_Wilderness--Planning for Next Year_
Next morning Sam roused the Traileys early. After eating a
substantial breakfast, they all set off to find their land. The top
section of the wagon box was removed, and their own two spring-seats,
plus another borrowed one, were taken along for the sake of the
additional comfort they afforded.
The weather was perfect. The cool, clear brilliance of the
atmosphere; the stimulating early morning breeze; the entire absence
of conventional restraint; the prospect of viewing their very own
piece of land, all caused their spirits to soar with joy and hope.
The appealing strangeness of everything entranced them; and the
almost unlimited freedom to go anywhere, and do anything, they
pleased, filled them with a sort of youthful wonder. Even Martha
Trailey, although she was inclined to apply the acid test to
everything, was agreeably impressed.
"It certainly makes a body feel like bustling about and accomplishing
something, doesn't it, William? What a perfect wash-day!"
Trailey pulled down the string, on the end of which he for the time
being was flying his thoughts, considered a moment, then said he
hoped she hadn't forgotten to bring food supplies along in case of
accident.
Esther and Bert were sitting together on the hindmost seat,
alternately sipping at the heaven in each other's eyes, and making
joyous mating noises. The Traileys occupied the middle seat, and
Sam, who manipulated the ribbons, the front one.
A surveyor who was in the camp gave them a bee line due north with
his transit. "Fix your eyes on that gap in those hills," he said,
"and keep as straight for it as you can. Then, when you think you've
done ten miles, look about for a mound. The grass being burned off
will make it easier for you to find one." This conversation took
place atop of a ridge slightly north of camp. It all sounded simple
enough.
"But 'ow shall we know when we've gone that far?" asked Sam.
The surveyor glanced at the team, and then at the men, and, after
pondering a couple of seconds, replied: "I guess you will have gone
far enough when you've been travelling four hours. You'll be within
a mile or so of your land, anyway--unless, of course, you run into
trouble." He was a short, merry, affable man, clear-eyed and burnt
as dark as an Indian. So off they set.
For nearly four hours they drove through a country whose topography
was about half open prairie, and half brush and slough. Their hopes
sank a little. The district wasn't even pretty--the very first test
most Barr Colonists invariably applied to their surroundings. A few
early mosquitoes tormented them; big yellow, and small grey, brutes
of a malignancy only equalled by their pronounced fondness for thick,
rich, English blood.
The quality of the soil, or the nature of the subsoil, bothered their
innocence not at all. What they desired above everything else was
for their "bit of land" to be like a park; not like the Dukeries, nor
like Chatsworth; but something infinitely more alluring, if only
because of its freedom from artificiality.
Once Sam said jestingly: "Look! there's a rippin' plyce ter live,"
and he pointed at a patch of delicately-tinted aspens which were
growing right out of a little gleaming "lake" upon which a pair of
mallards sailed as stately as swans.
"Oh, how sweet!" cried Esther. Bert was just then squeezing her hand
beneath the folds of her coat--a light-blue, satiny affair.
"Yes, isn't it?" echoed Bert, as he admired Esther's splendid profile.
"Ah-h," sighed Trailey, lovingly regarding a speck of egg-yolk which
nestled between the fourth and fifth buttons of his somewhat wrinkled
waistcoat--"it's over four hours since we started--it must be.
Perhaps we'd better have our lunch and find the land afterwards; we
could do it much better then."
"Fancy living there!" exclaimed Esther, "in a nice little bungalow,
with a rustic summer-house, and a tennis lawn, and a swimming pool,
and a few perfectly darling----"
"Kids to feed, and mend for, and wash," snapped her mother.
"----Lambs, I was going to say, mamma," corrected Esther. She was
blushing like a rose. "Oh, how can people exist in cities!"
"How can they exist out here; that's what I want to know. Someone
who is clever"--casting a sidelong, scornful look at her
husband--"kindly tell me that. This isn't a page in a novelette, my
girl, if you think it is. Day after day money going out, and nothing
coming in; it's wicked."
