The Homesteaders Page 3

  The whole party were ready for the road and waiting before McCrae appeared again. When he came a companion staggered somewhat uncertainly by his side.

  "I'm aw'right, McCrae," he was saying. "I'm aw' right. Shay, whash thish? Shildren v Ishrul?"

  "Come now, Doctor, straighten up. Ah want to introduce you."

  "Introdush me? Thash right. Make me 'cquainted wish the ladish. How juhdo, Princhessh?" he said, stopping and gesticulating before an imaginary figure. "Thish is Dr. Blain, late of—late of—wash that, McCrae? Oh, very good. I'm awl right."

  Half leading and half pulling, McCrae at last brought the doctor to Harris's sleigh. "Sorry he's in this shape," he whispered. "He'll likely go to sleep, an' be all right when he wakes up. Ah can't take him in my sleigh, an' Ah feel sure you can handle him."

  "I'll do the best I can," said Harris, though he was little pleased with the prospect.

  "Straighten up, Doctor," said McCrae, giving him a good poke in the ribs. "This is Mr. Harris, who you will travel with—Jack Harris. An' Mrs. Harris."

  The doctor had glanced only casually at Harris, but at the mention of the woman's name he straightened up and stood alone.

  "Glad to meet you, madam," he said. "And it's only proper that the pleasure should be all mine." There was a little bitterness in his voice that did not escape her ear.

  "But indeed I am glad to meet you," she answered. "Mr. McCrae has been telling us something of your work among the settlers. We are very fortunate to have you with us."

  He shot a keen look into her face. She returned his gaze frankly, and he found sarcasm neither in her eyes nor her voice.

  "Help me in, McCrae," he said. "I'm a bit unsteady…There now, my bag. Don't move, Mrs. Harris…I think we are quite ready now, are we not?"

  "Most remarkable man," whispered McCrae to Harris. "Wonderful how he can pull himself together."

  McCrae hurried to his own sleigh, called a cheery "All ready!" and the party at once proceeded to get under way. This was not accomplished without difficulty. The cattle showed no disposition to follow the sleighs, but hung back, pulling on their ropes with amazing strength. One or two, in an excess of stubbornness, sat down in the snow and had to be dragged bodily. The settlers had three or four dogs along, but it was not considered safe to let them get at the cattle, lest the frightened animals should break their ropes and occasion further delay. The situation was only relieved by a number of men following behind, prodding vigorously and twisting the tails of the most recalcitrant. Presently the cows began to swing along, and, finding that no harm befell them, they soon settled into a slow but steady gait, and gave no more trouble until they began to tire with their travel.

  The horses, too, had their own difficulties. Jaded and nervous with their long trip in the cars, and strange to the air and surroundings, they fidgeted and fretted, and soon the sweat-line was creeping up their backs. The sleigh trails stood high over the level of the surrounding prairie, and the horses were continually slipping off. The snow packed in hard balls under their feet, and at intervals the drivers were obliged to get out and clear it away. The March sun, which had shone down with such fierce heat during the middle of the day, now swung far to the westward, facing the travellers over an ocean of snow stretching away into the unknown. The day grew colder; women and children drew blankets tighter about them, and huddled lower in the sleighs to escape a sharp wind that slipped silently down from the north, carrying a ground-drift of icy particles in its breath.

