rstudy, ran "the new trail," strong in the certainty of being the
trail in time.

For miles across the plain the men who follow the trail watch the steep
outlying shoulder of the Brandon Hills for a landmark. When they leave
the Souris valley the hills are blue with distance and seem to promise
wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey
dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see
the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and
blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of stunted poplar at
the base.

After rounding the shoulder of the hill, the thick line of poplars and
elms which fringe the banks of Black Creek comes into view, and many a
man and horse have suddenly brightened at the sight, for in the shelter
of the trees there stands the Black Creek Stopping-House, which is the
half-way house on the way to Brandon. Hungry men have smelled the bacon
frying when more than a mile away, and it is only the men who follow
the trail who know what a heartsome smell that is. The horses, too,
tired with the long day, point their ears ahead and step livelier when
they see the whitewashed walls gleaming through the trees.

The Black Creek Stopping-House gave not only food and shelter to the
men who teamed the wheat to market--it gave them good fellowship and
companionship. In the absence of newspapers it kept its guests abreast
with the times; events great and small were discussed there with
impartial deliberation, and often with surprising results. Actions and
events which seemed quite harmless, and even heroic, when discussed
along the trail, often changed their complexion entirely when Mrs.
Maggie Corbett let in the clear light of conscience on them, for even
on the very edge of civilization there are still to be found finger-
posts on the way to right living.

Mrs. Maggie Corbett was a finger-post, and more, for a finger-post
merely points the way with its wooden finger, and then, figuratively,
retires from the scene to let you think it over; but Maggie Corbett
continued to take an interest in the case until it was decided to her
entire satisfaction.

Black Creek, on whose wooded bank the Stopping-House stands, is a deep
black stream which makes its way leisurely across the prairie between
steep banks. Here and there throughout its length are little shallow
stretches which show a golden braid down the centre like any peaceful
meadow brook wh