The welcome had had its usual effect on the Prince. The formal salute never had a chance, and from the outset of the ride he had stood up in his car and waved back in answer to the cheering of the crowd. When standing for so many miles tired him, he sat high up on the folded hood, with one of his suite to hold him, and he did not stop waving his hat. In this way he accomplished the thirty-six miles ride, only slipping down into his seat as the car mounted the stiff zig-zag that led up Mount Royal to the luncheon pavilion. The slowness of this climb was, in a sense, his undoing. As his car neared the top of the hill, two Montreal flappers, whose extreme youth was only exceeded by their extreme daring, sprang on to the footboard and held him up with autograph books. He immediately produced a fountain pen, and sitting once more on the back of the car, wrote his name as the car went along, and the young ladies from Montreal clung on to it. This delightful act was too much for one of the maidens, for, on getting her book back, she kissed the Prince impulsively, and then in a sudden attack of deferred modesty, sprang from the car and ran for her blushes' sake. From the luncheon pavilion the Prince was whirled to the Royal train, and in that, after a recuperative round of golf at a course just outside Montreal, he set out for the comparative calm of the great West. CHAPTER XI ON THE ROAD TO TROUT I The run on the days following the packed moments of Montreal was one of luxurious indolence. The Royal train was heading for the almost fabled trout of Nipigon, where, among the beauties of lake and stream, the Prince was to take a long week-end fishing and preparing for more crowds and more strenuosity in the Canadian West. Through those two days the train seemed to meander in a leisurely fashion through varied and attractive country, only stopping now and then as though it had to work off a ceremonial occasionally as an excuse for existing at all. The route ran through pleasant, farmed land between Montreal and North Bay and Sudbury, and then switched downward through the bleak nickel and copper country to the beautiful coast of Lake Huron on its way to Sault Ste. Marie. From this town, which the whole Continent knows as "Soo," it plunged north through the magnificent scenery of the Algoma area to Oba, and, turning west again (and in the night), it ran on to Nipigon Lake.