CHAPTER XII — THE MAKING OF A MAN
Wakota, consisting of the mud-house of a Galician homesteader who owned a forge and did blacksmithing for the colony in a primitive way, they left behind half an hour before nightfall, with ten miles of bad going still before them. The trail wound through bluffs and around sleughs, dived into coulees and across black creeks, and only the most skilful handling could have piloted the bronchos through.
It was long after dark when they reached the ravine of the Night Hawk Creek, through which they must pass before arriving at the Lake. Down the sides of this ravine they zigzagged, dodging trees and boulders till they came to the last sharp pitch, at the foot of which ran the Creek. During this whole descent Kalman sat clinging to the back and side of the seat, expecting every moment to have the buckboard turn turtle over him, but when they reached the edge of the final pitch, were it not for sheer shame, he would have begged permission to scramble down on hands and knees rather than trust himself to the swaying, pitching vehicle. A moment French held his bronchos steady, poised on the brink of this rocky steep, and then reaching back, he seized the hind wheel and, holding it fast, used it as a drag, while the bronchos slid down on their haunches over the mass of gravel and rolling stones till they reached the bed of the Creek in safety. A splash through the water, a scramble up the other bank, a long climb, and they were out again on the prairie. A mile of good trail and they were at home, welcomed by the baying of two huge Russian wolf hounds.
Through the dim light Kalman could discover the outlines of what seemed a long heap of logs, but what he afterwards discovered to be a series of low log structures which did for house, stable and sheds of various kinds.
"Down! Bismark. Down! Blucher. Hello there, Mac! Where in the world are you?"
After some time Mackenzie appeared with a lantern, a short, grizzled, thick-set man, rubbing his eyes and yawning prodigiously.
"I nefer thought you would be coming home to-night," he said. "What brought ye at this time?"
"Never mind, Mac," said French. "Get the horses out, and Kalman and I will unload this stuff."
In what seemed to be an outer shed, they deposited the pork, flour, and other articles that composed the load. As Kalman seized the straw-packed case to carry it in, French interfered.
"Here, boy, I'll take that," he said quickly.
"I'll not break them," said Kalman, lifting the case with great care.
"You won't, eh?" replied French in rather a shamed tone. "Do you know what it is?"
"Why, sure," said Kalman. "Lots of that stuff used to come into our home in Winnipeg."
"Well, let me have the case," said French. "And you needn't say anything to Mac about it. Mac is all right, but a case of liquor in the house makes him unhappy."
"Unhappy? Doesn't he drink any?"
"That's just it, my boy. He is unhappy while it's outside of him. He's got Indian blood in him, you see, and he'd die for whiskey." So saying, French took up the case and carried it to the inner room and stowed it away under his bed.
But as he rose up from making this disposition of the dangerous stuff Mac himself appeared in the room.
"What are you standing there looking at?" said French with unusual impatience.
"Oh, nothing at all," said Mackenzie, whose strong Highland accent went strangely with his soft Indian voice and his dark Indian face. "It iss a good place for it, whatefer."
French stood for a moment in disgusted silence, and then breaking into a laugh he said: "All right, Mac. There's no use trying to keep it from you. But, mind you, it's fair play in this thing. Last time, you remember, you got into trouble. I won't stand that sort of thing again."
"Oh, well, well," said Mackenzie cheerfully, "it will not be for long anyway, more's the peety."
"Now then, get us a bite of supper, Mackenzie," said French sharply, "and let us to bed."
Some wild duck and some bannock with black molasses, together with strong black tea, made a palatable supper after a long day on the breezy prairie. After supper the men sat smoking.
"The oats in, Mac?"
"They are sowed, but not harrowed yet. I will be doing that to-morrow in the morning."
"Potato ground ready?"
"Yes, the ground is ready, and the seed is over at Garneau's."
"What in thunder were you waiting for? Those potatoes should have been in ten days ago. It's hardly worth while putting them in now."
"Garneau promised to bring them ofer," said Mackenzie, "but you cannot tell anything at all about that man."
"Well, we must get them in at once. We must not lose another day. And now let's get to bed. The boy here will sleep in the bunk," pointing to a large-sized box which did for a couch. "Get some blankets for him, Mac."
The top of the box folded back, revealing a bed inside.
"There, Kalman," said French, while Mackenzie arranged the blankets, "will that do?"
"Fine," said the boy, who could hardly keep his eyes open and who in five minutes after he had tumbled in was sound asleep.
It seemed as if he had been asleep but a few moments when he was wakened by a rude shock. He started up to find Mackenzie fallen drunk and helpless across his bunk.
"Here, you pig!" French was saying in a stern undertone, "can't you tell when you have had enough? Come out of that!"
With an oath he dragged Mackenzie to his feet.
"Come, get to your bed!"
"Oh, yes, yes," grumbled Mackenzie, "and I know well what you will be doing after I am in bed, and never a drop will you be leaving in that bottle." Mackenzie was on the verge of tears.
"Get on, you beast!" said French in tones of disgusted dignity, pushing the man before him into the next room.
