Rumours of the westward
march of civilization had floated from time
to time up the country from the main line as far as the Crossing,
and had penetrated even to the Night Hawk ranch, only to be allayed
by succeeding rumours of postponement of the advance for another
year.
It was Mackenzie who
brought word of the appearance of the first
bona fide scout of the advancing host.
"There was a man with a
bit flag over the Creek yonder," he
announced one spring evening, while the snow was still lying in the
hollows, "and another man with a stick or something, and two or
three behind him."
"Ah, ha!" exclaimed
French, "surveyors, no doubt; they have come at
last."
"And what will that
be?" said Mackenzie anxiously.
"The men who lay out
the route for the railroad," replied French.
Mackenzie looked glum.
"And will they be putting a railroad across
our ranch?" he asked indignantly.
"Right across," said
French, "and just where it suits them."
"Indeed, and it
wouldn't be my land they would be putting that
railroad over, I'll warrant ye."
"You could not stop
them, Mack," said French; "they have got the
whole Government behind them."
"I would be putting
some slugs into them, whateffer," said
Mackenzie. "There will be no room in the country any more, and no
sleeping at night for the noise of them injins."
Mackenzie was right.
That surveyor's flag was the signal that
waved out the old order and waved in the new. The old free life,
the only life Mackenzie knew, where each man's will was his law,
and where law was enforced by the strength of a man's right hand,
was gone forever from the plains. Those great empty spaces of
rolling prairie, swept by viewless winds, were to be filled up now
with the abodes of men. Mackenzie and his world must now disappear
in the wake of the red man and the buffalo before the railroad and
the settler. To Jack French the invasion brought mingled feelings.
He hated to surrender the untrammelled, unconventional mode of
life, for which twenty years ago he had left an ancient and, as it
seemed to his adventurous spirit, a worn-out civilization, but he
was quick to recognize, and in his heart was glad to welcome, a
change that would mean new life and assured prosperity to Kalman.
whom he had come to love as a son. To Kalman that surveyor's flag
meant the opening up of a new world, a new life, rich in promise of
adventure and achievement. French noticed his glowing face and
eyes.
"Yes, Kalman, boy," he
said, "it will be a great thing for you,
great for the country. It means towns and settlements, markets and
money, and all the rest."
"We will have no
trouble selling our potatoes and our oats now,"
said the boy.
"Not a bit," said
French; "we could sell ten times what we have to
sell."
"And why not get ten
times the stuff?" cried the boy.
French shrugged his
shoulders. It was hard to throw off the old
laissez faire of the pioneer.
"All right, Kalman, you
go on. I will give you a free hand.
Mackenzie and I will back you up; only don't ask too much of us.
There will be hundreds of teams at work here next year."
"One hundred teams!"
exclaimed Kalman. "How much oats do you think
they will need? One thousand bushels?"
"One thousand! yes, ten
thousand, twenty thousand."
Kalman made a rapid
calculation.
"Why, that would mean
three hundred acres of oats at least, and we
have only twenty acres in our field. Oh! Jack!" he continued, "let
us get every horse and every man we can, and make ready for the
oats. Just think! one hundred acres of oats, five or six thousand
bushels, perhaps more, besides the potatoes."
"Oh, well, they won't
be along to-day, Kalman, so keep cool."
"But we will have to
break this year for next," said the boy, "and
it will take us a long time to break one hundred acres."
"That's so," said Jack;
"it will take all our forces hard at it all
summer to get one hundred acres ready."
