THE EXPEDITION STRIKES A SNAG IN EDMONTON
At three o’clock the fast express pulled out of the big depot at Calgary on its way to Edmonton, then the northern limit of railroad transportation on the American Continent. A part of the train was the sealed baggage car carrying the airship. In the day coach, with their bags in their laps, and still stolid of face, sat Moosetooth Martin and old La Biche. For the moment their pipes reposed in their vest pockets. Each was eating an orange. Far in the rear of the train, Colonel Howell’s little expedition was making itself comfortable in a stateroom. Somewhat to the surprise of the younger members of the party, Mr. Zept had joined them.
The corners of the stateroom and the near-by vestibule of the car were crammed with the personal belongings of those headed for Fort McMurray.
Even in the excitement of leaving and the farewells to the members of their families and friends, neither Norman nor Roy failed to notice that the young Count’s face again bore the flush that did not come from exertion. Mr. Zept’s face also bore the look that the boys had come to know, the expression that they could not fail to connect with the indiscretions of his son.
If Colonel Howell saw these things, nothing about him indicated it. Having divested himself of his coat, he put himself at once in charge of the party, and was full of animation.
Within a few moments young Zept left the stateroom, without protest from his father, and the two boys partly lost themselves in a close view of the country through which they were passing.
“Things are changing very fast in this region,” explained Mr. Zept, motioning to the irregular hill-dotted country, in which patches of vegetation alternated with semi-arid wastes. “See how irrigation is bringing the green into this land. Ten years ago, for fifty miles north of Calgary, we called this The Plains. It’s all changing. It’s all going to be farms, before long. You’ll be surprised, however,” he continued, addressing the boys. “Long before night we’ll run out of this onto the green prairies. Long before we get to Edmonton, we’ll be in some of the best farming land in the world. And it goes on and on, more or less,” he added with a faint smile, “a good deal farther than we know anything about—maybe as far as Fort McMurray,” he concluded.
“There isn’t any reason why Fort McMurray can’t be a Calgary some day,” replied Colonel Howell; “that is, when the railroads start towards Hudson’s Bay.”
“You’ll have to have some land too,” suggested Mr. Zept. “If you just had a few good prairies and some grass lying loose around up there, that’d help.”
“How do you know we haven’t?” answered the colonel.