meals for two that she had planned? She toiled and sweated the whole morning, wishing many a time for any one of the ten unsatisfactory girls who had been her helpers of late. If Sophia should walk in, what a cordial welcome she would receive! But there was no such luck.

That afternoon she went out with Jessie Muldrew to pick some raspberries.

"It's only a step," Jessie had said; but oh the hills to climb, the brush. and logs to clamber over, the burning sun to be broiled in! "Plenty of fruit for the picking," had been one of Mr. Smith's allurements; but this blessing, like many of the others, proved to be by no means unalloyed. When she got back the men had just come in and wanted an early tea. A part of the mower was broken, and Mr. Milligan had to go to the village. for repairs.

"I may not be able to get it done to-night," he said. he said. "If not I would be inclined to stay till morning if it were not for leaving you alone. The boys have promised to do the milking before they leave."

"If you need to stay, Douglas, don't think of coming home on my account," Mrs. Milligan urged, "I shall not be afraid. You know, I'm not at all nervous.'

But when it began to get dark and her husband had not yet returned, Mrs. Milligan did feel a little uneasy: so she asked Jonah to stay all night.

Jonah consenting, she made up a bed for him in the big bath-tub, for there was no room for anything else in the tiny bed-room.

Mr. Milligan returned at about eleven o'clock. Feeling very tired and dusty, he thought nothing would be so refreshing as a cold bath. Edith was sleeping. He must try not to rouse her, and would not strike light.

a

He slipped upstairs very quietly in his stocking feet, carrying a pail of cold wather. He then went straight to the bath-room and dumped it with

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out ceremony into the bath-tub. Then the quiet of the house suddenly invaded by a series of earpiercing screeches.

"Jerusalem artichokes! Who's there?" he ejaculated in horror, as with many sputterings and splashings a being landed on the floor beside him, uttering very strong invectives and pounding him wildly.

Mrs. Milligan awoke in a fright. She lit the lamp and came trembling in her night dress to the scene of conflict, where her husband and Jonah, in dripping pajamas, were fighting a pitched battle in the darkness.

It was with some difficulty that she pacified her outraged little guardian, and persuaded him to spend the rest of the night on the lounge downstairs.

The following afternoon Mrs. Milligan determined to make some butter out of her five quarts of cream. There was a churn and everything to make use of in the little milk-house. She had never made butter before, but had seen it done last winter when she and Douglas had visited the Macdonald Institute. It was really a simple process, and could present no difficulties.

"I wonder now," she mused, "if I should put in a teaspoonful or a tablespoonful of butter colour. I'll try a tablespoonful to make sure.

When the cream had been duly churned the butter "came" all right, but, oh, the colour of it! It was as red as carrots. With a sinking heart Mrs. Milligan put it into the butter bowl, added salt, and worked away at it; but it clung tenaciously to the bowl and ladle in a sticky, unappetising mess. What could be the matter? At the Institute the butter never acted in such a crazy fashion.

When she was almost in despair, Jessie Muldrew came in. Mrs. Milligan felt very much ashamed of the butter, but there was no use trying to smooth it over.

"What's the matter with the stuff, anyway?" she asked appealingly.

THE

'HE work of constructing Canada's great National Transcontinental Railway is steadily progressing toward completion, and the time is not far distant when we may expect to see this splendid road, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in active operation.

As is well known, this great enterprise was first launched in 1903, and is a joint undertaking between the Government and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. The Government, through a commission of four members, is constructing the Eastern division, namely, from Moncton, in New Brunswick, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, a distance of 1,804 miles, and the company is building the Western division, from Winnipeg to the Pacific Ocean, a distance of 1,755 miles, so that when the road is completed Canada will have a great a great transcontinental railway pursuing the shortest and most direct course across her broad expanse of territory, commensurate with the most favourable engineering conditions in construction. and the agricultural and industrial possibilities of the country traversed.

The Government section (which, upon completion, will be handed over to and operated by the company under a fifty-year lease), while not as far advanced as the Western division, the latter being almost entirely a prairie country from Winnipeg to the foothills of the Rockies, is being diligently prosecuted, and long stretches.

of the line are now beginning to assume a finished appearance. The territory for several hundred miles east of Winnipeg, with the exception of about seventy miles immediately east of that city, is one of the most difficult that could be imagined for railway construction. It is almost entirely a country of heavy timber, rock and muskeg, and the road in this section. passes through a steady procession of heavy cuttings and tunnels through solid rock, and over tremendous earth fillings in muskegs and sink-holes, necessary to bring the line up to grade. These muskegs and sink-holes are continually sinking and giving away, requiring constant filling, until a substantial bottom can be formed and the grade maintained. In Northern Quebec these great obstacles to railway building also exist, but, while the area is not as great as the territory between Winnipeg and Lake Superior Junction, the work is even heavier and more difficult.

The first contract for construction on the Government section was awarded to J. D. McArthur, of Winnipeg. It comprises 245 miles of road from Winnipeg eastward to a junction with the branch line of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway to Fort William. This section is now practically completed, and has been in operation during the last grain season, hauling the products of the Western prairies to lake shipment at Fort William and Port Arthur.

