was organized in divisions of 30 miles each, and as each was finished the parties moved ahead again to the front, the engineers usually finding men sitting on their shovels waiting for the work to be laid out for them.  It was as much as the locating parties could do to keep out of the way of the construction.  The roadbed was built 14 ft. wide in embankment and 20 in the very few cuts there were, there being no cuts of any moment except through the Coteaus and the Saskatchewan crossing, and these have since been widened out on account of snow, so that the road can be operated the year round and the bucking-snow account cut no figure in the operating expenses.

The country is a virgin desert.  From Winnipeg to the Pacific Ocean there are a few places that might attain to the dignity of an oasis—­at Brandon, Portage la Prairie, etc.—­but it is generally what I should call worthless; 100 miles to wood and 100 feet to water was the general experience west of the Moose jaw, and the months of June, July, and August are the only three in the year that it is safe to bet you will not have sleighing.  I burned wood and used stakes that were hauled by carts 85 miles, and none any nearer.  It is a matter of some pride that both the engineering and the construction were done by what our Canadian neighbors kindly termed “Yankee importations.”  However, there was one thing that in the building of this road was in marked contrast to any other Pacific road ever constructed, that is, there was no lawlessness, no whisky, and not even a knock-down fight that I ever heard of the whole season, and even in the midst of 12,000 Indians, all armed with Winchester rifles and plenty of ammunition, not one of the locating or construction parties ever had a military escort, nor were any depredations ever committed, except the running off of a few horses, which were usually recovered; and I think there were but two fatal accidents during the season, one man killed on the Grand Coule Bridge, and another from being kicked by a horse.

The track was all laid from one end, and in no case were rails hauled ahead by teams.  Two iron cars were used, the empty returning one being turned up beside the track to let the loaded one by.

The feat in rapid construction accomplished by this company will never be duplicated, done as it was by a reckless expenditure of money, the orders to the engineers being to get there regardless of expense and horse-flesh; if you killed a horse by hard driving, his harness would fit another, and there was no scrutiny bestowed on vouchers when the work was done; and I must pay the tribute to the company to say that everything that money would buy was sent to make the engineers comfortable.  It was bad enough at best, and the Chief Engineer (J.C.  James) rightly considered that any expense bestowed on the engineering part of the work was a good investment.

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