[Illustration:  Irrigation Ditch, Calgary, Alberta]

The girlish figure of a teacher struggling through the awful mud in gum-boots indicates that we have not travelled beyond the range of the little red schoolhouse.  Stray wee figures splashing their way schoolward look dreary enough, and I seem to hear the monotonous drone of “seven times nine,” “the mountains of Asia,” “the Tudor sovereigns with dates of accession,” and other things appertaining to “that imperial palace whence I came.”  All the summer afterwards, when mosquitoes are plenty and food scarce, a backward thought to this teacher making muddy tracks toward the well of English undefiled, brings pleased content.

[Illustration:  A Waldorf-Astoria on the Prairie’s Edge]

At noon it clears, and as we “make tea” at Sturgeon Creek (the Namao Sepee of the Indians), the first of the “stopping-places” or Waldorf-Astorias of the wilderness, the Doctor has his will and gathers violets, moccasin flowers, and the purple dodecatheon.  As we pass Lily Lake he remarks, “This reminds me of the Duke of Norfolk’s place at Arundel; it is just like this.”  South Dakoty returns, “I don’t know him.”

Here and there we pass clusters of Galician huts.  Instead of following the line of least resistance in the fertile plains to the south, these people, the Mark Tapleys of the prairies, choose cheap land up here for the pleasure of conquering it and “coming out strong.”  They are a frugal people, with a fondness for work, a wholesome horror of debt, and the religious instinct strongly insistent.  Off on a hillside near each little settlement a naked cross extends its arms.  These are their open-air churches, and in all weathers, men, women, and children gather at the foot of the cross to worship the God of their fathers.  By and by, when the soil has yielded to their labours, with their own hands will they build a church and without debt it will be dedicated.  The idea of raising an imposing church and presenting God with the mortgage does not appeal to the Galician.

The clean sheets at “Eggie’s,” the second stopping-place, are attractive, and we sleep the sleep of the just.  We acknowledge with inward shame that two years of city life have given us the soft muscles of the chee-chaco; we’ll have to harden up a bit if we are to reach that far-away ocean.

Next day, midway between Edmonton and Athabasca Landing, we water our horses at the Tautinau.  We are standing at the Height of Land, the watershed between the Saskatchewan and the Athabasca.  This little ridge where the harebells grow divides the drops of rain of the noon-day shower.  Some of these drops, by way of the Saskatchewan, Lake Winnipeg, and Hudson Bay, will reach the Atlantic.  Others, falling into the Athabasca, will form part of that yellow-tinged flood which, by way of Great Slave Lake and the mighty Mackenzie, carries its tribute to the Frozen Ocean.  These last are the drops we follow.