Next Year
A SEMI-HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE EXPLOITS AND EXPLOITATIONS OF THE
FAR-FAMED BARR COLONISTS, WHO, LED BY AN UNSCRUPULOUS CHURCH OF
ENGLAND PARSON, ADVENTURED DEEP INTO THE WILDERNESS OF CANADA'S GREAT
NORTH-WEST IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
_By_
HARRY PICK
(Barr Colonist)
THE RYERSON PRESS
TORONTO
Copyright, Canada, 1928,
by HARRY PICK
To
ALL BARR COLONISTS, PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
ARE STILL STAYING WITH OLD BRITANNIA, AND TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE
BRAVE SPIRITS WHO HAVE PASSED ON, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED
Extract from the Montreal Gazette
of April 11th, 1903
"St. John, N.B.--Four special trains, carrying the Barr Colonists,
numbering 1,960, left here to-day for the Saskatoon district, where
the new Canadians will establish homes and cities. The party, which
is declared to be the greatest emigration from England since the
departure of William Penn, arrived Saturday morning on the steamship
_Lake Manitoba_, whose cargo of humanity was packed like fish in a
box. The colonists bring with them half a million pounds sterling.
They are probably the finest body of men, women and children that
ever landed here. Lawyers, doctors, clergymen, merchants,
aristocrats, farmers, clerks, artizans, domestics, tradeswomen and
labourers are included, besides babies by the score. On the passage,
which occupied eleven days, there was not a death or a case of
serious illness on the congested ship. Rev. I. M. Barr, the
organizer of the party, is a brisk, business-like man, who is full of
enthusiasm over the prospects of his scheme. He says 1,500 more
colonists are to follow, and that 10,000 will come next year."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
Author's Note
I. A Fight--Choosing land at Sea
II. Two Skeleton Biographies
III. Saskatoon--Acquiring Transport
IV. Saskatoon--Buying Machinery
V. Saskatoon--William Trailey
VI. Saskatoon--A Temperance Lecture
VII. Saskatoon--Martha Trailey
VIII. On to Battleford
IX. An Early Morning Shoot
X. Indian Freighters--Eagle Creek
XI. A May Snow-storm
XII. Tragi-Comedy in an Alkali Flat
XIII. Battleford
XIV. Prairie Fires
XV. Black Desolation
XVI. The End of the Trek
XVII. Land-Hunting
XVIII. Wilderness--Planning for Next Year
AUTHOR'S NOTE
When the S.S. _Lake Manitoba_ carried two thousand all-British Barr
Colonists across the Atlantic a quarter of a century ago, she didn't
exactly cover herself with glory. Her Board of Trade passenger
rating was eight hundred odd.
In one cabin for'ard there were packed three hundred human
beings--single men; or what practically amounted to the same thing
(as a facetious wag whose wife had run off with the milkman put
it)--married men travelling without their wives.
A similar cabin aft enclosed a like number of males. Amidships, but
a story or two higher up, the steerage accommodation was crowded with
unattached females and married people with their younger children.
Recently used as a transport in the South African War, the _Lake
Manitoba_ had had her decks and holds painted a snowy white, and
divided into compartments with gunny sacking. Into numbers of these
elastic cubicles as many as six married couples were squeezed.
Privacy was impossible. No one could undress properly. The drinking
water was rotten; the food was worse. The sanitary conveniences
would have shamed a monkey cage. The snow-white paint on the
woodwork turned out to be merely whitewash, and, when the vessel
received a smart smack from a wave, large flakes of it fell off along
with the dried undercoat of manure.
Up above, the aristocrats travelled first-class. Theirs was the only
passenger accommodation the ship really possessed. Nearly everyone
aboard could have afforded to travel cabin, but only those whose
applications were received first managed to secure the limited number
of berths available. The rest--about sixteen hundred of them--put up
with the crudest of steerage fare.
