36 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



girl alighted here from the train, fresh from the 

 comparative civilization of some town of five 

 years' older growth. Her dress showed she had 

 just come from the great world. A pair of white 

 silk gloves reached to her elbows, and (Heaven 

 forgive her !) she wore an ' improver.' But the 

 gentleman in flannel shirt and cowboy hat, with 

 enormous moustaches and eyes which must have 

 come from Ireland, was not appalled even by the 

 dress-improver, but just dropped his axe, removed 

 his pipe, and received the wanderer into his 

 sinewy brown arms with an energy discomposing, 

 I fancy, to the improver, but satisfactory to its 

 happy possessor. 



This was the second stage. The navvy's hut 

 had become the centre of a small town ; one 

 man's pluck and labour had drawn others round 

 him, and springing, in a few years, from the 

 same small source may rise a Chicago or a Van- 

 couver. Who can tell ? Mushrooms do not 

 grow as fast for their size as these Western 

 cities. 



Then we plunged into the region of lakes. 

 First we came upon a little one, Lake Nipissing ! 

 Look at it in the map. Compared to Lake 

 Superior, it is as a grain of barley to the bowl of 

 a table-spoon. But Nipissing is 90 miles by 20. 

 Not such a drop in the ocean, after all. 



