Guelph has two Volunteer Artillery companies, one filled with students from the college, and one with town boys, four guns to each battery. I joined the college battery, and after a couple of months of steady drill in Guelph we were taken out to camp at Niagara, on the lake near the falls. There were five or six other batteries there also, some cavalry, and some infantry. One day while standing listening to the band I got into conversation with an artilleryman from Welland, and after some talk found, to my astonishment, that he had been a room-mate of mine at Westward Ho. Since then I have met two or three other boys from the old school. It was wonderful how quickly they licked us into shape, for the Canadian lads are, like the Americans of the south and west, natural soldiers, being bright, intelligent, anxious to learn, and able to stand considerable hardship—as was proven in the Riel rebellion, and also, I think, in Africa, where some of my old Guelph friends went. That the college turned out good men is proved in the person of the president. He had worked his way through college practically without assistance from his people, took his degree at the head of his class, and with it a professorship in the Mississippi Agricultural College. Then, after various other positions, he was selected as president of his former college on the retirement of our old head. I would advise no young English lad to go to the college until he has worked at least a year or two on some Canadian farm to get the practical knowledge necessary to really get the good out of his college course. He should also have the rudiments of a good general education. Here I might mention that the college did not teach spelling; in this country it is not thought as much of as in England, and nearly all Americans are bad spellers. For instance, the business man who, on reading about Roosevelt’s spelling reform, said that he could not see anything new about it, as that was the way he had spelled all his life! If here and in other places I seem to roast Americans, they must not be offended, as it is meant in all good nature; and they must also remember that I have been roasted by them for the past sixteen years, and this is the first time I have had a chance to get back at them without giving them a chance to answer me. CHAPTER II Calgary—A Cow-puncher—"Roping"—Life on a Ranch—A Calgary Hail-storm—“Gun-plays” and "Bad-men"—Sarci Indians.