Eagerly the boy's mind
sprang forward into plans for the summer's
campaign. His enthusiasm stirred French to something like vigorous
action, and even waked old Mackenzie out of his aboriginal
lethargy. That very day Kalman rode down to Wakota to consult his
friend Brown, upon whose guidance in all matters he had come more
and more to depend. Brown's Canadian training on an Ontario farm
before he entered college had greatly enriched his experience, and
his equipment for the battle of life. He knew all about farming
operations, and to him, rather than to French or to Mackenzie,
Kalman had come to look for advice on all practical details
connected with cattle, horses, and crops. The breach between the
two men was an unspeakable grief to the lad, and all the greater
because he had an instinctive feeling that the fault lay with the
man to whom from the first he had given the complete and unswerving
devotion of his heart. Without explaining to Kalman, French had
suddenly ceased his visits to Wakota, but he had taken care to
indicate his desire that Kalman continue his studies with Brown,
and that he should assist him in every way possible with the work
he was seeking to carry on among the Galicians. This desire both
Brown and Kalman were only too eager to gratify, for the two had
grown into a friendship that became a large part of the lives of
both. Every Sunday Kalman was to be found at Wakota. There, in
the hospitable home of the Browns, he came into contact with a
phase of life new and delightful to him. Brown's wife, and Brown's
baby, and Brown's home were to him never-ending sources of wonder
and joy. That French was shut out from all this was the abiding
grief of Kalman's life, and this grief was emphasized by the all-
too-evident effect of this exclusion. For with growing frequency
French would ride off on Sunday afternoon to the Crossing, and
often stay for three or four days at a time. On such occasions
life would be to Kalman one long agony of anxiety. Through the
summer he bore his grief in silence, never speaking of it even to
Brown; but on one occasion, when French's absence had been extended
from one Sunday to the next, his anxiety and grief became
unsupportable, and he poured it forth to Brown.
"He has not been home
for a week, Mr. Brown, and oh! I can't stand
it any longer," cried the distracted boy. "I can't stay here while
Jack is over there in such a terrible way. I must go to him."
"He won't like it,
Kalman," said Brown; "he won't stand it, I am
afraid. I would go, but I know it would only offend him."
"I am going down to the
Crossing to-day," said Kalman. "I don't
care if he kills me, I must go."
But his experience was
such that he never went again, for Jack
French in his madness nearly killed the boy, who was brought sadly
battered to Brown's hospital, where he lay for a week or more.
Every day, French, penetrated with penitence, visited him,
lavishing on the boy a new tenderness. But when Kalman was on his
feet again, French laid it upon him, and bound him by a solemn
promise that he should never again follow him to the Crossing, or
interfere when he was not master of himself. It was a hard promise
to give, but once given, that settled the matter for both. With
Brown he never discussed Jack French's weakness, but every Sunday
afternoon, when in his own home Brown prayed for friends near and
dear, committing them into the Heavenly Father's keeping, in their
minds, chiefly and before all others was the man whom they had all
come to love as an elder brother, and for whose redemption they
were ready to lay down their lives. And this was the strongest
strand in the bond that bound Kalman and his friend together. So
to Brown Kalman went with his plans for the coming summer, and with
most happy results. For through the spring and summer, following
Brown's advice and under Kalman's immediate directions, a strong
force of Galicians with horse teams and ox teams were kept hard at
work, breaking and back-setting, in anticipation of an early sowing
in the following spring. In the meantime Brown himself was full
of work. The addition to his hospital was almost always full of
patients; his school had begun to come back to him again, for the
gratitude of his warm-hearted Galician people, in return for his
many services to their sick and suffering, sufficed to overcome
their fear of the Polish priest, whose unpriestly habits and whose
mercenary spirit were fast turning against him even the most loyal
of his people. In the expressive words of old Portnoff, who, it is
to be feared, had little religion in his soul, was summed up the
general opinion: "Dat Klazowski bad man. He drink, drink all
time, take money, money for everyting. He damn school, send doctor
man hell fire," the meaning of which was abundantly obvious to both
Brown and his wife.