  Harris's thoughts were on his team, on the two cows trudging behind, and on the multiplicity of arrangements which his new life would present for decision and settlement. But his wife gazed silently out over the ocean of snow. The rays of the sun fell gratefully on her cheeks, pale and somewhat wan with her long journey. But the sun went down, and the western sky, cloudless and measureless, faded from gold to copper, and from copper to silver, and from silver to lead. Turning uncomfortably in her crowded seat the girl could see, far beyond the last of the teams, the road over which they had travelled, stretching away until it lost itself, a point in the gathering darkness. To the west it lost itself over the shoulder of the prairie… The men had ceased to shout to each other; the cattle plodded uncomplainingly; silently they moved in the midst of a silence expanding into the infinite. It was her first sight of the prairie, and a strange mixture of emotions, of awe, and loneliness, and a certain indifference to personal consequences, welled up within her. Once or twice she thought of home—a home so far away that it might have been in another planet. But she would not let her mind dwell on it for long. She was going to be brave. She had talked with the other women on the train and in the town. They were women from Ontario farms, some of them well into middle life, women who had known the drudge of unremitting toil since childhood. Their speech was faulty; their manners would not have passed muster amid her old associations; but their quiet optimism was unbounded, their courage was an inspiration. She too would be brave! For the sake of the brave man who sat at her side, guiding his team in the deepening darkness; for the sake of the new home that they two should build somewhere over the horizon; for the sake of the civilization that was to be planted, of the nation that must arise, of the manhood and womanhood of to-morrow—she would be brave. Deep in her heart she swore she would be brave, even while a recreant tear stole forth unbidden and froze into a little pearl of pathos on her cheek.

  A bright star shone down from the west; one by one they appeared in the heavens…It grew colder. The snow no longer caked on the horses' feet; the sleigh-runners creaked and whined uncannily.

  Suddenly a strange sound came down on the north wind—a sound that made the girl who had just been vowing to be brave nestle still closer to the big man at her side, and his arm fell protectingly about her. It was a succession of sharp barks like those of a dog, but the barks presently ran together in a long, doleful howl that rose in a high crescendo on the night air, and then slowly died away into a minor note that seemed to echo back and forth across the plain. As it died out in one point of the compass it was taken up in another, until the little party wending its way in the darkness seemed altogether surrounded by it.

  "What is it?" whispered the girl. "What is it, Jack? Do you know?"

  "I don't know," said the man. "It sounds like—wolves."

  "Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Harris," said a quiet voice. Looking around they found the doctor sitting up in the sleigh. He had fallen asleep as soon as the journey started, and they had almost forgotten his presence.

  "Don't be alarmed," he repeated. "Their howl is the only terrifying thing about them. Prairie wolves are very different from their cousins of the woods. They fill the night air with their howling, but they are cowardly brutes and would rather run than fight."

  "I suppose you have had some strange experiences with animals of the prairies," said the girl, with a brave effort to appear at ease, but before the doctor could answer the team came to a sudden stop. The sleigh in front was obstructing the road, and the party closed up in solid formation.

  "Camp Number One," called Aleck McCrae, from the head sleigh. "The horses and cattle are tired, an'—"

  "And the captain is hungry," put in Ned Beacon. "Isn't that right?"

  "Well, Ah am nursing a young appetite," admitted Aleck, exhibiting the slack of his belt. "Now, run these sleighs up in two rows," and Aleck indicated where he wanted them placed. "It's hard on the horses an' cattle, after the warm cars, but they'll stand it tonight if they're well blanketed. To-morrow night we'll be among the Mennonites, with a chance of getting stable room."

  Under Aleck's direction the sleighs were run up in two rows, about twenty feet apart, facing the north. Two sleighs were then run across the opening at the north end, so that altogether they formed a three-sided court. Men with shovels quickly cleared the snow from the northerly portion of the court, and there the tent was pitched. On the south side of the tent, where they were sheltered from the north wind, the horses and cattle were lined up a
s closely as they could be crowded. Horse blankets, buffalo robes, rag carpets, and even family bedding, were tied about the animals. The horses were supplied with hay and oats and the cattle with hay alone, and after eating they lay down for the night, and were soon blowing and heaving in a warm fog of comfort.

  Meanwhile inside the tent was a scene of great activity. The ground was covered with blankets, robes, and bedding. A lantern from the centre pole sent wedge-shaped shadows darting back and forth; the camp stove was set up, and a fire from wood which McCrae had brought along was soon crackling in it. Pots and pans were produced; women eager to be of service swarmed about the stove, and children, free at last of their muffling wraps, romped in high-laughtered glee among the robes or danced back and forward with the swinging shadows.

