If we thought we had finished with Jake it was evidence that we still
had much to learn about our guide's business qualities. Jake had a
follow-up peculiarly his own, and that afternoon he came steaming into
our presence as we sat in the bare lounge-room of the hotel, making a
list of necessities on the back on an envelope.
"I been chasin' you fellows all over hellan-gone," he announced, with a
profuse expectoration to facilitate speech. "I got a fistful o' luck fer
you. Chap down at the stables--trouble o' some kind or other--wants to
sell his horses; as pretty a team o' bays as ever switched a tail in
fly-time, an' I can put you next."
"That's good of you," said Jack, "but we've just figured that we can't
afford horses. It's a case of horses and no cow, or oxen and a cow, and
the vote at the moment stands unanimous for milk to our porridge, even
at the risk of our characters. They tell us that even a good man swears
when he drives oxen."
"That's wrong," Jake corrected. "A good man don' drive oxen. He may be
good _before_ he drives them, but not _while_ he drives them, nor
immedjut afterwards. It's agin human nature. I've seen profanity on
some o' the ox trails o' this country so thick it lay jus' like a fog on
the prairie. You could jus' see the top tier o' the box," he added, with
a touch of artistry. "Oxen has started more fellows on the wrong road
than any other critturs--'cept women."
"Well, we're going to take a chance with both," was Jack's answer. "You
don't happen to have a hard-up friend who would part with a yoke of
oxen, for a consideration, do you?"
Jake scratched his tousled hair meditatively. "Come to think o' it, I
believe I do," he said at length. "I jus' recommember a chap who was
talkin' o' sellin' his oxen t'other day. As sleek a yoke as ever
switched a tail in fly-time; gentle, an' strong, an' speedy as a scairt
rabbit. I reckon I could get you a special price on 'em, pretendin' it
was meself that was buyin'."
"And a cow," I ventured. "Have you a cow on your bargain list?"
"Jake has everything on his bargain list that we may happen to need,"
said Jack. "Everything from a cow to a cook-stove. It's all right, Jake;
we don't mind your little graft so long as you play the game half
fairly, and see that we get at least fifty cents' worth on the dollar.
Buying on our own judgment we would probably get less than that."
So it was arranged that Jake was to be our purchasing agent, with a sort
of gentleman's understanding that he might cheat us a little in
consideration of his services in preventing other people from cheating
us a great deal. The arrangement, I believe, worked out to our
advantage. Jake undoubtedly bought our supplies for less than we could
have bought them, even after providing his secret commissions. Moreover,
he knew what was essential and what was not, and he saved us valuable
time.
When at last our outfit was complete it presented a picturesque and
somewhat pathetic turn-out. On our wagon we had built a temporary box of
boards, and on this were piled our trunks and personal effects, a plow,
a stove, food supplies, a tent, a crate with hens and another with a
young pig, while over all roosted, if I may use the term, the two girls.
The cow we tied behind, while Jack and I walked as a sort of flank guard
on either side of the oxen. These two phlegmatic creatures rejoiced in
the names of Buck and Bright, and stoically pursued their destiny at a
pace of two-and-a-half miles an hour. Their resignation in adversity was
sublime; in fact, we soon found it impossible to invent any adversity to
which they were not resigned.
Jake saw us off, and we remonstrated with him over the speed, or rather
the lack of speed, of which his highly recommended oxen gave evidence.
"You said they had the speed of a scared rabbit," Jack reproached him.
"So they have," said Jake, barefacedly. "When a rabbit's plumb scairt he
can't move at all; he jus' humps up an' prays. When Buck an' Bright come
to that don' disturb 'em in their devotions; jus' wait fer the spirit to
move 'em."
With such an outfit our progress was much slower than it had been with
Jake and his "flyin' ants," but it was an experience of unbounded
freedom and delight. The days held bright and warm, as it was still too
early for the May rains; the nights were cold and starry, with a tang of
frost toward morning; the dawns were a rush of color, and the sunsets
indescribable. It was an unfolding experience, like the opening of some
spring flowers; at times I caught a half wistful, wondering, yearning
look in Jean's eyes quite different from anything I had known before. I
saw no such glimpse in the eyes of Marjorie, or of Jack; but there it
was in Jean's, and, I believe, in mine. Vaguely we two understood;
vaguely we felt the stirrings of the soul which refuses to be silenced
amid the glories of its Maker. And because we vaguely understood, some
fine thread of eternal purpose seemed to wrap itself about our hearts
and draw us closer and closer as the days went by.
