hour a week, when they're eight; company-drill when they're ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between ten and twelve they get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle at twelve and record their first target-score at thirteen. That's what the Code lays down. But it's worked very loosely so long as a boy comes up to the standard of his age.'
'In Canada we don't need your physical drill. We're born fit,' said Pigeon, 'and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your twelve-year-olds.'
'I may as well explain,' said the Boy, 'that the Dove is our "swop" officer. He's an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he's at home. An I.G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or Australian or African Guard Corps. We've had a year of our Dove, an' we shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime, Morten, our "swop" in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When Pij goes we shall swop Kyd, who's next on the roster, for a Cornstalk or a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can't attend First Camp, as we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First Musketry certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and the boys usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they've been to their little private camps and Boys' Fresh Air Camps and public school picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the young drafts all meet—generally at Aldershot in this part of the world. First Camp
