The Homesteaders Page 2

  "Tell us about the crops," said one of the men passengers. "What like wheat can ye grow?"

  "Like corn," said the narrator, with great deliberation. "Heads like ears o' corn. Wheat that grows so fast ye can hear it. Nothin' uncommon to walk into wheat-fields when they's knee-high, an' have to fight yer way out like a jungle."

  "Is the Injuns werry big?" piped a little voice. "My pa's go'n'to make me a bone-arrow so I can kill 'em all up."

  "That's a brave soldier," said the man, drawing the child to his knee. "But Ah know a better way to fight Indians than with bows an' arrows. D'ye want me to tell ye a story?"

  "'S about Moses?"

  "No, Ah ain't quite up-to-date on Moses, but Ah can tell ye a story about a better way to fight Indians than with arrows an' powder. Ah fight 'em with flour an' blankets an' badger-meat, an' it's a long way better."

  The child climbed up on the friendly knee, and interested himself in the great silver watch-chain that looped convenient to his fingers. "Go on wif your story, man," he said. "I's listenin'."

  And big Aleck McCrae forgot the immigrants crowded around, forgot the lurch of the train and the window-glimpse of forests heavy-blanketed with snow, as he ploughed his fertile imagination and spread a sudden harvest of wonderment before the little soul that clung to his great watch-chain.

  Harris and his young bride found much to occupy their attention. Their minds were big with plans, nebulous and indefinite but charged with potentiality, which they should put into effect when they had selected their prairie home. To the young girl, naturally of romantic temperament, the journey of life upon which they had so recently embarked together took on something of the glamour of knightly adventure. Through the roseate lens of early womanhood the vague, undefined difficulties that loomed before her were veiled in a mist of glory, as she felt that no sacrifice could really hurt, no privation could cut too deep, while she was fulfilling her destiny as wife and comrade to the bravest and best of men. The vast plains, heart-breaking in their utter emptiness, could only be full to her—full of life, and love, and colour; full of a happiness too great to be contained. She watched the gaunt trees rising naked from the white forest, and her mind flitted on a thousand miles in advance, while on the cold window-sill her fingers tapped time to the click of the car wheels underneath.

  Harris, too, was busy with his thoughts. He measured the obstacles ahead with the greater precision of the masculine mind. To him, love was not a magician's wand to dissolve his difficulties in thin air, but a mighty power which should enable him to uproot them from his path. No matter what stood in the way—what loneliness, what hardship, what disappointment and even disillusionment—he should fight his way out to ultimate victory for the sake of the dear girl at his side. As she watched the wintry landscape dreamily through the window he shot quick glances at her fine face; the white brow, the long lashes tempering the light of her deep magnetic eyes; the perfect nose, through whose thin walls was diffused the faintest pink against a setting of ivory; lips, closed and tender as in the sleep of a little child; chin, strong, but not too strong; and a neck full and beautiful, the whole forming a picture of purity, gentleness, and confidence which set his being aglow with the joy of immeasurable possession. As he thought of her love, her faith, her confidence, he swore in his own big heart that neither harm nor want nor sorrow should come upon her; that through every adversity of life he would be her protector, her champion, her defence. And so in the charm and mirage of their young dream they rode dauntlessly, joyously, into the unknown.

  With Ned Beacon, the trusty hired man, in charge of the carload of effects, under the direction of Tom Morrison, Harris was relieved of many duties and responsibilities that would have broken in somewhat rudely on his dream. Traffic was congested with the immigrant movement; cars were side-tracked at nameless places for indefinite periods, but stock had to be fed and cared for; bonds had to be provided, and all the conditions of departmental red tape complied with when the effects entered the United States, for in 1882 the All-Canadian railway was a young giant fighting for life with the mighty rocks of the North Shore route, and railway traffic with the New West was, perforce, billed over American roads. These details and a score of others called for patience, for tact, and a judicious distribution of dollar bills. Harris made a mental note of his obligation to Tom Morrison in the matter. He was shrewd enough to surmise that this was the farmer's very practical wedding gift, but he took debit for it nevertheless.