For an interesting view of life aboard an emigrant ship, the single
men's cabin for'ard was unique. All sorts and conditions of British
middle-class homes were represented, and although it was rather a lot
of men to cram into one room, it speaks well for British love of law
and order to record that only eleven fights, seven incipient
mutinies, three riots, and twenty-two violent interviews with Barr,
the party's leader, occurred during the voyage.
This cabin was deep down below the water line. When any of the
fellows felt that they needed air, they went up on deck for it.
Quite right, too. Why should young single men have things carried
down to them?
Climbing to the deck for air worked all right for everybody except
those who were dying from seasickness, of whom there were about a
score. These poor devils stuck in bed throughout the whole of the
voyage. Fortunately, the ship crossed in twelve days, so they didn't
have to breathe the same air above a million times.
This cabin stretched clean across the boat. It was one of the holds.
As previously stated, it was well up in front, where the men got a
longer ride for their money--up and down, as well as forward. The
"beds" were in tiers of three, with long tables placed with charming
thoughtfulness down the aisles, so that the seasick sufferers might
obtain a clear view of the grub.
The occupants of the cabin were pretty quiet during the first couple
of days out from Liverpool. The band on the dock had played some
haunting melodies, and everyone knows how greatly young single men
are affected by such things. Besides, there was only an old plank
floor separating them from the place where the bilge was stored.
But presently they became more sprightly. Some chap started a little
hymn singing, in between two tiers of bunks where a couple of fellows
lay dying. It was highly pathetic. One of the invalids, a little,
sallow-faced beggar, was in frightful throes; but, in spite of being
almost a goner, he revived sufficiently to curse something awful
every time the glee singers struck up "Shall We Gather at the River?"
Across in one corner, a gang played ha'penny nap throughout the trip.
Bottles of Guinness, like labelled black ninepins, stuck up all round
them. Everyone in the cabin smoked, of course; thus any germs
propagated by the overcrowding were quickly choked to death.
About half-way along one side of the stateroom, a dozen budding scalp
hunters had crucified the effigy of a man--Barr, it was supposed to
represent--on the wall of the ship, and were practising knife
throwing. Many men wore bowie knives. Indeed, barring bows and
arrows and 8-inch howitzers, they had brought almost a complete
arsenal aboard. No man who considered himself sane would dream of
venturing into the Far West in those days without being thoroughly
armed, so why shouldn't a green Englishman protect himself?
In the middle of the cabin, in a sort of island of space--which the
authorities had apparently overlooked--an orchestra practised many
times daily. Two fiddles, a melodeon, a cornet, and a telescopic
harmonium ground out the music.
Those were the days before civilization had sunk into the depravity
of jazz. The orchestra dispensed such noble airs as: "Count Your
Blessings," "Daddy's on the Engine," and such like popular tunes of
the day, interspersed with a few of Lottie Collins' and Moody and
Sankey's special hits. Some of the dying men frequently called for
encores. These were hardly ever refused.
In another corner, a chap, who several years previously had spent
three weeks in Alaska, lectured on prairie farming. His dialect was
pure Tyneside. It was hard work for him, particularly during
orchestra rehearsals, but he managed quite well in the intervals.
Those who have heard the Tyneside idiom will know it for a rather
desperate affair. In the best society, the vowels are supposed to be
sung as limpidly as possible, the consonants being thrown in here and
there in shovelfuls of gutturals. As no one understood a single word
the lecturer said, he was extremely impressive.
Mixed in with these more artistic entertainments were the usual
English gymnastic games; boxing and wrestling; miniature rifle
practice, and a few real scraps. Time, therefore, didn't really
hang. The dying men appeared to be wonderfully bucked.
Numbers of the men had recently been demobilized from the British
Army's South African forces, so the language used in course of
ordinary conversation was naturally somewhat vivid.
The largeness of the crowd of passengers had apparently taken the
steamship company (The Elder-Dempster Company) unawares, their
kitchen staff being completely overwhelmed. The Captain soon
rectified this, however, by enlisting, in return for a free passage,
a number of stewards from the single men's "stateroom." These, not
having had much experience in dealing with riots and revolutions,
were quite content to stand in the cabin entrance and shy jacketed
potatoes, slices of meat, and chunks of plum duff across the heads of
the scrambling crowds. Only good all-round cricketers were chosen
for stewards; and only first-rate wicket-keepers got plenty to eat.
