and the inhabitants never toil or grow old--

"A land in the sun-light deep
Where golden gardens glow,
Where the winds of the north, becalmed in sleep,
Their conch-shells never blow."

The first men we meet are the civil-engineers. Nearly every one
surveys here, and even the wild geese run lines along the sky. These
engineers are pleasant-spoken men of proper spirit, who have been
hammered into hardihood by work and weather. Nearly all of them invite
you to eat in their camps: "Come over to my stamping-grounds," says a
youth who looks like a walking pine-tree. There is no doubt in the
world he is lonely for his women-folk whom we happen to know "down
home," for when we accept he smiles and says "Heaven bless you
endlessly!" He gave us a good supper, too, of hot and savoury food,
and the coffee, though served in cups of unbelievable thickness, was
undeniably nectar.

Afterwards, we walk into the village to get acquainted with the people
thereof, and to secure lodgings. Over the doors of some of the shops
there are signboards written in Cree, that is to say in syllabic
symbols which look like the footprints of a huge bird.

We are accosted by a gentleman of the Bible Society who wishes to sell
us copies of the New Testament, which book, he says, is lightly
esteemed in the North. He asks me if I belong to my Creator, but I
dissemble in that I have never been able to say God created me without
distinct reservations. There are certain ugly and reproachful traits
in my make up which it seems sacrilegious to attribute to the Deity.
This colporteur has a keen, clean mind--any one can see that--and I
like him for his childlike straightness of soul.

He is carrying copies of the gospels in the different Indian languages,
but, so far, has sold but few. Doubtless the Indians think with that
Mendizabel, the Prime Minister of Spain, who once said to George
Borrow, "My good sir, it is not Bibles we want but rather guns and
gunpowder."

The knowledge one picks up on a walk down the street is varied in
character and throws a light on village life several hundred miles from
a railway.

There are three churches here, also a pool-room and a moving picture
show. It costs fifty cents to see the latter.

When a trapper is not working he is whittling. This is a bad year for
the trappers: two summers came together.

Eggs are a dollar a dozen and four loaves of bread may be had for the
same price. Beef sells