Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE ROMANCE OF BANKING 269Commerce," and were open for business on Monday morning.The hotel being impossible, we got two or three armfuls ofstraw from a stable, and on this, with horse blankets, weslept in our log hut "banking office" until November 9."To us the most interesting part of this episode was ourexperience with snakes. An old creek bottom, a short distanceaway, was infested with garter snakes, and with the approachof cold weather they appeared to migrate to the few buildingsin the town and to our old hut in particular. I shall neverforget my feelings the first time I wakened in the pitch darknessand realized that a snake was lying snugly against my body.Every night after this before retiring we would place six oreight candles on the ground around our bed, then shake up thestraw with sticks and kill any of the reptiles that we discovered.Notwithstanding this precaution, we frequently awoke toexperience the cold, clammy presence of an extra bed-fellow,which after the first few times did not seem quite so nerveracking.If I remember correctly, our record killing wastwenty-four snakes inside the "office"during one afternoonand evening. I might mention here that Mr. Hogg 1 of theinspection department paidus a week-end visit about thistime, and was given a very comfortable bed in a sleepingbag on the improvised counter in the "banking office," wellout of reach of our crawling friends."Subsequently I purchased a homesteader's shack, whichwe moved on wagon trucks about four miles over the prairie,to what was to be the new site on the railway. We were thefirst to locate on the newly staked townsite even before thelots were offered for sale, the business of the town being movedon November 9. The railway line was completed as far asthe town a short time later. The post office remained for sometime at the old town, the mail arriving there once a week,late in the afternoon, by stage from Edmonton. This necessitatedour going to the old town in the evening on horseback,then back to the new town with the mail, where the week's1Mr. William Hogg, now superintendent of Ontario branches.