The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-15
vouhere. The place is locked up-deaa
JUf1frozen corpse. The mountain torrent

boss OF paieet emerald Ice aEalHsk sho
kzie of the snow; the pine stnmps are
ndrped and hooded with gigantic mush-
IONS of snow; the rocks are over
and five feet deep, the rocks, the fallen
.rees and the lichens together, and the
dumb white lips curl up to the
track cut in the side Of the noun
, tain and grin there, tangled with
vain when the train stops for the
least sign of breath or power among the
hills. The snow has smothered the rivers
and the great looping trestles run over
what might be lather of suds in huge
wash tub. The old snow near by Is black
ened and smirched with the smoke OF the
locomotives, and dizziness Is grateful to
aching eyes But the men who live upon
the line have no consideration for these
things. At hating place in gigantic
gorge walled in by the SHOWS, one
Of them reels from tiny saloon into
the middle of the track where halt n
dozen dogs are chasing pig OIL the
metals. He is beautifully and eioquentiy
drunk. He sings, waves his hands and
collapses behind the shuntlng engine,
while four of the loveliest peaks that the
Almighty ever nodded look down upon
him. The landslide that should have
wiped the saloon into kindiings has missed
It's mark and has struck few miles down
the line. Ono of the hill sides moved
little in dreaming of the spring and caught
passing freight train. Our cars grind
cautiously by, for the wrecking engine
has only Just come through. The deceased
locomotive is standing on its head in soft
earth thirty or forty feet down the slide,
and two long cars loaded with shingles
are dropped carelessly atop Of it, 1t looks
30 marvellously like toy train flung aside
by child that one cannot realize what
1t means till its voice cries: ANYONE
killed2" The answer comes back: mo;
ali jumped" and you perceve-with
sense of personal insuit-that this sloven-
illness of the mountain is an affair
which may touch your own sacred
seli. In which case the train is
ont on trestle, into tunnel
and out on trestIe again. 1t was here
that everyone began to despair OF the line
when 10 was under construction because
there seemed 10 be no outlet. But man
came, a. a man always will, and put
descent thus, and curve in this manner,
and trestle so: and behold the line went
on. 1t Is In this place that we heard the
story of the G. =. X. told, as men tell q
many times repeated tale. with exaggera-
tions and omissions. but an imposing tale
none the less. In the beginning when they
would federate the Dominion of Canada,
1t was British Columbia who saw oblec-
tons to coming in, and the prime minister
of those days promised it for bribe an
iron band between Underwater and tide
water that should not break. Then every
body laughed, which seems necessary to
the health of most big enterprises, and
while they were laughing things were be-
ing done. The {. L. X. was given bit of
line here and bit of line there. and al
most as much land as it wanted, and the
laughter was still going on when the
last spike was driven between East and
West at the very place where the drunken
man sprawled behind the engine, and the
iron band ran from tideway to tideway
a. the premier said, and people in England
said "how interesting" and proceeded to
talk about the ''bloated army estimates"
Incidentally the man who told us-he
had nothing TO do with the &. =. Rex
planned how it paid the line to encourage
immigration and told of the arrival at
Winnipeg of a train load of Scotch crofters
on Sunday. They wanted to stop then
and there for the Sabbath. they and all the
little stock they had brought with them.
1t was the Wlnnepeg agent who had to go
mong them arguing the was Scotch, too,
I'd they couldn't quite understand it, on
&c improperly OF dislocating the COM
Nny's traffic. so their own minister held
service iii the station and the agent gave
them a good dinner, cheering them in
Gaelic. at which they wept, and they went
on to settle at Moosomin, where they
lived happily ever afterward. OF the man
ager-the head of the line from Montreal
to Vancouver--our companion spoke
with reverence that was almost awe. That
manager lived in palace at Montreal, but
from time to time he would sally forth in
his special car and whirl over 5000 miles
Mt fifty miles an hour. The regulation
pace Is twenty-five, but he sells his neck
with his head. Few drivers cared for the
hoapr of taking him over the road A
mysterious man he "who carried the pro-
file of the line in his head" and more than
that, knew intimately the possibilities of
hack country which he had never seen or
travelled over. There is always one such
mar. on every line. You can hear similar
tales from drivers on the Great Western IN
England or Eurasian station masters on
the big Northwestern in India Then a
fellow traveller spoke. as many others had
done. on the possibilities of Canadian
union with the United States; and his
language was not the language of Gold
win Smith. Ii was brutal IN places. Sum-
married 10 came To pronounced objection
TO having anything to do with a land
rotten before II Is ripe, a land with
100000 negroes Yet unwelded into the
population, their race-type unevolved and
rather more than crude notions on MUIR
der, marriage and honesty. We've
picked up their ways of politics, he said
mourntully. THAT comes of living next
door to them. but don't. think we're anx-
ious 10 mix up with their other messes
They say they don't want us. They keep
on saying IL. There's niger in the fence
somewhere, or they wouldn't lie about il -
But does il follow that they are living ?"
Sure. lived lived among 'em. They
can't go straight. There's some damn
fraud ut the back of it,"
From this belief he could not be shaken
lie had lived among them-perhaps had
been beaten in trade. Let them keen
themselves and their manners and Gus
toms 10 their own side of the line
This is very sad and chilling 1t seemed
quite otherwise N New York. where Can
ada was represented "a ripe plum ready
60 fall into Uncle Sans mouth when he
should open H. The Canadian has no
special love for England-the Mother of
Colonies has wonderful gift for alienat-
ing the affections of her own household by
neglect-but perhaps he loves his own
country. We ran out Of the snow
through mile upon mile of snow
sheds, braced with twelve-inch beams
and thanked with two-inch plank
Ing. In one place snow slide had caught
just the edge of q shed ana scooped IL
sway rs knife scoops cheese High up
the hills men had built diverting barriers
80 turn the drifts, but the drifts had swent
the top Of the sheds.
When We woke il was on the banks Of
the muddy Frazer river, and the sfriur
vas hurrylng 90 meet us. The snow had
gone; the pink blossoms Of the wild ,,ur-
rsnt were open. the building alGe-s stood
misty green against the h,ue-hlark
pines. the brambies on the burned
s'umps were in the teniersst leaf
ana every moss ca every stone vas this
years work fresh from the hand az the
Maker. The land opened into clea-ines Of
eoft black earth. At one station one hen
had laid one egg and WAS telling the
word about -. The world answered vi,h
breath 81 the real spring-sprlnc that