The war did the work of a can-opener on many national and individual reputations, and discovered that their accepted labels were misleading. The estimates we had formed of certain nations have materially changed because of the part they took, didn't take, or were slow about taking in this world-crisis. We saw the effect more clearly on individuals. The standing a man had in his community might be taken at its face value in the battalion for a few weeks, but he was soon re-examined, and if necessary, the label changed to be true to contents. This was especially evident overseas when we were away from home and its influences. There is a camouflage possible in civilian life where a man's real self is not known much outside his own home. This camouflage was usually torn aside in the army. We were thrown into such continuous intimate relations with one another in the huts and outside them that there was little chance for any man to travel under false pretences. It wasn't many days before you were sized up physically, mentally, and morally. The O.C., Adjutant, and senior officers were the only ones in a battalion having more privacy and protected by military etiquette who, if they wished, might wear a mask for a time, but not for long. The whole battalion somehow soon got to know pretty much all about them, or thought it knew, and labelled them accordingly.  
Some men with fair reputations in their home town in Canada were found in rare instances to be cads in camp and curs in the line. But to the honor of those of the old British stock, our own Canadian men in particular, the great fear in the hearts of multitudes of them was that they might not be able to do or be all that the highest traditions of race or family expected of them. They came from the comfort of peaceful homes where war had meant only an old, foolish, long-abandoned way of settling international disputes. At the call of brotherhood, they left those quiet homes and came in their hundreds of thousands to the old lands across the sea. There, in training, they were surrounded with strange conditions of life, and when later they went into the line were faced with tasks of incredible difficulty and harshness. Throughout the long years of war they were rarely disconcerted and never dismayed. Most of them were just good, ordinary, Canadian boys, practically untested until now, but in tribulation developing qualities that made them men "whom the King delighted to honor." Labelled, if you like, "plum-and-apple," when opened up they proved to be genuine "strawberry." Faithful comrades, brave soldiers, they played the new game so nobly and well during those weary, homesick, war-cursed years that they won for Canada a name unsurpassed in honor among the nations.
 
It was not so much the grand moment of an attack that revealed character but the strain and monotony of the common round of a soldier's life. It was the pack, the trenches, the mud, the dug-out, and the hut, that showed you up for what you really were. When you got a fruitcake from home did you "hog it" all yourself or share it with your chums in generous chunks? Did you squeeze in near the stove on a cold day no matter who else was shoved away? Did you barely do your routine duty or go further and lend a helping hand? These were the sort of tests in common-place forms that made it impossible to hide your own true self from the other fellows. If you asked me for instances I could fill a page with names from my own acquaintance of young chaps previously untried who proved themselves "gentlemen unafraid."
 
It was a severe test for the young men, but peculiarly hard for those in our volunteer army who were middle-aged. With habits formed and living a settled life at home, they abandoned it cheerfully, and unflinchingly set about accommodating themselves in the most unselfish spirit to necessary campaign conditions, which must have been to them almost intolerable.
 
In this condition I have in mind Captain Turner, Medical Officer to the 43rd Battalion for six months. He was a man near fifty years of age, with wife and family left behind at home in a Western Ontario town. "Doc" Turner joined us at Nine Elms, where we were resting in the mud after our attack on Bellevue Spur. He came direct from the base and had never seen any front line work. It was customary for the M.O. and the Padre to live together and work together in and out of the line, so he shared a tent with me. A few days after his arrival we moved into the line for the second time on the Passchendaele front. It was on the evening before this move that he did me a service that I shall never forget. He "saved my face" in the battalion. This is how it came about. That afternoon I sat in my chilly tent writing some of the many letters which I had to write to folks at home, telling about their heroic dead. Captain Turner had gone over to Poperinghe. I sat too long at my work and got chilled through. After supper I was feeling wretched and went to bed hoping that a few hours warmth and rest would cure me. I got worse, and about 10 o'clock to cap the climax, when I was feeling very miserable, a runner came from the orderly room with the news that we were to pull out for the line next morning, breakfast at five and move at six. Then the horrible thought came to me that perhaps I wouldn't be able to go with the battalion. If I weren't a great deal better by morning I would have to stay behind in a C.C.S. at Remy. What then would everybody think? It looked queer that I should be going around quite well that day and then, when the order comes to go back into the line, I take suddenly ill. I knew my own boys would say nothing, but perhaps in the back of their minds they would wonder if their padre was really scared. But no matter how charitable the Camerons were it would look to outsiders deplorably like a genuine case of malingering. My one and only hope seemed to lie in the magic of Doc's medicines. "As I mused the fire burned." He had not returned and the medical tent was a hundred yards away in the mud. How anxiously I listened for his footsteps but it was one o'clock before I heard the welcome sound. He was very tired with the six-mile walk and busy day and after I told what the orders were I hadn't the heart at first to let him know how sick and worried I was. He had taken off one boot before in desperation I poured out my tale of woe. Good old Doc! He cheerfully pulled on his wet boot again and went out into the night and rain and through the mud, roused Sergt. Sims and hunted around till he got the stuff he wanted. He was soon back and made me swallow fifteen grains of aspirin. I would have swallowed an earthquake if he had promised it would cure me. Then he piled his greatcoat and one of his own blankets on me. Enough to say I was clear of the fever in the morning and devoutly thankful that, although a little shaky, I was able to form up with the rest at six o'clock.
 
