My friends were right. Business of vital importance called me, or I should certainly not have left Vancouver at a season when the journey to Montreal is generally attended with discomfort, not to say danger. In the summertime it is pleasant enough, for the scenery outrivals that of Switzerland, and the Canadian Pacific Railway is justly noted for the perfection of its cars and cuisine. But now the passes were blocked by snow, and a train had recently been "held up" in the wild, mountainous district between Banff and Calgary. It was Christmas Eve, so that I had the cars pretty much to myself. Indeed, east of Lytton, where a party of Victorians left us to spend the New Year, the train was practically empty. We numbered, after leaving Lytton, a dozen passengers in all; none too many to dig a way through the drifts which, to judge from the steadily-falling snow, were grimly looming ahead. The prospect of a week or more of weary travel was not inviting, and I dined the first evening unable to appreciate a dinner worthy of the Paris boulevards. The cheerless meal over, I smoked a solitary cigar in a dimly-lit and silent "smoker," and towards bedtime summoned the conductor, in sheer desperation, to share a hot grog. Afterwards I sought my couch. But the frequent stoppages due to the tempest and driving snow kept me awake--a revolver handy in case of a "hold-up"--until a cold grey dawn was peering through the window-blinds. For notes to the amount of thirty thousand dollars reposed in a note-case under my pillow, and the fact that a friend in Montreal was awaiting them did not tend to lessen my anxiety. But fortune and the Arctic weather favoured us, for a starving wolf would scarcely have faced that blinding blizzard, let alone a train-robber. We were detained for a time by a fallen snow-shed, but we forged steadily ahead through minor difficulties, and, on the morning of the third day, steamed safely into Calgary. Here I put away my pistol with an easy mind, for open country now lay before us. The robbers who lurked in the mountains, where trackless forests on either side of the line afford an easy means of escape, were not likely to trouble us on the plains. Dark days were now followed by a blue sky and brilliant sunshine as we rattled over the prairie, clad in a mantle of dazzling snow. The monotony of this journey can only be realized by those who, day after day, have watched the same dreary landscape unfold, as void of life and colour as the moon itself. A desert, in summer, of withered grass; in winter the scene of snow-clad desolation so wearies the eye that the sight of a ruined log-hut or a solitary crow comes as a positive relief. It was therefore some consolation when, at the little log-town of Regina, a solitary passenger entered the train.