  And so the journey wore on. As day succeeded day to the monotonous rumble of the car wheels the immigrants became better acquainted, and friendships took root that in after years were to brave every storm of adversity and bloom forth in the splendid community of spirit and sacrifice which particularly distinguished the pioneers. But the strain of travel drew heavily upon physical endurance; meals eaten stale from lunch-baskets, or hastily snatched at wayside stations; the cramp of days spent in the crowded seats; lack of exercise and lack of sleep; these laid their heavy finger on the strongest and heartiest. But one night the word went round that daylight would see them back on Canadian soil, and the lagging spirit of the travellers was revived. Someone struck up an impromptu song, parodied from a well-known hymn; men, and children joined in the chorus as they caught the words, and rolled it forth with a vigour that vibrated every timber of the car.

  "O, Prairie Land, sweet Prairie Land,

  Where everyone joins heart and hand,"

  they sang, and the sociability of the party teemed to swell with the volume of the song. A bond of human interest, human interdependence—perhaps, even, some phase of human suffering, was already linking them together with links of steel that should withstand every shock of the coming years, and bind together the foundations of a mighty land.

  In the cold grey of a March morning, when the sun had not yet dispelled the mists of night, and the fringing woods back from the Red River loomed white and spectral through the frost, they re-entered the Empire, and in a few minutes were detraining at Emerson, the boundary town and gateway to the prairies which for a thousand miles stretched into the mysteries of the unknown.

  CHAPTER II

  INTO THE WILDERNESS

  Emerson was the gateway of the great invasion. Situated just on the Canadian side of the International Boundary, the "farthest west" of rail communication, on the threshold of the prairie country, it seemed the strategical point for the great city which must arise with the settlement and development of the fertile kingdom of territory lying between the Lake of the Woods and the Rocky Mountains, and between the Forty-ninth Parallel and the unknown northern limit of agriculture. Sixty miles northward, at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, Winnipeg was throwing street-tendrils out from her main traffic trunk which marked the route the Indian carts had followed for years as they bore their buffalo hides and pemmican to the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Fort Garry. Winnipeg was to be on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway—at least, so the promoters of its town-lot activity affirmed; but Selkirk, still farther north, was already flourishing in the assurance that the railway would cross the river at that point. But the Canadian Pacific Railway as yet existed upon paper; its advance guard were pouring nitro-glycerine into the rocks of the wild Lake Superior fastnesses, and a little band of resolute men were risking financial disaster an indomitable effort to drive through a project which had dismayed even the Government of Canada. Some there were who said the Canadian Pacific would never be built, many there were who said that if built it always be a charge upon the country—that in the very nature of things it could never become self-supporting.

  So while Winnipeg and Selkirk indulged their visions Emerson was already enjoying to the full the prosperity which accompanied the inrush of settlers. Although the immigrants were not wealthy as the term is now understood even in an agricultural community, most of them had enough money to pay for their outfitting and place them on their homesteads for operations. Accommodation in Emerson was at a premium; h
otel space was out of the question, and even the barest rooms commanded mining-camp prices. Those commodities which the settler must needs have had taken their cue from hotel prices, and were quoted at figures that provoked much thoughtful head-scratching on the part of the thrifty and somewhat close-fisted new arrivals from the East.

  Harris left his wife with a company of other women in the Government immigration building while he set out to find, if possible, lodgings where she might live until he was ready to take her to the homestead country. He must first make a trip of exploration himself, and as this might require several weeks his present consideration was to place her in proper surroundings before he left. He soon found that all the hotels were full, and had they not been full the prices demanded were so exorbitant as to be beyond his reach; and even had it been otherwise he would have asked her to share the hardships of the exploration trip rather than leave her amid associations which were all too apparent in the hotel section of the town. The parasites and camp-followers of society, attracted by the easy money that might be wrung in devious ways from the inflowing tide of farmers, were already represented in force, and flaunted brazenly the seamy side of the civilization which was advancing into the New West.

