"Mike, if you please, Michael Cole, if you don't mind; and the note is from the boss, Mr. Macdonald, who has gone up the country, and can't be here to welcome you.""Gone up the country!" roared the colonel; "what the blank, blank, does he mean by going up the country at this particular time?"But Mr. Michael Cole was quite undisturbed by the colonel's wrath.
"You might find the reason in the note," he said, coolly, and the colonel, glaring at him, opened the note and read:
"MY DEAR COLONEL THORP: I am greatly disappointed in not being able to meet you. The truth is I only received your letter this week. Our mails are none too prompt, and so I have been unable to re-arrange my plans. I find it necessary to run up the river for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, thinking that possibly you might like to see something of our country, I have arranged that you should join the party of the Lieutenant Governor on their trip to the interior, and which will take only about four weeks' time. The party are going to visit the most interesting districts of our country, including both the famous mining district of Cariboo and the beautiful valley of the Okanagan. Mr. Cole, my clerk, will introduce you to Mr. Blair, our member of Parliament for Westminster, who will present you to the rest of the party. Mr. Blair, I need not say, is one of the brightest business men in the West. I shall meet you at Yale on your return. If it is absolutely impossible for you to take this trip, and necessary that I should return at once, Mr. Cole will see that a special messenger is sent to me, but Iwould strongly urge that you go, if possible.
"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.
