First of all there were doubts as to whether a railway could be put through the Kicking Horse Pass. Then, once over the Great Divide, the Fraser Valley must be reached either by crossing the mighty Selkirk range, or by going hundreds of miles round the big bend of the Columbia. No pass through the Selkirks was known. Few men believed one could be found. But Van Horne headed his road for the foothills, taking chances on making a fairly economical approach to the Pacific ocean, to obtain which he sent explorers into the appalling waste of mountains. At last, after incredible hardships, Major Rogers and a companion named Carrol found the Pass that is forever associated with the major’s name; and the C.P.R. went through, as all the world knows. I shall come to a very pleasant duty presently, when something is to be said about railway location, and some of the locators I have known and worked with. It will be seen that they are all of the Rogers spirit, though, happily for themselves, they are not all of the Rogers attitude towards their own financial interests. Rogers was a Yale graduate of high standing, but a lover and liver of the wild, if ever there was such a creature. His discovery of the Pass, made during days of semi-starvation, and dreadful peril to man and beast, was acknowledged by the C.P.R. with a check for five thousand dollars. Van Horne, meeting Rogers in Winnipeg a year later, reminded the major that he hadn’t cashed the check. “What!” roared Rogers. “Cash that check? I wouldn’t take a hundred thousand dollars for it. It is framed and hangs in my brother’s house in Waterville, Minnesota, where my nephews and nieces can see it. I’m not in this game for money.” To indicate the general temper of those early construction days in the prairie country one can take room for only two sidelights on the Van Horne regime, which became traditional with all the surviving old-timers who were lucky enough to behold it. Van Horne wasn’t an engineer, but he had all the natural aptitudes of one, and a Napoleonic hatred of “can’t”. One day he sent for a locating engineer, threw a profile to him and said: “Look at that. Some infernal idiot has put a tunnel in there. I want you to go up and take it out.” “But this is on the Bow River--a troublesome section. There may be no other way.” “Make another way.” The engineer stood, irresolute. Then, Van Horne: “This is a mud tunnel, isn’t it?” “Yes.” “How long would it take to build it?” “A year or eighteen months.” Van Horne thumped his desk and shouted: “What are they thinking about? Are we going to hold up this railway for a year and a half while they build their damned tunnel? Take it out.” The engineer started off with the plan; but turned at the door. “Mr. Van Horne,” he said, “these mountains are in the way, and the rivers don’t run right for us. While we’re at it we might fix them up, too.”