le
out, waving good-byes to a few friends who go on in the conveyance,
before they run in to get their dinner.

"The authorities send the children from the outlying farms to school,
and fetch them again free now," says Mr. Humphrey. "It's the latest
thing, and a good thing too, or they would have to go without education
when they live as far away as this."

"The marvel to me is how Mrs. Humphrey manages to do it all," I say.

"You haven't heard the half!" he ejaculates. "She does all the washing,
looks after the pigs and poultry you see around here, milks the cows,
and finds time to go to every dance within twenty miles. She's a great
deal keener on dancing than Edmund is, though she makes him go with her.
That's not all, either; she'll show you herself her prizes--albums and
things she has won--that very rocking-chair you are sitting in is one of
them; those are for winning ladies' races, there isn't one that can beat
her. The finest day she ever did was two years ago, when Harry, that's
the little one, was only ten months old. She got up and did the family
washing at five, milked the cows, drove into Edmonton with the kid--she
hadn't anyone to leave it with you see; she did her shopping, turned up
at Poplar Lake Fair in the afternoon, and got someone to hold Harry
while she won the ladies' race there, giving a handicap to the field!
She's the finest dancer in the country round and has won things for that
too."

Yet she looks not much more than a girl now!

Next morning we are up early, as Mr. Humphrey has asked us if we would
like to go with him to see some cattle "shipped" by rail at Red Deer,
thirty miles away on a branch of the main line between Calgary and
Edmonton.

The "boys" have been off with the beasts long before.

[Illustration: INDIANS AS THEY ARE NOW.]

We reach Red Deer by half-past nine, and see from afar the great herd of
cattle, standing lumped together, while the young men, including our
silent friend, Edmund, sit motionless as statues on ponies surrounding
them.

As we get nearer we see kraals, or enclosures, close to the railway
line, and on a siding some empty cattle-trucks ready. We are left to sit
in the buggy--another name for a conveyance--while Mr. Humphrey gives
orders and the boys begin to round the cattle up. It is a sight to see
them, for they seem simply to flow round the herd in a continuous
stream, they gallop so fast and handle their long-lashed whips so
cleverly. The oute