruiting offices.

In the Dominions of the Empire overseas it was the same. In Canada a hundred thousand men were demanding a place in the first Canadian contingent of thirty-five thousand, now almost ready to sail. General Sam at Ottawa was being snowed under by entreating, insistent, cajoling, threatening telegrams. Already northern Alberta had sent two thousand men. The rumour in Edmonton ran that there were only a few places left to be filled in the north Alberta quota. For these few places hundreds of men were fighting in the streets.

Alighting from their train, Duff and his men stood amazed, aghast, gazing upon the scene before them. Duff climbed a wagon wheel and surveyed the crowd packing the street in front of the bulletin boards.

"No use, this way, boys. We'll have to go around. Come on."

They went on. Up side streets and lanes, through back yards and shops they went until at length they emerged within a hundred yards of the recruiting office.

Duff called his men about him.

"Boys, we'll have to bluff them," he said. "You're a party of recruits that Col. Kavanagh expects. You've been sent for. I'm bringing you in under orders. Look as much like soldiers as you can, and bore in like hell. Come on!"

They began to bore. At once there was an uproar, punctuated with vociferous and varied profanity.

Duff proved himself an effective leader.

"Here, let me pass," he shouted into the backs of men's heads. "I'm on duty here. I must get through to Colonel Kavanagh. Keep up there, men; keep your line! Stand back, please! Make way!"

His huge bulk, distorted face and his loud and authoritative voice startled men into temporary submission, and before they could recover themselves he and his little company of hard-boring men were through.

Twenty-five yards from the recruiting office a side rush of the crowd caught them.

"They've smashed the barricades," a boy from a telegraph pole called out.

Duff and his men fought to hold their places, but they became conscious of a steady pressure backwards.

"What's doing now, boy?" shouted Duff to the urchin clinging to the telegraph pole.

"The fusileers--they are sticking their bayonets into them."

Before the line of bayonets the crowd retreated slowly, but Duff and his company held their ground, allowing the crowd to ebb past them, until they found themselves against the line of bayonets.

"Let me through here, sergeant, with my party," said Duff. "I'm under orders of Colonel Kavanagh."

The sergeant, an old British army man, looked them over.

"Have you an order, sir--a written order, I mean?"

"No," said Duff. "I haven't, but the colonel expects us. He is waiting for me now."

"Sorry, sir," replied the sergeant, "my orders are to let no one through without a written pass."

Duff argued, stormed, threatened, swore; but to no purpose. The N. C. O.

knew his job.

"Send a note in," suggested Barry in Duff's ear.

"Good idea," replied Duff, and wrote hurriedly.

"Here, take this through to your colonel," he said, passing the note to the sergeant.

Almost immediately Colonel Kavanagh came out and greeted Duff warmly.

"Where in this wide creation have you been, Duff?" he exclaimed. "I've wanted you terribly."

"Here I am now, then," answered Duff. "Six of us. We're going with you."

"It can't be done," said the colonel. "I have only twenty places left; every one promised ten times over."

"That makes it easy, Kavanagh. You can give six of them to us."

"Duff, it simply can't be done. You know I'd give it to you if I could. I've wires from Ottawa backing up a hundred applicants, actually ordering me to put them on. No! It's no use," continued the colonel, holding up his hand. "Look here, I'll give you a pointer. We have got word to-day that there's to be a second contingent. Neil Fraser is out there in your district, Wapiti, raising a company of two hundred and fifty men. We have stripped that country bare already, so he's up against it. He wants Wapiti men, he says. They are no better than any other, but he thinks they are. You get out there to-night, Duff, and get in on that thing. You will get a commission, too. Now hike! Hike! Go!

Honest to God, Duff, I want you with my battalion, and if I can work it afterwards, I'll get you exchanged, but your only chance now is Wapiti.

Go, for God's sake, go quick!"

"What do you say, boys?" asked Duff, wheeling upon his men.

"I say, go!" said Knight.

In this decision they all agreed.