Chapter XI: Ocean to Ocean

As we have followed the story of railway construction across the continent, over the North Shore, athwart the vast plains and on into the mountains, our eyes have been on the Western sea. It was to win and hold the illimitable spaces of the North-West that the Canadian Pacific was first conceived, and it was specially to link up British Columbia with her sister Provinces to the east that the iron horses were being driven on steel trails to drink on the sunset shore of Canada.

But we must always keep in mind the fact that this railway was to be transcontinental in its extent, and that it was down by the Atlantic, first of all, that men who saw visions and dreamed dreams forecasted its great destiny by land and sea. They saw it spanning the continent, continuing across the Pacific, and finally, under one system, girdling the globe. Others, earlier, made conjectures and expressed vague hopes, but the most clear and confident note of prophecy was sounded by Joseph Howe at Halifax, in 1851, in the famous speech quoted in our first chapter. Later, in the old Province of Quebec, where in a sense Confederation was first definitely outlined at the Conference of the Fathers of Confederation in 1864, this prophetic note was taken up and rendered more emphatic. Thus were the Atlantic statesmen planning ahead.

Moreover, it is interesting to recall that it was Mr. Sanford Fleming, the engineer of the Intercolonial, peculiarly an Atlantic Railway, who was called on to explore a railroad way to the Pacific. It was his secretary on that expedition, the brilliant and versatile Rev. (later Principal) George Munro Grant, then of Halifax, who made the expression “Ocean to Ocean” current coin in Canada, by publishing a book under that title. And still another Halifax writer, Robert Murray, immortalized the expression, by composing a remarkable hymn with the same designation. Thus were the oceans early linked prophetically by patriotic seers and mystics.

Just now I am looking at the realization of these dreams as portrayed in a unique picture which ought to be found on the wall of every school in Canada. This picture is commonly called “Driving the last spike,” and to the superficial observer, unacquainted with the history of the Canadian Pacific, it means simply the act of joining together the steel rails which met at a given point in the mountains, as the track-layers, working from East and West, finished their protracted task. But, in reality, it means much more than a single isolated act along the progress of the years. It is a composite deed into which is merged and concentrated a long series of astonishing achievements wrought by men of brain and brawn. It represents many mental, moral and physical forces converging into a climax which could only have been attained by the persistent, determined efforts of those who believed that obstacles are thrown in life’s pathway in order that men may wax strong through the overcoming of them.

In this picture, “Driving the Last Spike,” there is nothing to suggest “the shouting of captains and garments rolled in blood.” But for those who will study and enquire, it holds the story of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, by a gallant constructive army whose mission was not to destroy but to build, for the welfare of a nation and lands beyond its borders. That is why I say it should be on the walls of our schoolrooms, in order that teachers might relate to young Canadians the story of an amazing accomplishment on the fields of peace.

Just how amazing and how dangerous was the task of building through certain parts of the mountains, not far from the scene portrayed in the picture, may be gathered from the experiences of the engineering staff. As I am writing I recall that Mr. Noel Robinson, a Vancouver newspaper man who deserves much credit for his work in connection with the work of old-timers, elicited once from Mr. Henry J. Cambie, who put the road through the Fraser River canyons, a few words on the subject. Mr. Robinson says: “In response to some pressure as to the difficulty of laying out the work—apart altogether from the difficulties of construction—Mr. Cambie admitted that these were great. Mr. Cambie spoke particularly of the Cherry Bluffs section, and said that quite a stretch of it was laid out by a few men, as there was only room for a few to work. Two agile men, with experience on sailing vessels, sprung ropes from rock to rock or from tree to tree. Then a few engineers, steadying themselves with these ropes, went along in their bare feet to lay out the work, with a precipice and then Kamloops Lake, of unknown depth, down below them. Mr. Cambie admitted that he was one of these engineers. One of the engineers, Mr. Melchior Eberts, in 1881, while climbing over a bluff covered with snow and ice, slipped and fell head first down a steep slope, to his death.” Speaking of the difficulties, Mr. Cambie went on to say: “We had to increase the curvature beyond anything we had ever seen up to that time on a main line of railway, and in order to get round the face of some of the bluffs we had to construct what we called grasshopper trestles, that is, trestles with long posts on the outside, standing on steps cut in the rock, and on the other side a very short post, if any, because very often we had half a road-bed. These things have since been done away with and their places taken by retaining walls.” In my own conversation with Mr. Cambie he has spoken to me feelingly about the loss of life through the canyons of the Fraser during construction days. Practically all the work was through rock which had to be dynamited in places where it was very difficult to get shelter when shots were fired. Men were drowned also here and there along the river. Thus again we are reminded that this battle in time of peace was only won, like other battles, by great sacrifice. These are things we must never forget when we enjoy the results of the struggles of others in our own or earlier days.