This far-famed, all-British Colony idea was sired by an Anglican
clergyman, the Rev. Isaac M. Barr. Its dam was the pursuit of
wealth; grand-dam, adventure; grandsire, the Britisher's intense
longing to own a bit of land.
Though a parson, Barr knew a thing or two about business. The more
cynical of the passengers aboard the _Lake Manitoba_, chiefly those
from London and the larger cities, had it pretty well reckoned up
that if he received commissions--which he was quite entitled to
do--from all the interests concerned in supplying the party with
things, he would pull down sufficient of "the ready" to enable him to
start preaching again.
One chap in the single men's cabin had thrown up a bank manager's
berth in one of London's suburbs to try his luck in the Far West.
Being clever at figures, he calculated that at only half a sovereign
a head from the steamship company, and another from the Canadian
Pacific Railway, Barr's perquisites from these sources alone would
aggregate two thousand five hundred pounds.
As this rather involved calculation was made, and the result
communicated to them after they had enjoyed a magnificent banquet of
slices of sour beef, and balls of plum duff whose soggy in'ards had
seemingly been shot at with raisins out of a sawn-off shotgun at
about two hundred yards, the men promptly flew into a riot. This was
one of the disturbances already mentioned.
After its inception, Barr's scheme grew like a toadstool in a
hothouse. In a very short time he was inundated with applications
from people all over Britain for permission to join his party.
Precisely why he did not charter another boat; two, three, a fleet,
in fact; or why he refrained from squeezing a few more passengers on
to the _Lake Manitoba_, is not recorded.
Large sums of money were deposited with Barr in London by the members
of the party in payment for such things as C.P.R. land; homestead
entry fees; bell tents; shares in the community hospital, and in the
great co-operative trading company which was to be founded--for the
scheme was slightly tinged with that communistic ideal which has for
one of its minor aims the coaxing of a rather coy millennium about
three centuries nearer.
The emigrants were to be settled in groups corresponding with the
localities from which they hailed in Britain. That is to say:
Londoners were to be allotted so many townships all to themselves;
the people from Nottingham so many; from Yorkshire so many; and so
on. Complete freedom of choice was, of course, permitted. For
instance, if any poor trusting soul from Lancashire cared to risk his
future among the Londoners, or _vice versa_, there was no rule
against it.
It was freely advertised in the Canadian newspapers that the total
wealth of the party in specie alone was considerably in excess of one
million dollars. It is more than likely this estimate was much too
low. Many men brought to Canada with them anything from one to ten
thousand pounds, with easy access to more, too, in lots of cases.
On the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and three, the
S.S. _Lake Manitoba_ lay in the dock at Liverpool, ready to sail. At
last everyone was aboard. Slowly the little liner, with her triple
load of human freight, edged away from the quay. Spirits ran high.
Cheer followed cheer. Then the band started playing in a haunting,
muffled way, "God be with You Till We Meet Again."
The crowd on the quay was suddenly hushed. Women wept. Tears
trickled down many a male cheek aboard the boat. Handkerchiefs
fluttered, hearts throbbed, and throats filled, as the emigrants
stood on the decks, their memories overflowing with the tranquil
beauty of dear old England.
But all was well. The weight of the crowds of passengers, and of
their profusion of luggage, and dogs, made the tiny boat ride low in
the water, but steady. Life belts were noticeably scarce: so were
rafts, and lifeboats; but with pocketfuls of money, plenty of
armament, and at least three clergymen aboard, the colonists were
quite all right should Fate have decided to send the boat to the
bottom.
The party was comprised of lawyers, tradesmen, clerks, two or three
farmers, commercial travellers, teachers, remittance men, gentlemen
(meaning those who were sufficiently wealthy to live without work),
ex-varsity men, and artisans. Males predominated. This magnified
the attractiveness of even the plainest girls, a situation they
curiously enough quickly took advantage of.
