134 DEEP FURROWS 



between whiles attending a little log schoolhouse, going 

 on cedar-gum expeditions, getting lost in the bush and 

 indulging in other pioneer pastimes. 



Along in 1877, when people were talking a lot about 

 Dakota as a farming country, McKenzie took a notion 

 to go West ; but he preferred to stay under the British 

 flag and Winnipeg was his objective. A friend of his 

 was running a flour-mill at Gladstone (then called 

 Palestine), Manitoba, and young McKenzie decided to 

 take a little walk out that way to visit him. It was a 

 wade, rather than a walk ! It was the year the country 

 was flooded and during the first thirty days after his 

 arrival he could count only three consecutive days with- 

 out rain. In places the water was up to his hips and 

 when he reached the flour-mill there was four feet of 

 water inside of it. 



Such conditions were abnormal, of course, and due 

 to lack of settlement and drainage. After helping to 

 build the first railway through the country Koderick 

 McKenzie eventually located his farm near Brandon 

 and so far as the rich land and the climate were con- 

 cerned he was entirely satisfied. 



Not so with the early marketing of his grain, though. 

 He disposed of two loads of wheat at one of the 

 elevators in Brandon one day and was given a grade 

 and price which he considered fair enough. When he 

 came in with two more loads of the same kind of wheat 

 next day, however, the elevator man told him that he 

 had sent a sample to Winnipeg and found out that it 

 was not grading the grade he had given him the day 

 before. 



" The train service wouldn't allow of such fast work, 

 sir," said Roderick McKenzie. " I suppose you sent it 

 by wire !" He picked up the reins. " That five cents a 