Sam guided the horses round a clump of Saskatoon brush, and rose
brush, which screened some freshly-excavated badger holes.
"You've 'it the blinkin' nyle on the 'ead, missis. People can't eat
trees, an' sloughs, an' lawn tennis"--and observing the gladsome pair
on the rear seat basking in each other's presence, Sam added
mischievously--"nor love, neither."
Presently, after choosing a few more ideal building sites; and after
murdering some of the more ravenous of the mosquitoes; and after
Martha Trailey had lectured at considerable length to a very
unsympathetic audience on the disagreeable topic of first getting
hold of some money before they could spend it, they found themselves
emerging into a different kind of country.
Swamps became less frequent; trees more scattered; wide stretches of
undulating prairie spread out all round them; and, instead of the
skyline being limited to a view over the top of smudges of budding
red willow, it occasionally extended to enormous distances.
"I'm sure we've gone far enough," complained Trailey for the
twentieth time. He was examining his watch again, and wondering,
seemingly, what was preventing the hands from moving.
"All right, guv'ner," said Sam; "there ain't much daht abaht it nah.
We've bin travellin' four 'ours and an' 'alf, ter myke up fer dodgin'
rahnd them sloughs back there," and the little man pulled his own
watch out and exposed it to the gaze of his admiring friends.
"Hinglish lever," he explained, proudly, "made in Switzerland--bought
it orff'n a Rushin' Jew fer thirty bob; runs like a blinkin' top, not
'alf, it don't. Lissen to it tickin'!"
Fortunately, the wagon was not in motion just then, so there was only
the squawking of seventy or eighty crows in some trees overhead
competing with the watch's rhythmic beating, which, besides being
plainly audible, positively jarred the wagon.
"Splendid," laughed Bert; "but put it away, Sam, old boy, now it's
served its purpose; it's a trifle too ostentatious for these
surroundings."
With these playful remarks, and, realizing that further spooning was
for the time being impossible, if not unwise, Bert gently
disentangled himself from love's web of bliss and jumped to the
ground.
Taking the risk of losing themselves on empty stomachs clean out of
the hands of an extremely unreliable Fate, they first fortified
themselves with food. It was a pleasant little picnic. Hard-boiled
eggs, bannock and jam, and coffee without milk and sugar (the
last-mentioned made on a campfire with water from a neighbouring
"trout stream"), put them all in a very optimistic humour.
No wonder the minds of the Barr Colonists were filled with idealism.
Only a few days before, not a speck of verdure had been visible
anywhere. Now, almost magically, the trees not killed by the fire
burst into leaf.
"Isn't everything lovely?" cried Esther, as she looked rapturously
about her.
Beauty unfolded itself like the buds on the aspens, and as quickly.
What in the morning, on the branches of the trees, were merely
clusters of wax-like, tight-closed shells, were by evening myriads of
fluttering leaves of the tenderest green. The long, warm days of a
single week transformed the prairie from a blackened and ugly cinder
to a delicate loveliness. Here was Nature in all its primeval
beauty, its freshness and wildness still unsullied.
Robins called to each other from the swaying tops of trees. An
occasional rabbit rushed across from one thicket to another in a wild
burlesque of speed, as if it had somewhere urgent to go--then sat
still for half a day. A pair of hawks, with motionless wings,
circled in the agate sky. With a strange mixture of daring and
innocence, gophers sat up like squirrels and squeaked defiance in
thin, piercing notes. Egotistical wood-partridges strutted about,
openly defying all laws of self-preservation--dainty bits of vanity;
they must have known that feather ruffs were then all the rage.
After William Trailey had annihilated a very profound void within
himself, he suggested, with his accustomed acumen, that he should
stay and mind the camp while the others cast about for survey mounds.
"A good arrangement," agreed Bert. They failed to remember that it
was quite safe to leave their stuff unguarded, seeing that for
hundreds of miles around them there was scarcely a soul; but the
habits of civilization, which numbers theft among its minor
attributes, still persisted.