  "Now this won't do at all," said McCrae, returning from an inspection of affairs outside. "Too many cooks, you know. Ah want one woman here. Everybody else sit down."

  The captain's word was recognized as law. He selected an able-looking settler's wife as assistant cook, while the others, men, women, and children, sitting down, seemed to fill the tent to the limit of its capacity.

  Savoury smells soon were coming from hot frying-pans, as sliced ham, with bread and gravy, was served up in tin plates and passed about the tent. Everybody—married men and women, maidens and young men, girls, boys, and little children—was ravenously hungry, and for a few minutes little could be heard but the plying of the viands. But as the first edge of hunger became dulled the edge of wit sharpened, and laughter and banter rollicked back and forward through the tent. The doctor, now quite sober, took a census, and found the total population to be twenty-eight. These he classified as twelve married, eight eligible, seven children, and himself, for whom he found no classification.

  "You have a head for figures, Harris, I think," he said. "How much space can be allotted to each?"

  Harris found that the tent was twelve by eighteen feet, and that about eight feet of floor space would be available for each person, if they moved the stove out.

  "The space is sufficient, but the ventilation isn't," said the doctor, as he set about opening ventilator flaps. "If I am to be responsible for your health there are just two rules to follow. Do whatever Aleck McCrae tells you, and don't be afraid of fresh air, even with frost in it."

  The tin plates had gone back to McCrae, and were returning, loaded this time with bread and molasses. A steaming cup of tea accompanied each plate. Fortunately there was milk for the children, two of the cows having contributed this important item of the commissariat.

  When the meal was over and the dishes washed and packed, Aleck made another round of the camp before settling down for the night. Meantime mothers gathered their families about them as best they could; the little ones sleepily mumbled their prayers, and all hands, young and old, nestled down like a brood of tired chickens under the white wings of the protecting tent. Outside the ground-drift sifted gently about the sleighs, the cows sighed in contentment, and the wolves yapped to each other in the distance.

  CHAPTER III

  PRAIRIE LAND

  The afternoon that has just been described was typical of the days that were to follow as the immigrant party laboured its slow pilgrimage into the Farther West. True, they entered on the very next day a district having some pretence of settlement, where it was sometimes possible to secure shelter for the women and children under hospitable Mennonite roofs. The peculiar housekeeping principles of this class of settlers, however, which involved the lodging of cattle and horses in the same building with the human members of the family, discouraged too great intimacy with them, and for the most part the new-comers preferred the shelter of their own tent. They soon emerged from the Red River Valley, left the vast, level, treeless plain behind them, and plunged into the rolling and lightly wooded Pembina region. Here clumps of small willows and, where repeated fires had not destroyed them, light bluffs of slender poplars afforded a measure of protection, and from the resources of the few scattered settlers already in the country they were able to replenish their supplies of fodder for the stock, and even to add to their own larder. Fortunately the wind continued to blow from the north, and, although the sun shone with astonishing fierceness in the middle of the day, the snow thawed but little and the trail remained passable. Other parties of settlers, wending their way westward to the region where homesteads were still available, or moving in to lands located the previous year, were overtaken; and again the party were themselves overtaken by more rapid-moving immigrants from behind, so that in the course of four or five days their cavalcade stretched far ahead and far to the rear. Acquaintanceships were made quickly—no one stood on ceremony; and as the journey wore on the Harrises began to feel that they already possessed many friends in the country, and that life on the prairie would not be altogether lonely.

  After numerous consultations with McCrae, Harris had arranged that his immediate destination should be in a district where the scrub country melted into open prairie on the western side of the Pembina. The Arthurses, who were also of the party, had homesteaded there, and Fred Arthurs had built a little house on the land the year before. Arthurs was now bringing his young wife to share with him the privations and the privileges of their new home. A friendship had already sprung up between Mrs. Arthurs and Mrs. Harris, and nothing seemed more appropriate than that the two women should occupy the house together while Harris sought out new homestead land and Arthurs proceeded with the development of his farm. It was McCrae, whose interest in every member of the expedition was that of a father, that dropped the germ of this suggestion into Arthurs' receptive ear, and it was with paternal satisfaction he found the young couples speedily work out for themselves the arrangements which he had planned for them all along.