Kalman was wide awake, but, feigning sleep, watched French as he sat with gloomy face, drinking steadily till even his hard head could stand no more, and he swayed into the inner room and fell heavily on the bed. Kalman waited till French was fast asleep, then rising quietly, pulled off his boots, threw a blanket over him, put out the lamp and went back to the bunk. The spectre of the previous night which had been laid by the events of the day came back to haunt his broken slumber. For hours he tossed, and not till morning began to dawn did he quite lose consciousness.
Broad morning wakened him to unpleasant memories, and more unpleasant realities. French was still sleeping heavily. Mackenzie was eating breakfast, with a bottle beside him on the table.
"You will find a basin on the bench outside," observed Mackenzie, pointing to the open door.
When Kalman returned from his ablutions, the bottle had vanished, and Mackenzie, with breath redolent of its contents, had ready for him a plate of porridge, to which he added black molasses. This, with toasted bannock, the remains of the cold duck of the night before, and strong black tea, constituted his breakfast.
Kalman hurried through his meal, for he hated to meet French as he woke from his sleep.
"Will he not take breakfast?" said the boy as he rose from the table.
"No, not him, nor denner either, like as not. It iss a good thing he has a man to look after the place," said Mackenzie with the pride of conscious fidelity. "We will just be going on with the oats and the pitaties. You will be taking the harrows."
"The what?" said Kalman.
"The harrows."
Kalman looked blank.
"Can you not harrow?"
"I don't know," said Kalman. "What is that?"
"Can you drop pitaties, then?"
"I don't know," repeated Kalman, shrinking very considerably in his own estimation.
"Man," said Mackenzie pityingly, "where did ye come from anyway?"
"Winnipeg."
"Winnipeg? I know it well. I used to. But that was long ago. But did ye nefer drive a team?"
"Never," said Kalman. "But I want to learn."
"Och! then, and what will he be wanting with you here?"
"I don't know," said Kalman.
"Well, well," said Mackenzie. "He iss a quare man at times, and does quare things."
"He is not," said Kalman hotly. "He is just a splendid man."
Mackenzie gazed in mild surprise at the angry face.
"Hoot! toot!" he said. "Who was denyin' ye? He iss all that, but he iss mighty quare, as you will find out. But come away and we will get the horses. It iss a peety you cannot do nothing."
"You show me what to do," said Kalman confidently, "and I'll do it."
The stable was a tumble-down affair, and sorely needing attention, as, indeed, was the case with the ranch and all its belongings. A team of horses showing signs of hard work and poor care, with harness patched with rope and rawhide thongs, were waiting in the stable. Even to Kalman's inexperienced eyes it was a deplorable outfit.
There was little done in the way of cultivation of the soil upon the Night Hawk Ranch. The market was far away, and it was almost impossible to secure farm labour. The wants of French and his household were few. A couple of fields of oats and barley for his horses and pigs and poultry, another for potatoes, for which he found ready market at the Crossing and in the lumber camps up among the hills, exhausted the agricultural pursuits of the ranch.
Kalman concentrated his attention upon the process of hitching the team to the harrows, and then followed Mackenzie up and down the field as he harrowed in the oats. It seemed a simple enough matter to guide the team across the ploughed furrows, and Kalman, as he observed, grew ambitious.
"Let me drive," he said at length.
"Hoot! toot! boy, you would be letting them run away with you."
"Aw, cut it out!" said Kalman scornfully.
"What are you saying? Cut what?"
"Oh, give us a rest!"
"A rest, iss it? You will be getting tired early. And who is keeping you from a rest?" said Mackenzie, whose knowledge of contemporary slang was decidedly meagre.
"Let me drive once," pleaded the boy.
"Well, try it, and I will walk along side of you," said Mackenzie, with apparent reluctance.
The attempt was eminently successful, but Kalman was quick both with hands and head. After the second round Mackenzie allowed the boy to go alone, remaining in the shade and calling out directions across the field. The result was to both a matter of unmixed delight. With Kalman there was the gratification of the boy's passion for the handling of horses, and as for Mackenzie, while on the trail or on the river, he was indefatigable, in the field he had the Indian hatred of steady work. To lie and smoke on the grass in the shade of a poplar bluff on this warm shiny spring day was to him sheer bliss.
But after a time Mackenzie grew restless. His cup of bliss still lacked a drop to fill it.
"Just keep them moving," he cried to Kalman. "I will need to go to the house a meenit."
"All right. Don't hurry for me," said Kalman, proud of his new responsibility and delighted with his new achievement.
"Keep them straight, mind. And watch your turning," warned Mackenzie. "I will be coming back soon."
In less than half an hour he returned in a most gracious frame of mind.
"Man, but you are the smart lad," he said as Kalman swung his team around. "You will be making a great rancher, Tommy."
"My name is Kalman."
"Well, well, Callum. It iss a fery good name, whatefer."
"Kalman!" shouted the boy.
Mackenzie nodded grave rebuke.
"There is no occasion for shouting. I am not deef, Callum, my boy. Go on. Go on with your harrows," he continued as Kalman began to remonstrate.
Kalman drew near and regarded him narrowly. The truth was clear to his experienced eyes.
"You're drunk," he exclaimed disgustedly.
"Hoot, toot! Callum man," said Mackenzie in tones of grieved remonstrance, "how would you be saying that now? Come away, or I will be taking the team myself."
