most enthusiastic letters he received a dispatch from New York saying that his grandfather had just arrived and was coming out to see him. The boy was in a quandary. He had spent his remittance in riotous living and he had no cattle. Adjoining him, however, was one of the largest ranch owners of the West. Dickie confided his trouble to this man and persuaded him to lend a thousand head of his best stock for one night. "Granddad can stay but a day," said he, "and I will see that they are driven back to you the next morning." The rancher was something of a sportsman himself, and he finally consented to help the boy. The cattle were sent over. Old Doctor Bright duly arrived and was driven out to the herd, which Dickie said was only a sample of his stock that had been brought in to be shown to his visitor. The boy added, however, that it was not good to keep the cattle penned up, and that they must go back upon the range right away. The old doctor was delighted, and before he left he gave Dickie a check for ten thousand dollars to develop the business. Another young remittance man added to his income by pretending to have a gopher farm. His father had never heard the word "gopher" before, and supposed that the tiny ground squirrels were some kind of valuable live stock. He was, therefore, quite pleased when his boy wrote an enthusiastic letter saying that he had now seven hundred blooded gophers on his range. When sonny added that the animals were in good condition, but that it would take a thousand dollars more to carry them through the winter for the market next spring, father sent on the money. O CHAPTER XXVIII OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE VER the Great Divide and across the mighty ranges of the Rockies! Hundreds of miles between ice-clad peaks and over snow-covered plains! Up and down the ragged passes of towering mountains, their heads capped with blue glaciers, and their faces rough with beards of frosty pines! For the last week I have been travelling across the western highland of Canada. I have gone over the backbone of the continent, which reaches north to Alaska and south to the Strait of Magellan. Here in Canada the Rockies extend in three ranges from western Alberta throughout the entire width of British Columbia. The easternmost marks a part of the boundary line between the provinces and the westernmost range rises steeply from the Pacific Ocean. All between is high plateaus and broken mountain chains spotted with glaciers. This vast sea of mountains is said to be the equal of twenty-four Switzerlands, and I can well believe it. It is only five hours by rail across the Swiss Alps from Lucerne to Como, but the fastest Canadian Pacific trains cannot make the trip from Cochrane, Alberta, to Vancouver in less than twenty-three hours. Switzerland is noted the world over for its glaciers, yet here in the Selkirk range alone there are as many glaciers as in all the Alps thrown together. I have visited the great mountain regions of the world. I have stood on the hills of Darjiling and watched the sun rise on Mount Everest. From the tops of the Andes, three miles above the level of the sea, I have taken a hairraising ride in a hand-car down to the Pacific. I have looked into the sulphurous crater of old Popocatepetl, and I have stood among the Alpine glaciers on the top of the Jungfrau. But nowhere have I found Mother Nature more lavish in scenes of rugged grandeur than right here in Canada not far from our own northern boundary. The mountains change at every turn of the wheels of our train. Now they rise almost straight up on both sides of the track for hundreds upon hundreds of feet. They shut out the sun and their tops touch the sky. Now we shoot out into the open, and there is a long vista of jagged hills rising one above the other until they fade away into the peaks on the horizon. We ride for miles where there is no sign of the works of man except the gleaming track, the snow sheds here and there, and the little mountain stations, where the shriek of our engine reverberates and echoes throughout the valley. Each mile we cover seems to bring a new wonder. It may be a majestic waterfall, a towering peak, an overhanging cliff, a glacier sparkling under the rays of the winter sun, or a vast panorama of glittering snow and ice standing out in bold contrast against the dark rocks and forests. It takes my breath away, and I think of the Texas cowboy who had made his pile and had started out to see the world. His life had been spent on the plains, and at his first visit to these Canadian mountains their grandeur so filled his soul that, unable to contain himself, he threw his hat into the air and yelled: |