  Turning to parts of the town which were less openly engaged in business, legitimate, questionable, or beyond question, Harris inquired at many doors for lodgings for himself and wife, or for his wife alone. The response ranged from curt announcements that the inmates "ain't takin' boarders" to sympathetic assurances that if it were possible to find room for another it would be done, but the house was already crowded to suffocation. Great lines of washing in the back yards, and groups dirty children splashing in the spring mud, bore testimony to the congestion. The March sun was beating down with astonishing fierceness and the unside-walked streets were a welter of slush. In two hours Harris, notwithstanding his stout frame and his young enthusiasm, dragged himself somewhat disconsolately back to the immigration building with the information that his search had been fruitless.

  At the door he met Tom Morrison and another, whom he recognized as the teller of Indian stories which had captivated the children of his car. Morrison was a man of forty, with a dash of grey in his hair and a kindly twinkle in his shrewd eyes; his companion was A bigger man, of about the same age, whose weather-beaten face bore testimony to the years already spent in pioneer life on the prairie.

  "And what luck have ye had?" asked Morrison, seizing the young man by the arm. "Little, I'll be thinkin', by the smile ye're forcin' up. But what am I thinkin' of? Mr. McCrae is from 'way out in the Wakopa County, and an old-timer on the prairie. He knows every corner in the town, I'm thinkin'—"

  "Aleck McCrae," said the big man. "We leave our 'misters' east of the Great Lakes. An' Ah'm not from Wakopa, unless you give that name to all the country from Pembina Crossing to Turtle Mountain. Ah'm doing business all through there, an' no more partial to one place than another."

  "What is your line of business, Mr. McCrae?" asked Harris.

  "Aleck, I said, an' Aleck it is."

  "All right," said the other, laughing. "What is your business,

  Aleck?"

  "My business is assisting settlers to get located on suitable land, an' ekeing out my own living by the process. There's a strip of country in there, fifty miles long by twenty miles wide, that Ah know like you knew your own farm down East. It cost me something to learn it, an' Ah sell the information for part of what it cost. Perhaps Ah can do something for you later, along professional lines. Just now, as Tom here tells me, you're hunting a house for the wife. Ah know Emerson too well to suppose you have found one."

  "I haven't, for a fact," said Harris, reminded of the urgency of his mission. "I've tramped more mud this morning than would make a good farm in Ontario, but mud is all I got for my trouble."

  "It's out of the question," said McCrae. "Besides, it's not so necessary as you think. What with the bad time our train made, an' the good time the stock-train made, an' the fact that they started ahead of us, they're in the yards now. That's a piece of luck, to start with. 'S nothing unusual for settlers to be held Up here two an' three weeks waiting for their freight, an' all the time bills piling up an' the cash running down in a way that knocks holes in their pockets."

  "But I can't put my wife in a stock-car!" protested Harris.

  "There's worse places," McCrae answered, calmly worrying a considerable section from a plug of black chewing tobacco. "Worse places, Ah should say. Ah've seen times when a good warm stock-car would have passed for heaven. But that ain't what Ah have in mind. We'll all turn in an' get the stock unloaded, hitch up horses, pack a load, an' get away. Morrison's hired man'll drive his team, an' Tom'll stay here himself an' look after the rest of the stuff. Ah've been making a canvass, an' Ah find we have six or seven families who can be ready to pull out this afternoon. An soon as we get into settled country, perhaps we can get accommodation, such as it is, along the way. But my team will go along, with a good tent an' some cooking outfit. Everyone has bedding, so we're all right for that. Now, if all hustle we can be started by four o'clock, an' out ten or twelve miles before we pitch camp. That's far enough for the horses the first day, anyway. How does it suit you?"

  "What do you say, Mr. Morrison?"

  "I think Aleck's plan is best. I've my wife and the two girls, and there's no roof for their heads here. I can find a place for myself, but I've got to get them started. Ned is a trusty man; he will drive my team. It suits me."

  "But after we get there?" said Harris, "For my part, I don't know where I'm going. Even with Aleck's help it will take some time to look up my land and build a place to live in. Mind you," he said, as if forestalling a question in their minds, "I'm mightily obliged for the kindness of your offer, and it isn't myself I'm thinking about."