"Aw, go on!" replied Kalman contemptuously. "Let me alone!"
"Good boy," said Mackenzie with a paternal smile, waving the boy on his way while he betook himself to the bluff side and there supine, continued at intervals to direct the operation of harrowing.
The sun grew hot. The cool morning breeze dropped flat, and as the hours passed the boy grew weary and footsore, travelling the soft furrows. Mackenzie had long ceased issuing his directions, and had subsided into smiling silence, contenting himself with a friendly wave of the hand as Kalman made the turn. The poor spiritless horses moved more and more slowly, and at length, coming to the end of the field, refused to move farther.
"Let them stand a bit, Callum boy," said Mackenzie kindly. "Come and have a rest. You are the fine driver. Come and sit down."
"Will the horses stand here?" asked Kalman, whose sense of responsibility deepened as he became aware of Mackenzie's growing incapacity.
Mackenzie laughed pleasantly. "Will they stand? Yes, and that they will, unless they will lie down."
Kalman approached and regarded him with the eye of an expert.
"Look here, where's your stuff?" said the boy at length.
Mackenzie gazed at him with the innocence of childhood.
"What iss it?"
"Oh, come off your perch! you blamed old rooster! Where's your bottle?"
"What iss this?" said Mackenzie, much affronted. "You will be calling me names?"
As he rose in his indignation a bottle fell from his pocket. Kalman made a dash toward it, but Mackenzie was too quick for him. With a savage curse he snatched up the bottle, and at the same time made a fierce but unsuccessful lunge at the boy.
"You little deevil!" he said fiercely, "I will be knocking your head off!"
Kalman jibed at him. "You are a nice sort of fellow to be on a job. What will your boss say?"
Mackenzie's face changed instantly.
"The boss?" he said, glancing in the direction of the house. "The boss? What iss the harm of a drop when you are not well?"
"You not well!" exclaimed Kalman scornfully.
Mackenzie shook his head sadly, sinking back upon the grass. "It iss many years now since I have suffered with an indisposeetion of the bowels. It iss a coalic, I am thinking, and it iss hard on me. But, Callum, man, it will soon be denner time. Just put your horses in and I will be following you."
But Kalman knew better than that.
"I don't know how to put in your horses. Come and put them in yourself, or show me how to do it." He was indignant with the man on his master's behalf.
Mackenzie struggled to his feet, holding the bottle carefully in his outside coat pocket. Kalman made up his mind to possess himself of that bottle at all costs. The opportunity occurred when Mackenzie, stooping to unhitch the last trace, allowed the bottle to slip from his pocket. Like a cat on a mouse, Kalman pounced on the bottle and fled.
The change in Mackenzie was immediate and appalling. His smiling face became transformed with fury, his black eyes gleamed with the cunning malignity of the savage, he shed his soft Scotch voice with his genial manner, the very movements of his body became those of his Cree progenitors. Uttering hoarse guttural cries, with the quick crouching run of the Indian on the trail of his foe, he chased Kalman through the bluffs. There was something so fiendishly terrifying in the glimpses that Kalman caught of his face now and then that the boy was seized with an overpowering dread, and ceasing to tantalize his pursuing enemy, he left the bluffs and fled toward the house, with Mackenzie hard upon his track. Through the shed the boy flew and into the outer room, banging the door hard after him. But there was no lock upon the door, and he could not hope to hold it shut against his pursuer. He glanced wildly into the inner room. French was nowhere to be seen. As he stood in unspeakable terror, the door opened slowly and stealthily, showing Mackenzie's face, distorted with rage and cunning hate. With a silent swift movement he glided into the room, and without a sound rushed at the boy. Once, twice around the table they circled, Kalman having the advantage in quickness of foot. Suddenly, with a grunt of satisfaction, Mackenzie's eye fell upon a gun hanging upon the wall. In a moment he had it in his hand. As he reached for it, however, Kalman, with a loud cry, plunged headlong through the open window and fled again toward the bluffs. Mackenzie followed swiftly through the door, gun in hand. He ran a few short steps after the flying boy, and was about to throw his gun to his shoulder when a voice arrested him.
"Here, Mackenzie, what are you doing with that gun?"
It was French, standing between the stable and the house, dishevelled, bloated, but master of himself. Mackenzie stopped as if gripped by an unseen arm.
"What are you doing with that gun?" repeated French sternly. "Bring it to me."
Mackenzie stood in sullen, defiant silence, his gun thrown into the hollow of his arm. French walked deliberately toward him.
"Give me that gun, you dog!" he said with an oath, "or I'll kill you where you stand."
Mackenzie hesitated but only for a moment, and without a word surrendered the gun, the fiendish rage fading out of his face, the aboriginal blood lust dying in his eyes like the snuffing out of a candle. In a few brief moments he became once more a civilized man, subject to the restraint of a thousand years of life ordered by law.
"Kalman, come here," French called to the boy, who stood far off.
"Mackenzie," said French with great dignity as Kalman drew near, "I want you to know that this boy is a ward of a dear friend, and is to me like my own son. Remember that. Kalman, Mackenzie is my friend, and you are to treat him as such. Where did you get that?" he continued, pointing to the bottle which Kalman had kept clutched in his hand through all the exciting pursuit.
