While these diversified events were finding a niche in history, M. V. McGinnis and Major E. M. Peel, a lover of horseflesh, were on the war path for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and their contemporary, W. T. Dockrill, present T.P.A., C.P.R., was a “big issue” in another direction. A busy man with a portable railroad in his “carpet-bag” ticket case, he created quite a furore years ago in the vicinity of Brockville. From November, 1883 to June 1885 he traveled on the “C.P.R.” trains between that city, Ottawa and Smiths Falls exchanging prepaid orders and ticketing westbound business. In July, 1885, the C.P.R. was completed to a point beyond Jackfish and from track-end there, the heroes of the Battle of Batoche marched across the arm of Lake Superior before the bridge linking up the western extension was erected. During the time the different contracts were completing, the builders released at intervals, 10,000 laborers and navvies in lots of fifty, one hundred and two hundred, who traveled via Carleton Junction to Brockville on orders issued by the agents appointed after each station had been established behind the scene of operations. These exchange orders were seldom fully routed and Mr. Dockrill thus controlled heavy business which he, in competition with G.T.R., directed round the horn via ferry and Morristown, N.Y., thence Utica & Black River Railway, an abbreviated but prolific “feeder” to “Canada Southern” through St. Thomas and “L.S. & M.S.” by the way of Buffalo. [Illustration: WILLIAM T. DOCKRILL, Traveling Passenger Agent, Canadian Pacific Railway.] In 1881 rumors of consolidation of existing railway systems in Ontario were bruited about by those “in the know” and the steady, westward extension of the “C.P.R.” sowed uneasiness where the interests via “Chicago-St. Paul Route” were cherished. August 11th and 12th, 1882, witnessed the amalgamation of “Great Western” and “Grand Trunk.” William Edgar then was “G.P.A.” at Hamilton and Mr. Geo. T. Bell, present Passenger Traffic Manager, Grand Trunk Railway System, made stenographic hooks and crooks for him.