The scenery from Montreal to the Pacific is some of the noblest and most varied the traveller can anywhere behold.
As he passes through the lovely Ottawa Valley, Toronto, which is the capital city of the Dominion, will be sure to attract attention; and, as he advances, the interest will deepen as he passes through the primeval forest, or past the primitive homes of frontier settlers.
The rail carries him along the shore of Lake Superior, the greatest fresh-water lake on the face of the globe. And, until Fort William is reached, some very grand scenery is beheld.
Rock, stream, and lake succeed, or mingle with, each other for the next three or four hundred miles, and receives an added interest from the fact that, besides being the route of the old fur-traders, it was also that by which our "One General" conducted the Red River Expedition of 1870.
The Red River Valley is now a populous settlement; crossing which, Winnipeg is entered, and the capital reached of the "world's great wheatfields of the future."
The province of Manitoba "is the most eastern division of the great prairie country," and its valleys are everywhere famous for the quality of its wheat. It is the older settled division of what was formerly known as Rupert's Land; its climate is extremely healthy, and is, in fact, looked upon as a health-resort in other parts of Canada.
Important and attractive as Winnipeg undoubtedly was, and influential as being the capital of the province, it was not considered by the Bartons to be the place most likely to meet their wants; hence their determination to travel on in order to reach a more agricultural station of the rural type, where they hoped there might be a possibility of obtaining work.
Passing a number of small towns and thriving settlements, where here and there might be found traces of the all but extinct buffalo, and occasionally catching a glimpse of an antelope, they had commenced the descent into the valley of the Qu'Appelle, and were rounding a rather sharp curve, when there burst on the engine-driver's view a heavily laden goods-train, in process of shunting, standing right across the path of the on-coming train. To shut off steam and reverse the brakes was the work of a few seconds; nevertheless the crash came, and at once a scene of dire confusion ensued. The driver lay dead beneath his overturned engine; the stoker had jumped off, and almost miraculously escaped with only a severe shaking and some few bruises. Two of the forward carriages were telescoped; others were heaped end-on companion carriages; two had been thrown over.
As soon as the uninjured portion of the passengers could free themselves from the carriages which had kept the rails, they set to work to rescue those who were screaming for succour, or moaning with pain, amidst the wreckage which plentifully bestrewed the lines.
In the course of a little less than an hour fourteen dead bodies were laid on the bank-side, and between fifty and sixty more or less fearfully injured passengers were extricated, of whom several, it was at once seen, were fatally injured.