The boy stood silent, looking at Mackenzie.
"Speak, boy," said French sharply.
Kalman remained still silent, his eyes on Mackenzie.
"It iss a bottle myself had," said Mackenzie.
"Ah, I understand. All right, Kalman, it's none of your business what Mackenzie drinks. Now, Mackenzie, get dinner, and no more of this nonsense."
Without a word of parley or remonstrance Mackenzie shuffled off toward the field to bring in the team. French turned to the boy and, taking the bottle in his hand, said, "This is dangerous stuff, my boy. A man like Mackenzie is not to be trusted with it, and of course it is not for boys."
Kalman made no reply. His mind was in a whirl of perplexed remembrances of the sickening scenes of the past three days.
"Go now," said French, "and help Mackenzie. He won't hurt you any more. He never keeps a grudge. That is the Christian in him."
During the early part of the afternoon Mackenzie drove the harrows while French moved about the ranch doing up odds and ends. But neither of the men was quite at ease. At length French disappeared into the house, and almost immediately afterwards Mackenzie left his team in Kalman's hands and followed his boss. Hour after hour passed. The sun sank in the western sky, but neither master nor man appeared, while Kalman kept the team steadily on the move, till at length the field was finished. Weary and filled with foreboding, the boy drove the horses to the stable, pulled off the harness as best he could, gave the horses food and drink and went into the house. There a ghastly scene met his eye. On the floor hard by the table lay Mackenzie on his face, snoring heavily in a drunken sleep, and at the table, with three empty bottles beside him and a fourth in his hand, sat French, staring hard before him with eyes bloodshot and sunken, and face of a livid hue. He neither moved nor spoke when Kalman entered, but continued staring steadily before him.
The boy was faint with hunger. He was too heartsick to attempt to prepare food. He found a piece of bannock and, washing this down with a mug of water, he crept into his bunk, and there, utterly miserable, waited till his master should sink into sleep. Slowly the light faded from the room and the shadows crept longer and deeper over the floor till all was dark. But still the boy could see the outline of the silent man, who sat without sound or motion except for the filling and emptying of his glass from time to time. At length the shadowy figure bowed slowly toward the table and there remained.
Sick with grief and fear, the boy sprang from his bunk and sought to rouse the man from his stupor, but without avail, till at last, wearied with his ineffectual attempts and sobbing in the bitterness of his grief, he threw a blanket over the bowed form and retreated to his bunk again. But sleep to him was impossible, for often throughout the night he was brought to his feet with horrid dreams, to be driven shivering again to his bunk with the more horrid realities of his surroundings.
At length as day began to dawn he fell into a dead, dreamless slumber, waking, when it was broad day, to find Mackenzie sitting at the table eating breakfast, and with a bottle beside him. French was not to be seen, but Kalman could hear his heavy breathing from the inner room. To Kalman it seemed as if he were still in the grip of some ghastly nightmare. He rubbed his eyes and looked again at Mackenzie in stupid amazement.
"What are you glowering at yonder, Callum, man?" said Mackenzie, pleasantly ignoring the events of the previous day. "Your breakfast iss ready for you. You will be hungry after your day's work. Oh, yes, I haf been seeing it, and it iss well done, Callum, mannie."
Somehow his smiling face and his kindly tone filled Kalman with rage. He sprang out of his bunk and ran out of the house. He hated the sight of the smiling, pleasant-voiced Mackenzie. But his boy's hunger drove him in to breakfast.
"Well, Callum, man," began Mackenzie in pleasant salutation.
"My name is Kalman," snapped the boy.
"Never mind, it iss a good name, whatefer. But I am saying we will be getting into the pitaties after breakfast. Can ye drop pitaties?"
"Show me how," said Kalman shortly.
"And that I will," said Mackenzie affably, helping himself to the bottle.
"How many bottles of that stuff are there left?" asked Kalman disgustedly.
"And why would you be wanting to know?" enquired Mackenzie cautiously. "You would not be taking any of the whiskey yourself?" he added in grave reproof.
"Oh, go on! you old fool!" replied the boy angrily. "You will never be any good till it is all done, I know."
Kalman spoke out of full and varied experience of the ways of men with the lust of drink in them.
"Well, well, maybe so. But the more there iss for me, the less there iss for him," said Mackenzie, jerking his head toward the inner door.
"Why not empty it out?" said Kalman in an eager undertone.
"Hoot! toot! man, and would you be guilty of sinful waste like yon? No, no, never with Malcolm Mackenzie's consent. And you would not be doing such a deed yourself?" Mackenzie enquired somewhat anxiously.
Kalman shook his head.
"No," he said, "he might be angry. But," continued the boy, "those potatoes must be finished to-day. I heard him speaking about them yesterday."
"And that iss true enough. They are two weeks late now."
"Come on, then," cried Kalman, as Mackenzie reached for the bottle. "Come and show me how."
"There iss no hurry," said the deliberate Mackenzie, drinking his glass with slow relish. "But first the pitaties are to be got over from Garneau's."
