Fine family, beauty, and gold were powerful incentives to effort to an ambitious young man like Alfonso, and he was resolved, incognito, to explore the Great West in search of riches, and once found, he would lay all at Christine's feet, and again claim her hand. Jans Jansen, the Norwegian captain, was a jolly good ship-master, and the fair weather voyage across the Atlantic proved enjoyable. Alfonso always took his meals with the captain. Jans Jansen's wife and children lived in Christiania, and his constant talk was that he hoped some day to get rich and quit the sea. Alfonso made a warm friend of Captain Jansen, who pledged secrecy as to his escape from Amsterdam. The captain was robust and his big flowing red beard, blue eyes, and bravery made him a worthy successor of the ancient vikings of the Norseland. Jans Jansen enjoyed his pipe, and with his good stories whiled away many an hour for Alfonso, so that when the ship, under full sail, entered the Strait of Belle Isle and sailed across the Gulf towards the River St. Lawrence, both the captain and young Harris regretted that their sea-voyage was so soon to close. The entrance of the St. Lawrence River is so broad that the navies of the world abreast might enter the river undiscovered from either bank. Two hundred miles up the river, Trinity House, an association of over three hundred pilots, put aboard a pilot, and at noon next day Captain Jansen docked his vessel at Quebec. This old French city is located on a high promontory on the left bank of the St. Lawrence. Its citadel, one of the strongest fortresses in America, commands a varied and picturesque beauty. Alfonso walked up to the obelisk, which stands in one of the squares of the Upper Town, in joint memory of the brave generals Wolfe and Montgomery. Next morning he was off on the Canadian Pacific Railway for Duluth, the zenith city. Thence the journey west was through. Dakota in sight of occasional tepees, where the brave Sioux patiently waits his call to join the buffalo in the happy hunting grounds. Alfonso did not agree with the popular sentiment, "The best Indian is a dead Indian," for the Sioux seemed to him to belong to a noble race of red men. Alfonso's enthusiasm for mining was greatly quickened by a fellow traveler, who was the owner of a large block of stock in the famous Homestake Mining Co. of Lead City, Black Hills, So. Dakota. This company possesses one of the largest gold mines and mills in the world. The ore bodies show a working face from two to four hundred feet in width, and sink to a seemingly inexhaustible depth. The Homestake has produced over $25,000,000 in bullion, and has divided over six millions in dividends to stockholders.