where the line is slightly backward and more open than elsewhere. The shrewd old wolf, which has trotted back and forth in a desperate hope of some interposition of providence in his behalf, now despairing of such good fortune, gives the into that signal for a dash for liberty into that thin northeast corner.

Some palpitating gray streaks, fearignoring leaps into the dark. The other parts of the line cease firing to watch what is happening in the thickest of the contest. Some of the hunters nearest the spot chosen by the old coyote for exit are panic-stricken, may be he counted on that. Others shoot too soon. All are afraid of shooting some of their comrades and, hence, less accurate in aim. Anyhow, Br'er Coyote, with his three terrorstricken comrades, races at express-train speed between a dry-goods clerk and the principal of schools; clouds of powder smoke tell how active is the attempt to secure his scalp as a trophy.

When the atmosphere cleared, two quiv. ering heaps of dirty gray lay on the sod, and away up the slope, leaping at pace never attained before in that coyote family, were two wildly fleeing wolves. Somehow it seemed just that the puzzled creature that wandered past us was one of them. It took a long head to defeat that marching body of expert huntsmen. He had earned his escape.

He

"I

Whose was the victory? "Chain" Dover, tall Scotchman from the Sand Springs neighborhood, claimed it. was nearest," he declared, "and when th' varmint come in reach I let go into him. Th' others shot afterward." He hung to the larger carcass and was not to be dissuaded. Three other hunters unwillingly divided between them the one honor remaining. By this time the whole party was gathered around the pole-horsemen, buggies, wagons, automobiles, men, women, high-school girls, boys, all anxious to see the fruits of the hunt.

"Up with it, 'Chain!'" called Nate Wolverton, the head marshal. Carcass in hand, the Scotchman clambered up the pole as far as he could, then held the wolf in plain sight of all. Somebody threw him a rope and he tied the grim prize there, mute evidence of half the day's work of eight hundred men. No, not of

there were hundreds, perhaps thou

sands, of dead jack-rabbits within a quarter mile of the pole in that last rounding in of the great circle. Already they were being gathered for distribution among the city mission beneficiaries.

Hungry? Did you ever walk from eight o'clock until one-thirty on a crisp winter day, carrying a gun and nerved by excitement? Little wonder that the "grub wagon," suddenly appearing with its steaming barrel of coffee and its bushels of sandwiches, did a rushing business. The two parsons were close to the footboard, getting their share. The coffee was not particularly good and the sandwiches might have been more palatable, but it was like a banquet to that famished crowd of westerners. Over on the slope of the hill the automobile parties were spreading their lunch. Some of these had had experience in such outings and their menus were banquets in fact.

"What you going to do with th' money, 'Chain'?" was the demand of the crowd.

"It's a dollar bounty apiece," he replied, laughing. "Th' four of us is goin' to take th' scalps to town and get it; then we'll go to th' movin' picture show and eat supper at some restaurant."

"Hold on, folks!" It was Marshal Wolverton, mounted on his big brown horse, calling for order. He held high a piece of paper. "Next Saturday," he read, stertoriously, "there will be another hunt in Sherman township, starting at the Bethel schoolhouse and running seven miles east and south, round-up at one o'clock in the pasture west of Sutphen's Mill. Everybody invited."

"We'll all be there!" greeted him, and then the dispersal began.

Over the sod the car made its way toward the gate of the pasture, then on the smooth prairie roads, up and down hill with the others in a merry procession townward. Past wagonloads of men it whirled, amid shouts and good-natured raillery. Well toward the city were "Chain" Dover and his associate victors in a spring wagon, carrying their trophies proudly. They would be the center of attraction on the streets that evening. Why should they not have their reign of glory? They were the best of the whole eight hundred and were the day's heroes, they and the keen-witted old coyote which had escaped.

His father had given him the use of an acre of ground, and the money was the usufruct. He had worked with all his might, putting in all his spare hours, growing hops on that acre, and had proudly harvested a short bale, which his father had taken to town for sale. When he came home, Donald asked how much it had brought.

"Twenty-three dollars," said the pater, and went on with what he was doing. The boy hung about waiting for an accounting. He waited so long his father finally asked what he wanted.

"The money for my hops," said he, and got the answer.

It was all right from the viewpoint of forty-odd years ago. There being no footing for complaint, none was made.

If you would get the measure of Mr. Mann, take the difference between that bale of hops and his Canadian timber interests which made him indispensable to the lumber combination that was formed at Chicago last December. Without these interests and his influence, that combination must have been futile. With them, it can fix the output and lower the price of lumber for all the Lake Superior region and the entire North and West. Serving at once his purpose to develop a Canadian industry and advance the business of his railways, by that one stroke he extended his scope across the border, and drew the

attention of every financier and leading business man in the United States.