  After the crossing of the Pembina the party began to scatter—some to homesteads already located; others to friends who would billet them until their arrangements were completed. As team after team swung out from the main road a certain sense of loss was experienced by those who were left, but it was cheery words and good wishes and mutual invitations that marked each separation. At length came the trail, almost lost in the disappearing snow, that led to Arthurs' homestead. A quick handshake with McCrae, Ned Beacon, and the doctor, and a few others who had grown upon them in the journey, and the two young couples turned out to break their way over the little-used route that now lay before them.

  Darkness was settling down—darkness of the seventh night since their departure from Emerson—when, like a mole on the face of the plain, a little grey lump grew on the horizon. Arthurs rose in his sleigh and waved his fur cap in the air; Harris sent back an answering cheer; the women plied their husbands with questions; even the horses took on new energy, and plunged desperately through the frozen snow which one moment supported their weight and the next splintered in broken ice-cakes beneath them. Slowly the mole grew until in the gathering shadows it took on indistinctly the shape of a building, and just as the rising moon crested the ridge of the Pembina hills the travellers swung up at the door. Arthurs had carried the key of the padlock in his hand for the last mile; everybody was out of the sleighs in a moment, and the next they were stamping their cramped feet on the cold wooden floor of the little shack. Arthurs walked unerringly to a nail on the wall and took down a lantern; its dull flame drove the mist slowly down the glass, and presently the light was beating back from the glistening frost which sparkled on every log of the little room.

  "Well, here we are in Hungry Hall," said Arthurs. "Everything just as I left it." Then, turning to his wife, "Come, Lil," he said. "Jack, perhaps you have an engagement of your own." He took his wife in a passionate embrace and planted a fervent kiss upon her lips, while Harris followed his example. Then they sat down on the boxes that served for chairs, amid a happiness too deep for words…So the minutes passed until Mrs. Arthurs sprang to her feet. "Why, Mary," she exclaimed, "I do believe you're crying," while the moisture glistened on her own cheek. "Now, you
men, clear out! I suppose you think the horses will stable themselves? Yes, I see you have the box full of wood, Fred. That's not so bad for a start. Leave some matches, and say, you might just get our boxes in here. Remember we've lived in these clothes for the best part of two weeks."

  The young men sprang to their task, and as soon as they were out of the house the girls threw their arms about each other and wept like women together. It was only for a moment; a quick dash of the hand across the eyes, and both were busy removing coats and wraps.

  The door opened, and their "boxes," as well as other equipment from the sleighs, were carried in, and the men disappeared to the little stable at the back of the house. After several attempts the girls succeeded in starting a fire in the rusted stove, and soon its grateful heat was radiating to every corner of the room. As they busied themselves unpacking dishes and provisions they had opportunity to take observations of the new place that for one was to be home and for the other a very welcome haven in a strange land.

  The house was built of poplar logs, hewed and dovetailed at the corners with the skill of the Ontario woodsman. It was about twelve by sixteen feet in size, with collar-beams eight feet from the floor. The roof was of two thicknesses of elm boards, with tar-paper between. The floor was of poplar boards. The door was in the east side, near the south-east corner; the stove stood about the centre of the east wall. The only window was in the south; six panes of eight-by-ten glass sufficed for light. Through this window another lantern shone back from the darkness, and the flickering light from the stove danced in duplicate. A rough board table sat under the window; a box nailed in the south-west corner evidently served as cupboard. No tools or movables of any value had been left in the place, Arthurs having stored such effects with a neighbour, some dozen miles away, lest they be stolen from the cabin by some unscrupulous traveller during his absence.