roofed hamlet to break the monotony. After that there were
wooden cities in Ontario very much like the hamlets of a larger growth;
and when at last sickened by the vibration, we sped out on to the
long-expected prairie, the prospect was by no means inviting. Spring, I
was told, was very late that year, and the plains rolled before us to the
horizon a dreary white wilderness streaked by willow-swale, with at first
many lonely lakes rippling a bitter steely-blue under the blasts, while
crackling ice fringed their shores. Then several of my companions, who
were young and romantic Britons with big revolvers strapped about them
under their jackets, grew suspiciously quiet, and said no more about the
strange adventures they had looked for in the West. There was nothing
romantic about this land, which lacked even the clear skies Grace
Carrington spoke of. It looked a hard country, out of which only a man
with the power of stubborn endurance could wrest a living.

So with a rhythmic beat of whirring wheels, and now and again a clash of
couplings as we slid down some hollow of the track, we rolled on through
the night, while the scream of wind grew louder outside the rattling cars.
I was nearly asleep when there came a sudden shock, and the conductor's
voice rang out warning us to leave the train. At slackened speed we had
run into a snow block, and the wedge-headed plow was going, so he said, to
plug the drifts under a full pressure, and butt her right straight
through.

Shivering to the backbone, I dropped from the platform into two feet of
snow, and after floundering through it I halted among a group of excited
men behind the two huge locomotives. For a newcomer it was a striking
scene. The snow had ceased, and watery moonlight lit up the great white
plain, in the midst of which, with the black smoke of the engines drifting
across under a double column of roaring steam, stood the illuminated
train. There was nothing else to show that man had ever been there before,
except the spectral row of telegraph posts that dwindled in long
perspective to the horizon. Ahead a billowy drift which filled a hollow
rose level with the wedge-shape framing on the snow-plow front. They run
both better plows and more luxurious Colonist cars now.

"Will they get through?" I asked a tall man in fur robes with whom I had
chatted.

"Oh, yes, you just bet they will," he answered cheerfully. "Jim Grant and
Number Sixty are a very bad pair to beat;