In eight days all was clear, through a zeal on the part of the whole staff which was beyond praise, and almost beyond belief. I never saw such a mess, or such a recovery. In fourteen days the Northern Pacific at Emerson was shouting for us to dam the tide of empties that was flowing back to their American owners. This blockade precipitated the appointment of M. H. MacLeod as general manager, without relinquishing his other post. There was, of course, some outside surprise at so unusual a fusion of offices. It was even said that MacLeod hadn’t force of character enough--by those who did not know what can come from the lone sheiling of the Hebrides. But MacLeod was all there, all the time and all the way. He was sometimes like electricity--hardly noticeable till you touched him. He seldom kicked; but when he did there was no misunderstanding the stroke. Shortly before he died Sir William Mackenzie was asked what he thought of the revised Toronto viaduct scheme. He replied that of course it should go through, because it was MacLeod’s; and being MacLeod’s the saving of millions, which it showed on paper, would be a saving of millions on the contract. Sir William’s latest estimate of MacLeod was only in keeping with long experience. He may not have kept them as Major Rogers kept the C.P.R. cheque, but he was given more than one letter by Sir William, signing as President of the Canadian Northern, authorizing him to spend on betterments sums running beyond seven figures, on his sole discretion and authority. Similar instances of executive confidence may be recorded elsewhere, but I scarcely think so. The quality of the railway pathfinder is essentially the same whether he walks alone, in the depth of winter, on Saskatchewan ice, looking for a place to build a steel bridge a thousand feet long, or whether he is poking around a waterfront littered with shipping warehouses, and considering how to get twenty trains an hour into and out of a station. It works with a seeing eye and a building hand. MacLeod has them both. He is in his own class; but he is of a great company of engineers to whom ungrudging tribute is richly due, and too seldom paid. CHAPTER XIV. _Reciting events, the Great War being chief, which destroyed the Canadian Northern._