The spot at which the last spike was driven was named Craigellachie, as already intimated. The story of the name has not always been correctly told in this connection, beyond saying that the word was sent as a cablegram from Stephen to his fellow-directors in a crisis hour to encourage them not to give way, though the position seemed hopeless at the time. The expression is in reality not one word, but two, Craig Ellachie. This was the name of a grey rock in a Scottish glen, the home of a famous clan. And the legend is that when the clansmen went forth to war, the windswept pines and heather on the lonely hilltop whispered to the forth-going men the war-cry “Stand Fast, Craig Ellachie.” And now, in a new land, at a place where rails met through the steadfast persistence of these Scottish men and others, the mountains heard the echoing blow of the hammer which is in the forefront of the picture, “Driving the Last Spike.” Contrary to a general impression, created by the importance of the occasion and by some writers, the last spike was not of gold, but iron, like the other millions of them that had been driven all along the line. The event itself was so intensely dramatic that it needed not any conventional setting to give it _éclat_. Mr. Van Horne, who was not disposed to waste in any case, perhaps felt that iron was more significant of the spirit in which determined men had accomplished the apparently impossible. And so he had said in a matter of fact way, which was in itself abundantly thrilling: “The last spike will be as good an iron spike as there is between the two oceans, and any one who wants to see it driven will have to pay full fare.” The Directors who had passed through the fierce fire of the economic struggle to build the road could not afford, without a sort of sacrilege, to have anything conventional to bring people from the ends of the earth for the occasion. There was grim, but splendid, simplicity about the ceremony that was profoundly appropriate under all the circumstances.

It was on November 7th, 1885, that the rails met in the Eagle Pass section of the road, and a group of men alighted from the train to be present when the last spike would be driven. By general concensus of opinion, the hammer to drive it was placed in the hands of Donald A. Smith. It was a great honour, but worthily bestowed on the white-haired veteran and victor in a hundred fights against obstacles. It was a far cry from the little village of Forres, in Morayshire, to the way station of Craigellachie in the mountains of Canada. But Donald A. Smith, the lad who had left Forres with all his worldly possessions in a carpet bag, and endured cold and snow-blindness in the Labrador till he rose to the higher places in the Hudson’s Bay Company, had now come to stand on Canada’s pioneer transcontinental steel trail and drive the spike that would link up, into a true Confederation, the scattered Provinces of the Dominion.

Mr. Smith had not done much manual labour in recent years. But he was no stranger to physical toil. While in Labrador he had run with his dog trains in winter, and in summer cultivated an astonishing garden and farm, which was a surprise to all who visited the bleak locality. So, despite the years that had elapsed since that time, Smith swung the sledge hammer with a will that day, and the iron spike was driven home to forge a new link of Empire. I have been listening in imagination to the echoes of the hammer-blow through the passes and along the mountain sides, and thence around the seven seas of the Empire. For this was a right royal event, which evoked swift messages from good Queen Victoria, the Marquis of Lorne, and many others who recognized the enormous Imperial significance of what had taken place in the heart of the great mountains under the Red Cross flag. And the day would come when a great war was to break suddenly over the face of the world. In that day of the Empire’s danger she would realize, even more vividly, the value of this Canadian transcontinental road which, by the time of that war, had transformed the Middle West of Canada from a wilderness into a vast storehouse of food supplies. In that day of war the Canadian Pacific would transport by land and sea hundreds of thousands of soldiers and labourers to the sphere of conflict, and, from its own employees, would furnish for the safety of the Empire not only a large quota of fighting men, but some of the most expert railway builders and transportation officers in the world. All this was wrapped up potentially in the thrilling incident of driving the last spike at Craigellachie.

