been converted into railway ties. Some
of them are crossed. If ever you have "taken out" ties you know what
this means. As you likely haven't, I'll tell you. The railroad
contractor, when he rejects a tie, crosses the end of it with a blue or
red pencil. Once an acquaintance of mine, by name Jerry Dalton, took
out a cut of ties in the Province of Saskatchewan. One day Jerry--an
accurate man rather than a placid one--was stamping about somewhat more
rampageous than a baited bull.

"What is the matter now, Man Jerry!" I asked; "you are always having a
big sorrow."

"Sorrow ith it?" lisped Jerry at the top of his tall voice. "Look at
them d---- ties (begging your pardon, ma'am). Look at them ties! Does
that turkey-faced, muddle-headed idjit of a contractor think I'm
running a Catholic themetery? Crosses ith it? It's crosses he's after
giving Jerry! Troth! an' it's a crown I'll be puttin' on him." ...

And so as I look at this pile of crossed logs by the wayside, I am
wondering who is the rascal responsible for the Catholic themetery.

These mills belong to a Northern timber chief whose large holdings have
made them turbulent. They have called him a timber-wolf, and other
names that are smart rather than polite. As a matter of fact, any man
who pays the government dues and converts the trees into lumber for the
use of the settlers, deserves all the emoluments that can possibly
accrue. On account of floods and fires, lumbering is a precarious
industry, and the majority of operators fail thereat or carry a
nerve-grinding overdraft at the bank.

And did you ever stand on the heights and watch a rising, ripping flood
bear out your booms and incidentally the year's logs? If you have, my
good little man, you'll be sensible to something closely approximating
a tender regard for the timber-wolves. This play of lamb and wolf is
frequently disastrous to the wolf.

I would like to rest off here to see the whip-saw bite into the logs;
to watch the long white boards as they fall from the carriage, and to
drink in their refreshing odour, for the whole essence of the North is
concentrated in the odour of the spruce.

Big Eddy takes its name from the whirlpool formed by the confluence of
the McLeod River and the Sun Dance Creek. The creek is an impetuous,
capering stream that leaps to the McLeod as a little laughing girl
would throw herself into the arms of her father. This is the fairest
tarrying place I have se