So Sam set off in one direction, and Mrs. Trailey, very gingerly, in
another; whilst Trailey, as arranged, minded the horses and the other
things with dreamful fidelity. Esther and Bert started out
separately, but, finding solitude very inimical to the discovery of
corner stakes, they quickly came together again, sat down, said what
a lovely day it was, and then commenced a dialogue packed full with
hidden meanings.
Very soon a shrill halloo from the direction in which Mrs. Trailey
had gone brought Sam hurrying towards her.
"Here's one," she said, pointing to a burnt stick which jutted up
from the ground among a number of large-sized badger holes.
"That ain't a corner post, missis. Them post-s they put rahnd these
farms is made of iron, wiv a piece of tin on 'em."
"Ridiculous, Sam!" retorted Mrs. Trailey. "How can a post be made of
iron?"
"Don't know, ma'am, but that bit of wood ain't wot we're lookin' for."
The task they had set themselves was not unlike the searching for a
nest in a ten-acre field. The odds were against them. Nevertheless,
it was the only method they could use, apart from securing the
services of a competent surveyor, or land guide.
Before long, corner posts having steadfastly refused to show
themselves, Sam wandered along to confer with Bert. Clearing his
throat loudly to signal his approach, he came upon the love-smitten
pair round the bend of a poplar bluff. They were apparently absorbed
in watching the antics of a couple of crows building a nest of sticks
in one of the trees of a wood opposite.
"We can't find no blinkin' corner post-s," said Sam--"can you?"
"No," replied Bert, with a very straight face, "we've had no luck at
all. What d'you suppose we'd better do?--move on a little farther?"
Sam thought a moment. "Can't do nothink else, I suppose. We----
Hey! Wot's this!" He stood looking down at a big, square hole which
had obviously at some time or another been excavated by a man with a
spade.
"What's what?"
"Why, this 'ole," returned Sam, pointing to a square, grass-grown
depression at his feet. There were three similar ones to match it,
all geometrically placed and equidistant.
The lovers stood up. Looking at the knoll upon which he and Esther
had been sitting, Bert burst out laughing.
"Why, it's a bally survey mound, dash my wig if it isn't; and we've
actually been sitting on it all the time. There's the stake--see!"
Esther was so delighted that she had to lean against her lover for
support. "How lucky!" she said sweetly. "It may be the corner of
your land, Bertie--our land," and she gently squeezed her companion's
arm as she added: "Wouldn't it be splendid to think of those dear
little crows guiding us to it? It would be quite like Elisha--or
Joshua, I forget which--being fed by the ravens, wouldn't it, Sam?"
Esther turned to Sam, smiling happily.
Sam had a vague idea that she was referring to something in the
Bible, about which he possessed but hazy notions. All he really knew
about the good book was that he had once seen one of his
acquaintances passionately kiss a copy in a police court, and then
swear his name was Johnson when he knew for a fact his last name had
been Smith.
The pair of crows, boasting even less Biblical knowledge than the
little Cockney did, screamed and chattered with rage at being
molested in their house-building activities. Bert stooped down and
read the figures on the little tin plate, which was pierced by the
iron survey stake, and then inspected a map he had pulled from his
pocket.
"We are only a couple of miles from our land, Sam. That's a bit of
good luck, eh? You must have driven the team almost due north this
morning. Fancy that blighter yesterday taking us all over creation!"
"'Ow abaht goin' the uvver two miles?"
"Oh, we can guess at that near enough. The land is due north from
here. It will be in that direction." Bert glanced quickly at the
sun, then pointed to where the prairie spread out, beyond a few
scattered bluffs, into a huge, open country. Through the openings
between the trees, the vista seemed to extend over the edge of the
world. They returned to their camp to consult with Trailey. After
communing with the spirits, that gentleman would very likely be in
excellent fettle for making some useful suggestions. Except in
matters to do with the party's commissariat, his innocuous advice was
never heeded by the others, although for courtesy's sake he was
always consulted.
