He was a man of great versatility—a railroad organizer, practical engineer, surveyor, electrician, antiquarian, painter, author, geologist, botanist and student of history and men and a mind-reader. He generally was seen in private with a long Havana cigar in his mouth, and he usually accentuated his language by extra big puffs of circling cigar smoke. The construction of the C.P.R. within five years of its inception now seems to have been an impossible task, but it was accomplished, and accomplished under frequently most discouraging conditions. After he had resigned the presidency in 1899, instead of retiring from active life, he built another line of railway which traversed the island of Cuba. Sir William loved to indulge in reminiscenses, and dwell on the hardships of early days. One story he delighted in telling was of the dark days of ’84, when Jack Frost had played hob with the wheat crop of the west. Grain was selling at a mere song and to increase the price, Alex Mitchell, an experienced grain man of Montreal, was sent up to Winnipeg by the C.P.R., but not publicly as a representative of the company. On his arrival, prices took a jump upwards and he bought and bought and kept on buying until all the available storage facilities could hold no more, and the wheat was stacked in bags or dumped in huge piles at stations. The enemies of the C.P.R.—and there were lots of kickers in those days—not knowing the circumstances—had these piles of wheat photographed, and sent all over the country to show the awful extremity of the farmers and their ill-treatment by the C.P.R. And—yes, it was C.P.R. wheat all the time. He Helped Make History. When the Riel rebellion broke out in the early spring of ’85 the C.P.R. was not completed and the troops from the east could not be sent through the United States. The gaps between the two ends of the track on the north shore of Lake Superior aggregated many miles, and the weather was severe. But Sir William’s genius was greatly in evidence. He ordered all the construction gangs to make their sleighs as comfortable as possible with straw and blankets, and established camps at convenient distances, where coffee and a bite to eat were freely dispensed. Without any particular hardship the eastern volunteers were carried over the gap, and the much-needed reinforcements to the western troops hurriedly forwarded, by which means the rebellion was more quickly suppressed.