Again and again, and with increasing rage, Kalman sought to drag Mackenzie away from his bottle and to his work. By the time the bottle was done Mackenzie was once more helpless.
Three days later French came forth from his room, haggard and trembling, to find every bottle empty, Mackenzie making ineffective attempts to prepare a meal, and Kalman nowhere to be seen.
"Where is the boy?" he enquired of Mackenzie in an uncertain voice.
"I know not," said Mackenzie.
"Go and look for him, then, you idiot!"
In a short time French was summoned by Mackenzie's voice.
"Come here, will you?" he was crying. "Come here and see this thing."
With a dread of some nameless horror in his heart, French hurried toward the little knoll upon which Mackenzie stood. From this vantage ground could be seen far off in the potato field the figure of the boy with two or three women, all busy with the potatoes.
"What do you make that out to be?" enquired French. "Who in the mischief are they? Go and see."
It was not long before Mackenzie stood before his master with Kalman by his side.
"As sure as death," said Mackenzie, "he has a tribe of Galician women yonder, and the pitaties iss all in."
"What do you say?" stammered French.
"It iss what I am telling you. The pitaties iss all in, and this lad iss bossing the job, and the Galician women working like naygurs."
"What does this mean?" said French, turning his eyes slowly upon Kalman. The boy looked older by years. He was worn and haggard.
"I saw a woman passing, she was a Galician, she brought the others, and the potatoes are done. They have come here two days. But," said the boy slowly, "there is nothing to eat."
With a mighty oath French sprang to his feet.
"Do you tell me you are hungry, boy?" he roared.
"I could not find much," said Kalman, his lip trembling in spite of himself.
"What are you standing there for, Mackenzie?" roared French. "Confound you for a drunken dog! Confound us both for two drunken fools! Get something to eat!"
There was something so terrible in his look and in his voice that Mackenzie fairly ran to obey his order. Kalman stood before his master pale and shaking. He was weak from lack of food, but more from anxiety and grief.
"I did the best I could," he said, struggling manfully to keep his voice steady, "and—I am—awful glad—you're—better." His command was all gone. He threw himself upon the grass while sobs shook his frame.
French stood a moment looking down upon him, his face revealing thoughts and feelings none too pleasant.
"Kalman, you're a good sort," he said in a hoarse voice. "You're a man, by Jove! and," in an undertone, "I'm hanged, if I don't think you'll make a man of me yet." Then kneeling by his side, he raised him in his arms. "Kalman," he said, "you are a brick and a gentleman. I have been a brute and a cad."
"Oh, no, no, no!" sobbed the boy. "You are a good man. But I wish—you would—leave—it—alone."
"In God's name," said French bitterly, "I wish it too."
CHAPTER XIII — BROWN
Two weeks of life in the open, roaming the prairie alone with the wolf hounds, or with French after the cattle, did much to obliterate the mark which those five days left upon Kalman's body and soul. From the very first the boy had no difficulty in mastering the art of sticking on a broncho's back, partly because he was entirely without fear, but largely because he had an ear and an eye for rhythm in sound and in motion. He conceived clearly the idea by watching French as he loped along on his big iron grey, and after that it was merely a matter of translating the idea into action. Every successful rider must first conceive himself as a rider. In two weeks' time Kalman could sit the buckskin and send him across the prairie, swinging him by the neck guide around badger holes and gopher holes, up and down the steep sides of the Night Hawk ravine, without ever touching leather. The fearless ease he displayed in mastering the equestrian art did more than anything else to win him his place in the old half-breed Mackenzie's affection.
The pride of the ranch was Black Joe, a Percheron stallion that French a year before had purchased, with the idea of improving his horse stock to anticipate the market for heavy horses, which he foresaw the building of railroads would be sure to provide. Black Joe was kept in a small field that took in a bit of the bluff and ran down to the lake, affording shelter, drink, and good feeding.
Dismay, therefore, smote the ranch, when Mackenzie announced one morning that Black Joe had broken out and was gone.
"He can't be far away," said French; "take a circle round towards the east. He has likely gone off with Garneau's bunch."
But at noon Mackenzie rode back to report that nowhere could the stallion be seen, that he had rounded up Garneau's ponies without coming across any sign of the stallion.
"I am afraid he has got across the Eagle," said French, "and if he has once got on to those plains, there will be the very deuce to pay. Well, get a move on, and try the country across the creek first. No, hold on. I'll go myself. Throw the saddle on Roanoke; I'll put some grub together, for there's no time to be lost."
Kalman started up and stood eagerly expectant. French glanced at him.
"It will be a hard ride, Kalman; I am a little afraid."
"Try me, sir," said the boy, who had unconsciously in conversation with French dropped much of his street vernacular, and had adopted to a large extent his master's forms of speech.
"All right, boy. Get ready and come along."
While the horses were being saddled, French rolled up into two neat packs a couple of double blankets, grub consisting of Hudson's Bay biscuits, pork, tea and sugar, a camp outfit comprising a pan, a tea-pail, and two cups.
"So long, Mackenzie," said French, as they rode away. "Hold down the ranch till we get back. We'll strike out north from here, then swing round across the Night Hawk toward the hills and back by the Eagle and Wakota, and come up the creek."
