"With kind regards."

"Look here, young man," yelled the colonel, "do you think I've come all this way to go gallivanting around the country with any blank, blank royal party?"

"I don't know, Colonel," said young Cole, brightly; "but I tell you I'd like mighty well to go in your place."

"And where in the nation IS your boss, and what's he after, anyway?"

"He's away up the river looking after business, and pretty big business, too," said Coley, not at all overawed by the colonel's wrath.

"Well, I hope he knows himself," said the colonel.

"Oh, don't make any mistake about that, Colonel," said young Cole; "he always knows where he's going and what he wants, and he gets it." But the colonel made no reply, nor did he deign to notice Mr. Michael Cole again until they had arrived at the New Westminster landing.

"The boss didn't know," said Coley, approaching the colonel with some degree of care, "whether you would like to go to the hotel or to his rooms; you can take your choice. The hotel is not of the best, and he thought perhaps you could put up with his rooms."

"All right," said the colonel; "I guess they'll suit me."

The colonel made no mistake in deciding for Ranald's quarters. They consisted of two rooms that formed one corner of a long, wooden, single-story building in the shape of an L. One of these rooms Ranald made his dining-room and bedroom, the other was his office. The rest of the building was divided into three sections, and constituted a dining-room, reading-room, and bunk-room for the men. The walls of these rooms were decorated not inartistically with a few colored prints and with cuts from illustrated papers, many and divers. The furniture throughout was home-made, with the single exception of a cabinet organ which stood in one corner of the reading-room. On the windows of the dining-room and bunk-room were green roller blinds, but those of the reading-room were draped with curtains of flowered muslin. Indeed the reading-room was distinguished from the others by a more artistic and elaborate decoration, and by a greater variety of furniture. The room was evidently the pride of the company's heart. In Ranald's private room the same simplicity in furniture and decoration was apparent, but when the colonel was ushered into the bedroom his eye fell at once upon two photographs, beautifully framed, hung on each side of the mirror.

"Hello, guess I ought to know this," he said, looking at one of them.

Coley beamed. "You do, eh? Well, then, she's worth knowin' and there's only one of her kind."

"Don't know about that, young man," said the colonel, looking at the other photograph; "here's one that ought to go in her class."

"Perhaps," said Coley, doubtfully, "the boss thinks so, I guess, from the way he looks at it."

"Young man, what sort of a fellow's your boss?" said the colonel, suddenly facing Coley.

"What sort?" Coley thought a moment. "Well, 'twould need a good eddication to tell, but there's only one in his class, I tell you."

"Then he owes it to this little woman," pointing to one of the photographs, "and she," pointing to the other, "said so."

"Then you may bet it's true."

"I don't bet on a sure thing," said the colonel, his annoyance vanishing in a slow smile, his first since reaching the province.

"Dinner'll be ready in half an hour, sir," said Coley, swearing allegiance in his heart to the man that agreed with him in regard to the photograph that stood with Coley for all that was highest in humanity.

"John," he said, sharply, to the Chinese cook, "got good dinner, eh?"

"Pitty good," said John, indifferently.

"Now, look here, John, him big man." John was not much impressed. "Awful big man, I tell you, big soldier." John preserved a stolid countenance.

"John," said the exasperated Coley, "I'll kick you across this room and back if you don't listen to me. Want big dinner, heap good, eh?"

"Huh-huh, belly good," replied John, with a slight show of interest.

"I say, John, what you got for dinner, eh?" asked Coley, changing his tactics.

"Ham, eggs, lice," answered the Mongolian, imperturbably.

"Gee whiz!" said Coley, "goin' to feed the boss' uncle on ham and eggs?"

"What?" said John, with sudden interest, "Uncle boss, eh?"

"Yes," said the unblushing Coley.

"Huh! Coley heap fool! Get chicken, quick! meat shop, small, eh?" The Chinaman was at last aroused. Pots, pans, and other utensils were in immediate requisition, a roaring fire set a-going, and in three-quarters of an hour the colonel sat down to a dinner of soup, fish, and fowl, with various entrees and side dishes that would have done credit to a New York chef. Thus potent was the name of the boss with his cook.

