_The End of the Trek_
The little party covered the last lap of their exhausting journey
without encountering any special mishaps. Beyond being bogged a few
more times, they enjoyed pretty decent luck.
The lustre of their equipment was now entirely worn off. Their
bedraggled aspect contrasted vividly with the gorgeous appearance
they had presented at the commencement of the pilgrimage. In spite
of Martha Trailey's almost fanatical industry, outer garments rapidly
deteriorated; shirts ripped; buttons disappeared, and neat
spic-and-span-ness surrendered to the stains and rents and general
frayed-out look consequent upon such a harsh trip.
Faces had peeled profusely. Hands once soft and white had now become
hard and blistery. Scraggly whiskers competed with uncut hair to see
which could make their wearers appear the most dishevelled. At first
they all laughed at the changes; then ignored them; then, as
everything is distinguishable only by contrast, they failed to take
notice of them.
The earth was still black. Even crows and blackbirds contributed to
the prevailing tint. As they drew near to the end of the trek, an
occasional white tent could be seen far across the plain, looking for
all the world like a small sailing boat on a vast blue sea. The
colonists were going on to their land.
Seven weeks to the very day on which the Lake Manitoba had left
Liverpool, they arrived at the point where an imaginary railway
bisected an imaginary meridian of longitude, and chosen by a
visionary leader as the site for the Colony's Headquarters. Having
the sky above them, the Rocky Mountains not many hundred miles off,
and a good big slough full of frogs close by to drink out of,
everything was now all right.
Although weary, travel-worn, sick to death of baking-powder bread,
surfeited with tent life, thoroughly disillusioned regarding
"rarnching" and all the rest of the cock-and-bull theories born on
the _Lake Manitoba_, yet no one was faint-hearted. They pitched
their tents among the dozens of others whilst the rain, to keep them
cheerful, fell down in sheets.
At least one thousand indomitable souls survived the trek. On the
land which they had travelled five thousand miles to see, they were
now as completely isolated from the world as a caravan in the middle
of the Sahara.
The nearest settlements were an Indian Reservation forty miles to the
north; Edmonton, two hundred miles west; Battleford, one hundred
miles east; and southwards, the main line of the Canadian Pacific,
more than one hundred and fifty miles away. Not a fence, not a road,
scarcely a wagon track marked this huge, unbroken monotony. All
round the Barr Colonists' reservation was a huge tract of country
thousands of square miles larger in extent than the area of England,
with hardly anybody in it.
The Colony was named Britannia. Whether this title was given to it
because some exasperated lady had threatened Barr with a three-tined
pitchfork, or whether it was on account of Britishers being so fond
of water, is not accurately known; anyhow, the name, seeing that the
settlement was a purely British one, was very fitting.
Pretty soon, at Headquarters Camp, with the intention of introducing
a little variety into things, a number of the more discontented and
disillusioned colonists called a meeting to decide whether to tar and
feather, or lynch, the Rev. Isaac M. Barr. It is one of the
peculiarities of history-making, that leaders always have to run
these slight risks. So it was with Barr. Things were in a dreadful
muddle. Flour was almost non-existent and expensive. The plainest
necessities were either scarce or unobtainable. But there was a
superabundance of 3-inch nails, and door-latches, which naturally
helped things considerably.
Barr's genius for organization and money-making had long since
deserted him. His fingers, which previously had grasped the reins of
leadership, now much too frequently caressed the hard, smooth neck of
a whiskey bottle. His brief day was over. Pestered to death by
desperate colonists who desired some sort of settlement; absolutely
cornered by others; despised by all; he feinted and dissembled to the
last--then one night disappeared.
But there are several things Barr must be given credit for.
Undoubtedly his original intentions were honest. He was quite
entitled to make money out of the scheme. People who work for
nothing are not so plentiful. Then he chose a fine stretch of
fertile country for his Colony. Finally, no Barr Colonist, who is
worth taking any notice of at all, ever said he regretted joining the
movement, with its unforgettable experiences of humour and pluck. As
a corollary, it may be mentioned that no man living could have been a
perfect success as the leader of such a crowd as the Barr Colonists
were at the start--not unless he could have enforced a sort of army
discipline, with King's Regulations and sergeant-majors, and all the
rest of the charming enactments devised for making rational men do
what they don't wish to do.
Luckily, neither Trailey nor Bert had subscribed much money to Barr's
schemes for founding a new Jerusalem in the great North-West. A few
stray guineas handed over towards the founding of a community
hospital comprised their total speculation. Nearly everyone bought
shares in this particular venture, for the thought of being stricken
by illness out in that vast loneliness was a very disquieting one.
But these were the days before halitosis, and pyorrhea, and
appendicitis had begun to ravage humanity; so, except for a little
dandruff and falling hair, caused by the mental strain of contriving
to get something to eat, the colonists were almost free from disease.
Trailey and Bert wrote off their trifling losses, leaving to the men
whom Barr was less clear with, the task of bringing him to justice,
and deciding what kind of lingering torture would be most acceptable
to him.
The Rev. George Exton Lloyd--ultimately Bishop of Saskatchewan, and
after whom Lloydminster, the Barr Colony town, is named--when coming
through Battleford was, by a moderately representative meeting of
colonists, invested with authority to lead that remnant of the party
which craved to be led.
The mechanized world of business lost a good dynamo when Mr. Lloyd
entered the church. Unfortunately for many of the run-down
colonists, he was connected to their power scheme too late.
Moreover, Britishers are not very keen on communistic ideals and
faiths, even with masterful prophets as guides. Most of Barr's plans
were too impracticable in any case; and, as a help to their total
disintegration, the seeds of individualism planted in the
temperaments of the colonists back in Britain now began to sprout and
grow.
A few gregarious spirits for a long time fluttered round the altar
candles, revelling in the rituals and ceremonies of the inner office
shrine, and basking in the fierce white light shed by the new leader.
The great majority of the colonists, though, were heartily sick of
all guidance, except that provided by what they supposed was their
own rugged common-sense. These took firm hold of their courage,
scattered themselves over an expanse of prairie half as large as
Wales, and without further fuss commenced tinkering with that
delightful hobby known as the taming of homesteads.
The smash-up of Barr's schemes left his very personal followers high
and dry. The worthier ones went farming. Some drifted into
business. The sycophants, the satellites, the rump administrators,
hung around Headquarters Camp for a few months, then vanished--some
fairly slowly, like smoke on a calm evening; others swiftly, like
jets of steam in a high wind.