Barr's General Headquarters was a cabin transformed into an office,
and situated high up on the boat deck. His Aide-de-Camp was George
Flamank. His Chief of Staff was the Rev. George Exton Lloyd, who is
now that well-known dynamic Anglican Bishop of Saskatchewan.
Numerous lesser stars circled round Barr in flickering constellations.
An immense tract of the most fertile, and practically still
untrodden, land in the North Saskatchewan valley had been reserved
for the Colony. Barr certainly possessed a gift for having things
reserved. Besides a special baggage train, three trains were
ear-marked at St. John, N.B., to transport the party to Saskatoon,
then an insignificant hamlet containing less than one hundred and
fifty people. A fourth train was packed with young men destined for
distribution at points in Manitoba. These chaps were without funds,
so not being of much interest to anybody, they decided not to go as
far as Saskatoon.
The S.S. _Lake Manitoba_ arrived at St. John on the Saturday
preceding Easter Sunday, but no one was permitted to land. She was
at once quarantined. Finally, the Canadian port authorities, failing
to discover anything amiss with the passengers beyond a trifling, but
nevertheless contagious itch--the itch for land--gave her a clean
bill of health.
On Easter Sunday the party landed, and in the afternoon boarded their
special trains for the Far West. The bells on the engines tolled
mournfully, but the colonists, seeing no funerals about, naturally
interpreted this doleful music as a sort of send-off.
Droves of people at St. John gazed with half-suppressed amusement at
these queerly-caparisoned Englishmen from feudal Europe. The
colonists were far too busy storing away cases of sardines, bread,
and other eatables for the trip, to reciprocate properly.
After traversing the frozen east, and being completely bored with the
melancholy sight of hundreds of miles of dead and dying trees in the
region of Lake Superior, they eventually reached Saskatoon, where the
weather was brilliantly warm.
With truly commendable foresight, Barr had arranged for his brother
Jack to meet the colonists at Saskatoon with stacks of semi-broken
horses. Jack did. There are hundreds of people in Canada to-day who
can swear to it. With that gifted insight into futurity possessed
only by palmists, and great leaders, Barr had also arranged with an
implement company for them to reserve the output of their factories
for a month or so, in order that the party might not be deprived of
their right to purchase some brilliantly-coloured machinery. Pretty
nearly a trainload of wagons alone was shipped to Saskatoon for the
Barr Colonists.
Mysteriously, the majority of the oxen--bulls they were also
called--in Western Canada gravitated to Saskatoon. These charming
creatures calmly chewed their cuds whilst shrewd-eyed philanthropists
almost shed tears of sadness at being compelled to part with them for
two to three hundred dollars a pair.
Through the kindness of The International Horse Dealers' Society (of
North America) Incorporated, a few of the more reputable members of
that organization congregated at Saskatoon for the purpose of seeing
that the Barr Colonists were not too badly had. At great personal
sacrifice, these humanitarians left homes and wives and children to
the tender mercies of their better-known neighbours, whilst they
themselves set out, some of them over long distances, to obey the
orders of their powerful lodge.
Freighters, opportunists of every denomination, curious sight-seers,
generous-hearted old timers, advice-tendering well-wishers, all
hovered about the great tented town, which, thanks to a few tips from
the South African veterans, and considerably assisted by a benevolent
Providence, the colonists had managed to erect.
The paternal Dominion government sent golden-toothed, silver-tongued
orators to Saskatoon to welcome the party and scatter incense of hope
about its travel-stained spirit. Flamboyantly, and with dramatic
gestures, these professional spell-binders waved the colonists
onwards towards the setting sun--to a spot in the wilderness over two
hundred miles away.
Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, May, 1928.
Next Year
CHAPTER I
_A Fight--Choosing Land at Sea_
One morning, when the S.S. _Lake Manitoba_ was about in mid-Atlantic,
a drizzling rain was being painlessly born out of dank, misty skies.
Imperturbably doing her accustomed ten knots, the little liner
steadily plunged along through the dripping green seas.