At nights we pitched the tent and made down blankets for the girls, but
Jack and I slept under the stars. We were roughing it, but every muscle
in our young bodies was vibrating with the tense new life of the open.
The smell of spring flowers was in our nostrils; the whip of spring
winds about our cheeks; the myriad murmurings of the little lives of
spring crept up through the silences. When the girls called us to
breakfast of fried bacon and potatoes and steaming coffee and milk from
our traveling dairy we were more happy and more hungry than anything we
had ever known to be possible.
And the girls! We saw them growing browner every day, but with their
sunburn they seemed to take on a strange new charm and competence. They
treated the whole experience as a high adventure, and after cramped
hours on the top of "the ark" they would race like wild things across
the prairies, their hair flying in the breeze, and a vagrant wind
tossing the skirts about their shapely limbs.
They had taken the precaution to provide themselves with sunbonnets and
a better cosmetic than axle-grease, but the prairie sun is an impetuous
lover, and their cheeks and lips showed the mark of his caresses. He was
a rival who did not pique my jealousy, for in his embrace I saw the
woman Jean bursting forth from the bud of girlhood in a beauty that kept
my blood a-tingle.
The prairies were a never-ceasing source of delight and wonder. Almost
over-night, it seemed, they had blossomed out in myriads of flowers,
mauve and yellow, so thick that at places they almost hid the grass from
sight. The girls plucked handfuls of them and arranged the downy stems
in the bands of their sunbonnets. Saucy gophers mounted the little dumps
of moist earth in front of their burrows and sent their shrill whistle
defiantly forth, save when a well-aimed clod from Jack or me brought the
note to an end in a sudden sharp crescendo, accompanied by a flicker of
a jaunty tail as the owner took refuge underground. In a moment, if we
watched, we would see his sharp eyes levelled on us through the grass at
the mouth of his burrow, or perhaps he would appear from another exit
and send forth his shrill challenge more saucily than ever. Coyotes we
frequently saw; a badger once or twice, and one day figures at a great
distance which we took to be antelope. Innumerable ducks flew overhead,
and the nights were at times almost sleepless with the clanging of wild
geese, wedging their way to the nesting grounds in the north.
There was just one note that bothered me. It was sounded a day or two
after we left Regina in some covert remark which Marjorie made about
Jean's Mounted Policeman. It seemed that while Jack and I had been away
land hunting the girls, too, had been doing a little prospecting. Regina
was the headquarters of the Mounted Police, and the fine figures of
these young riders of the plains with their scarlet tunics and trim gold
ribboned riding trousers and clanking spurs have turned more heads than
Jean's before and since. It seems the girls were walking along a
business street when they saw a young policeman coming at a short
distance, and they happened to stop to admire something in a window
while he approached. He also stopped to admire, and Marjorie said
something--which Jean would not have done--and a conversation started
up, and the policeman seemed to prefer Jean, perhaps because she had not
spoken first. At any rate he saw them safely home, and dallied over his
responsibility and the gate post until they said they must go in. He
called the next night and wanted to take them to a "show", but they
would not go; at any rate, Jean would not go.
"But you went walking with him," Marjorie challenged.
"He asked you, too," said Jean, her pretty face colouring. "You started
with us, and then went back."
"I saw how the land lay, or the wind blew, or whatever it was. I had
nothing to do at home, but I knew I would be busier there than out
walking with you and your policeman."
"Marjorie! How _can_ you----"
"And he told her he would call on her after we were settled."
"He did no such thing! He asked me where we were going to settle, and I
told him I didn't know, and he said he hoped he would be patrolling
there. He's going to be sent out from barracks soon, and he said it
would be safer for me--for us--if someone were patrolling our district."
"Not for you, dear," said Marjorie, meaningly, and there was a little
sting in her words which brought me into action.