So full of work were
they all, both at the ranch and at Wakota,
that almost without their knowing it the summer had gone, and
autumn, with its golden glorious days, nippy evenings, and
brilliant starry nights, Canada's most delightful season, was upon
them. Throughout the summer the construction gangs had steadily
worked their way north and west, and had crossed the Saskatchewan,
and were approaching the Eagle Hill country. Preceding the
construction army, and following it, were camp followers and
attendants of various kinds. On the one hand the unlicensed trader
and whiskey pedlar, the bane of the contractor and engineer; on the
other hand the tourist, the capitalist, and the speculator, whom
engineers and contractors received with welcome or with scant
tolerance, according to the letters of introduction they brought
from the great men in the East.
Attached to the camp of
Engineer Harris was a small and influential
party, consisting of Mr. Robert Menzies of Glasgow, capitalist,
and, therefore, possible investor in Canadian lands, mines, and
railroads,--consequently, a man to be considered; with him, his
daughter Marjorie, a brown-haired maid of seventeen, out for the
good of her health and much the better of her outing, and Aunt
Janet, maiden sister to Mr. Menzies, and guardian to both brother
and niece. With this party travelled Mr. Edgar Penny, a young
English gentleman of considerable means, who, having been a year in
the country, felt himself eminently qualified to act as adviser and
guide to the party. At present, however, Mr. Penny was far more
deeply interested in the study of the lights that lurked in Miss
Marjorie's brown eyes, and the bronze tints of her abundant hair,
than in the opportunities for investments offered by Canadian
lands, railroads, and mines.
With an elaborate
equipment, this party had spent three months
travelling as far as Edmonton, and now, on their way back, were
attached to the camp of Engineer Harris, in order that the Scotch
capitalist might personally investigate methods of railway
construction as practised in Western Canada. At present, the party
were encamped at a little distance from the Wakota trail, and upon
the sunny side of a poplar bluff, for it was growing late in the
year.
It was on a rare
October morning that Kalman, rising before the
sun, set out upon his broncho to round up the horses for their
morning feed in preparation for the day's back-setting. With his
dogs at his horse's heels, he rode down to the Night Hawk, and
crossed to the opposite side of the ravine. As he came out upon
the open prairie, Captain, the noble and worthy son of Blucher,
caught sight of a prairie wolf not more than one hundred yards
distant, and was off after him like the wind.
"Aha! my boy," cried
Kalman, getting between the coyote and the
bluff, and turning him towards the open country, "you have got your
last chicken, I guess. It is our turn now."
Headed off from the
woods that marked the banks of the Night Hawk
Creek, the coyote in desperation took to the open prairie, with
Captain and Queen, a noble fox-hound bitch, closing fast upon him.
Two miles across the open country could be seen the poplar bluff,
behind which lay the camp of the Engineer and his travelling
companions. Steadily the gap between the wolf and the pursuing
hounds grew less, till at length, fearing the inevitable, the
hunted beast turned towards the little bluff, and entered it with
the dogs only a few yards behind. Alas! for him, the bluff
afforded no shelter. Right through the little belt of timber
dashed the wolf with the dogs and Kalman hard upon his trail. At
the very instant that the wolf came opposite the door of Aunt
Janet's tent, Captain reached for the extreme point of the beast's
extended tail. Like a flash, the brute doubled upon his pursuer,
snapping fiercely as the hound dashed past. With a howl of rage
and pain, Captain clawed the ground in his effort to recover
himself, but before he could renew his attack, and just as the wolf
was setting forth again, like a cyclone Queen was upon them. So
terrific was her impact, that dogs and wolf rolled under the tent
door in one snarling, fighting, snapping mass of legs and tails and
squirming bodies. Immediately from within rose a wild shriek of
terror.
"Mercy sakes alive!
What, what is this? Help! Help! Help!
Where are you all? Will some one not come to my help?" Kalman
sprang from his horse, rushed forward, and lifted the tent door. A
new outcry greeted his ear.
