A FALL HUNTING TRIP. 87 



had interested himself in the success of my trip to an 

 extent for which I shall always be grateful, drove me to 

 the station at the upper end of the town by the head 

 of the estuary. From there the railway runs for 

 five hundred and thirty-seven miles, first north, then in 

 a south-westerly curve to Port-aux-Basques on Cabot 

 Strait, the point of departure for Canadian territory. 



The railway is now under the control of the enter- 

 prising Reid Newfoundland Company. Through forests, 

 over rivers, beside lakes, the line runs with a station 

 every dozen miles or so, a station that often consists of 

 no more than the wooden cabin of the section-man, 

 whose business it is to keep the permanent way. 



My destination, Terra Nova, lies one hundred and 

 seventy-one miles distant from St. John's, and is reached 

 in something over eight hours by the express; thus it 

 was far into the small hours shortly before three o'clock, 

 in fact when the train attendant put his head into my 

 sleeping-car and informed me that twenty minutes more 

 would bring me to my station. The train was running 

 with a roar and a creak between deep woods of spruce, 

 that flashed at intervals into star-lit waters. But at that 

 hour, between night and morning, one thinks little 

 of the charms of scenery, the more especially as there 

 was barely time to dress before we began to slacken 

 speed and finally to draw up. My baggage, my "camp" 

 as it is called in Newfoundland, was dropped out and 

 stacked beside the metals, the conductor's voice echoed 

 through the frosty air, and the train swung away out of 

 sight, the louder clang as it disappeared telling of the 

 trestle bridge across the head of Terra Nova Lake. 



I found refuge in the single wooden house of Tim 

 Hawco, the section-man. Lonely as was the spot, it 



