and asked what the fare was to Arthurs' station; I found I had enough
money for the trip, and I bought a ticket without further ado.

"I won't try to tell you all about my trip--it would take a book. But
what a country it is! Of course I had learned in school that there
was about two feet of map between the Red River and the Rockies, but
there's only one way to know how big it is, and that's to travel it.
If you've got any imagination at all a trip over these enormous
prairies must set it stirring. For the most part there's no
settlement; not a house, nor stack, nor any sign of life. Pretty much
like Manitoba was, I guess, when you first saw it, but bigger, and
grander, and more suggestive of the future. You see, Manitoba has
made good, for all the doubters, and this bigger West will do the
same, on a bigger scale. As we rolled along through that unbroken
prairie, with here and there a great herd of horses or cattle in the
distance, I felt at last that I was really beginning to live. Not
that I was doing anything grander than running away from home, but
still that feeling came over me--the feeling that here was a country
where things were going to happen, and that I was going to play some
part in their happening.

"Well, if I ramble on like this it'll be a real book after all.
Calgary is the big cow-town of the West, just beginning to aspire to
higher--or lower (there's a real question there)--civilization, and
mixing schaps and silks on its streets in a strange struggle between
the past and the future. But my stay there was short, as I was able
to catch my branch train with little delay, and that night saw me at
Arthurs' nearest station. The homestead rush is on here in earnest;
the trains are crowded, mostly with Americans, and the hotels are
simply spilling over. They're a motley crowd, these homesteaders.
Down with us, you know, the settlers were looking for homes, and a
chance to make a living, but up here they're out for money--the long
green, they call it. Their idea is to prove up and sell their lands,
when they will either buy more or leave the country. But the great
point is that they are after money rather than homes. They belong to
a class which has been rushing for a generation ahead of a wave of
high land values--I heard a man say that in the train, and I made a
note of it--they're rovers by birth and training, with no great home
instinct! To them one place is as good as another--provided always
there'