ts names in the
oblivious West.

Father Lestanc rolled the loathsome body in a blanket and decently
buried it, for the buffalo hunters had learned that in cases of
small-pox the healthiest thing a traveller can do is to mind his own
special business.

"Did any one else catch the disease?" I ask.

"Non, non, no one else."

The old man muses a little, for he is growing tired, and this was fifty
years ago. Suddenly memory floods in on him and he shows distress:
"Pardon, Madam, pardon! I took eet. Oui, I took eet."

[1] Since deceased.

[2] Since deceased.

CHAPTER XXIII

COAL-MINING IN ALBERTA

Till dazzled by the drowsy glare,
I shut my eyes to heat and light;
And saw, in sudden night,
Crouched in the dripping dark,
With steaming shoulders stark
The man who hews the coal to feed my fire.
--WILFRED WILSON GIBSON.

Solon once told Croesus that whoever had the iron would possess all the
gold, but here Solon was taking coal for granted. Iron-mines are of
comparatively little value unless coal-mines are within easy access. I
think of this as I view the underground workings of a coal-mine,
to-day, and of how our Royal Land of Canada has both minerals in
immeasurable quantities. In this Province of Alberta alone, there is
so much coal to burn that it will take a million years. Looking at
this sheer face of coal twenty feet in height, I must perforce recall
Oliver Wendell Holmes's remark that he was not at all nervous about a
certain comet which threatened to destroy the earth, for there was so
much coal in the world he couldn't bring himself to believe it had been
made for nothing.

In time past, it was said hereabout that coal-mining did not pay; that
the profit of the industry lay in its higher mathematics, by which was
meant the formation of companies and the disposal of bonds and stocks.
The primary work of The Coal Barons, it was further declared, consisted
in laying up treasures on earth for themselves, leaving the
shareholders to find reward in heaven. The "suckers" who purchased
stock were said to have gone through the comparative degrees of mine,
miner, minus. They were "the bitten."

From the uppermost appearance of things, these remarks would seem to be
warranted, particularly as the true westerner has always something to
sell and has even been known to lie about it, but a closer and more
careful study of affairs shows that, in this grim game, the mi