The history of Mr. Mann's achievements in railway building, of his commanding part in the creation of the Canadian Northern Railway, is well enough known to all Canada and a large part of the world outside. There is no need to repeat it here. It can be summarized in a statement of the fact that for almost twelve years a mile per day of new railway has been either laid or acquired by Mr. Mann and his partner, William Mackenzie.

This is a tremendous record. It began in 1896, when Mackenzie and Mann, railway contractors, bought all that was left of the Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company. These remainders were

a

comatose charter, a mortgage, a land grant, and two streaks of rust beginning on a sheet of water and ending vaguely somewhere on the prairies. Yet they were made the beginning of a railway that now has nearly five thousand miles of main track, is practically transcontinental, and gets its revenues from farms, forests and mines which these two men have brought out of primeval idleness into the activities of the world.

Mackenzie and Mann have worked together like the two blades of a pair of shears, each complementing the other to perfect results. Mackenzie has been and is the financier. Mann is the working force that gives effect to the financial power.

Nearly thirty years ago, or in July, 1879, when the country was touched by population upon its edges merely, Mr. Mann made up his mind that in the plains west of Lake Superior and Hudson Bay lay the real future of Canada. Mr. Mann furnished ties and did construction work along the Canadian Pacific until the completion of its main line in 1885, afterward entering into partnership with Mr. Mackenzie. From contracting for other railways to creating railways for himself was a long stride, but he took it. He and Mr. Mackenzie have not only created but kept the Canadian Northern. They own substantially all the stock of the company.

An average of a mile of track added to their road every day for twelve years not only added, but owned - by two men who began with nothing.

Two men, only, the younger just now coming into his best years, the son of an Ontario farmer, who began with a short bale of hops that he did not get paid for. All of his life has been spent in the open, learning first what his own powers were, next how to apply them, and then employing them always in larger and broader things, until midway of his career he has to his credit the actual, visible entity of a trunk railway system, extending from ocean to ocean, already an influential factor in the commerce of a great and growing country; and half of which he

owns.

To have done this at all would have been a remarkable life work for any man. To have done it with unsoiled hands, by sheer ability, is an example to all the peoples.

The really interesting thing about Mr. Mann's work is not its magnitude nor the cleanly way in which it has been done, but the qualities in the doer that made it possible. The first thing it shows is the stifling fatuity of that proverbial philosophy which would limit a young man's personal initiative. Mr. Mann is a living refutation of the old saying that "it takes money to make money" in the sense that if a man hasn't any, he can make none that he does not earn manually and that then he must "save" until he has enough to do things with. A young man governed by that idea will never do anything big. The converse of this, of course, is that the majority of men will not do big things anyway, because to do big things a man must himself have bigness of quality. Most of those who have that leave only slight records, because they lack the trait that enables a man to dominate and direct others in an effective way. the most important of all qualities, after that which expresses itself in courage, a perception of opportunity and quick decision.

It is in these things Mr. Mann is undeniably a master. They include an limited capacity for effort, an instant readiness to do the thing that is next to be done, and to get the right kind of work out of other men. Assertion, ability and tenacity might sum up all.

Mr. Mann has always been ready to assert himself on the invitation of occasion, and then make good his way. This was native to him.

Away back in 1876, while he was still a boy on his father's farm near Guelph, he went to town one day with load of grain. It was fifteen miles to Guelph, and he walked it, beside the team. He made the start in the early morning, and it was well along in the forenoon before he arrived, to find that a sort of fair was going on, with a competition in athletic sports. The Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia was being held that year, and several of the contestants listed for the day had distinguished themselves there, in world

events. Athletics unrelated to agriculture were not very much in his way, but after a few minutes he made up his mind that he could put the shot and hammer as well as any of them.

At once and without ceremony he made public declaration to that effect, and offered to prove it. There was no hesitation about either the offer or its acceptance. He "went to it," and by noon had defeated all comers.

But they were only amateurs. The professionals were to have the afternoon.

Young Mann went away and sold his grain, and then (without his luncheon it would have taken time) he presented himself for the big turns. He changed costume by taking off his coat and strapping his suspenders around his waist. These, with his shirt, boots and overalls, were the sporting rig in which he walked out against Duncan C. Ross, the worldchampion, the great Hugh McKinnon, and a few other men of lesser fame.

There wasn't much laughing. The boy was too obviously in earnest. But before the day was done there was plenty of applause, for he won out second. Hugh McKinnon was first, and Ross third. When it was all over, he put his suspenders

back where they belonged, resumed his coat, got his team, and quietly disappeared homeward, with most of the town watching him.

He had seen a chance to do a thing he believed he could do. He had risen to it at once and never slacked until he had justified that belief in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. It was finding out himself that mattered most to him.

Ever since, in the lumber camps, on the

kindly or less affected, of more open mind, or in his free hours, more companionable.

Success is a strange thing and not to be won by following any set of rules. It is a matter of temperament, though to consider it in that aspect would note some rather fine analyses, because the temperament that commands success is subtly compounded by many and diverse traits, which, in the last resort, are bound to be inborn and not acquirable.