The mosquitoes were playing terrible havoc with him, yet he still
slept. He was flat on his back. A handkerchief covered his face,
and his thick, podgy hands were clasped across his waistcoat. Where
the handkerchief rested on his nose was the spot chosen by three or
four very intelligent mosquitoes as an ideal place to drill for
blood. Others had taken a keen fancy to his white, smooth wrists;
yet others, the obtuse ones, to his beefy ankles decked out in
home-knit socks of rugged texture.
"Wake up, dad!" called Esther to her beloved parent. She gently drew
the handkerchief off his face. "We've almost found the land!"
Trailey opened his eyes, stared at the vivid blue sky above him, sat
up, blinked a few times, then slowly came to life.
"Where are we, my dear?" he yawned, as he unconsciously attacked his
wrists with his fingernails, from which operation he appeared to
derive exquisite pleasure. Then he felt of his nose.
"Can you see anything wrong with my nose, Esther? I've been dreaming
I was tied down fast in a beehive."
"The mosquitoes have bitten you, dad, that's all," laughed Esther.
"It'll be better when it's swelled, and it's doing that now. Pain
always subsides after swelling. But, come along, Sam's getting the
horses ready, and I'm going to pack up." Assisted by Bert, Esther
began to clear away the remains of the banquet.
"By Jove! these bites are painful, Esther; and the itching is
maddening," groaned Trailey, scratch his wrists and ankles vigorously.
"That shows they're getting better, dad," laughed Esther, with that
perfect sympathy for which very young women are noted. Curiously,
she herself was not the slightest bit bothered by the mosquitoes.
"I hope it does," said Trailey miserably. "Have we anything I could
put on the bites, my---- Oh! here's your mother; she'll know what to
do!"
Martha Trailey, red-faced and irritable, strode into camp.
"It serves you right, you lazy good-for-nothing, you." She had
obviously overheard the few last remarks. "Here we've been walking
our legs off while you've been fast asleep. Don't deny it!"--Trailey
half-opened his mouth to yawn--"I can always tell when you are going
to lie. Just fancy a man ever dreaming of lying to his own wife!
I'd sooner have a man who comes home late at night than I'd have a
liar. Oh, dear, I wonder why it should always be poor me who gets
the trouble! Other women's husbands may drink on the sly, but they
never lie to their wives, like you were just going to do to me. Mrs.
Lightfoot-Mott, who lived next door to us on the Boulevard, said her
husband had never once told her a lie. There was a nice man for you!
Quiet, unassuming, took his children out for walks on Sundays,
thought the world of his wife, and never drank. He simply worshipped
money, though. And wasn't she a cat! Tattle! You couldn't believe
a single word she said. And she'd no more idea of how to dress her
children than----"
Neither had William Trailey any more intention of lying to his wife
than he had of going into the diplomatic service. He was much too
distressed by his bites to pay a great deal of attention to what she
was saying. Having no settled abode was fast making Martha Trailey
unbearably fretful. With no home to scrub, and wash, and cover up
with old newspapers from the dirt, she was as unhappy as a cat with
sticky fur.
Trailey did an unusual thing for him. He got up in the middle of his
wife's speech and abruptly walked away to the imitation trout stream,
where he began diligently to bathe his nose and wrists and ankles, an
occupation from which he extracted some temporary relief.
Sam soon put the horses in the wagon, and, after everything was
loaded up, drove over to the recently-discovered survey mound.
Here the problem of correctly striking the course of the final lap
presented itself. A little deviation, a very slight overstepping of
the mark, or an under-estimation of the distance, might cause them
endless trouble. Bert's brow clouded. Esther was alarmed.
"What's the matter, darling?" she whispered. "You don't feel ill, do
you?"
He had already given the present matter some hasty consideration.
Since discovering the corner stake, he had compelled his brain to
focus itself on the devising of a way of them travelling a farther
two miles with as little error as possible. He would much rather
have amused himself with his charming companion, and left the task to
Sam, but driving the horses kept the latter sufficiently busy.
