ven if it
is necessary to sacrifice many of the first prizes. Perhaps it is
better to go after the prizes for which we are qualified, than to aspire
to elevations which we are unable to hold intelligently.

The unpopular man backed himself up into his burrow, and for a time the
silence around town was embarrassing.

Of Hard Times Hance

Once upon a time on the foothills in the environs of Clinton, Lillooet
District, Province of British Columbia, there lived a "mossback" who was
as happy as the 22nd day of June is long in each year. At initiative
conclusions he would be classified with the freak species of humanity,
but beneath his raw exterior there lurked rich mines which the moss kept
a secret from the inquisitive, avaricious world.

He owned and operated an extensive ranch from which he encouraged enough
vegetation to feed himself, his pigs, his horses, his cattle, his
chickens, and his dog; and this, apparently, was all they derived from
the great, green earth. But the asset side of our "mossback's" yearly
balance sheet always made the liability side ashamed of itself. The
asset increased annually, and the hidden treasure grew to alarming
proportions. This growth was carefully salted away at the appropriate
salting-down season, when the pork barrels were brought out of the dark
cellars, dusted, scrubbed, and refilled with the carcasses of those
animals which had been his companions for the greater part of a year. He
was a standing joke with the "hands" on the ranch, for he was the most
dilapidated of the whole gang, although the owner, and was reputed to be
wealthy.

But he was a man with a purpose in life, and that was more than a great
many could say. He was chronically eccentric. When he first located on
the homestead which had since become so valuable an asset, he had
determined to live with one purpose in view, and that was to expand
financially with the toil of his hands and the sweat of his brow, and
then, when he had acquired sufficient sinking fund, to emerge suddenly
into the limelight of society and shine like a newly polished gem. So he
wandered up and down the trail which his own feet and the feet of his
cayuse had worn through the woods, up the creek, along the face of the
mountains, and away down to the limy waters of the Fraser on the other
side of the perpetual snows.

There was a fascination for him on this old trail; it had become as part
of his life, of his very soul. Sometimes he