FOR months we had slowly staged westward. 

 From the trout waters of Superior's grand north 

 shore, through the moose ranges of eastern Mani- 

 toba, across the vast expanses of game-haunted plains 

 to the Rockies, and thence westward ever through 

 Nature's picture-gallery, where peak, cliff, and canon 

 combine in so many hundred miles of magnificence. 



And at last, at the turning-point, we two stood 

 beside the sheeny flood of Burrard Inlet, awaiting 

 the sun's appearance above distant sea-mists. Slowly, 

 like white-canvased ships, the snowy shapes of fog 

 slipped their intangible cables and drifted seaward, 

 until the last had vanished and we saw all the 

 dreamy beauty of the coast. 



Behind us spread the sudden straggling growth of 

 lusty young Vancouver, yet showing traces of that 

 conflagration which virtually wiped out the original 

 town. Below our feet were the spidery webs of 

 timbers supporting long irregular piers, among 

 which flitted solemn crows, strangely tame to one 

 familiar with the wary eastern species, and ever 

 poking and prying among the ooze for what the 



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