Col. Bob, who evidently enjoyed the little affair, got even with us. The next day we were out drilling as usual, and when deploying in full extended order, were instructed by Col. Denison to lie down. It was no bed of roses we dropped on, but—well, I never saw so many thistles in all my life, nor ever felt so many. In fact our uniforms were more thistles than clothing, and the gallant Colonel chuckled, as he saw us picking the prickles from every conceivable part of our persons. Previous to this, on our way to the front, a sergeant’s guard of us were billeted in Toronto at Mike Murphy’s joint—Mike being the Fenian head centre. Well, we bully-ragged that place all night, and had a very frugal breakfast, the chief part of which consisted of playing ball with ill smelling salt-herring and in our throwing boiled potatoes up and trying to catch them in our cups of alleged coffee. Mike had passed the word around, and a menacing gang of big dock wallopers gathered at the door, but we marched steadily, with rifles in one hand our heavy buckled belts in the other, and no attempt was made to interfere with us, but their pointed remarks were just what you would imagine they might be. Then we were sent to the Bay Tree (after the Tremont) and when my bed-mate discovered some apple sauce on the sheets, we marked it with a lead-pencil and recognized it at dinner next day. Such are the horrors of war. The Riel Rebellion When the Metis rebellion broke out in 1885, Ned Farrer, then editor of the Toronto _Mail_, wired me at Winnipeg, to secure a man to represent his paper at the front. My efforts were unavailing and I dropped into the telegraph office to send him a message to that effect, when who should walk in but Davis, of the Toronto _Globe_, who told me he was getting a team of horses and a buckboard and the Lord only knows what else, and intended joining the troops at Qu’Appelle. There was nothing private about the conversation, and I wired his programme to Ned. Quickly came back the characteristic reply: “Go thou and do likewise.”