To hunt up a stray beast on the wide open prairie seems to the uninitiated a hopeless business, but it is a simple matter, after all. One has to know the favourite feeding-grounds, the trails that run to these grounds, and have an idea of the limits within which cattle and horses will range. As a rule, each band has its own feeding-grounds and its own spots for taking shelter. The difficulties of search are enormously increased by the broken character of a rolling bluffy prairie. The bluffs intercept the view, and the rolls on the prairie can hide successfully a large bunch of cattle or horses, and it may take a week to beat up a country thickly strewn with bluffs, and diversified with coulees that might easily be searched in a single afternoon.
The close of the third day found the travellers on Wakota trail.
"We'll camp right here, Kalman," said French, as they reached a level tongue of open prairie, around three sides of which flowed the Eagle River.
Of all their camps during the three days' search none was so beautiful, and none lived so long in Kalman's memory, as the camp by the Eagle River near Wakota. The firm green sward, cropped short by a succession of campers' horses,—for this was a choice spot for travellers,—the flowing river with its soft gurgling undertone, the upstanding walls of the poplar bluffs in all the fresh and ample beauty of the early summer drapery, the over-arching sky, deep and blue, through which peeped the shy stars, and the air, so sweet and kindly, breathing about them. It was all so clean, so fresh, so unspoiled to the boy that it seemed as if he had dropped into a new world, remote from and unrelated to any other world he had hitherto known.
They picketed their horses, and with supper over, they sat down before their fire, for the evening air was chill, in weary, dreamy delight. They spoke few words. Like all men who have lived close to Nature, whether in woods or in plains, French had developed a habit of silence, and this habit, as all others, Kalman was rapidly taking on.
As they reclined thus dreamily watching the leaping fire, a canoe came down the river, in the stern of which sat a man whose easy grace proclaimed long practice in the canoeman's art. As his eyes fell upon the fire, he paused in his paddling, and with two or three swift flips he turned his canoe toward the bank, and landing, pulled it up on the shore.
He was a young man of middle height, stoutly built, and with a strong, good-natured face.
"Good evening," he said in a cheery voice, "camped for the night?"
"Yes, camped for the night," replied French.
"I have a tent up stream a little way. I should be glad to have you camp with me. It is going to be a little chilly."
"Oh, we're all right, aren't we, Kalman?" said French.
The boy turned and gave him a quick look of perfect satisfaction. "First rate! You bet!"
"The dew is going to be heavy, though," said the stranger, "and it will be cold before the night is over. I have not much to offer you, only shelter, but I'd like awfully to have you come. A visitor is a rare thing here."
"Well," said French, "since you put it that way we'll go, and I am sure it is very decent of you."
"Not at all. The favour will be to me. My name is Brown."
"And mine is French, Jack French throughout this country, as perhaps you have heard."
"I have been here only a few days, and have heard very little," said Brown.
"And this," continued French, "is Kalman Kalmar, a friend of mine from Winnipeg, and more remotely from Russia, but now a good Canadian."
Brown gave each a strong cordial grasp of his hand.
"You can't think," he said, "how glad I am to see you."
"Is there a trail?" asked French.
"Yes, a trail of a sort. Follow the winding of the river and you will come to my camp at the next bend. You can't miss it. I'll go up in the canoe and come down to meet you."
"Don't trouble," said French; "we know our way about this country."
Following a faint trail for a quarter of a mile through the bluffs, they came upon an open space on the river bank similar to the one they had left, in the midst of which stood Brown's tent. That tent was a wonder to behold, not only to Kalman, but also to French, who had a large experience in tents of various kinds. Ten by twelve, and with a four-foot wall, every inch was in use. The ground which made the floor was covered with fresh, sweet-smelling swamp hay; in one corner was a bed, neat as a soldier's; in the opposite corner a series of cupboards made out of packing cases, filled, one with books, one with drugs and surgical instruments, another with provisions. Hanging from the ridge-pole was a double shelf, and attached to the back upright were a series of pigeon-hole receptacles. It was a wonder of convenience and comfort, and albeit it was so packed with various impedimenta, such was the orderly neatness of it that there seemed to be abundance of room.
At the edge of the clearing Brown met them.
"Here you are," he cried. "Come along and make yourselves at home."
His every movement was full of brisk energy, and his voice carried with it a note of cheery frankness that bespoke the simplicity and kindliness of the good and honest heart.
In a few moments Brown had a fire blazing in front of the tent, for the night air was chill, and a heavy dew was falling.
"Here you are," he cried, throwing down a couple of rugs before the fire. "Make yourselves comfortable. I believe in comfort myself."
"Well," said French, glancing into the tent, throwing himself down before the fire, "you apparently do, and you have attained an unqualified success in exemplifying your belief. You certainly do yourself well."
"Oh, I am a lazy dog," said Brown cheerfully, "and can't do without my comforts. But you don't know how glad I am to see you. I can't stand being alone. I get most awfully blue and funky, naturally nervous and timid, you know."
"You do, eh?" said French, pleasantly. "Well, if you ask me, I believe you're lying, or your face is."
"Not a bit, not a bit. Good thing a fellow has a skin to draw over his insides. I'd hate the world to see all the funk that there is in my heart."
