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Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

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THE ROMANCE OF BANKING 279town for eighteen days, only slack could be procured. Consequently,when the furnace was lighted, it would fill the housewith suffocating fumes, and the only remedy was to empty thefurnace.Everything in the house, walls, clothes and furniture,would be blackened by the grime. Finally, when some realcoal arrived, they were able for once to enjoy the luxury of agrate fire; but the construction of the fireplace was so faultythat when, at the end of the day, the manager went down to thecellar to make up the furnace fire for the night, he found thestudding of the floor ablaze. There was no telephone overwhich to call for help and the temperature outside was fortybelow zero, but by hard work they managed to extinguish theblaze. In the summer, excitement was provided by thedepredations of wandering cattle, with fell designs on theirwind-break of poplar trees and the vegetable garden behind it.During the second winter the manager and his wife hadthe misfortune to be overtaken on the prairie by a blizzard,while returning from an evening visit to some neighbours.They <strong>com</strong>pletely lost their way and wandered about for hours.It was impossible for the manager to leave his wife to searchfor shelter, as he was lost to sight and hearing at scarcelymore than arm's length and she could not stand alone againstthe wind. Just when they were giving up in despair, ahouse was sighted, and gathering all his strength, the managerdragged his fainting wife to the door. Fortunately it hadbeen left unlocked, otherwise the occupants would havediscovered them only the next morning frozen to death in thesnow, for even after they entered the house it was long beforethey could arouse the inmates, as their shouts were drownedby the fury of the storm.Those who have read in Mark Twain's Roughing Itthe account of the silver boom in Nevada will find a parallelin the experiences of the officers of The Canadian Bank ofCommerce who went to Cobalt in the summer of 1905 toestablish a branch of the bank in this famous mining town.The Cobalt silver discoveries were the direct out<strong>com</strong>e of the

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