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disposition, and having lived the life of a recluse for many years,
known to the world only by his writings, it never seemed to have
occurred to him that his name was a famous one in other countries as
well as his own. His first appearance was greeted with acclamation as
soon as his name was mentioned, and during his stay in New York
invitations were showered upon him, reporters called upon him at his
hotel, and paragraphs referring to him appeared in all the papers,
although he steadily refused to be interviewed.

He was thankful when the day of his departure came, as he shrank from so
much publicity. He remarked afterwards that he felt as a hunted
criminal might who saw in every casual passer-by a possible detective.

He was careful not to mention his destination to any one but the clerk
from whom he purchased his ticket, but next day in a paper which he
bought in the train he saw the inevitable paragraph,--

"Dr. Hunter, the famous scientist of London, England, left this city
to-day for Montreal, _en route_ for the North-West."

The learned gentleman might have been heard to mutter words not usually
included in his vocabulary when he read this. As he had only taken a
ticket to Montreal, the latter part of the announcement, although it
happened to be true, was an absolute invention on the part of the
light-hearted paragraphist who had penned it.

Escaped from New York and the social obligations his position had
entailed upon him, Dr. Hunter gave himself up to the enjoyment of his
trip. From Montreal he travelled on the wonderful Canadian Pacific
Railway, and he never ceased to wonder at its construction--the amazing
manner in which difficulties that appeared to be insuperable had been
overcome, and the way in which the brain of man had enabled him to carve
a path for himself up and through mighty mountains.

"To think that one can be climbing the Rockies and at the same time
partaking of an excellent dinner served as in a first-class hotel!" he
remarked to a fellow-traveller.

"Yes indeed, we make ourselves pretty comfortable in these times," was
the reply. "My father was a pioneer and crossed the plains in '47. He
has some rare tales to tell of roughing it in the old days." And the
friendly stranger entertained the doctor with an account of some of
those early experiences.

The doctor was struck by the geniality of his fellow-travellers for the
most part, and the very intelligent way in which they answered