more and more to manifest itself by movementperhaps by movement alone, and force, in many cases, has been superseded by fuss.

There are many places which railways, we trust, will never touch. We trust that in the world there will always remain certain sleepy dreamy countrysides undisturbed by the roar of engines and by smoke, and that some lovely hills may be left unscarred by lines of rails. We believe in the dignity and the seclusion of ancestral acres, and we would fain support in every way possible some sanctuaries for wild animals, some large untouched woods and spots where men can be alone. We say regretfully that trains are stirring up all the colours of the world, only they are rapidly making them a uniform grey, and we maintain that grey is an uninteresting colour. But in Canada there is room for railways and there is room too for great quiet places where railways never come. We honour the men of endeavour who are making them, who are running steamship lines and opening up industries and developing the great wealth of a new country. We honour also those who see beyond wealth to a further horizon, and who are able to travel with courage and happiness upon the long road perhaps all the more lightly because of their few possessions.

Chapter VIII

Τ

Sir William Mackenzie

HERE is a necklace of lakes in Eastern Canada very like a row of precious stones set in an enamel of dark woods. These are linked together by a slender chain of canals which join the Simco, Cameron, Balsam, and Sturgeon together in the old low portage way of Champlain. Wellington surveyed it as a convenient waterway for moving troops, and upon its little frequented waters there is a surprising and wonderful lock suggestive of important traffic, while on its sleeping banks pretty houses are dotted where lockkeepers live a restful life. The place looks ready for great enterprise, but so far it still slumbers. Yet in one of its sleepiest and prettiest villages a man of surprising energy, William Mackenzie, was born. It is sometimes difficult to realise as one treads the tree-shadowed broad street of Kirkfield with its pretty inn, snug little houses, and well-kept gardens, how so peaceful an environment could have produced a spirit so energetic and so enterprising. Yet the forward movement which leaves little of Canada untouched made itself felt even there, and we find two brothers working together with the determined aim to get on in life. The elder, William, might reasonably have been contented at being a certified teacher at an age when many boys are still at school, but we find him leaving this business at the end of the year and contracting with his brother, who was a carpenter, to build a house in the village.

We may gather that the contract was well fulfilled, but the possibilities attendant upon the life of contracting small orders for general carpentering seemed to have been less attractive than teaching. William Mackenzie opened a general store, and whatever may have been its success we find him at the age of twenty-two in a position to marry the pretty daughter of a neighbour at Kirkfield.

There is a saying current in Canada which is extraordinarily characteristic of the place and its people. We believe it would not be amiss in any place where youth congregates-" There is a Klondike in every man's brain; keep digging."

It is probable that very few of the men who have kept digging have failed to find treasure, and the only difficulty seems to be to persuade those who have not tried this elementary process to attempt it.

The belief in luck is strong, and constitutional aversion to work is strong also. Yet it is hardly a truism to observe that while a belief in chance almost always ends in failure good workers never lack reward. The work and the reward indeed do on the whole show a perfect equation, and the only point we should like to insist upon in a work which is surely not intended to be didactic is that where there is a prize the best man wins it. In Canada there are many prizes. Many persons believe that they have only got to go there to win them. We have heard the remark made, " I get four dollars a day and I can do all the work I have to do in white kid gloves." This may be so and we wish well to the wearer of the white kid gloves; we also wish well to the man who urged upon us the necessity for a law forbidding men to work more than eight hours a day, or forbidding them to lay more than a

specified number of bricks an hour. We would merely like to point out, once for all, that success is not for these. The average man, the average worker, the average righteous man does not succeed because succeeding means exceeding, and the average man is one who does not exceed his fellows.

In real hard work and sleepless toil it would be difficult, we believe, to outstrip the record of the men who have made Canada. Sir Edward Blake used hardly to allow himself more than half an hour's sleep at a time, and this he most often took at his writing table when, with his arms stretched out on the papers in front of him, he would lay down his head for this brief amount of repose. Sir William van Horne remarks with a shrug of his shoulders, Sleep is a mere matter of habit and one can easily do without it." Sir William Mackenzie tells us that he has not had a holiday for twenty-one years. With these men and others like them, the difficult fulfilment of a contract reads with the interest of an account of a forced march when men, perhaps, have been falling by the roadside, while still the determination to get through has never once been forsaken; while for the other achievement success has not been easily won.

If only as a study in vigour, decision, and initiative we believe that this short sketch of Sir William Mackenzie's life may be of interest to some of our readers.

Probably his first chance came from Sir William Ross, then Manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, who persuaded him to go to the West, where he obtained the contract for the railway then under construction in the Rocky Mountains. He had to supply all timber for bridges, building, etc., and not only so, but to erect these same bridges and

buildings in order to avoid delay in track laying. This contract ran, we believe, until the completion of the railway, and it is said that no delay ever occurred in the laying of the rail.

Sir William carried the whole load upon his own shoulders, and notwithstanding the magnitude of the task, the enormous wooden structures, which had to be erected temporarily to carry it through to completion, were ready almost to the hour wherever the line had to be laid.

A friend of his says, "He had several large sawmills, the largest of which was near Donald, B.C., and these were kept running night and day for the purpose of supplying wood for his contracts. When no trains were running at night, and it was absolutely necessary for him to be at one of his mills next morning, I have known him walk from the end of the track to the mill, a distance of probably from twenty-five to thirty miles, without the least hesitation and to the wonder of all the other contractors and employes. These walks occupied the whole night, but he seemed to know no weariness and his energy was tremendous. He seemed to have an idea that if a thing could possibly be accomplished it ought to be done, and the thought of failure never once entered his head."

After the completion of the road laying for the Canadian Pacific Railway, the following year Mr. Mackenzie obtained the contract for erecting snow sheds on the eastern slopes of the mountains. Eight months were given him from the date of the commencement to the completion of his work. Of course everyone said that such a thing was impossible, and contractors and engineers alike were unanimous in saying that the thing could not be done. But the infection of discouragement to