all-availing effort.--J. M. HARPER.

The sweet of life is something small,
A resting by a wayside wall
With God's good sunshine over all.--R. W. GILBERT.

This is the rainy season at Athabasca Landing, so that the streets are
very muddy. Long ago, it was like this in Edmonton, my continuing
city, but when we were come to a very considerable puddle our escorts
carried us. This is why big, fine-looking men were in high demand.

But, this day, by some strange providence, the glut of rain has abated
and the clemency of the sky fills me with an importunate inclination to
gad about and use my eyes. There are no moments to be lost, to-morrow
it is sure to be raining again. Never was land more golden; never one
more grey.

Here at the Landing, it makes no difference where one goes in search of
diversion, for it is to be found in all directions and every foot of
the way. This morning I preferably take to the hill back of the town,
for the water has drained off it to the river and the footing is good.

The hill is held by the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company, who have
owned it time out of mind. It hurts the Company to sell land, for they
are the true lineal descendants of that classical tree which groaned
with torture when a limb was dissevered from its trunk. This being the
case, they may be expected to hold the hill until the municipality
taxes it away from them.

Ignorant people like the wheat-sellers of Winnipeg, speak of this
settlement as a new place, a mushroomic upstart of yesterday, whereas
it was an old post before Winnipeg was thought of. North of the
Landing, there are thirty thousand people who depend on the local
rivermen to bring down their year's supplies, so that this is a place
of no small concernment and it has seven streets, you might say. As
yet, its houses and public buildings do not run to paint or useless
ornamentations, and there is a stolid practicability about its front
doors.

But about the hill: Terry, who is in "the Mounted," tells me it is a
walk of three cigarettes to the top of it, but two if you step lively.
This Terry has a bold and busy fancy, and if he cared to write, he
would, like Xenophon, be "an author of wonderful consequence." Once,
he tried to set down a story, but it was like trying to make a fire
with a wet match.

Aha! Terry, Aha! you have said it exactly--defined it to a
hair's-breadth--the plight of the authors who would rise up on wings as
eagles