At the beginning of my connection with the line, I continued on duty for a time with the North Western, and made my headquarters once more at the Portage, though my family remained in Winnipeg. But, at the end of 1898, with one line west of Lake Manitoba, and another going east to the Lake of the Woods, I became more or less of a shuttle--and have been shuttling ever since across a loom of steel, which never seems to have decided how wide a fabric it would evolve. As the nineteenth century was dying, cordwood was still a considerable aid to Winnipeg comfort; and the rather swampy Marchand region its most convenient source of supply. Our eastern line was started as a cordwood carrier--and more. We set up a woodyard and sold scores of trainloads of tamarac, poplar and jack pine--ninety per cent. of our traffic. Our terminal was at St. Boniface; so that, literally we were at the gate of good things--this institution that looked so feeble, and was indeed feeble in body, whatever its daring was in mind. We were able to place our cars in the Winnipeg C.P.R. yards. The C.P.R. was kind to us, as the mighty knows how to be to the meagre. We had begun with two engines, fifty new freight cars, made by the Crossens, of Coburg, two second-hand passenger cars, bought from the Rathbuns, of Deseronto, and an uncertain number of flat cars, which had been used on construction. We had to buy more second-hand equipment for the eastward adventure, but, as to flat cars for the cordwood, our conductor, Percival, had a brave habit of borrowing such as he could collect, in the C.P.R. yards, without asking anybody’s leave. The late Sir William Whyte frequently laughed with us over this manifestation of Percival’s trust in the C.P.R., which Sir William used to observe from his window in the old station overlooking the yards. The Muskeg Limited, as our train became known, had its own place in Winnipeg transportation, and its name ought not to be forgotten. On the whole, then, it can be said that as a company of railway adventurers, we were the lineal successors of The Farmer Outfit, which Mackenzie took into the Rockies in 1884. But we had avoided some mistakes, which others, later, failed to avoid; and we had some results to show, of which it is pertinent, now to speak. The mistake avoided was the common one of acting as if fine shows made fine roads. Mackenzie and Mann had been through a mill which was addicted to grinding exceeding small. They both came from pioneer farms. Their railroading experience began with the rough and tumble of construction camps, and frequent reliance on bannock and sowbelly. They never supposed that office furniture could offset a lack of revenue. They started pioneer roads like pioneer roads.