A dense mass of dark-coloured smoke beat down continuously from the
single funnel. Trailing for miles astern, it hung over the ship's
wake like a shroud. Restless waves, divested by the rain of their
usual whitecaps, sloped upwards to lose themselves in the sullen
clouds. The cheerless decks, greasy and comfortless, had long since
driven nearly everyone into the fetid depths below.
The "orchestra" in the single men's "stateroom" raggedly backed out
of their attempt to play the War March of the Priests, and settled
down to murder Annie Laurie nice and comfortably. After a time,
their nefarious efforts having met with a great deal of success, the
performers decided to forbear a little, finishing up with a horrible
gasping discord somewhat suggestive of the agony suffered by a pair
of overblown bagpipes being struck by lightning.
Several young fellows lounged about diligently on bunks and forms.
Thanking the musicians for the recital, they began to discuss their
future plans desultorily. The previous day, the Rev. Mr. Lloyd had
drawn a crowd of convalescent colonists round him on the boat deck to
lecture them on pioneering tactics. The reverend gentleman
occasionally blew a shrill blast on a whistle he carried, whereupon a
few dozen homesteading enthusiasts would come faithfully to heel to
be drilled in the latest theories pertaining to prairie agriculture.
"Ranching for this child," said a medium-sized chap with a bored but
lofty air. A magnificent knife, containing sufficient tools with
which to erect a factory and a couple of rows of cottages, hung from
a belt at his waist. Evidently he considered himself an expert in
his future profession, for he added in a tone which expressed great
familiarity with it: "I intend to breed polo ponies--classy ones, by
Jove!"
"Me, too," echoed another fellow, whose velvet-cord riding breeches
fairly knocked your eye out. "This corn-growing they talk so much
about seems to be more of a workingman's task; don't you think so,
Rex, old boy?"
Rex, a big, red-faced young man, the living image of an assured
remittance, withdrew his spotty features from a mug which a few
seconds before had been filled with Bass.
"Beastly bore," he said, "following a bally plough. What!"
The fellow with the multitudinous-bladed knife agreed. "Only a silly
ass would think of doing such a thing," he remarked. "Fancy going to
Canada and degenerating into a common farm labourer!"
"It's too idiotic for words," observed the fellow in velvet
corduroys, as he gazed rather thirstily at the empty mug. "It's
indecent--positively preposterous. Is there anything left in the
bottle, Rex, dear boy?"
Rex laughed. "Not now," he replied, partly filling the mug again.
"Last of the Mohicans, too, so to speak. That beastly steward
upstairs, the one with the fishy eyes, refused me any more. He says
the blarsted cabin people need the rest of the stuff."
The corduroy-bedecked one, a tallish, good-looking, fair-haired
Englishman, smothered his disappointment by exclaiming:
"Oh, I say! come off. I know the steward you mean--the putty-faced
rotter! Do they really think all the gentlemen on this moth-eaten
barge are travelling first? Why it was only because the guv'nor sent
my passage money in to Barr too late that I'm compelled to mix with
the scum in this awful hole," and he glanced round the crowded cabin
contemptuously.
"Scum!" suddenly cried a little pug-faced chap who had overheard the
remark--Sam, everyone called him. "Scum, did yer say, yer ruddy
himitashun toff?"
Almost two days had elapsed since Sam had fought his last battle;
therefore he was spoiling for another. The fellow in velvet breeches
stood up and regarded him amusedly, apparently not the least bit
nervous--merely a trifle annoyed at being made the cynosure of so
many vulgar eyes. He flushed a deep red.
"If the cap fits, wear it, by all means. In the meantime, kindly
oblige me by going to the deuce, there's a good chap." Nevertheless,
he watched the little fellow out of the corner of his eye,
remembering his reputation for pugnacity.
Snub-nosed Sam at once jumped from off the top bunk where he was
sitting, and without further pause launched himself straight at the
face of the man in velvet. He reached his mark, but with a glancing
blow. Owing to the confined nature of the battlefield, and the
excessive exuberance of his attack, he stumbled over his antagonist's
feet, which were not at all small, and fell sprawling on the floor.
