They rowed across the inlet and tied up to the logger's landing. Two men worked on the floating logs, making up a tow. Far in the woods, in a deep valley, they could hear the toot of donkey engines. A train rumbled out on a trestle, dumped five cars of logs with a terrific splash. A clutter of raw, unpainted buildings stood about the shore end of the trestle. "I'll go see if the storekeeper knows what time the steamer's due," Rod said. "May be able to get a newspaper. Funny. So long as we were in there, I never thought about papers. Old habits revive." He walked the trestle ashore, disappeared among the buildings. Presently he came into view again, walking slowly, an opened news sheet in his hands, reading as he stepped from timber to timber. Midway, still two hundred yards from the float, he sat down on an abutting platform, and remained there, the paper before his face, until the minutes lengthened to half an hour and Mary grew impatient. She left the float. She neared her husband without him giving a sign, so deep was his absorption. He only looked up when she spoke. There was a strange bewilderment on his face, a look of mingled anger and incredulity. "Why, Rod," she exclaimed. "What is it?" He thrust another paper at her. "Read," he said. "The world's gone crazy. There's a war. There's been war in Europe since early August. And we're in it up to our necks. Read." CHAPTER XVII They sat side by side in the autumn sunshine, reading of places drenched with blood,--Liége, Louvain, Charleroi, Mons, Cambrai, Namur. The battle of the Marne was over. The prolonged battle of the Aisne was at its height. Rod had commandeered every paper in the camp. Page by page, column by column, they conned that incredible account, piecing it out by inference, filling the terrible gaps by vivid conjecture. There remained the primal fact that all Europe was in arms, that men perished by thousands daily, that their own countrymen were crossing the seas to fight. "Phil's gone," Rod broke a long silence. "Says so here. He left for Valcartier the other day." He looked out over the inlet's benign face. "He'd do that," he said absently. "They'd give him a command at once. He's trained--went to Kingston." He sat with hands clasped over his knees, silent, absent-eyed. And Mary looked at him with a catch in her throat, filled with intuitive foreboding. Words, of which each had a better command than falls to most, failed them. They sat there wandering in the maze of their own thoughts until the shrill whistle of the approaching steamer woke an echo in the hills. A day and a night on this slow-footed vessel brought them to Vancouver. They passed through the Narrows at dusk, cleared Brockton Point and stood up to the dusky wharves ranged below a vast haze of reflected light. Roof signs twinkled in all the colored extravagance electrical sign experts could devise. Looming high on a square office building stood Grove's heraldry: