XI 
TOWARD CAPE BRETON 
TO turn our backs upon Halifax was 
to turn our faces toward Cape Breton 
Island, that unknown land of hoped- 
for adventure that lay farther away 
" down north." 
We went by rail as far as Truro, through a 
desolate region of stunted fir-trees and loose 
rocks like that with which the journey to Hali- 
fax had made us familiar. Yet, after all, this 
depressing country may be about to yield up 
some mineral treasure that will make it blos- 
som like the rose in the mind's eye of its 
owner. For in this strange land valuable min- 
erals are ever being discovered in unexpected 
places. Indeed, not far from this very region 
that we have scorned, gold mines have been 
found hidden among the hills. 
The gnomes of the rocks seem to have 
selected Nova Scotia as their own particular 
work-shop, where they have fitted together 
their strange mosaics of multiform geological 
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