Of Sicamous

The Okanagan Valley, in the Province of British Columbia, is bounded on the north by the mosquitoes at Sicamous, and on the south by the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, which is the United States; and to one who is accustomed to the sand and the sage, the general aspect throughout gives a most pleasing rest to the eye.  A trip to the Okanagan is like one sweet dream to the inhabitants of the dry belt—­a dream that is broken only once by a dreadful nightmare—­the mosquito conquest at Sicamous; but you forgive and forget this the moment after you awake.  The mosquitoes at Sicamous are as great a menace to that town as the Germans are to Europe.

The train for the valley, when on time, leaves Sicamous, on the main line of the C.P.R., at about ten, good morning, but sometimes she waits for the delayed eastern train.  This happens very frequently on Sundays—­for who or what was ever on time on a Sunday?  Sunday is the lazy man’s day—­the lazy day of the world—­the day on which we creep along out of tune with things.

Now, when you get side-tracked at a C.P.R. station in the Rocky Mountains waiting for a delayed eastern train, you may as well throw all your plans into the lake, because they will be out of fashion when you have an opportunity to use them again, and you will require new ones—­the train may come to-day and she may not come till to-morrow.  But, if that station chances to be Sicamous, and it is Sunday—­and it must be raining heavily, for when it is raining there are no mosquitoes—­you will not regret the delay, and you will be very much interested if you have an eye for the unique, or if you have the slightest inclination to be eccentric you will be reminded that—­

        There are friends we never meet;
        There is love we never know.

Here people—­strangers and friends—­meet and nod, smile, talk and depart ten or twelve times every day.  You will wonder how people can talk so much, and what they get to talk about—­people who meet accidentally here, only for a moment, and will never meet again, perhaps.  Almost hourly, night and day, cosmopolitan little throngs jump from trains, chat a few moments among themselves, or with others who have been waiting, and then allow themselves to be picked up by the next train and rushed off into eternity—­that is, so far as you are concerned, for you will never see them again—­and some of them were becoming so familiar.  They are voices and faces flitting across your past; they are always new, always strange, always interesting; they are laughing, chatting, smiling, scowling, worrying.  There are fair faces and dark faces, pleasant faces and angry faces, careless faces and anxious faces, and faces that are thin, fat, long and short.  The voices are as varied as the faces.  There is the sharp, clear voice and the dull voice, the angry one and the pleasant one.  There are young and old,