he Albert Canyon, at a tiny station called Twin Butte, we
passed another train standing in a siding, with a long straggle of men
in khaki waiting on the platform and along the track, looking at us as
we swept along. Abruptly we ceased to sweep along. The communication
cord had been pulled, and we stopped with a jerk.

The Prince had caught sight of the soldiers, and had recognized who
they were. He had given orders to pull up, and almost before the
brakes had ground home, he was out on the track and among the men,
speaking to them and the officers, who were delighted at this
unexpected meeting.

The soldiers were English. They were men of the 25th Middlesex, H.A.C.
and other regiments, four hundred all told. They had come from Omsk,
in Russia, by way of the Pacific, and were being railed from Vancouver
to Montreal in order to take ship for home. The men of the Middlesex
were those made famous by the sinking of their trooper off the African
coast in 1916. Their behaviour then had been so admirable that it will
be remembered the King cabled to them, "Well done, Diehards!"

By the isolated railway station and under the lonely mountains so far
from their homes, they were drawn up, and the Prince made an informal
inspection of the men who had been so long away, and who had travelled
the long road from Siberia on their way Blightyward.

The inspection lasted only a few minutes, and the episode, spontaneous
as it was characteristic, scarcely broke the run into Revelstoke. But
it was the happiest of meetings.

Revelstoke is a small, bright mountain town known, as its inhabitants
say, for snow and strawberries. It is their way of explaining that the
land in this deep mountain valley is splendidly fertile, and that
settlers have only to farm on a small scale in order to make a
comfortable living, though in winter it is--well, of the mountains.
The fishing there is also extremely good, and we were told almost
fabulous tales of boys who on their journey home from school spent a
few minutes at the creeks of the Columbia River, and went on their way
bearing enough fish to make a dinner for a big family.

The chief feature of Revelstoke's reception was a motor run up
Revelstoke mountain, a four thousand feet ride up a stiffish road that
climbed by corkscrew bends. This was thrilling enough, for there were
abrupt depths when we saw Revelstoke far down on the valley floor
looking neat and doll-like from this airman's eye