The broken, the outcast, the disappointed, these too have found their way to the ranches among the Foothills.

A country it is whose sunlit hills and shaded valleys reflect themselves in the lives of its people; for nowhere are the contrasts of light and shade more vividly seen than in the homes of the ranchmen of the Albertas.
The experiences of my life have confirmed in me the orthodox conviction that Providence sends his rain upon the evil as upon the good; else I should never have set my eyes upon the Foothill country, nor touched its strangely fascinating life, nor come to know and love the most striking man of all that group of striking men of the Foothill country--the dear old Pilot, as we came to call him long afterwards.

My first year in college closed in gloom.

My guardian was in despair.

From this distance of years I pity him.