Farther south we reach the town of Vonda.  The Canadian Northern reached this neighbourhood, and the town-site was surveyed in June, 1905.  That year Vonda shipped over the line one hundred thousand bushels of wheat, and in 1906 her exports were five hundred thousand bushels.  The Canadian farmer looks upon the railroad as his friend; you cannot expect him to use the inclusive condemnation, “Corporations have no souls.”  The main line of the Canadian Northern runs from Port Arthur on Lake Superior—­where, by the way, stands the world’s largest grain elevator—­to beyond Edmonton on the North Saskatchewan, operating in the heart of one gigantic wheat-farm.  The method of construction has been unique.  The owners commenced to build branch railways almost before they had a main line.  Little spurs to small elevators grew into long branches flanked with bigger elevators, and the elevators evolved into villages, towns, and cities, until to-day the result of twelve years’ growth shows a main line of thirteen hundred miles, with over three thousand miles of branch railways.  An orchard tree is a good fruit-bearer when the thick clustering branches are more in evidence than the long thin trunk, and the same applies to railroads.  But this main line will grow, too.  Working out from its wheaten heart, its natural line of growth is east to Hudson Bay, north beyond Edmonton, and west to the Pacific.  Surely the tentacles are pushing out.  Already the Alberta Legislature has granted the Canadian Northern a charter to Athabasca Landing, and one hundred miles of steel will here tap all the lush land watered by the Peace and the Athabasca.

More interesting than the line which gridirons the wheat-lands we are passing through, are the men who made it.  To try to write the history of Western Canada’s development and not speak of Mr. Mackenzie and Mr. Mann would be as difficult as Mr. Dick’s efforts to tell his story without mentioning the unfortunate Charles I. William Mackenzie is the Cecil Rhodes of Canada—­gentle, kindly, almost retiring in his manner, and with a glance as inscrutable as the sea.  Beginning as a school-teacher, he early threw aside the ferule and the chalk, to get into the world of action.  In his time he has built shacks, kept a country store, and run a saw-mill.  Three things come to him as priceless treasure out of the self-discipline of these experiences:  a rare aptitude to see and to focus the central idea of any proposition, quick and unerring decision, and the power of ready calculation.  “I am seldom wrong in a figure,” is one of his few admissions about himself.  The President of the Canadian Northern travels without a secretary, dictates letters sparingly, and works in an office as bare of adornment as a monk’s cell.