de was immensely popular, and the Prince
left Edmonton with the reputation of being a true "fan" and "a real
good feller."

CHAPTER XV

CALGARY AND THE CATTLE RANCH

I

The Royal train arrived in Calgary, Alberta, on the morning of Sunday,
September 14th, after some of the members of the train had spent an
hour or so shooting gophers, a small field rat, part squirrel, and at
all times a great pest in grain country.

Calgary was a town that charmed at once. It stands in brilliant
sunlight--and that sunlight seems to have an eternal quality--in a nest
of enfolding hills. Two rivers with the humorous names of Bow and
Elbow run through it; they are blue with the astonishing blueness of
glacial silt.

From the hills, or from the tops of such tall buildings as the
beautiful Palliser Hotel, the high and austere dividing line of the
Rockies can be seen across the rolling country. Snow-cowled, and
almost impalpable above the ground mist, the great range of mountains
looks like the curtain wall of a stronghold of mystics.

In the streets the city itself has an air of radiance. There is an
invigoration in the atmosphere that seems to give all things a peculiar
quality of zest. The sidewalks have a bustling and crisp virility, the
public buildings are handsome, and the streets of homes particularly
gracious.

The Sunday reception of the Prince was eloquent but quiet. There were
the usual big crowds, but the day was deliberately without ceremonial.
Divine Service at the Pro-Cathedral, where the Prince unveiled a
handsome rood-screen to the memory of those fallen in the war, was the
only item in a restful day, which was spent almost entirely in the
country at the County Club.

But perhaps the visit to the County Club was not altogether quiet.

The drive out to this charming place in a pit of a valley, where one of
the rivers winds through the rolling hills, began in the comely
residential streets.

These residential districts of Canada and America certainly impress
one. The well-proportioned and pretty houses, with their deep
verandahs, the trees that group about them, the sparkling grass that
comes down to the edge of the curb--all give one the sense of being the
work of craftsmen who are masters in design. That sense seems to me to
be evident, not only in domestic architecture, but in the design of
public buildings. The feeling I had was that the people on this
Continent certainly know how to build.