Doc played the game just like that all through his first spell in the line. Often I wondered at the matter-of-fact way he carried on like "an old hand" under conditions which were bad enough in all conscience to everyone, but must have been doubly so to him. But if the real stuff is in a man it will show up "under fire" some day, and Captain Turner is only typical of thousands of uncertain-looking "prospects" that assayed almost pure gold in the crucible of war. When our turn was over and the welcome news came to move back to divisional rest, Doc and I travelled out together with two or three of the boys. We had about five miles to go and the Hun artillery seemed to be chasing us with his shells. They dropped just behind us with uncanny precision for a mile or two blowing up the slat duck-walks we had come over. I was in the lead and because of "the general scarcity of good men" I was hitting a fast pace. At last I heard him call out, "Hold on, padre, I can't keep this pace any longer. They can blow me to Kingdom-come if they like but I'm going to slow up whatever happens." Strange, too, that slowing up saved our lives, for a few minutes after we were stopped by a salvo of shells ahead of us bursting where we would have been if Doc hadn't put on the brakes.
 
The battalion moved far back to the sleepy little farming village of Westerhem where one day Captain Ross, of the Y.M.C.A. sent a request to come over and give a Klondike talk to the men in a neighbouring town. That evening they filled the big marquee and stayed for over an hour while I told them how Cheechaco Hill got its name. It is a story with a moral and has a logical connection with my prologue. What that is I think you will have little difficulty in discovering if you read the story.
 
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The creek names of the Klondike are filled with the romance of the early days. They tell in large something of the story of the pioneer. The names all have color. They speak of incident and adventure, of hopefulness and disappointment, of loneliness and homesickness. There's Dominion Creek and Fourth of July Creek. You hardly need be told that a Canadian "discovered" one and a Yankee the other. "Whisky Hill," "Squabblers' Bench," "Paradise Hill" has each a story of its own and the names hint at it. Mastodon Gulch with its remains of bone and ivory found in the ever-frozen gravels takes us back to the giant Tuskers of those prehistoric ages before the northland was gripped by the frost. Bear Creek suggests an adventure resulting perhaps in a juicy bear-steak or a hurried scramble up a tree. All Gold Creek, Too Much Gold, and Gold Bottom have the optimism of their discoverers boldly disclosed. Of these three only the last paid to work. I asked Bob Henderson, from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, the discoverer of the Klondike Gold-fields, why he chose the name "Gold Bottom." "On the principle," he said, "that it's wise to give a youngster a good name to inspire him to live up to it. I had a day-dream, you know, that when I got my shaft down to bed-rock it might be like the streets of the New Jerusalem. We old-timers all had these dreams. It kept us going on and on, wandering, and digging on these lonely creeks for years." Last Chance Creek has a story of its own and sometime I may tell you what I know of it. It entered Hunker Creek about fifteen miles back of Dawson. In the rush days a roadhouse was put up there and named after the Creek. Later it was assumed that the creek was named after the roadhouse and that the roadhouse got its name because it was the last chance to get a drink outward bound on that trail!
 
But I must get to my story of Cheechaco Hill. There are two words in common use in the Yukon, one is Sourdough and the other Cheechaco. A sourdough is an old-timer, cheechaco is a Chinook word meaning greenhorn, tenderfoot, or new-comer. In every old prospector's c............