So once more I look at the picture. The camera could not take in a large group, but it is representative in some fair degree of the men who made the event of that day possible. Tracklayers and sectionmen, engineers and contractors, superintendents and Directors, and others, were present, for they all had a share in the victory. Some of them I can pick out in the crowd; others are to me unknown. Some one, whose face is hidden by a bystander, is holding Donald A. Smith’s overcoat, for the veteran had taken it off in order to swing the hammer in workmanlike fashion. The tall figure of Mr. Sandford Fleming, his beard and hair white with the snows that never melt, is conspicuous near the foreground. He will be remembered as the engineer-in-chief who blazed the way through the mountains in the early days, and who, though not then on the staff as engineer, was called from the Old Country in 1883 to help in finding a way through the Selkirks. After retiring from the engineering staff he became a Director of the Company and so remained to the end of a distinguished and highly useful life. Other engineers whom I see in the group are Marcus Smith, a quite remarkable man who had general charge of the Coast section; Major Rogers, the famed finder of Roger’s Pass through the Selkirks; and Henry J. Cambie, who put the railway through the Fraser River canyons, one of the most picturesque, but one of the most difficult, portions along the line. Van Horne did not always love the engineers, whose care in location did not entirely chime in with his ideas of speed in building. But after letting them know his mind in emphatic language, he recognized the sphere of their responsibility, and, after discussing other possible ways, let them have their way if they made out a case. The three above named were near enough to be present at Craigellachie on that eventful day, but they represented a band of very gallant men in the same vocation—men who often ventured their lives in the dangerous places they were investigating. Representing the contractors, who were a legion, we find in the group James Ross, who had much building to do in the mountain section, and who had witnessed many difficulties in dealing with a large army of men of many nationalities. Generally speaking it can be said that the contractors gave themselves with enthusiasm to their work, and the Canadian Pacific was the training school for a host of young Canadians in the business of railway building. In after years many of these men became famous in railway work. Their ambitions, begotten and intensified by their experience on the pioneer transcontinental road, led them into very large enterprises of their own in the same line. Some of their undertakings were premature, in view of Canada’s population, but some day they will enure to the benefit of the country.

While speaking of the contractors, one would like again to say something of the thousands of track and tunnel men, represented at Craigellachie that day by the hundred or two on that section at the time. Their lot had not been easy as they toiled on through summer’s heat and winter’s cold. Every effort was made to the end that they should be well fed and sheltered, where possible, but certain hardships which were inevitable were for the most part cheerfully borne. In the dark days they had to wait for their pay, that being true of all the employees at times. But these men had faith in the big enterprise and took their share of the hard times, saying, as did one business man on the North Shore, who had several thousands coming to him for supplies, “Van Horne will put this thing through and I will wait.” This was showing a good spirit; albeit we ought to remember that the men who were undergoing the most terrific strain were the Directors, who had not only pledged all their private means, but were facing at times the peculiarly unbearable possibility of the whole vast undertaking crumbling into failure before their eyes.

Two of the Directors, Mr. Sandford Fleming and Mr. Harris, appear in the group when the last spike was driven, and behind them stands Mr. John H. McTavish, one of the famous family connected with the Hudson’s Bay Company through many years. Just within that circle in the picture stands a little boy with his neck craned to see the veteran nailing the steel to a tie. He was the water boy who carried drink for the men as they toiled on the road. I sometimes wonder what became of that boy who had the rare privilege of looking on when this extraordinary event in Canadian history took place. He was witnessing what might be called the birth of a nation.

With hands in the pockets of his overcoat, in a characteristic attitude, and apparently gazing intently at the hammer and spike, stands the strong, powerful figure of Mr. Van Horne, the general who had reached his objective after a desperate battle. His favourite type of square-crowned hat is pulled well down, and his whole posture suggests determined strength. His face, withal, has a dreamy cast, and one would give more than the proverbial penny for his thoughts. His mind, no doubt, was dwelling on the struggle through which he had fought for four tremendous years. But he was doubtless also looking into the future. No one knew so well as he did, that though, in one sense, the road was completed, there was another sense in which it had only begun. Many improvements and extensions were still to be made, branch lines and double tracks were to be laid, traffic had to be developed, the land had to be peopled and the obligations of the road, incurred for bringing it to the last spike, had to be met. But it is a striking thing to recall that the total indebtedness of the Company to the Government was met within a year of the opening of the road, and that the Company has never had to ask the Government for a dollar since that time. The road was to prosper immensely, and the man who, in some trepidation, had written this same Van Horne in the darkest days, as to the Company’s securities, and got the laconic telegram, “Sell your boots and buy C. P. R. stock,” did well if he accepted the advice.