Several other sections in New Brunswick and Quebec have reached a stage of completion sufficient to warrant them being operated, and it is expected that temporary arrangements will be made either to have these pieces of road operated by the Grand Trunk Pacific Company pending final completion, or that they will be operated by the Commission in charge of construction. There is a sufficient volume of traffic in view to justify the operation of these individual sections, and pressure is being brought to bear by those interested in the north country to have a service inaugurated.

Sixty per cent. of the Government section had been completed up to the end of December last, according to the estimates of the Commission.

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The entire line from Moncton Winnipeg is under contract and all opened up, with the exception of 114 miles in Quebec and 100 miles in Ontario, north of Lake Superior. The delay here was due to the inaccessibility of these sections.

West from Quebec the track is down to Waymontachene, a distance of 197 miles; also for a distance of nearly ninety miles east from Cochrane, the junction with the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railways.

Altogether about 1,000 miles of main line track has been put down and 200 miles of siding on the Government section.

The new line traverses 256 miles in New Brunswick, 700 miles in Quebec, 757 miles in Ontario, and eightynine miles in Manitoba.

In New Brunswick ninety-two per cent. of the work is done; in Quebec sixty-nine; in Ontario fifty-two, and in Manitoba about ninety-nine.

Between Moncton and Winnipeg there are 243 steel structures, totalling 52,000 tons in weight, and costing all the way from $1,000 to $700,000. The Salmon River bridge is nearly 4,000 feet long.

Nearly ninety million dollars has been expended so far on the Eastern

section of the Grand Trunk Pacific, but the fact that nearly all of this money has been spent in Canada is consoling. Moreover, there are, as well, the added impetus it has given to business of all kinds, the increase in the number and improvement in the quality of immigrants, the increase in the price of land and the products thereof, and these things count more than all else. And then when the road is finished it will take twice the tonnage now taken over a one per cent. grade, and Canada can boast of the best built railway on the American Continent. The standard grade adopted was fourtenths of one per cent., or 21.1 feet to the mile, which is a marked contrast to the grades prevailing on many of our existing railways, which frequently run as high as 1 per cent. or 52.8 feet to the mile. This higher standard of construction, while entailing a much greater initial expenditure, will certainly result in a material lessening of the cost of operation, and this economy of operation is bound to revert to the people in the form of faster time, and to the country in the more rapid development of new regions and their natural resources.

The great advantage of a railway with four-tenths of one per cent. grades over a road with one per cent. grades is, of course, in the additional hauling capacity of the locomotives. To illustrate this point, it has been demonstrated that a locomotive of the consolidated type, 107 tons-53 tons in the driving wheels, which is not one of the largest locomotives-will haul on a 1 per cent. grade 810 tons, whereas on a four-tenths of one per cent. grade the same locomotive will haul 1,596 tons, or nearly 100 per cent. more. This reduced cost of operation will also render profitable the hauling of what is called "lowgrade" freight, and in a country such as is traversed by the National Transcontinental Railway, with its wealth

of timber, pulp-wood, mineral products and great undiscovered natural resources, this is a most important factor.

As has been stated, the Government section, upon completion, is to be handed over to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway to operate, under a fiftyyear lease, and, as the company will be obliged to pay a rental of 3 per cent. per annum upon the total cost of construction, it is clearly in their interests to see that the cost is kept down to the lowest possible point. With that object in view, the legislation providing for this railway stipulated that the company should have joint supervision with the Government over its construction. This clause has been taken advantage of to the fullest extent by the company, who, since the commencement of operations, have had inspecting engineers, of their own appointment, located at various points along the entire line, and, with the conjunction of the engineers of the Commission, they have kept a careful supervision over all phases of construction. In cases of dispute between these engineers in respect to work as being performed, or returns made for same, the points of difference are referred to, and arbitrated by, the chief engineers of the Commission and the company respectively, and in the event of their failing to agree upon an adjustment of the points in question, a third arbitrator is selected by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and the differences settled by a majority ruling.

A number of objections have been filed by the company's engineers principally on the ground of alleged over-classification of material and excessive overbreak. (Overbreak is the term used to describe material in rock cuttings, which has been removed outside of the regular slopes provided for in the specifications.) These objections have been arbitrated by the two chief engineers, representing the

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company and the Commission, and many of them satisfactorily adjusted without the necessity of calling in a third arbitrator, and where the amount of material previously allowed found to be excessive deductions were made from the monthly progress estimate of the contractors. In cases where agreements were not arrived at the work will be remeasured and a decision given by the third arbitrator.

The Commissioners also have in their employ two inspecting engineers, whose duty it is to keep in close touch with the whole work and report regularly to the chief engineer. These inspectors are kept constantly on the work, traversing the line from point to point, and maintaining a thorough and close inspection on all phases of con

struction.

In addition to this joint inspection, all contracts entered into by the Commissioners and expenditures made which involve any considerable amount of money are first submitted to the company and their approval obtained. The specifications for construction were prepared jointly by the Comission and the company, and the company passes upon all designs for station buildings, round-houses, shops and terminal buildings before they are finally adopted, as well as on the plant and equipment required for

same.

As another means of insuring the construction of the road at a reason-able figure, the company itself tendered on contracts for constuction on the Government section, and have secured in all 352 miles of work.

From this it will be seen that every precaution has been taken to provide for the construction of this great road in the most complete and thorough manner, and at the lowest possible cost commensurate with the high standard of construction which has been adopted.

One of the causes which have given rise to criticism and political discussion on the high cost of this railway