events somewhat, owing to our discussing Lord Mount Stephen’s retirement and the relationship subsisting between him and the new President. We may go back a little and see the work of the railway under Mr. Van Horne in that high office. No other name could have been suggested to succeed Mount Stephen, but there is something exhilarating and encouraging to all young men on this continent in contemplating the career of Mr. Van Horne, who though born in another country and of alien parentage, came into the British Dominion of Canada and not only overcame any resentment against his intrusion, but who “made by force his merits known,” till he came to be acknowledged as one of the foremost citizens of Canada. Mr. Van Horne, both before and after he became President of the Canadian Pacific, set himself not only to create local traffic, travel and immigration as already recorded, but he also very particularly began to secure branch lines and connections as feeders to the long main line from ocean to ocean. In this sort of work he was in his element, planning new lines and building them, buying out old roads and putting new life into them, getting access to the big centres of the East and linking up with the railway systems south of the line. This immense task of opening new lines and establishing new industries has been continued by all Van Horne’s successors till the Dominion and a good deal of the States knows the Canadian Pacific as it knows its city streets and country roads. In fact the Canadian Pacific is so ubiquitous that men take with the utmost gravity the old joke that the clocks of the country are set to the railway time as if the road was in control of the calendar. All these sayings, grave and gay, indicate such a widening of the sphere of this road since the last spike was driven that the mystic monogram “C. P. R.” is understood by every passer-by and the house-flag of the Company’s fleet is known upon the seven seas of the world. About this tremendous expansion and a few of the men back of it we may study more in the next chapter. CHAPTER XIV The Guiding Hands