In 1914 Boyle was forty-seven years old and in the prime of his vigour. Moreover, he had just won a million dollars in a suit against the Guggenheims and so had plenty of cash for any adventure. He organized a machine gun battery of fifty gunners, picked men of the Yukon, and offered them to the Allied armies. To his great distress, his battery was broken up and scattered through the forces. He went to London and from there was sent into Russia to help in keeping transportation open. On one occasion he reported to the chairman of the Soldiers’ Committee, who was inclined to be nasty. “Were you sent here because you were the best man they could find on the Western Front?” he demanded of Boyle. “Possibly so,” was the reply. “And now, you answer me this. Are you the best man on your committee?” “I am,” answered the chairman, expanding his chest. “Very well, I will meet you man to man,” said Boyle, as he unbuttoned his coat and doubled his fists. He had no more trouble with that chairman. [Illustration: Starting with a capital of fifty cents, Joe Boyle made a fortune by gleaning gold from abandoned workings. Then he gave up mining to go to war and became almost as famous in Eastern Europe as in the Klondike.] [Illustration: To get the water for washing down the gold-bearing gravel of the Klondike hills, millions of dollars were spent in building ditches, flumes, and pipes from the Tombstone Mountains, seventy miles away.] When Russia gave up, Colonel Boyle went over into Rumania, where he became a national hero. He undertook all sorts of dangerous and important missions. For instance, when the Bolsheviki were beginning to get the upper hand, he offered to go to Moscow to bring back the national treasure of Rumania, which had been sent there for safe keeping. He got into Moscow, loaded millions of dollars’ worth of bank notes and securities on a special train, and started back. On the way the engineer of the train deserted, leaving his boilers without water or fuel. Boyle and his helpers carried water in buckets from the nearest station and cut wood for the fire. Though he had never driven a locomotive before, Boyle climbed into the cab and got the train and its treasure across the border. Later he turned the Russian Black Sea fleet pro-Ally, arranged peace terms between Rumania and the Bolsheviki, and saved sixty Rumanian deputies from banishment to Sebastopol. After the Armistice he was commissioned to superintend the distribution of the food and supplies bought for the country with the Canadian credit of twenty-five million dollars. Then he became interested, with the Royal Dutch Shell Transport Company, in oil concessions in Caucasia.