d hold it.

He said he thought so, but it had never been tested by such a weight
before.

From the way he said "thought," we gathered he meant "hoped."

Somebody had wanted to show the Prince the view. It was a fine view,
but we were not sorry it wasn't permanent. With the view, the Prince
took in a little shooting at clay pigeons in view of the days he was to
spend in sporting Nipigon.

We ran straight on to Nipigon, only stopping at Oba, and that in the
night. But before the night came Canada and Algoma gave us an
exquisite sunset. We saw the light of the sun on a vast stretch of
hummocks and hills of bald rock. They had been clothed with forest
before the fires had passed over them. As the sun set, an exquisite
thin cherry light shone evenly on the hills and bluffs, and on the thin
and naked trees that stood up like wands in this eerie and clarified
light. In the distance there was a faint vermilion in the sky, and
where the tree stumps fringed the bare hills, they gave the suggestion
of a band of violet edging the land. And all this in an air as clear
and shining as still water. It seemed to me that Canada was waiting
there for a painter of a new vision to catch its wonder.

Even in the loneliness we were never far away from the human equation.
During the afternoon we had a touch of it. It was discovered by the
Prince that his train was being driven by a V.C., or, rather, one of
the men on the engine, the fireman, was a V.C. This man,
Staff-Sergeant Meryfield, had won the distinction at Cambrai, and had
returned to his calling in the ordinary way. He came back from the
engine cab through the train, a very modest fellow, to be presented to
the Prince, who spent a few minutes chatting with him.

CHAPTER XII

PICNICS AND PRAIRIES

I

Early on the morning of Friday, September 5th, the train passed through
the second tunnel it had encountered in Canada, and came to a small
stopping-place amid trees.

It was a lady's pocket handkerchief of a station, made up of a tool
shed, a few houses and a road leading away from it. Its significance
lay in the road leading away from it. That road leads to Nipigon river
and lake, one of the finest trout waters in Canada. Even at that it is
only famous half the year, for it hibernates in winter like any other
thing in Canada that finds snow and remoteness too much for it.

At this station--Nipigon Lodge--the Prince, in shooting knickers and a
great anx