than one would even have imagined could be collected 

 in such a plnc<>. Settlers, sawmill families, Indians, 

 rangers from Canada and the United States, campers 

 and squatters. It was a motley collection and all wait- 

 ing for that blessed train which came in regularly ev- 

 ery Wednesday noon so tuckered out with the trip that 

 it could never start back till the following morning. 

 Widely different motives had brought them. One 

 squaw man with a large family had come forty miles 

 by canoe for supplies, one old bach, who had never 

 missed meeting that train in fifteen years, had come 

 for his weekly paper, but confessed that he had not 

 had time to read his last week's yet. Some came from 

 habit, sonic from curiosity. As a matter of fact they 

 most of them came to see each other, and it was worth 

 it. 



The si/e of the crowd raised our expectations of that 

 train pretty high. Suddenly all was excitement. A 

 snort of smoke at the curve had announced the imme- 

 diate approach of the great P. D. The next minute she 

 glided up to the platform, four freight cars and a half 

 and halfer. There was not a passenger on board, two 

 boxes and a sack were all that came off, the squaw 

 man's provisions did not come, could not come now for 

 another week. The train moved on to the sawmill, (the 

 crowd disappeared as by magic and the excitement of 

 that week was over. 



Now that we had seen the train pull in, we were 

 more bewildered than ever over the reason that had 

 brought that poor benighted railroad wandering down 

 through the barren wilderness to that godforsaken 

 point of rock. Then we found out. It was the rudi- 



11 



