jun knowed that crossed flag and what it
stood for. I mind one Englishman and his wife who had come from Montreal
to St. Paul in an ox-cart. The whole plains was covered with sneakin'
red cusses on the war-path. But that darned Britisher was stubborn-set
on pullin' out that night for Fort Garry, with his wife and kid, and
what did the cuss do but nail a blame little Union Jack on his cart,
poke the goad in his ox, and hit the trail! My God, I kin still see the
old ox with that bit of the British Empire, wiggling out of St. Paul at
sundown. And the cuss got there all right, too, though we was all
wearing crape beforehand for his sweet-faced wife." This incident was
not unique. In the early '60's an English curate, afterwards to be known
to the world as Bishop Bompas, passed north through St. Cloud on his
way from England to the Arctic. When the Sioux were reported on the
war-path, Mr. Bompas improvised a Union Jack with bits of coloured
clothing and fastened it on the first ox-cart of his cavalcade. Seeing
this, the hostile Sioux turned bridle and rode away; and, protected by
the flag of the clustered crosses, the Gospel-cart passed on.

[Illustration: Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada]

What Cook & Son failed to supply, the Hudson's Bay Company in Winnipeg
furnished. This concern has been foster-mother to Canada's Northland for
two hundred and thirty-nine years. Its foundation reaches back to when
the Second Charles ruled in England,--an age when men said not "How
cheap?" but "How good?", not "How easy?" but "How well?" The Hudson's
Bay Company is to-day the Cook's Tourist Company of the North, the
Coutts' Banking concern, and the freshwater Lloyd's. No man or woman can
travel with any degree of comfort throughout Northwest America except
under the kindly aegis of the Old Company. They plan your journey for
you, give you introductions to their factors at the different posts, and
sell you an outfit guiltless of the earmarks of the tenderfoot.
Moreover, they will furnish you with a letter of credit which can be
transmuted into bacon and beans and blankets, sturgeon-head boats,
guides' services, and succulent sow-belly, at any point between Fort
Chimo on Ungava Bay and Hudson's Hope-on-the-Peace, between
Winnipeg-on-the-Red and that point in the Arctic where the seagull
whistles over the whaling-ships at Herschel.

For a railroad station, the wall-notices in the baggage room of the
Canadian Northern at Winnipeg are u