s the ships on the Athabasca and the Slave? Why, Jim himself.

How Jim can look his pay-sheet in the eye every fortnight and keep
laughing, is, to my thinking, the miracle of the North. But then it
must be borne in mind that I have never seen Jim's ledger-book, and, as
yet, no one else has except his accountants and bankers.

The dream of Jim's life has been to lay bare the wealth of the North,
for the good of the North, and every day he is making his dream come
true.

But I was telling you about Soto Landing. The freight shed here is in
charge of a bachelor whose wardrobe is drying audaciously on the trees.
He says he ties his clothes together with a rope and lets the current
of the river wash them, but I think this statement is what Montaigne
would describe as "A shameless and solemne lie."

He asks me how long I have been out from Ireland and I tell him three
years. "What was the charge!" he pursues.

"Stealing the crown jewels," I reply.

"Oh!" says he, "it's the same time since I left the sod. It was for
killing a landlord."

Now as this man came from New Brunswick, and as I came from Ontario, it
may readily be seen that we have both become Albertans.

"Are you not ashamed to deceive a woman like me, and an ignoramus who
is travelling north to gain instruction?" I ask of him.

"Woman! You're no woman. I mean you're no ignoramus--and, although
you question us, I perceive you know more about the north than all of
us. But seeing you wish to be further instructed, come with me to the
freight shed that I may show you how the wholesale houses pack their
goods. Believe me, Lady, I cut to the root of the matter when I say
the only downright packers in this north country are the Hudson's Bay
Company. You can plainly see this for yourself, and I hope you will
inform the Board of Trade about it when you go home. Here, you will
observe a set of scales, but the weights were insecurely attached and
have been lost.

"This heap of refuse is the remains of a shipment of crockery that was
crated too lightly. Errant improvidence, I call it. Lady, the pitcher
is no longer broken at the fountain: it is our habit here to break it
on the portage. It is no exaggeration when I say I am worked like a
transcontinental railway system, hammering up boxes or shovelling out
damaged merchandise.

"Cast your eye up at these chairs in the rafters, six dozen of them by
actual count, sent north by a furniture house last yea