ney, town lots, and
again money--how Alf or Ed had done such and such a thing that had
brought him so much money; and round the corner in a creaking boarded
hall the red-jerseyed Salvationists were calling upon mankind to
renounce all and follow their noisy God. The men dropped in by twos and
threes, listened silently for a while, and as silently went their way,
the cymbals clashing after them in vain. I think it was the raw, new
smell of fresh sawdust everywhere pervading the air that threw upon me a
desolating homesickness. It brought back in a moment all remembrances of
that terrible first night at school when the establishment has been
newly whitewashed, and a soft smell of escaping gas mingles with the
odour of trunks and wet overcoats. I was a little boy, and the school
was very new. A vagabond among collarless vagabonds, I loafed up the
street, looking into the fronts of little shops where they sold slop
shirts at fancy prices, which shops I saw later described in the papers
as "great." California had gone off to investigate on his own account,
and presently returned, laughing noiselessly. "They are all mad here,"
he said, "all mad. A man nearly pulled a gun on me because I didn't
agree with him that Tacoma was going to whip San Francisco on the
strength of carrots and potatoes. I asked him to tell me what the town
produced, and I couldn't get anything out of him except those two darned
vegetables. Say, what do you think."

I responded firmly, "I'm going into British territory a little while--to
draw breath."

"I'm going up the Sound, too, for a while," said he, "but I'm coming
back--coming back to our salmon on the Clackamas. A man has been
pressing me to buy real estate here. Young feller, don't you buy real
estate here."

California disappeared with a kindly wave of his overcoat into worlds
other than mine,--good luck go with him for he was a true
sportsman!--and I took a steamer up Puget Sound for Vancouver, which is
the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway. That was a queer voyage.
The water, landlocked among a thousand islands, lay still as oil under
our bows, and the wake of the screw broke up the unquivering reflections
of pines and cliffs a mile away. 'Twas as though we were trampling on
glass. No one, not even the Government, knows the number of islands in
the Sound. Even now you can get one almost for the asking; can build a
house, raise sheep, catch salmon, and become a king on a small
scale--