for twenty-five cents a pound and butter for
sixty-five.

There is an outcropping of coal on a mountainside twelve miles away. A
sample of the coal has been sent to Edmonton for analysis.

The main cafe is built of logs and a notice in English advises the
wayfarer to "Stick to our pies. Never mind the looks of the house," it
further enjoins. "It's the oysters we eat, not the shell."

The village boasts of a brass-band with twenty instruments. Although
instructed by wire to meet us at the boat to-day, they failed to
assemble, the members of the company having quarrelled over the
selections to be played.

Lots on main street sell as high as two thousand dollars each.

A gentleman in tweed suit with capacious pockets and tan leggings which
he has brought with him across the Atlantic, has decided to stand for
the legislature at the next election. "The electors will say," he
assures us, "that I have been drunk. They will say that I have been in
jail, but I shall reply with repartee. You see I've always been
deucedly clever at repartee."

The Mounted Police Barracks, the Indian Agency, the Hudson's Bay Post
and the Catholic Mission are on the hill above the village. The Church
of England Mission lies out and beyond, on a further hill. The bankers
ride out to the further hill to play tennis with the pretty English
girls who teach in the school.

When an elderly jocose Irishman so far forgets himself as to say
"darlint" to a breed-girl, he must not be surprised if she draws a wry
face and calls him _muchemina_; that is to say, "bad berries."

I might write a book on the news to be picked up on this main street,
if a tide of sleep did not threaten to submerge me. In this dry
crystalline atmosphere, one must sleep an hour or two sometimes,
however unwilling the spirit or unique and alluring the things present.

My room at the lodging-house is the best the place affords in that it
has a cotton curtain for a door, and as yet doors are only used in the
outside walls of the houses. The curtain is not, however, of much
account in that the green lumber of the walls has warped to such narrow
dimensions that the occupier of the adjoining room would have to shut
his or her eyes to keep from seeing you. On the contrary part, you
must of necessity go to bed in the dark unless you wish to fall a
victim to the crafts and assaults of the mosquitoes who are attracted
by the lamp. In a fortnight or so, they will have compl