Besides, there was a smattering of geometry needed now.
"Three thousand five hundred and twenty yards from here is our
south-east corner, eh, Sam?" The south half of section thirty-six,
township fifty-one, range one, west of the fourth meridian, was the
"bit of land" Barr had generously allotted to them aboard the S.S.
_Lake Manitoba_ in mid-Atlantic.
Sam nodded and looked tremendously erudite. Bert said: "How would it
be to try that surveyor's dodge with the wagon-wheel--counting the
revolutions, y'know?"
Sam remembered hearing about this experiment at Headquarters, but he
was very foggy regarding it, so he continued looking wise. Bert
pondered.
"I wonder what the exact circumference of this hind wheel is. Got a
tape measure anywhere, Esther?"
Mrs. Trailey said her tape measure was half-way down one of the
packing-cases, back at the camp. Esther said she was so sorry not to
have one, but would a hairpin be of any use. Trailey sighed and sat
down on a knoll to rest. Bert stood beside the wagon. He knew he
was approximately six feet tall, so he said to Sam, pulling off his
cap: "How far from the top of my head is the top of the wheel?"
"Abaht a couple of foot," replied Sam, looking up and down between
the crown of Bert's blonde head, and the wheel's rim.
"Must be a four-foot wheel, then," said Bert. "Standard size,
probably. Good." After a little mental arithmetic, which resolved
into nothing but a fuzz in his head, he worked out an abstruse
problem on the back of an envelope. "That's four yards round the
wheel. Four into thirty-five hundred and twenty, goes--what? Eight
hundred and eighty. That's it, Sam."
"Wot are yer reck'nin'?"
"Nothing," muttered Bert, checking his figures carefully.
"Thought so. 'Ello! Wot's the matter wiv the ole man!" Everybody
turned to look at William Trailey, who was enormously agitated about
something.
"Martha! Martha! Come and help me," he moaned. "Oh, be quick!
Millions of insects are crawling up my legs. I'm alive with them."
Trailey had merely fallen asleep on an ant-hill. Swarms of big black
ants with wicked-looking red heads crept all over him. Nothing like
this had ever come their way before. The little brutes were
evidently debauched. Trailey grasped bunches of his trousers, and
his waistcoat, in his agony, only to release them for fresh grips
elsewhere.
"I'm alive! I'm alive!" he groaned in horror. "What's the best
thing to do, Martha? They're all inside my vest, under my arms, and
crawling up--ugh-h-h-h--my back," he shuddered.
"Oh, what can I do?" cried Mrs. Trailey, as she tore his coat off,
and then his waistcoat, and inserted her hand down inside the back of
his shirt, in a noble--though exceedingly timorous--attempt to clutch
the voracious ants out in handfuls. Meanwhile her husband was
becoming frantic, chiefly as a result of the frightful, crawling
sensation. The little beasts had dispatched scouts to explore this
monumental acquisition of food. These it was which had about reached
the victim's collar-bone, and were making preparations for entering
his whiskers.
Esther brought her singular presence of mind to the rescue as usual.
Approaching quite near to her tortured sire, she made several
suggestions, some sensible, but most of them idiotic; then she saw an
ant on her ankle. Abandoning her father to his fate, she dithered
four times, screeched, pointed to her foot, called on Bert to save
her, saw that her lover was extremely well-placed for her reception,
then calmly closing her eyes fell back into his willing arms.
In spite of every effort to defeat the ants, Mrs. Trailey was beaten.
She acknowledged it.
"I can't do any more for you, William," she sobbed--"unless we make a
fire and throw you on it. But it's judgment on you, you may depend.
It's an omen. You'll be this way all your life--on and off; you see
if you're not. It's a plague on you for your wickedness," and Mrs.
Trailey picked two ants from her tortured husband's neck
courageously, threw them on the ground savagely, and then stamped on
them. "There, you horrible little brutes," she uttered from behind
clenched teeth, "that finishes you."