Men who were present at Craigellachie when that last spike was hammered home, tell us that for a while after the sound of the blows ceased there was absolute silence. The few hundreds who had the privilege of being there seemed, in a sense, stunned by the enormous significance of the event. Then some one gave a shout—perhaps it was that little “water boy,” because it is like what a boy would do—and then the mountains echoed with a perfect frenzy of cheering, that continued for minutes, breaking out again and again. Mr. Van Horne was called on by the crowd for a speech. Without changing his attitude and with his eyes still upon the junction of the rails, the great railroader said simply and quietly, “All I can say is that the work has been well done in every way.” It was a short speech, but it was a profound tribute to everybody who had taken part in this colossal enterprise. Directors, officials, contractors, navvies, teamsters, stonecutters, bridge builders, train men, telegraph operators and all the rest were embraced in this terse, but heartfelt, and richly-deserved eulogium. And the conductor had a splendid conception of a climacteric moment when he shouted “All aboard for the Pacific,” and the train took its swift way down to the Western sea. Two centuries had gone by since daring British explorers had essayed in vain to go across the North American continent by some hitherto undiscovered waterway to the Pacific. They were amongst the famous forerunners of the gallant and able men who had now, after amazing endeavour, laid the steel across prairie and mountain where not many years before hunters and trappers, by packhorse, snowshoe, travois or wooden cart, had broken adventurous trails. Thus there had now been opened up a new Empire, whose enormous extent and productive capacity would make it one of the wonders of the world and the Mecca for millions of the human race.

Regular passenger service was not inaugurated till the following spring, the first through train reaching Port Moody in June, 1886, and Vancouver in May, 1887. Port Moody was the statutory terminus, but the extension to Vancouver was inevitable, although Port Moody real estate owners naturally threw every obstacle in the way of the railway going farther. Vancouver had been swept by the great fire in 1886, but the courageous inhabitants started to rebuild and there were probably two or three thousand people, under the leadership of the first mayor, Mr. Malcolm A. MacLean, to greet the first train with rousing cheers and an address. It was a great day for Vancouver. A generation has since grown up which does not fully understand, because it does not know. But the people who know the story of the fire-swept area of rocks and blackened stumps into which the first Canadian Pacific train rolled that day, thirty-seven years ago, bringing in with it the dawn of a new day, do not forget. It linked the cold ashes of the new townsite to the throbbing power of Eastern Canada, and put a new name on the map where Orient and Occident looked each other in the face across the Pacific. It is rather a striking coincidence that I am writing these words on the 23rd of May, the anniversary of the arrival of the first Canadian Pacific Railway train in Vancouver in 1887. And on this day, in this Year of Grace 1924, the _Empress of Canada_, one of the Company’s great steamships, has just come back to this West Coast after a five months’ voyage around the globe. The space of time between is brief, considered as a span in history, but in that time the Canadian Pacific has not only covered the Dominion in all directions with its steel trails, but has compassed all the oceans with her floating palaces.

That day in May, 1887, the prominent officials of the road on the Pacific Division were the heroes of the hour—a group of able and reliable men—Messrs. Harry Abbott, Richard Marpole, W. F. Salisbury, Henry J. Cambie, D. E. Brown, George McL. Brown, H. Connon, Lacy R. Johnson, A. J. Dana, with a faithful band, the forerunners of the present host, in their employ.

As I am writing this paragraph on the eve of May 24th, the anniversary of the birth of good Queen Victoria, of immortal memory, it is fitting to note the following fine letter from the Marquis of Lorne to the Canadian Pacific authorities: “The Queen has been most deeply interested in the account which I have given her of the building of your great railway, the difficulties which it involved and which have been so wonderfully surmounted. Not one Englishman in a thousand realizes what those difficulties were; but now that the great Dominion has been penetrated by this indestructible artery of steel, the thoughts and purposes of her people, as well as her commerce, will flow in an increasing current to and fro, sending a healthful glow to all the members. The Princess and I are looking forward to a journey one day to the far and fair Pacific.” It was in keeping with the idea running through this letter that the Queen conferred a baronetcy on President George Stephen and a knighthood on Mr. Donald A. Smith. And out in the great mountains which these two Scottish men so wonderfully helped to pierce with the steel trail, there are monuments to them in the cathedral peaks, Mount Stephen and Mount Sir Donald, “More enduring than brass.”

