The Manitoba system gridirons north Minnesota, runs to Duluth, puts two tracks down the Red River Valley (one on each side of the river) to the Canada line, sends out various spurs into Dakota, and operates a main line from Grand Forks westward through the whole of Dakota, and through Montana as far as the Great Falls of the Missouri, and thence through the canon of the Missouri and the canon of the Prickly-Pear to Helena—in all about 3000 miles of track. Its president is Mr. James J. Hill, a Canadian by birth, whose rapid career from that of a clerk on the St. Paul levee to his present position of influence, opportunity, and wealth is a romance in itself, and whose character, integrity, tastes, and accomplishments, and domestic life, were it proper to speak of them, would satisfactorily answer many of the questions that are asked about the materialistic West. The Manitoba line west had reached Minot, 530 miles from St. Paul, in 1886. I shall speak of its extension in 1887, which was intrusted to Mr. D. C. Shepard, a veteran engineer and railway builder of St. Paul, and his firm, Messrs. Shepard, Winston & Co. Credit should be given by name to the men who conducted this Napoleonic enterprise; for it required not only the advance of millions of money, but the foresight, energy, vigilance, and capacity that insure success in a distant military campaign. It needs to be noted that the continuation of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba road from Great Falls to Helena, 98 miles, is called the Montana Central. The work to be accomplished in 1887 was to grade 500 miles of railroad to reach Great Falls, to put in the bridging and mechanical structures (by hauling all material brought up by rail ahead of the track by teams, so as not to delay the progress of the track) on 530 miles of continuous railway, and to lay and put in good running condition 643 miles of rails continuously and from one end only. In the winter of 1886-87 the road was completed to a point five miles west of Minot, and work was done beyond which if consolidated would amount to about fifty miles of completed grading, and the mechanical structures were done for twenty miles west from Minot. On the Montana Central the grading and mechanical structures were made from Helena as a base, and completed before the track reached Great Falls. St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth were the primary bases of operations, and generally speaking all materials, labor, fuel, and supplies originated at these three points; Minot was the secondary base, and here in the winter of 1886-87 large depots of supplies and materials for construction were formed.