But Trailey's lucky star had only hidden itself behind a fleeting
cloud. Sam jumped down from the wagon, and took charge of the
situation.
"Watch the 'orsis," he commanded Bert, "an' you, ma'am, get aht of
the way, please," then, grasping the distracted Trailey's arm, and
assisting him to his feet, he said sympathetically: "Come on,
guv'ner; come wiv me," and off they made for a hidden slough, of
which there were plenty about, where he stripped his whimpering
charge naked, swilled him down with double-handfuls of cold water;
and, while the tormented man gasped and choked and coughed, he shook,
squeezed, and finally drowned the ants out of his clothes.
When the excitement had subsided, Bert reluctantly let go of Esther's
waist and went on with his mathematical calculations. He tied his
handkerchief tightly round a spoke of one of the rear wheels of the
wagon, near the rim, and then turned to Esther again.
"Will you ride in the wagon, Esther, and count the number of
revolutions the wheel makes? When it has gone round eight hundred
and eighty times, tell Sam to stop. Make a mark on the wagon for
each hundred, so you won't lose count"--handing Esther a
pencil--"then if we've travelled due north we shall be quite close to
our land. It should be fairly easy. The country is open beyond
those trees."
Esther smiled understanding, and held out her arms for her instructor
to assist her into the wagon. She was only a very moderate tennis
player, and swimmer; and had never walked above twenty-five miles in
one day in her life, so, naturally, she found climbing into a wagon
rather difficult.
Mr. and Mrs. Trailey both expressed a wish to ride, so they, too,
scrambled aboard. Bert walked behind the wagon a little way, to help
Sam to keep a straight course, or one as straight as the
gently-swelling prairie would permit. They had previously determined
that a blue knob on the distant sky-line was as nearly north as could
be judged. The little Cockney fixed his eyes grimly upon it, and
forthwith set the jolting geometrical apparatus in motion.
The brush land soon terminated. Suddenly they came out on a sort of
shoulder, whence the prairie sloped away to the north and east for an
immense distance. A huge region unfolded itself before them. They
bumped along, winding round impassable places which every now and
again persisted in getting in their way. Esther counted religiously,
sometimes in a whisper, sometimes mentally, then, to give herself
confidence, right out loud. She regretted missing the beauty of the
scene, which from the corner of her eyes she was vividly aware of.
At length she exclaimed. "There--that's it." Sam stopped.
"Go a little farther, Sam," ordered Bert, "to allow for the curves
and dips."
The Traileys were utterly silent. Once or twice his excruciating
itching almost forced William Trailey to seek relief in outcry, but
his wife, noting the symptoms, quickly snubbed him with a look. She
was intensely occupied with the study of the neighbourhood. Not
being particularly responsive to Nature's masterpieces, not big ones
especially, she kept her lips shut tight. A look of derision was in
her eyes.
Burned bare of all old vegetation, the ground was as smooth as a
recently-mown meadow, and presented no great hindrance to the
discovery of their identification mound. For a certainty their land
was within a few hundred yards of them. At last they stopped.
Leaving the two older people to their thoughts, and bites, Sam and
Bert and Esther gleefully began criss-crossing the prairie, which
hereabouts was wide-open and perfectly bald. Within half an hour,
the south-east corner post was found, very appropriately by the two
lovers.
In one vast sweep the country rolled away in successive undulations
until, twenty to thirty miles off, it rose again sharply in a long
line of rounded hills. Beyond these the mighty Saskatchewan cut its
mile-wide swath. Such was their elevation, and so marvellously clear
was the air, that through the depressions in the distant ridge, they
saw the long, flat, inky stain where the sky dipped into the dark,
silent forests of the north.
In the foreground, below them, were several lakes--genuine ones, this
time--set in the pale-green earth like jewels. Patches of
fire-killed brush smudged the landscape here and there with sombre
blacks and browns.
"Magnificent!" was the general exclamation. They beckoned to the
occupants of the wagon, which Trailey, looking very awkward and
miserable, then drove across.
