He parted his white moustache, bent over, pressed a kiss upon his grandson's forehead, swung him about to face the door, and watched his form as he retreated. When he turned again he found his friend, Colonel Marshall, standing at his side.
"I have just bidden farewell," he said proudly, "to my grandson, Master Penfield Butler, who is leaving on the next train for Canada where he will go into training with the American Legion, and eventually fight under the Union Jack, on the war-scarred fields of France."
"He is a brave and patriotic boy," replied Colonel Marshall.
"It is in his blood and breeding, sir. No Butler of my line was ever yet a coward, or ever failed to respond to a patriotic call."
And as for Pen, midnight found him speeding northward with a heart more full and grateful, and a purpose more splendidly fixed, than his life had ever before known.
CHAPTER XI
It was late in the day following his departure from New York that Pen reached his destination in Canada. In a certain suburban town not far from Toronto he found a great training camp. It was here that selected units of the new Dominion armies received their military instruction prior to being sent abroad. It was here also that many of the young men from the States, desirous of fighting under the Union Jack, came to enlist with the Canadian troops and to receive their first lessons in the science of warfare. Canada was stirred as she had never been stirred before in all her history. Her troops already at the front had received their first great baptism of fire at Langemarck. They had fought desperately, they had won splendidly, but their losses had been appalling. So the young men of Canada, eager to avenge the slaughter of their countrymen, were hastening to fill the depleted ranks, and the young men from the States were proud to bear them company.
But life in the training camps was no holiday. It was hard, steady, strenuous business, carried on under the most rigid form of discipline. Yet the men were well clothed, well fed, had comfortable quarters, enjoyed regular periods of recreation, and were content with their lot, save that their eagerness to complete their training and get to the firing line inevitably manifested itself in expressions of impatience.
To get up at 5:30 in the morning and drill for an hour before breakfast was no great task, nor two successive hours of fighting with tipped bayonets, nor throwing of real bombs and hand-grenades, nor was the back-breaking digging of trenches, nor the exhaustion from long marches, if only by such experiences they could fit themselves eventually to fight their enemy not only with courage but also with that skill and efficiency which counts for so much in modern warfare.