"Get out, get out, you
man!" He dropped the flap, fled aghast
before the appalling vision of Aunt Janet in night attire, with a
ring of curl-papers round her head, driven back into the corner of
the tent, and crouched upon a box, her gown drawn tight about her,
while she gazed in unspeakable horror at the whirling, fighting
mass upon the tent floor at her feet. Higher and higher rose her
shrieks above the din of the fight. From a neighbouring tent there
rushed forth a portly, middle-aged gentleman in pyjamas, gun in
hand.
"What is it, Katharine?
Where are you, Katharine?"
"Where am I? Where but
here, ye gowk! Oh, Robert! Robert! I
shall be devoured alive."
The stout gentleman ran
to the door of the tent, lifted the flap,
and plunged in. With equal celerity he plunged back again,
shouting, "Whatever is all yon?"
"Robert! Robert!"
screamed the voice, "come back and save me."
"What is this, sir?"
indignantly turning upon Kalman, who stood in
bewildered uncertainty.
"It is a wolf, sir,
that my dogs--"
"A wolf!" screamed the
portly gentleman, springing back from the
door.
"Go in, sir; go in at
once and save my sister! What are you
looking at, sir? She will be devoured alive. I beseech you.
I am n no state to attack a savage beast."
From another tent
appeared a young man, rotund of form and with a
chubby face. He was partly dressed, his night-robe being stuffed
hastily into his trousers, and he held the camp axe in his hand.
"What the deuce is the
row?" he exclaimed. "By Jove! sounds like a
beastly dog fight."
"Aunt Janet! Aunt
Janet! What is the matter?" A girl in a
dressing-gown, with her hair streaming behind her, came rushing
from another tent, and sprang towards the door of the tent, from
which came the mingled clamour of the fighting dogs and the terror-
stricken woman. Kalman stepped quickly in front of her, caught her
round the waist, and swung her behind him.
"Go back!" he cried.
"Get away, all of you." There was an
immediate clearance of the space in front of the tent. Seizing a
club, he sprang among the fighting beasts.
"Oh! you good man! Come
here and save me," cried Aunt Janet in a
frenzy of relief. But Kalman was too busy for the moment to give
heed to her cries. As he entered, a fiercer howl arose above the
din. The wolf had seized hold of Captain's upper lip and was
grimly hanging on, while Queen was gripping savagely for the
beast's throat. With his club Kalman struck the wolf a heavy blow,
stunning it so that it released its hold on the dog. Then,
catching it by the hind leg, he hauled wolf and hounds out of the
tent in one squirming mass.
"God help us!" cried
the stout gentleman, darting into his own tent
and poking his head out through the door. "Keep the brute off.
There's my gun."
The girl screamed and
ran behind Kalman. The young man with the
chubby face dropped his axe and jumped hastily into a convenient
wagon.
"Shoot the bloomin'
brutes," he cried. "Some one bring me my gun."
But the wolf's days
were numbered. Queen's powerful jaws were
tearing at his throat, while Captain, having gripped him by the
small of the back, was shaking him with savage fury.
"Oh! the poor thing!
Call off the dogs!" cried the girl, turning
to Kalman.
"No! No! Don't you
think of it!" cried the man from the tent door
"He will attack us."
Kalman stepped forward,
and beating the dogs from their quarry,
drew his pistol and shot the beast through the head.
"Get back, Captain!
Back! Back! I say. Down!" With difficulty
he drew the wolf from the jaws of the eager hounds, and swung it
into the wagon out of the dogs' reach.
"My word!" exclaimed
the young man, leaping from the wagon with
precipitate haste. "What are you doing?"
"He won't hurt you,
sir. He is dead."
The young man's red,
chubby face, out of which peered his little
round eyes, his red hair standing in a disordered halo about his
head, his strange attire, with trailing braces and tag-ends of his
night-robe hanging about his person, made a picture so weirdly
funny that the girl went off into peals of laughter.
"Marjorie! Marjorie!"
cried an indignant voice, "what are ye
daein' there? Tak' shame to yersel', ye hizzie."
Marjorie turned in the
direction of the voice, and again her peals
of laughter burst forth. "Oh! Aunt Janet, you do look so funny."