Since that day in 1887 there have been, as the Marquis of Lorne’s letter prophesies, a constant succession of most distinguished travellers. The princes of our own Royal line, including our present gracious King and the present Prince of Wales; noblemen, statesmen, scientists, novelists, poets, soldiers, sailors, missionaries and others of world-wide fame, have passed and repassed over this iron highway, entranced and amazed at the richness, the fertility, the resources and the incomparable scenery of the country. Volumes could not record their praise for the country, for the travelling accommodation and for that courtesy and considerateness by employees for which the Canadian Pacific is known the world over. It has always been the aim of the road to see that children, ladies, old and feeble people, can travel alone with the utmost safety and comfort, and the testimony of travellers is that this tradition is steadily maintained under all circumstances. There are doubtless many travelling people who are selfish, unreasonable and hard to please, but generally speaking (and I have seen this exemplified scores of times) the official or employee of the Company proceeds on the assumption that “the passenger is always right,” and in the end everybody is satisfied.

In this connection Lady Macdonald, who went with her distinguished husband, Sir John, on the second regular train to the Coast, wrote in her account of it: “It was quite touching and something new in railway life to find the brakeman grieving over the smoke and apologizing for it.” If there was a forest or prairie fire abroad the train-hands were not to blame. If the reference was to the old coal-burners in the mountains, the Company now uses fuel oil.

To give another example: One day Mr. Van Horne overheard a trainman in rather sharp altercation with an irritable and unreasonable passenger, and speaking to this trainman afterwards, Van Horne said: “You are not to consider your own personal feelings when you are dealing with these people. You should not have any. You are the road’s while you are on duty; your reply is the road’s; and the road’s first law is courtesy.” The reader will see that while, in one sense, this seems to suppress the individuality of the employee, there is another sense in which it honours his position by making him, in that connection, the accredited representative of the Company. Mr. Van Horne inculcated this in many different ways, till employees took a pride in the road. They felt they were part of it. Even Van Horne’s faithful coloured car-porter, the well-known Jimmie French, used to tell passengers “how we built the C. P. R.” It will be recalled that when that porter died, Mr. Van Horne, who grieved greatly over the passing of a friend, walked in the funeral procession as chief mourner. That is the spirit of the road.

It would be impossible to mention a fraction of the famous travellers who have made the Canadian Pacific their way of travel, but there are two of the public men of that period who had been protagonist and antagonist on the subject for years, whose journey to the Coast had more than usual interest on that account. The one was Sir John A. Macdonald; the other was the Hon. Edward Blake.

Sir John and Lady Macdonald crossed to the Pacific on the second train that made the through trip. Sir John, being the head of the Government, was nominally at least the sponsor for the Canadian Pacific, although we must not forget that his Minister of Railways, Sir Charles Tupper, did the larger part of the fighting to get it through. Sir John, however, was always the man who had the last word as to assisting the road, and though he tried the patience of Stephen and Van Horne at times, he was the real originator of the plan and in the end gave it his powerful assistance in the days of stress. Sir John, during that trip over the road in 1886, made one of his characteristically witty and magnetic speeches at a great mass meeting in the McIntyre Rink in Winnipeg. Those were my student days, and the chance to hear the popular Premier, who was on a sort of triumphal trip over the completed road, was not to be missed. My recollection is that the speech was non-partisan, except for a few humorous references, and not very heavy. Sir John was alert and bright even to jauntiness, but he spoke as a man who was through with a puzzling problem and was light−heartedly taking a care-free holiday. His allusion to the Canadian Pacific, a strange blending of pathos and humour, swept the house into a hurricane of cheers. He said “There was a time when I never expected to live to see the completion of this great railway. But I knew it would be completed some day, and in that day I said I would see my friends crossing the continent upon it as I looked down upon them from another and better sphere. My friends on the Opposition side of the House kindly suggested that I would more likely be looking up from below. But I have disappointed all conjecturers, and I am doing this trip on the horizontal.”

It was during that pioneer railway trip that Lady Macdonald loyally rode for part of one day in the mountains on the cow-catcher of the engine, as a way of advertising to the world the safety of the new road. Mentioning Lady Macdonald recalls the story told by that big-hearted humorist, Col. George Ham, whom everybody knows and likes. It appears that Superintendent Niblock, of the Medicine Hat division of the road, had to be away from home when Sir John’s train was due to pass. But desiring to show some courtesy he wired some one at the Hat to send Lady Macdonald a bouquet of flowers. The message appears to have become mangled and when delivered had “flowers” spelled “flour” and “bouquet” contracted to “boq.” This looked unusual, and “boq. of flour” was interpreted to mean “a bag of flour.” This was accordingly despatched to Sir John’s private car, where the porter had no room to spare, and refused to accept it. And so both the courtesy and the gift fell by the wayside, although the intention was good.