"To think," Esther observed, "that with the exception of the few Barr
Colonists looking for their farms, there isn't a soul in all that
vast space." She was profoundly impressed by the bigness of the
picture.
"Quite true," commented Bert shortly. He was adjusting his thoughts
to the startling immensity of everything. After a long silence, he
added: "It's all laid out on such a stupendous scale that it makes
one feel exactly like an ant."
At the word "ant," Trailey felt a creepy sensation in the region of
his shoulder-blades. He tried to reach the spot with his hand, but
was unable, so he gently rubbed his back against the seat. So
heavenly was the relief, that his spirit reacted to the wonderful
picture before him. He sat in the wagon, and with absolutely
expressionless eyes contemplated Nature's magnificent canvas.
"Not a building," he sighed; "not a street; not a tram; not a chapel;
not even a restaurant where you can get a sixpenny plate of beef and
potatoes to eat while you read the _British Weekly_"--then, lowering
his voice, he gently whispered to himself with perfectly-delightful
incongruity: "From Greenland's icy mountains, to India's----" but, as
it was an exceedingly warm afternoon, and as he was enjoying a
certain amount of freedom from the itching of his various stings, his
head, which he had protected from the sun and the insects with a
handkerchief pushed up round and under the back of his cap, fell
forward on his ample breast, in which comfortable position he half
dozed off.
Martha Trailey's musings ran in different grooves. She regarded her
volcanic spouse with unutterable disdain, then echoed him mockingly:
"No out-door relief; no asylums; no almshouses; no workhouses; no
soup kitchens; no----"
Interrupting her satirically, Sam took up the refrain: "An' no pubs;
no music 'alls; no kids sellin' matches; no cawffee stalls; no tarts
ter wink at yer; in fact, absobloomin'lutely nothink."
Esther and Bert had wandered off, ostensibly to inspect their land;
actually, to pick a place to build a nest.
"We must build it of logs, Bertie." Esther, like the crows,
possessed a pronounced bump of rusticity.
Martha Trailey nudged her husband into complete wakefulness.
"Aren't you going to look at that other farm now we're here?" she
said irritably.
Trailey yawned cavernously. It was oppressively warm.
"No, my dear," he returned, "I've made up my mind to go back to
England," and with this sudden declaration, he quietly relapsed into
his usual drowsy calm. Martha Trailey was totally deprived of speech
for a minute, then she recovered.
"It's no more than I expected," she retorted scornfully; "didn't I
say so in England? Didn't I tell you that time when you were sitting
in the chair, planting a tree in the front garden, that you were
making a mistake in coming to Canada? And do you think I'm going
back to be laughed at by all the chapel-folks?--after them making us
a present of an illuminated hymn book? And after the speech you made
at the insurance superintendents' banquet, when you drank too much of
that teetotal port wine, and then told them that you felt the
pioneering blood surging through your veins? No! You aren't going
to drag me back over all those thousands of miles of fire and flood;
let me tell you that. You've had your own way far too long. I've
given in to you too much. Your mother always said so. But I'll have
my way for once; remember that. And, another thing, Esther will
never go back. She's going to marry that Bert Tressider, or else I'm
blind."
"Marry Bert Tressider!" exclaimed Trailey with a slight show of
interest.
"Yes, Bert Tressider. That's news for you, I'll be bound. He's an
educated fool, of course; but, when I look back at what you were when
I married you, it seems to me she might go farther and fare worse."
Trailey scratched his wrist. "God bless my soul! How long has all
this been going on?"
Martha Trailey turned away from her husband with a gesture of
disgust. Such blindness was inconceivable to her.
"Why, it's been going on ever since we left Saskatoon. Look! there
they are, over yonder; giggling and cuddling, you may depend. Said
they were going to pick a place to build a bungalow."