But at once the head with its aureole of curl-papers was whipped
inside the tent.
"Ye're no that fine to
look at yersel', ye shameless lassie," cried
Aunt Janet.
With a swift motion the
girl put her hand to her head, gathered her
garments about her, and fled to the cover of her tent, leaving
Kalman and the young man together, the latter in a state of
indignant wrath, for no man can bear with equanimity the ridicule
of a maiden whom he is especially anxious to please.
"By Jove, sir!" he
exclaimed. "What the deuce did you mean,
running your confounded dogs into a camp like that?"
Kalman heard not a
word. He was standing as in a dream, gazing
upon the tent into which the girl had vanished. Ignoring the young
man, he got his horse and mounted, and calling his dogs, rode off
up the trail.
"Hello there!" cried
Harris, the engineer, after him. Kalman
reined up. "Do you know where I can get any oats?"
"Yes," said Kalman, "up
at our ranch."
"And where is that?"
"Ten miles from here,
across the Night Hawk Creek." Then, as if
taking a sudden resolve, "I'll bring them down to you this
afternoon. How much do you want?"
"Twenty-five bushels
would do us till we reach the construction
camp."
"I'll bring them
to-day," said Kalman, riding away, his dogs
limping after him.
In a few moments the
girl came out of the tent. "Oh!" she cried to
the engineer, "is he gone?"
"Yes," said Harris,
"but he'll be back this afternoon. He is going
to bring me some oats." His smile brought a quick flush to the
girl's cheeks.
"Oh! has he?" she said,
with elaborate indifference. "What a
lovely morning! It's wonderful for so late in the year. You have
a splendid country here, Mr. Harris."
"That's right," he
said; "and the longer you stay in it, the better
you like it. You'll be going to settle in it yourself some day."
"I'm not so sure about
that," cried the girl, with a deeper blush,
and a saucy toss of her head. "It is a fine country, but it's no'
Scotland, ye ken, as my Aunt would say. My! but I'm fair starving."
It happened that the
ride to the Galician colony, planned for that
afternoon by Mr. Penny the day before, had to be postponed. Miss
Marjorie was hardly up to it. "It must be the excitement of the
country," she explained carefully to Mr. Penny, "so I'll just bide
in the camp."
"Indeed, you are wise
for once in your life," said her Aunt Janet.
"As for me, I'm fair dune out. With this hurly-burly of such
terrible excitement I wonder I did not faint right off."
"Hoots awa', Aunt
Janet," said her niece, "it was no time for
fainting, I'm thinking, with yon wolf in the tent beside ye."
"Aye, lassie, you may
well say so," said Aunt Janet, lapsing into
her native tongue, into which in unguarded moments she was rather
apt to fall, and which her niece truly loved to use, much to her
Aunt's disgust, who considered it a form of vulgarity to be avoided
with all care.
As the afternoon was
wearing away, a wagon appeared in the distance.
The gentlemen were away from camp inspecting the progress of the
work down the line.
"There's something
coming yonder," said Miss Marjorie, whose eyes
had often wandered down the trail that afternoon.
"Mercy on us! What can
it be, and them all away," said her Aunt
in distress. "Put your saddle on and fly for your father or Mr.
Harris. I am terrified. It is this awful country. If ever I get
out alive!"
"Hoots awa', Aunt, it's
just a wagon."
"Marjorie, why will you
use such vulgar expressions? Of course,
it's a wagon. Wha's--who's in it?"
"Indeed, I'm not
caring," said her niece; "they'll no' eat us."
"Marjorie, behave
yourself, I'm saying, and speak as you are
taught. Run away for your father."
"Indeed, Aunt, how
could I do this and leave you here by yourself?
A wild Indian might run off with you."
"Mercy me! What a
lassie! I'm fair distracted."