French pulled out his pipe, stirred up its contents with his knife, struck a match, and proceeded to draw what comfort he could from the remnants of his last smoke. The result was evidently not entirely satisfactory. He began searching his pockets with elaborate care, but all in vain, and with a sigh of disappointment he sank back on the rug.
"Hello!" said Brown, whose eyes nothing seemed to escape, "I know what you're after. You have left your pouch. Well, let that be a lesson to you. You ought not to indulge habits that are liable any moment to involve you in such distress. Now look at you, a big, healthy, able-bodied man, on a night like this too, with all the splendour and glory of sky and woods and river about you, with decent company too, and a good fire, and yet you are incapable of enjoyment. You are an abnormality, and you have made yourself so. You need treatment; I am going to administer it forthwith."
He disappeared into his tent, leaving Kalman in a fury of rage, and French with an amused smile upon his face. After a few moments' rummaging Brown appeared with a package in his hand.
"In cases like yours," he said gravely, "I prescribe vapores nicotinenses. I hope you have forgotten your Latin. Here is a brand, a very special brand, which I keep for decoy purposes. Having once used this, you will be sure to come back again. Try that," he cried in a threatening tone, "and look me in the eye."
The anger fled from Kalman's face, and he began to understand that their new friend had been simply jollying them, and he sincerely hoped that neither he nor French had noticed his recent rage.
French filled his pipe with the mixture, lit it, and took one or two experimental draws, then with a great sigh he threw himself back upon the rug, his arms under his head, and puffed away with every symptom of delight.
"See here, Brown," he said, sitting up again after a few moments of blissful silence, "this is 'Old London,' isn't it?"
"See here, French, don't you get off any of your high British nonsense. 'Old London,' indeed! No, sir, that is 'Young Canada'; that is, I have a friend in Cuba who sends me the Prince of Wales brand."
French smoked on for some moments.
"Without being rude, how much of this have you in stock?"
"How much? Enough to fill your pipe whenever you come round."
"My word!" exclaimed French. "You don't dispense this to the general public, do you?"
"Not much, I don't," said Brown. "I select my patients."
"Thank you," said French. "I take this as a mark of extreme hospitality. By the way, where is your own pipe?"
"I have abjured."
"What?"
"Abjured."
"And yet you have many of the marks of sanity."
"Sanity! You just note it, and the most striking is that I don't have a pipe."
"Expound me the riddle, please."
"The exposition is simple enough. I am constitutionally lazy and self-indulgent, and almost destitute of self-control—"
"And permit me to interject without offence, an awful liar," said French pleasantly. "Go on."
"I came out here to work. With a pipe and a few pounds of that mixture—"
"Pounds! Ah!" ejaculated French.
"I would find myself immersed in dreamy seas of vaporous and idle bliss—do you catch that combination?—and fancy myself, mark you, busy all the time. It is the smoker's dementia accentuated by such a mixture as this, that while he is blowing rings he imagines he is doing something—"
"The deuce he does! And he is jolly well right."
"So, having something other to do than blow rings, I have abjured the pipe. There are other reasons, but that will suffice."
"Abundantly," said French with emphasis, "and permit me to remark that you have been talking rot."
Brown shook his head with a smile.
"Now tell me," continued French, "what is your idea? What have you in view in planting yourself down here? In short, to put it bluntly, what are you doing?"
"Doing nothing, as yet," said Brown cheerfully, "but I want to do a lot. I have got this Galician colony in my eye."
"I beg your pardon," said French, "are you by any chance a preacher?"
"Well, I may be, though I can't preach much. But my main line is the kiddies. I can teach them English, and then I am going to doctor them, and, if they'll let me, teach them some of the elements of domestic science; in short, do anything to make them good Christians and good Canadians, which is the same thing."
"That is a pretty large order. Look here, now," said French, sitting up, "you look like a sensible fellow, and open to advice. Don't be an ass and throw yourself away. I know these people well. In a generation or two something may be done with them. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you know. Give it up. Take up a ranch and go cattle raising. That is my advice. I know them. You can't undo in your lifetime the results of three centuries. It's a hopeless business. I tried myself to give them some pointers when they came in first, and worried a good deal about it. I got myself disliked for my pains and suffered considerable annoyance. Now I leave them beautifully alone. Their suspicions have vanished and they no longer look at me as if I were a thief."
Brown's face grew serious. "It's a fact, they are suspicious, frightfully. I have been talking school to them, but they won't have a school as a gift. My Church, the Presbyterian, you know, offers to put up a school for them, since the Government won't do anything, but they are mightily afraid that this is some subtle scheme for extracting money from them. But what can you expect? The only church they know has bled them dry, and they fear and hate the very name of church."
"By Jove! I don't wonder," said French.
"Nor do I."
"But look here, Brown," said French, "you don't mean to tell me,—I assure you I don't wish to be rude,—but you don't mean to tell me that you have come here, a man of your education and snap—"
"Thank you," said Brown.
"To teach a lot of Galician children."
"Well," said Brown, "I admit I have come partially for my health. You see, I am constitutionally inclined—"
"Oh, come now," said French, "as my friend Kalman would remark, cut it out."
