Every night in the year for the last seventeen years, halfway up the side of a lofty mountain overhanging a beautiful lake in Western Canada, and opposite to one of the most progressive towns of the interior of the Dominion, a solitary light might be seen burning. The stranger naturally wonders what the light can mean in such a spot. The mountain-side consists entirely of bare rock, with a few trees growing out of the crevices. There is not a blade of grass, not a sign of any single thing that could be of the slightest use to any human being. What does that light mean, then, up on the steep and lonely mountain-side? It does not move. It is always stationary, always visible, in exactly the same place, and always burning in exactly the same way. What does it mean?
If you address your inquiry to one of the older residents in the town opposite, he will tell you: "Oh, that's Coal-Oil Johnnie's light."
"But who is Coal-Oil Johnnie?" you at once ask again.
"Coal-Oil Johnnie's a half-crazy miner, who lives up there and works a mine."
"What sort of a mine?"
"A gold-mine."
"But is it really a gold-mine? And is he working up there all by himself?"
"Sure," replies your informant, in the word that is sterling Canadian for "Yes, certainly."