impatient and sleepy travellers, "How is she now?" "An hour,"
"half an hour," finally "fifteen minutes," then "any time now."
At which cheering report the uninitiated brightened up and passed
out to listen for the rumble of the approaching train. The more
experienced, however, settled down for another half hour's sleep.

It was a wearisome business, and to none more wearisome than to
Interpreter Elex Murchuk, part of whose duty it is to be in
attendance on the arrival of all incoming trains in case that some
pilgrim from Central and Southern Europe might be in need of
direction. For Murchuk, a little borderland Russian, boasts the
gift of tongues to an extraordinary degree. Russian, in which he
was born, and French, and German, and Italian, of course, he knows,
but Polish, Ruthenian, and all varieties of Ukranian speech are
alike known to him.

"I spik all European language good, jus' same Angleesh,"
was his testimony in regard to himself.

As the whistle of the approaching train was heard, Sergeant
Cameron strolled into the station house, carrying his six feet
two and his two hundred pounds of bone and muscle with the light
and easy movements of the winner of many a Caledonian Society medal.
Cameron, at one time a full private in the 78th Highlanders, is now
Sergeant in the Winnipeg City Police, and not ashamed of his job.
Big, calm, good-tempered, devoted to his duty, keen for the honour
of the force as he had been for the honour of his regiment in other
days, Sergeant Cameron was known to all good citizens as an officer
to be trusted and to all others as a man to be feared.

Just at present he was finishing up his round of inspection.
After the train had pulled in he would go on duty as patrolman,
in the place of Officer Donnelly, who was down with pneumonia.
The Winnipeg Police Force was woefully inadequate in point of
strength, there being no spare men for emergencies, and hence
Sergeant Cameron found it necessary to do double duty that night,
and he was prepared to do it without grumbling, too. Long watches
and weary marches were nothing new to him, and furthermore, to-night
there was especial reason why he was not unwilling to take a walk
through the north end. Headquarters had been kept fully informed of
the progress of a wedding feast of more than ordinary hilarity in
the foreign colony. This was the second night, and on second nights
the general joyousness of the festivities was more than likely to
beco