d part of my savings at the races and the tenor of
my success was markedly uneven. I bought town lots, hoping to sell
before the second payment--'Stung'--Yes! it's as good a word as any.
The father of my best girl has cursed me to the tenth generation."

"For what?"

"Oh! for a newspaper item which concerned me. I will allow it would
have been just as well had it not appeared, but there it was! There it
was! No! I cannot see any special reason why I should set the
squirrel free. Besides" (and here he speaks softly and with a kindly
persuasiveness, as if he had butter in his mouth), "this Punchinello is
a sweet-toothed fellow, and the cook will feed him daintily; he has no
store set by for the winter; no drey, no mate; he is not properly
furred for exposure, and he would not know how to protect himself
against the hawks and stoats. Surely, you would not have him go free?
I tell you the thing would be cruelty itself, and I will not do it."

You see, he does not know this matter is a personal one with me, I mean
the wheel that goes round and never gets anywhere. If he did it would
probably make no difference, for the peculiarity about his arguments
are their sincerity and wisdom. I always did suspect that Providence
was a large serene young man with a strain of steel in him.

At Bickerdike, all the engineers I knew got out. Some are stationed
here; some await orders, but most of them go down the branch line that
is under construction from this point. Bickerdike is largely a tent
town, although, as yet, it is the metropolis of the Grade. I heard one
man on the train tell another it was "one of these here high-society
places where folks dance on a plank floor and don't call off the
figures." I promise to visit at Bickerdike on my return trip with some
friends I have not seen for years. No matter where you come from, it
would be almost impossible to drop off at any of these little frontier
posts without meeting some one you knew elsewhere, so representative is
the population of this Northern country.

At each post the same question is asked the newly-arrived passenger.
"Well, what's the news along the road?" To-day the news concerns a
wash-out near the End of Steel, and doubts are expressed as to the
possibility of our getting through.

At Marlboro, the people are talking of their cement industry, and at
the next station lumber is the topic. They are making the lumber out
of spruce. The small logs have