"Good old Sam!" "At 'im, Sam!" shouted the young fellows from the
bunks and forms round about, happy as full-grown men at a dog-fight.
Like a cat, Sam jumped to his feet and made another dash, but this
time missed his mark completely. A straight clean jab from a long,
slim, steely arm caught him plump on the point, or end rather, of his
already turned-up nose, and sent him flying among feet and forms.
Universal peace must in reality be a tremendously long way off when
two or three hundred young men can be lifted into ecstasy by the
prospect of viewing a scrap. Every one who was able to, crowded
round and passed encouraging remarks to the combatants. Even the
"bandsmen," who had started again to minister to the nausea of the
seasick invalids with a particularly discordant prelude, desisted
from their charitable efforts to come across to enjoy the fray.
The velvet-breeched one coolly surveyed his handiwork, still on his
guard, but obviously not relishing his position.
"Nice one, sir!" "Well played!" "Neat, Gussie, dear!" were a few of
the exclamations greeting his success in the first round.
Again Sam rose to attack, though plainly preoccupied with taking
astronomical observations.
"Go it, little 'un. Never say yer muvver bred a jibber," some one
called to him encouragingly.
More cautiously, as he thought, Sam hit out wildly with his right,
managed to disarrange a rather pretty cluster of stars which dangled
before his eyes, and, of course, missed his foe again. Then he
accepted another little tap on the nose, but there was steel in the
blow.
"Strewth!" he groaned under his breath involuntarily.
"Chuck it, you bally little fool," said the velvet-garbed boxer
soothingly. "Shake hands and be friends. You're too full of guts to
be called scum."
Rather sheepishly, Sam reluctantly did so.
"Wot's yer blinkin' nyme?" he asked admiringly, in a low voice,
mopping at his bleeding nose with an enormous mottled red-and-white
handkerchief.
"Never mind my name just now. You may call me Bert if you like."
At this point in the peace conference, two arrogant-looking men
pushed their way across the cabin. One of them, in a blatant tone,
shouted as he waved a piece of paper in his hand:
"Barr's dishin' out land up in 'is office. We've got ourn. Here
y'are--Robert Roberts Robertson--North-west, twenty-four, fifty,
twenty-six, W. three--whatever the devil that means--and don't you
forget it. With the Leicester lot, we are; aren't we, George?" and
he turned to his chum, who also had recently become an estate owner.
"It's right, mates. We've got our land," said the other potentate,
as the vessel gave a stomach-turning dip into the trough of a wave,
slowly returning to a more or less even keel again with a series of
shuddering jerks.
"Land, did someone say?" feebly moaned a prostrate form close by, as
it wiped its splitting brow with its hand. "My God! if only it's
true."
The attention of the idlers was immediately transferred from the
reconciliation to more important matters. Another crowd soon
gathered about the pair of bloated landowners, eagerly demanding more
complete information, which was condescendingly given.
The hunger for land spread with great rapidity. None of the men
desired water. They were sick of the filthy, rusty-hued stuff they
were forced to drink; and they were tired of the dreary expanse of
the salted variety which was spread out all round them in such
illimitable quantities.
"Wot abaht a bit of land?" said Sam to Bert, as familiarly as though
they had attended school together.
"Brilliant idea, Sam, me lad. Come along," returned Bert: so up to
G.H.Q. they went, followed by several more of the men to whom the
very word "land" was suggestive of blissful solidity and freedom from
that ghastly up and down motion of the steamer.
After waiting half an hour outside the door of Barr's office, the two
landseekers went in together. They were both from London, though
from widely separated suburbs. No thought of such an ill-assorted
companionship as they had apparently struck up had ever entered
either of their heads. It was merely the influence of battle which,
as so often is the case, had been the means of cementing their new
friendship. They had taken each other's measure, and were seemingly
well satisfied.