"Partially for my health, and partially for the good of the country. These people here exist as an undigested foreign mass. They must be digested and absorbed into the body politic. They must be taught our ways of thinking and living, or it will be a mighty bad thing for us in Western Canada. Do you know, there are over twenty-five thousand of them already in this country?"
"Oh, that's all right," said French, "but they'll learn our ways fast enough. And as for teaching their children, pardon me, but it seems to me you are too good a man to waste in that sort of thing. Why, bless my soul, you can get a girl for fifty dollars a month who would teach them fast enough. But you—now you could do big things in this country, and there are going to be big things doing here in a year or two."
"What things?" said Brown with evident interest.
"Oh, well, ranching, farming on a big scale, building railroads, lumber up on the hills, then, later, public life. We will be a province, you know, one of these days, and the men who are in at the foundation making will stand at the top later on."
"You're all right," cried Brown, his eyes alight with enthusiasm. "There will be big things doing, and, believe me, this is one of them."
"What? Teaching a score of dirty little Galicians? The chances are you'll spoil them. They are good workers as they are. None better. They are easy to handle. You go in and give them some of our Canadian ideas of living and all that, and before you know they are striking for higher wages and giving no end of trouble."
"You would suppress the school, then, in Western Canada?" said Brown.
"No, not exactly. But if you educate these fellows, you hear me, they'll run your country, by Jove! in half a dozen years, and you wouldn't like that much."
"That's exactly it," replied Brown; "they'll run your country anyhow you put it, school or no school, and, therefore, you had better fit them for the job. You have got to make them Canadian."
"A big business that," said French.
"Yes," replied Brown, "there are two agencies that will do it."
"Namely."
"The school and the Church."
"Oh, yes, that's all right, I guess," losing interest in the discussion.
"That's my game too," said Brown with increasing eagerness. "That's my idea,—the school and the Church. You say the big things are ranches, railroads, and mills. So they are. But the really big things are the things that give us our ideas and our ideals, and those are the school and the Church. But, I say, you will be wanting to turn in. You wait a minute and I'll make your bed."
"Bed? Nonsense!" said French. "Your tent floor is all right. I've been twenty years in this country, and Kalman is already an old timer, so don't you start anything."
"Might as well be comfortable," said Brown cheerfully. "I have a great weakness for comfort. In fact, I can't bear to be uncomfortable. I live luxuriously. I'll be back in a few minutes."
He disappeared behind a bluff and came back in a short time with a large bundle of swamp-grass, which he speedily made into a very comfortable bed.
"Now then," he said cheerfully, "there you are. Have you any objection to prayers? It is a rule of this camp to have prayers night and morning, especially if any strangers happen along. I like to practise on them, you know."
French nodded gravely. "Good idea. I can't say it is common in this country."
Brown brought out two hymn books and passed one to French, stirred up the fire to a bright blaze, and proceeded to select a hymn. Suddenly he turned to Kalman. "I say, my boy, do you read?"
"Sure thing! You bet!" said Kalman indignantly.
"Educated, you see," said French apologetically. "Street University, Winnipeg."
"That's all right, boy. I'll get you a book for yourself. We have lots of them. Now, French, you select."
"Oh, me? You better go on. I don't know your book."
"No, sir," said Brown emphatically. "You have got to select, and you have got to read too. Rule of the camp. True, I didn't feed you, but then—I hesitate to speak of it—perhaps you remember that mixture."
"Do I? Oh, well, certainly, if you put it that way," said French. "Let's see, all the old ones are here. Suppose we make it a good old-fashioned one. How will this do?" He passed the book to Brown.
"Just the thing," said Brown. "'Nearer, my God, to Thee.' Can you find it, Kalman?"
"Why, cert," said Kalman.
French glanced apologetically at Brown.
"Recently caught," he explained, "but means no harm."
Brown nodded.
"Proceed with the reading," he said.
French laid down his pipe, took off his hat, Kalman following his example, and began to read. Instinctively, as he read, his voice took a softer modulation than in ordinary speech. His manner, too, became touched with reverent dignity. His very face seemed to grow finer. Brown sat listening, with his face glowing with pleasure and surprise.
"Fine old hymn that! Great hymn! And finely read, if I might say so. Now we'll sing."
His voice was strong, true, and not unmusical, and what he lacked of finer qualities he made up in volume and force. His visitors joined in the singing, Kalman following the air in a low sweet tone, French singing bass.
"Can't you sing any louder?" said Brown to Kalman. "There's nobody to disturb but the fish and the Galicians up yonder. Pipe up, my boy, if you can. I couldn't sing softly if I tried. Can he sing?" he enquired of French.
"Don't know. Sing up, Kalman, if you can," said French.
Then Kalman sat up and sang. Strong, pure, clear, his voice rose upon the night until it seemed to fill the whole space of clearing and to soar away off into the sky. As the boy sang, French laid down the book and in silence gazed upon the singer's face. Through verse after verse the others sang to the end.
"I say, boy," said Brown, "you're great! I'd like to hear you sing that last verse alone. Get up and try it. What do you say?"
Without hesitation the boy rose up. His spirit had caught the inspiration of the hymn and began,