"I believe you're jealous, Marjorie," I said, in tones intended to be
severe.
"And aren't you?" she retorted. "You ought to be."
The truth is, I was. Jean had always belonged to me so absolutely that I
had never thought of the possibility of a rival. Even now I did not
think of such a thing seriously. It was true that there was no
engagement between us, unless the word of a man of six and a woman of
four can be taken as binding, but I looked on Jean as mine,
nevertheless, and I resented the action of the Mounted Policeman in
seeking her acquaintance. I resented, too, the fact that she had gone
walking with him, and I told her so at the first opportunity.
It came that afternoon. Jean said she was tired riding, and got down to
walk, on my side of the wagon. We trudged along for some distance in
silence, save for my occasional words of rebuke and exhortation to the
oxen.
"You're cross at me," she said at length.
"I'm not." Why I said that I can't imagine, I was, and I wanted her to
know it.
"I didn't mean to offend you," she went on. "Marjorie was just a little
bit--spiteful."
"I know she was," I agreed. "But you shouldn't have gone walking with
him."
"Why?"
"He was a stranger. You didn't even know his name."
"I do now. It's Harold Brook. Besides, in this country, you don't have
to know people's names. You just speak anyway."
"Oh, do you?" I said, sarcastically. "So I see."
"Don't be cross," she coaxed. "See, I can beat you to that badger-hole.
One--two--three--"
She was off like the wind. For a moment I hesitated, then joined in the
race. But she had too much start, and besides, she was almost a match
for me. She reached the little mound first, and as she turned she
swerved a little from her course, and I happened to plunge into her. To
save herself from falling she seized me about the neck, and her hair
brushed against my face. . . . . . .
We walked back slowly, arm in arm, and I had a sense of being very much
of a brute. . . Jean had wound me around her little finger.
So the days and nights went by. The sun was almost setting on the eighth
day, and the prairie, now gorgeous in its spring fluffery of anemones,
had taken on its evening richness of green when we at length drew up
close to the bank of the gully on Fourteen. For an hour or more we had
been straining our eyes for a glimpse of the promised land, but as it
looked exactly the same as all the other land for miles around we could
not be sure of Fourteen until the gully came into view. Then we threw up
our hats and rushed ahead, leaving the oxen to come as they chose. They
chose not to come at all, and Buck actually lay down in the road.
There are certain thrills of accomplishment, certain epochs of
development, which come only once in a life-time. One of these is when a
young man writes his first cheque, or first turns his key in his own
door, or first sees his name on an office signboard. But the greatest is
when he first looks upon land he can call his own. True, this land was
not yet ours, but it was pledged to us if we carried out our part of a
very simple agreement, and already we had a proprietary interest in it.
We showed it to the girls with the pride of a mother displaying her
first born. We were desperately anxious that our choice should be
justified.
We waited for their verdict, but neither spoke. "Well, what do you
think of it?" Jack asked at length.
"It looks all right," said Marjorie. "I suppose it is as good as any.
But I don't see how you are going to tell it from other people's land.
It's all alike."
"What do you say, Jean?"
But Jean was looking at the sunset, where the Master Artist was
splashing pastels of bronze and copper against a background of silver
and champagne. "Wonderful, wonderful!" she murmured.
"Fourteen is Frank's and Twenty-two is mine," Jack explained. "We'll
pitch the tent for the girls here, and Frank may do as he likes, but I'm
going to cross the gully and sleep to-night under my own vine and
fig-tree, so to speak. My six months' residence begins to-night!"
"Fig-tree!" Marjorie exclaimed. "The trees around here are just about
high enough to tickle your ear--when you're lying down."
"You haven't seen the trees yet," said Jack, knowingly. "Now, let's
pitch camp."
We went back to the wagon, but Buck positively refused to be disturbed.
Neither coaxing, nor proddings, nor pullings, nor pushings, were of any
avail; get up he would not.
"He's a squatter," said Jack. "A genuine squatter, and he refuses to be
dispossessed. We must work around him." So we unhitched Bright, and by
great effort unharnessed Buck, and left him until the spirit should move
him. We dragged the tent close to the brow of the gully and pitched it
on the spot where we had planned that my shack should be. We also
unloaded part of our equipment so that we could make use of it in the
housekeeping operations. It was with great zest that we carried our
cookstove to the door of the tent and strung up two or three lengths of
pipe. In a few minutes Jack appeared from somewhere with an armful of
bits of wood, and as the darkness settled down we gathered about a fire
on our own farms, for the first time in our lives.