John's excellent dinner did much to soothe and mollify his guest; but the colonel was sensitive to impressions other than the purely gastronomic, for throughout the course of the dinner, his eyes wandered to the photographs on the wall, and in fancy he was once more in the presence of the two women, to whom he felt pledged in Ranald's behalf.

"It's a one-horse looking country, though," he said to himself, "and no place for a man with any snap. Best thing would be to pull out, I guess, and take him along." And it was in this mind that he received the Honorable Archibald Blair, M. P. P., for New Westminster, president of the British Columbia Canning Company, recently organized, and a director in half a dozen other business concerns.

"Colonel Thorp, this is Mr. Blair, of the British Columbia Canning Company," said Coley, with a curious suggestion of Ranald in his manner.

"Glad to welcome a friend of Mr. Macdonald's," said Mr. Blair, a little man of about thirty, with a shrewd eye and a kindly frank manner.

"Well, I guess I can say the same," said Colonel Thorp, shaking hands.

"I judge his friends are of the right sort."

"You'll find plenty in this country glad to class themselves in that list," laughed Mr. Blair; "I wouldn't undertake to guarantee them all, but those he lists that way, you can pretty well bank on. He's a young man for reading men."

"Yes?" said the colonel, interrogatively; "he's very young."

"Young, for that matter so are we all, especially on this side the water here. It's a young man's country."

"Pretty young, I judge," said the colonel, dryly. "Lots of room to grow."

"Yes, thank Providence!" said Mr. Blair, enthusiastically; "but there's lots of life and lots to feed it. But I'm not going to talk, Colonel. It is always wasted breath on an Easterner. I'll let the country talk. You are coming with us, of course."

"Hardly think so; my time is rather limited, and, well, to tell the truth; I'm from across the line and don't cater much to your royalties."

"Royalties!" exclaimed Mr. Blair. "Oh, you mean our governor. Well, that's good rather, must tell the governor that." Mr. Blair laughed long and loud. "You'll forget all that when you are out with us an hour. No, we think it well to hedge our government with dignity, but on this trip we shall leave the gold lace and red tape behind."

"How long do you propose to be gone?"

"About four weeks. But I make you a promise. If after the first week you want to return from any point, I shall send you back with all speed. But you won't want to, I guarantee you that. Why, my dear sir, think of the route," and Mr. Blair went off into a rapturous description of the marvels of the young province, its scenery, its resources, its climate, its sport, playing upon each string as he marked the effect upon his listener. By the time Mr. Blair's visit was over, the colonel had made up his mind that he would see something of this wonderful country.

Next day Coley took him over the company's mills, and was not a little disappointed to see that the colonel was not impressed by their size or equipment. In Coley's eyes they were phenomenal, and he was inclined to resent the colonel's lofty manner. The foreman, Mr. Urquhart, a shrewd Scotchman, who had seen the mills of the Ottawa River and those in Michigan as well, understood his visitor's attitude better; and besides, it suited his Scotch nature to refuse any approach to open admiration for anything out of the old land. His ordinary commendation was, "It's no that bad"; and his superlative was expressed in the daring concession, "Aye, it'll maybe dae, it micht be waur." So he followed the colonel about with disparaging comments that drove Coley to the verge of madness. When they came to the engine room, which was Urquhart's pride, the climax was reached.

"It's a wee bit o' a place, an' no fit for the wark," said Urquhart, ushering the colonel into a snug little engine-room, where every bit of brass shone with dazzling brightness, and every part of the engine moved in smooth, sweet harmony.

"Slick little engine," said the colonel, with discriminating admiration.

"It's no that bad the noo, but ye sud hae seen it afore Jem, there, took a hand o' it--a wheezin' rattlin' pechin thing that ye micht expect tae flee in bits for the noise in the wame o't. But Jemmie sorted it till it's nae despicable for its size. But it's no fit for the wark. Jemmie, lad, just gie't its fill an' we'll pit the saw until a log," said Urquhart, as they went up into the sawing-room where, in a few minutes, the colonel had an exhibition of the saw sticking fast in a log for lack of power.