The Rev. Isaac M. Barr, dark, squat, heavily-built, preoccupied, was
seated at a table. Spread out before him was a large-scale map of
the far-away Saskatchewan valley. His A.D.C., George Flamank,
mercurial, dark-brown eyes glittering, sat beside him. The Rev.
George Exton Lloyd stood on one side--tall, lithe, keen-eyed, the
embodiment of energy leashed. A little old chap with greying hair,
and scarlet nose and waistcoat, stood handily by, exuding waves of
synthetic dignity.
"Well, men, you want some land, I suppose?" said Barr, addressing
neither of the pair particularly.
"Yes, if it is convenient to you," replied Bert.
"Not 'arf, sir," said Sam, glancing across at the little man's red
nose. Sam stroked his own smarting and swollen proboscis and
wondered if the other had acquired his the same way.
Visions of an estate dotted with deer, and duck-ponds, and with
redskins peering through the undergrowth--_his_ undergrowth--flashed
before Bert's mind's eye.
Barr cleared his throat, which appeared a trifle dry.
"Let me see," said he, addressing Bert, "you're from London, aren't
you?" Bert nodded affirmatively.
"----And you're from Birmingham?" Barr added, turning to Sam and
obviously guessing.
"No, guv'ner--an' thank Gawd for it," retorted Sam fervently. "I'm
from the blinkin' smoke, like 'e is," indicating his companion with a
nod.
The little red-nosed man with the flaming waistcoat turned round
politely and tried to cough, but he surprised himself, and everybody
else, by sneezing seven or eight times instead. Flamank's eyes
gleamed. The tall figure of the Rev. Lloyd disappeared through the
doorway. Barr smiled mechanically, plainly bored, and said:
"Then you both wish to be with the London party, I presume?"
Sam said they did, and was quite vehement about it. Bert confirmed
his answer. At this, Barr turned and spoke to Flamank.
"Put them with the London group. What is there left in fifty-one,
twenty-seven?"--meaning township and range. He stood up and leaned
over the table, whilst Flamank fished among a pile of papers.
"How would this place suit you?" Barr asked, indicating on the map
with his finger an attractive square situated about six hundred miles
north-west of Winnipeg.
Bert carefully examined the location. "It looks very nice," he said,
after a moment or two.
"It's 'andsome, I calls it," observed Sam, who had squeezed his
chunky self in between the little red-nosed man and Bert.
As this was the first map Sam had ever inspected, his opinion
naturally went a long way with his new pal. The place on the plan to
which Barr had referred was a pretty pale-blue section bordered in
brown, nicely-shaded, and with a couple of wavy lines--war-paths,
probably, thought Bert, who was slightly romantic--running across it
obliquely. After a little pause to consider the matter, Bert said:
"It's a delightful place, really. That'll suit us fine, won't it,
Sam?"
Sam thought it was "the best bit of land 'e'd ever clapped eyes on."
They were both immensely in love with the location.
Barr, through his A.D.C., allotted them adjoining homesteads.
Flamank, with pen poised over paper, looked at Bert and said: "Name,
please."
"Bertrand Paul Tressider."
"----And yours?"--this to Sam, who was dreamily caressing his
turned-up nose.
"Samuel Adolphus Potts--guv'ner."
They handed over their entry fees and, after a record of the location
of the land had been duly made, turned and left the cabin.
With new bubbly feelings in their respective young hearts, they
descended to the dreary steerage deck. Sam glanced disdainfully at
the watery waste surrounding them. It still rained dismally. After
spitting in the ocean once or twice, he said, meditatively:
"A 'undred an' sixty blinkin' acres of land's a lot, ain't it, Bert?"
"A half-mile square. Why?"
"Oh, nothink. I feel too prahd ter speak."
Bert laughed and strolled away.
"Hey!" Sam called to him. "If you 'appen ter see my man abaht
anywhere, tell 'im I want 'im at once, will yer?"
NOTE.--Although sounding far-fetched, scores of Barr Colonists picked
their homesteads from a map in Barr's office aboard the S.S. _Lake
Manitoba_ in mid-Atlantic. A few of them are still living on those
same farms to-day.--H. P.