THE RESULT OF THE CHOICE
The Montreal express was waiting to commence its six days' eastward journey when Appleby and Niven stood in the C.P.R. station next afternoon. The lads, however, scarcely noticed the great locomotive and long cars, or the roofs of the city that rose row and row up the face of the hill with the ragged spires of the sombre pines towering high above them. They were looking out on the blue inlet which, streaked in places by the smoke of the mills, lay shining in the sun, with dusky forests and a lofty line of snow beyond. Broad in the foreground rode the Champlain, looking very small and dainty with her bare masts standing high above the sweep of bulwarks, and they could recognize the men stripping the canvas off her. Behind her with the beaver ensign streaming at her peak another schooner was beating in, and Niven smiled curiously as he followed her with his eyes.
"It's the Argo," he said. "We'll be off in a minute or two—and of course I'm glad we're going home. Still, it hurts a little to leave it all behind."
Appleby nodded, for he fancied he knew what Niven was feeling, and it was with a faint sigh he turned towards the cars.
"It will be a long time before I forget the Champlain," he said. "Still, you see we couldn't be sealers."
Then a big bell commenced ringing, and Mr. Holway came up. "Here are your ticket coupons right through to Liverpool, and the Allan boat will sail an hour or two after you get to Montreal," he said. "Better take your places."
They shook hands with him while the big engine panted, and swung themselves on to the platform of the nearest car. It lurched forward, Mr. Holway waving his hand to them, slid away behind, wharf and mill went by, but they still stood out on the platform looking back at the Champlain, until with a sudden roar of wheels the train swept into the shadow of the pines that shut out blue inlet and schooner from their sight. Then Niven sighed a little and Appleby looked at him with a curious little smile.
"That's the last of her, Chriss," he said. "We've got to look forward now."
They were, however, soon too occupied for any vague regrets, and that journey from ocean to ocean over British soil excited their wonder and now and then brought them a little thrill of pride. Hour by hour the cars went lurching through the shadow of great pine-forests, and up an awful chasm with a river foaming far away below, swung over dizzy trestles, and past flashing glaciers through a tremendous desolation of rock and ice and snow that no man's foot had ever trodden. Still, the valleys were sprinkled with little wooden towns from which there rose the scream of saws and the smoke of mines, while when two great engines hauled them slowly in snake-like curves up to the Selkirk passes the lads stood gazing in silent awe at the white peaks above them.
"The men who built this road would stick at nothing," said Niven with a little gasp of wonder as he glanced back at the shining metals which lay apparently straight beneath him.