Mrs. Trailey was silent for a little while. She gazed pensively
after the youthful lovers, who meandered about the prairie some
distance off. At length she continued philosophically: "Life's a
very funny thing, I'm thinking. Look at those two--only known each
other three weeks and as happy as two dead birds; yet here we've been
together getting on for thirty years and squabbling all the time--and
all because you won't control your ungovernable temper."
"Mr. Tressider's a good match for Esther, isn't he, my dear?"
observed Trailey meekly. "I know I've often watched them and thought
how nice they looked together. And he's a gentleman."
"Oh, he's a gentleman, right enough; but it's no more than Esther
deserves. She's a very good girl, and it's been a pleasure to train
her. I know I've done my best for her, and you can't say I haven't.
Don't you dare hint such a thing; do you hear?"
"I never thought of doing so, my dear."
"Well, don't, that's all. The worry of being out here in this
wilderness is enough, without you always interfering and messing
things up. But let's go back to the camp and think about it all,
before you make me say something I might be sorry for. And I'd
advise you to speak to Mr. Tressider; it's your place."
Sam was standing on the brink of a deep gorge, which cut clear across
his land. A tiny rivulet ran along the bottom. A hawk banked and
dived close to the vivid green grass away down below. It was a
quarter of a mile across to the opposite edge of the ravine, which
was a good hundred yards deep. This, then, accounted for the couple
of wavy lines they had seen on Barr's large-scale map in his cabin on
the _Lake Manitoba_.
Sam gazed into the coulee. "I don't know any think abaht land," he
mused, "but this 'ere bit looks funny ter me." He was just a shade
disappointed. His eyes roamed keenly all about, noticing the amazing
amount of elbow-room there was everywhere. "Any'ow," he summed up to
himself, "it's 'eaps better 'n Bermondsey." He wandered back to the
wagon.
Presently Esther and Bert, both intensely happy, struggled hand in
hand up the slope of the ravine, the former carrying a big bouquet of
Saskatoon blossoms and wild pea flowers. They hadn't decided where
to build. There were too many sites.
Mrs. Trailey continued looking round. Her expression was enigmatic.
"Let's be getting back to the camp," she said succinctly. William
Trailey's head drooped on his breast.
Bert's eyes already reflected the region's sweeping distances.
"Land's satisfactory, eh, Sam?" he commented. "Everything's all bona
fide and serene now, don't you think?" He was in high spirits.
Sam said "'e didn't think very much of that deep gultch over there,
nor of its blinkin' bony fidos neither, but the land 'ud do quite
nicely fer 'im."
Esther seemed incapable of expressing herself. Bert was still
holding her hand. Then they tumbled aboard again, and, following
their own tracks in the grass, retraced their course to Headquarters
Camp.
Before retiring to bed, Bert wrote to his mother.
"BRITANNIA, N.W.T.
"30th May, 1903.
Dear Mother:
"At last we are arrived. We've been to see our land to-day--a fine
stretch. Sam is still with me. He is a splendid little chap, but a
little cynical with living in London so much.
"We joined fortunes with another party at Saskatoon, the Traileys.
They are very respectable people. The old gentleman was an insurance
superintendent or something back in England, but he is very charming.
They have a daughter, mother; the sweetest, the most divine creature
imaginable. Don't be surprised when I tell you that we are thinking
of getting married in a few weeks' time; and I am writing this partly
with the idea of asking you to send me two rings. If you get them to
fit your own finger, I think that will be about the correct size.
Please choose a dress ring with plenty of diamonds in it; you should
be able to buy a splendid one for seventy-five pounds or so. The
wedding ring doesn't matter so much. Do not delay things any longer
than you can help, mother, because, strictly speaking, you are
holding up our marriage.
"I enclose an old photograph of Esther (your future daughter-in-law's
name, by the way), but it is not a good one of her. She is an angel,
and no picture could do her justice. More next time. Love to dad,
and the girls.
"Your very affectionate son,
"BERTIE.
"P.S. I have promised Esther that when we are settled, and the farm
is beginning to pay, I shall bring her to England for a
holiday--which will most likely be some time next year."