—­Leviticus, XIX, 34.

[Illustration:  A Rye Field in Brandon, Manitoba]

Edmonton once more.  Two Spanish sailors shipwrecked and navigating the Pacific on a log, search the shore for a sign.  Into what land are they drifting?  The one at the bow (does a log have a bow?) sees something through the haze—­“Gracias a Dios!  Praise be to God, it is a Christian country!  I see the gallows!” We too get our sign.  We reach Edmonton on Convocation Day.

Most young countries for the first ten years of their lives confine their energies to roads, bridges, transportation—­things of the market-place.  Alberta has been a full-fledged Province of Canada for barely three years, and, coming out of the wilds, we sit on the back benches and see her open the doors of her first Provincial University.  The record is unique and significant.  On the banks of the Saskatchewan rise the walls of the new Parliament Buildings, a replica in small of Minnesota’s State Capitol at St. Paul.  This new Province, carved out of the heart of the world’s biggest wheat-farm, would seem to hold within it all the elements that make for national greatness:  the richest soil in the world, oil, timber, fur, fish, great underlying coal measures, a hinterland which is a very Pandora’s box of gifts.  Strong, sane, young people have the situation in hand, each alert to grasp the skirts of happy Chance.  Peace walks within these western borders.  What more would you?

The very first man we hunt out in Edmonton is Mr. Wyllie of Chipewyan.  On his promised visit to the Orkneys the old man had gotten as far as Winnipeg, where the crowds of the modern city affrighted him.  “Miss Cameron, the men on the streets were as trees walking, and no man stopped to ask how the other was doing.  If that is the world, I wanted to go no farther.  I’m going back to Chipewyan, and I will take my family with me.  We go home with dogs on the first ice!” Poor Wyllie!  Before the bells rang out the Old Year, his soul heard the summons none may disregard, and alone he went out on the Long Journey.

What of Inspector Pelletier, Walker, Joyce, and Conway, essaying the traverse from Resolution to Hudson Bay?  For weeks after coming out we waited for news of the party.  Month succeeded month and no word came out of the white silence.  Hudson Bay has no daily mail service.  “There ain’t no busses runnin’ from the Bank to Mandalay.”  It is not until March that the welcome word comes that the original party safely made salt water.  The relieved tension at Regina headquarters and the joy of personal friends is dimmed by the news of the death of Corporal Donaldson, who joined the others at Chesterfield Inlet.  Donaldson, in company with Corporal Reeves, started down Hudson Bay in an open boat and encountered a herd of walruses.  Enraged and maddened at the shots of the men, one huge animal made a charge, the boat was upset, and Donaldson, trying to make shore, was drowned.  Reeves survived.