The other distinguished public man, as above noted, who travelled to Vancouver over the Canadian Pacific a few years later, was the Hon. Edward Blake. He had steadfastly, consistently and, no doubt, conscientiously, opposed the construction of the road as involving what he called “ruinous expenditure” for a young and sparsely settled country. Mr. Blake’s memory remains as that of one of the ablest and most high-minded statesman in the public life of Canada and, by general consent, the most outstanding intellectual force this country has produced. But, as observed in a preceding chapter, he had never been West before the famous railway debates took place, and therefore underestimated the country and its possibilities. When he did come, in 1891, he made a notable speech in Vancouver. In that speech he not only accepted the situation in a frank and manly way, but, calling on his large vocabulary and his somewhat unsuspected sense of humour, he gave a remarkable description of the country by putting everything in words opposite to the reality. Mr. Blake said: “As I approached this country I was struck by the remarkable change from the rugged and upheaved territory of the plains of the North-West to the smooth and level slope of the Rockies; as I ascended the slope and came upon the somewhat level and monotonous flats of British Columbia; as I travelled by the languid Bow and descended again through the valley of the tranquil Kicking Horse; as I crossed the calm Columbia and travelled down the dead waters of the Beaver and along the placid Illecillewaet and by the drowsy Skuzzy; as I passed by the slow Thompson and last of all by the banks between which the Fraser meanders its sluggish way, I turned to the fertile resources of your shores and viewed the horizon where it spanned the meadows of the Selkirks, the fertile level plains of the Gold Range and the broad plains of the Coast Range, and I reached here converted.” For a while the audience, thinking that Mr. Blake was getting things mixed because this first swift trip was confusing him as to locality, preserved a well-bred, silent attitude, as if much puzzled. In a little while, as he proceeded, they saw that he was purposely and skilfully putting everything in the converse way, and the house simply rocked with delighted laughter in peal after peal. When people are enjoying an uproarious laugh, they cannot cherish resentment. And so when Mr. Blake, dropping the jocular vein, went on to say, “When the railroad was built and finished I felt myself that it was useless to continue the controversy longer, in deference to this whole country which Canada has risked so much to retain,” the people in British Columbia forgave him for calling their Province “a sea of mountains,” and, like true Westerners, declared that he was playing the game in a sportsmanlike way and they would call off their feud.

And thus was the great railway opened from ocean to ocean. Much remained yet to be done in the way of constant improvement of the road and increase of the rolling stock. But the system was in operation, and the trains passed East and West over the once “Great Lone Land” and through the mountain passes. Circumstances have changed somewhat since the following fine verses were written some years ago by the late Pauline Johnson, but in general they still represent the situation. Born in Ontario in the region made famous by her great ancestor, Joseph Brant, ally of the British people, this gifted poetess, with the Indian blood of which she was so proud, saw in the Canadian Pacific trains not just so many cars and engines, but new and living factors in the expanding life of her beloved Dominion. And so she makes “The C. P. R. No. 1, Westbound,” say:

“I swing to the sunset land—
The world of prairie, the world of plain,
The world of promise and hope and pain
The world of gold and the world of gain,
And the world of the willing hand.

“I carry the brave and bold—
The one who works for the nation’s bread,
The one whose past is a thing that’s dead,
The one who battles and beats ahead
And the one who goes for gold.

“I swing to the ‘Land to Be.’
I am the power that laid its floors;
I am the guide to its Western Shores
I am the key to its golden doors
That open alone to me.”

And she calls on “The C. P. R. No. 2, Eastbound,” to say:

“I swing to the land of morn—
The grey old East with its grey old seas;
The land of leisure, the land of ease,
The land of flowers and fruit and trees
And the place where we were born.

“Freighted with wealth I come:
For he who many a moon has spent
Far out West on adventure bent,
With well-worn pick and folded tent
Is bringing his bullion home

“I never will be renowned,
As my twin that swings to the Western marts,
For I am she of the humbler parts—
But I am the joy of waiting hearts;
For I am the Homeward bound.”

_From “Flint and Feather,” by E. Pauline Johnson. Published by
arrangement with the Musson Book Company, Limited._