cannot be equalled. I
thought it was wonderful last night at the banquet, the tribute be
paid to his mother. It reveals such a tender side of him, even though
he has received the highest honor the people can give him, yet the
remembers so tenderly the old home and its associations. That's his
great secret of success--he's so human--with faults like other men,
but they only make him all the more beloved. He is so tolerant of all.
When that poor simpleton stuffed the ballot-box--out somewhere in the
Blue Mountains, a really clever piece of work too, wonderfully well
done--with the false bottom--I don't see how they ever discovered
it--but it is hard to deceive the enemy--there's no piece of crooked
work they are not familiar with. He was nearly crazy when they caught
him at it--thought he could be put in jail--he forgot, the poor boob
... who he was working for.... I'll never forget how fine the old
Chief allayed his fears--'All for a good cause, my boy,' he said, in
that jovial way of his, 'I have no fear--the Lord will look after His
own.' No wonder he can get people to work for him. It is that hearty
good nature of his, and he never preaches to any one, or scolds. He
was just as kindly to the poor fellow as if he had succeeded. It was
wonderful."

"Great old boy, all right," Peter agreed heartily.

That afternoon Mr. Banks arranged with one of the partners of the law
firm to which Peter was attached to release him for an indefinite
period, and his salary could be charged to the Government under
"Professional Services, Mr. P.J. Neelands," and being a fair-minded
man, and persuaded that a laborer was worthy of his hire, he suggested
a substantial increase in salary for Mr. Neelands, considering the
delicate nature of the task he was undertaking, and who was paying for
it.

The spring, notwithstanding its early March smiles, delayed its coming
that year, and the grim facts of the scarcity of feed faced the
thriftiest farmers. The hungry cattle grew hungrier than ever, and
with threatening bellows and eyes of flame pushed and crowded around
the diminishing stacks. The cattle market went so low that it did not
pay to ship them to the city, though humane instincts prompted many
a farmer to do this to save their stock from a lingering death, and
their own eyes from the agony of seeing them suffer.

On April the first came the big storm, which settled forever the feed
problem for so many hungry animals. It was a deliberat