e crowd cheered. Some one looked out of the car, made
a gesture of negation, and went back. The crowd cheered a good deal
more. There was a pause; more cheering. Then a discreet member of the
Staff came out and said the Prince was awfully sorry, but--but, well,
he was in his bath!

"That's all the better," called a cheerful girl from the heart of the
crowd. "_We_ don't mind."

The member of the Staff vanished in a new gust of cheering, probably to
hide his blushes. Need I say the Prince did _not_ appear?

At Colonsay there was a stop of five minutes only, but the people of
the town made the most of it. They had a pretty Britannia to the fore,
and all the school-children grouped about her and singing when the
train steamed in. And when it stopped, a delightful and tiny miss came
forward and gave the Prince a bunch of sweet peas.

These incidents were a few only of a characteristic day's run. Every
day the same sort of thing happened, so that though the Prince had a
more strenuous time in the bigger cities, his "free times" were
actually made up of series of smaller functions in the smaller ones.

II

Saskatoon, the distributing city for the middle of Saskatchewan, was to
give the Prince a memorable day. It was here that he obtained his
first insight into the life and excitements of the cowboy. Saskatoon,
in addition to the usual reception functions, showed him a "Stampede,"
which is a cowboy sports meeting.

The Prince arrived in the town at noon, and drove through the streets
to the Park and University grounds for the reception ceremonies. It is
a keen, bright place, seeming, indeed, of sparkling newness in the
wonderful clarified sunlight of the prairie.

It is new. Saskatoon is only now beginning its own history. It is
still sorting itself out from the plain which its elevators, business
blocks and delightful residential districts are yet occupied in
thrusting back. It is a characteristic town on the uplift. It snubs
and encroaches upon the illimitable fields with its fine American
architecture, and its stone university buildings. It has new suburbs
full of houses of symmetrical Western comeliness in a tract wearing the
air of Buffalo Bill.

It grows so fast that you can almost see it doing it. It has grown so
fast that it has outstripped the guide-book makers. They talk of it in
two lines as a village of a few hundred inhabitants, but put not your
trust in guide-books when coming to Ca