"Oh, Auntie dear," said
Marjorie, with a change of voice, "it is
just a man bringing some oats. Mr. Harris told me he was to get a
load this afternoon. We will need to take them from him. Have you
any money? We must pay him, I suppose."
"Money?" cried her
Aunt. "What is the use of money in this
country? No, your father has it all."
"Why," suddenly
exclaimed her niece, "it's not the man after all."
"What man are you
talking about?" enquired her Aunt. "What man is
it not?"
"It's a stranger. I
mean--it's--another man," said Marjorie,
distinct disappointment in her tone.
"Here, who is it, or
who is it no'?"
"Oh," said Marjorie
innocently. "Mr. Harris is expecting that
young man who was here this morning,--the one who saved us from
that awful wolf, you know."
"That man! The impudent
thing that he was," cried her Aunt. "Wait
till I set my eyes on him. Indeed, I will not look at any one
belonging to him." Aunt Janet flounced into the tent, leaving her
niece to meet the stranger alone.
"Good afternoon! Am I
right in thinking that this is the engineer's
camp, for which a load of oats was ordered this morning?" Jack
French was standing, hat in hand, looking his admiration and
perplexity, for Kalman had not told him anything of this girl.
"Yes, this is the camp.
At least, I heard Mr. Harris say he
expected a load of oats; but," she added in slight confusion, "it
was from another man, a young man, the man, I mean, who was here
this morning."
"Confusion, indeed!"
came a muffled voice from the closed tent.
Jack French glanced
quickly around, but saw no one.
"Oh," said Miss
Marjorie, struggling with her laughter, "it's my
Aunt; she was much alarmed this morning. You see, the wolf and the
dogs ran right into her tent. It was terrible."
"Terrible, indeed,"
said Jack French, with grave politeness. "I
could only get the most incoherent account of the whole matter. I
hope your Aunt was not hurt."
"Hurt, indeed!"
ejaculated a muffled voice. "It was nearer killed,
I was."
Upon this, Miss
Marjorie ran to the tent door. "Aunt," she cried,
lifting up the flap, "you might as well come out and meet Mr.--"
"French, Jack French,
as I am known in this free country."
"My Aunt, Miss Menzies."
"Very happy to meet
you, madam." Jack's bow was so inexpressibly
elegant that Aunt Janet found herself adopting her most gracious,
Glasgow society manner.
French was profuse in
his apologies and sympathetic regrets, as he
gravely listened to Aunt Janet's excited account of her warm
adventure. The perfect gravity and the profuse sympathy with which
he heard the tale won Aunt Janet's heart, and she privately decided
that here, at last, she had found in this wild and terrible country
a man in whom she could entirely confide.
Under Miss Marjorie's
direction, French unloaded his oats, the girl
pouring forth the while a stream of observations, exclamations, and
interrogations upon all subjects imaginable, and with such an
abandonment of good fellowship that French, for the first time in
twenty years, found himself offering hospitality to a party in which
ladies were to be found. Miss Menzies accepted the invitation with
eager alacrity.
"Oh! it will be lovely,
won't it, Aunt Janet? We have not yet seen
a real ranch, and besides," she added, "we have no money to pay for
our oats."
"That matters not at
all," said French; "but if your Aunt will
condescend to grace with her presence my poor bachelor's hall, we
shall be most grateful."
Aunt Janet was quite
captivated, and before she knew it, she had
accepted the invitation for the party.
"Oh, good!" cried Miss
Marjorie in ecstasy; "we shall come to-
morrow, Mr. French."
And with this news
French drove back to the ranch, to the disgust
of old Mackenzie, who dreaded "women folks," and to Kalman's
alternating delight and dismay. That short visit had established
between the young girl and Jack French a warm and abiding
friendship that in a more conventional atmosphere it would have
taken years to develop. To her French realized at once all her
ideals of what a Western rancher should be, and to French the
frank, fresh innocence of her unspoiled heart appealed with
irresistible force. They had discovered each other in that single
hour. |