boss conductor
off his own train and held up the Vancouver mail! Say, what are you going
to do with him, sonny?"

"He can get up, and learn to be civil," I answered grimly; and when the
man did so, sullenly, the other said:

"Well, I don't want any mess-up with the brakeman, so we may as well walk
out now that they're coming back for him. Only one man in this shanty, and
he wouldn't turn out unless it were a director. Leave your baggage where
they dumped it--can't move it until daylight--and come along with me!"

I did so somewhat regretfully, for I felt just then that if this was the
way they welcomed the emigrant in that country it would be a relief to do
battle with the whole of them. Afterward I learned that when one
understands his ways, which is difficult to do at first, there are many
good qualities in the Western railroad-man. Still, I always wondered why
the friendless newcomer should be considered a fair mark for petty
hostility, especially by those who formerly were poor themselves--all of
which applies only to city-bred men who hold some small office, for those
who live by hard labor in forest and prairie would share their last crust
with the stranger.

We trudged away from the station, with a square block of wooden houses
rising nakedly in front of us from the prairie, and two gaunt elevators
flanking it to left and right beside the track, which is one's usual first
impression of a Western town. The rambling wooden building which combined
the callings of general store and hotel was all in darkness, for the owner
expected no guests just then, and would not have got up for any one but my
companion if he had. So, after pounding long on the door, a drowsy voice
demanded, with many and vivid expletives, who was there, and then added:

"Oh, it's you, Jasper; what in the name of thunder are you making all that
row about? And what are you doing waking up a man this time o' night! Hold
on! You're an obstinate man, and I guess you'll bust my door unless I let
you in."

The speaker did so, and when he had ushered us into a long bare room with
a stove still twinkling in the midst of it, he explained that his
subordinates would not serve an ambassador before the regulation breakfast
hour, and lighting a kerosene lamp immediately withdrew. Jasper, however,
took it all as a matter of course, and when, rolled in his long coat, he
stretched himself on a settee and went to sleep, I followed suit. Still
they gave us a g