  "Hoots, man!" said Morrison. "We ken who you're thinkin' about, right well. And a poor man ye'd be if ye didn't, for a bonnier lass never came out of Canada, and that's saying somethin'. But she'll be all right out there, and a deal better than if you left her here. There's not many settlers with houses in the country yet, Aleck tells me, but there's a few, and it's wonderful the e-las-ticity of a shanty on the prairie."

  "Tom's right," said McCrae. "We haven't many of the conveniences of civilization out there yet, but we haven't the narrowness or vices either, an' your wife'll be both welcome an' safe in any farmer's home. Now, if it's all settled," continued McCrae, who had the leader's knack of suppressing indecision at the psychological moment, "we'll all turn in with unloading of the stock." Harris ran to tell his wife that they were to join a party for "the front" that very afternoon. She received the news joyously. Her only fear had been that she would be left behind during the weeks in which her husband made his exploration of the country.

  In a few minutes all hands, both men and women, were busy at the cars. The horses, stiff and sore after their long journey, stalked rheumatically down the gangway. Feeling solid ground beneath their feet, they shook their heads vigorously, as though to rid them of the rumble of the cars, and presently were rolling and stretching in the warm sun. Dogs limped with muddy paws and boisterous affection upon masters and mistresses; cows lowed, roosters crowed, and pigs emitted little grunts, of that supreme happiness peculiar to their race. Many hands made the work light, and by mid-afternoon six sleighs were loaded for the journey. All the women and children were to go with the party; Morrison and one or two men would remain in Emerson, complete the unloading, and take charge of the effects until the teams should return from their long journey. McCrae, on account of his knowledge of the town and of the needs of the journey was chosen to secure the supplies. His team, which had wintered at Emerson, was to take the lead, and in his sleigh were a large tent, some cooking equipment, and an assortment of eatables, consisting mainly of dried meat, lard, beans, molasses, bread, flour, oatmeal, and tea. McCrae provided his team and equipment without charge; the cost of the provisions was reckoned up and divided among the immigrants in th
eir various proportions to the whole party.

  Each settler's sleigh carried that which seemed most indispensable. First came the settler's family, which, large or small, was crowded into the deep box. McCrae made them pack hay in the bottom of the sleigh-boxes, and over this were laid robes and blankets, on which the immigrants sat, as thickly as they could be placed. More robes and blankets were laid on top, and sacks stuffed very full of hay served the double purpose of cushioning their backs and conveying fodder for the animals. Such space as remained was devoted to grain for the horses, bundles of clothing and boxes of dishes, kitchen utensils, and family effects. In one of the sleighs a pig was quartered, and in another was a crate of hens which poked their heads stupidly through the cracks, blinking at the bright light. Behind the sleighs were tethered the cattle.

  Morrison came up to Harris's sleigh, and gave it an approving inspection.

  "You will all be fine," he said, "and a great deal better than wearyin' about here. Besides, you're just as well to be away," he added, in a somewhat lower voice. "McCrae tells me if this sun keeps up the roads will be gone before we know it, and that means a delay of two or three weeks. There's been a tremendous snow this winter, and a steady thaw, what with these north-runnin' rivers, means floods on the low-lyin' lands, and perhaps in the town itself, McCrae tells me he's none too sure about the bridge."

  At this moment McCrae himself joined the group. "There's only two in your party, Harris," he said, "an' while Ah don't want to interrupt your honeymoon, there's another passenger to be taken care of. Dr. Blain is going with us, and Ah'm going to put him in your charge. He's a bit peculiar, but Ah don't think he'll give you any trouble. It's just a case of being too much of a good fellow. One thing Ah know—he's a doctor. Saw him last fall on a scarlet fever job. Settler's sod shack, twenty miles from nowhere. Three children down, mother down, father frantic. Well, Ah now that Blain camped right there in the thick of it; doctored, nursed, cooked, kep' house—did everything. An' they're all of 'em alive an' well to-day, or were when last Ah saw them. So he's worth more'n a speaking acquaintance, Harris; you may know that better some day. Ah'm going up town for him now; you can shift your stuff a little an' make room."