And thus was the great railway opened from ocean to ocean. Much remained yet to be done in the way of constant improvement of the road and increase of the rolling stock. But the system was in operation, and the trains passed East and West over the once “Great Lone Land” and through the mountain passes. Circumstances have changed somewhat since the following fine verses were written some years ago by the late Pauline Johnson, but in general they still represent the situation. Born in Ontario in the region made famous by her great ancestor, Joseph Brant, ally of the British people, this gifted poetess, with the Indian blood of which she was so proud, saw in the Canadian Pacific trains not just so many cars and engines, but new and living factors in the expanding life of her beloved Dominion. And so she makes “The C. P. R. No. 1, Westbound,” say: “I swing to the sunset land— The world of prairie, the world of plain, The world of promise and hope and pain The world of gold and the world of gain, And the world of the willing hand. “I carry the brave and bold— The one who works for the nation’s bread, The one whose past is a thing that’s dead, The one who battles and beats ahead And the one who goes for gold. “I swing to the ‘Land to Be.’ I am the power that laid its floors; I am the guide to its Western Shores I am the key to its golden doors That open alone to me.” And she calls on “The C. P. R. No. 2, Eastbound,” to say: “I swing to the land of morn— The grey old East with its grey old seas; The land of leisure, the land of ease, The land of flowers and fruit and trees And the place where we were born. “Freighted with wealth I come: For he who many a moon has spent Far out West on adventure bent, With well-worn pick and folded tent Is bringing his bullion home “I never will be renowned, As my twin that swings to the Western marts, For I am she of the humbler parts— But I am the joy of waiting hearts; For I am the Homeward bound.” _From “Flint and Feather,” by E. Pauline Johnson. Published by arrangement with the Musson Book Company, Limited._ CHAPTER XII Guardians of the Road