The girls unpacked some of the supplies, and I was commissioned to milk
our cow, and presently Marjorie was flip-flapping pancakes on the
"spider" with the art of a mature housewife. "We should have sour milk
for these," she protested, as she served the first helping.
"If that cow had been much longer on the road I think she would have
been able to supply you," I ventured. "She has been looking sadder every
day."
"She's a great institution. Henceforth I consider a cow as necessary a
part of travel equipment as a suit-case."
And so we chattered on, saying nothing of moment, but feeling the great
joy of possession welling in our hearts. It was a day and a night to be
lived over many a time in memory. For the first time in our lives we
were drinking of the wells of possession,--the enchanted streams which
draw men and women into the wilderness to live and die on the outposts
of civilization.
We had finished supper, and the grey gloom of twilight was crawling
slowly up from the east when a sharp, whistling rustle almost above us
brought the girls to their feet with a start.
"What was that!" Jean exclaimed. "It was almost like a bullet."
"Nay, nay," said Jack, indulging in a very sorry joke. "It is a
ducklet."
"A ducklet? What ducklet?"
"That, my dear sister, was the whistle from the wing of a wild duck,
darting into the darkness at a couple of hundred miles an hour. He had
just got his eye on you."
"More likely on the gun," said Jean, for we had included a cheap
shot-gun among the articles considered indispensable. "Wait until Frank
gets after him."
I was greatly flattered by Jean's wholly unwarranted confidence in my
marksmanship and eager to justify it at the earliest moment.
"No time like the present," said I, picking up the gun and filling my
pocket with cartridges. "Besides, we have a surprise to show you."
So we started out in the gathering darkness, I going first, as became
the bearer of the gun; Jean at my heels; Jack and Marjorie a little in
the rear. Down the steep edge of the gully we worked, and then along by
the marge of the brown snow-water which rippled happily over beds of
bending grass. It was quite dark in the little valley, and I had to hold
Jean's hand to guard against the possibility of her slipping into the
stream.
At a short distance we came to the spot where the valley broadened out
and the little grove of trees had found its place of shelter from
Chinook winds in winter and prairie fires in spring and fall. The air
was full of the sweet scent of bursting willow buds and balm-o'-Gilead,
and as we picked our steps as noiselessly as we could the slightly
stirring limbs above us wrought their dark tracery against the blue and
starry heaven.
"Oh, Frank! You never told me of this! How wonderful!"
"Wait until you see the pond," I whispered, as one who keeps the best to
the last. "We did not select Fourteen and Twenty-two without a reason."
There was no path between the slim, close-growing trunks of poplar and
balm, and we had to make progress as best we could. . . . Jack and
Marjorie had fallen considerably behind.
Then, suddenly, the still waters of the pond burst upon our view, and at
the same moment, as though the very heavens conspired to set the stage
to the best advantage, a blood-red moon sent its first pinion of light
sweeping down from the north-east and splashing burnt-orange and ochre
across the slightly ruffled surface of the pond. We stood for a time as
mortals transfixed, watching the great red globe drawing swiftly into
the blue above, until its light painted Jean's face and mine. In the
moonlight her fine features were wonderful, irresistible . . . . .
We were brought to earth by a flutter and splashing in the water. Two
ducks, sweeping swiftly down out of the darkness, alighted not a dozen
yards in front of us, and directly in the line of light. I drew my gun
to my shoulder, and even as I did so their murmured grumblings, sibilant
almost as the lisp of water on a gravelly shore, came to our ears, and
they began to swim slowly about in graceful little circles. There was
even a motion about the head of the male, as he brought it close to that
of his mate, that was surely nothing short of a caress.
"Don't, Frank, don't; you mustn't!" Jean exclaimed suddenly.
Her arm darted out in front of me, seized the barrel of the gun and drew
it swiftly to one side. I had been taking a most deliberate aim, to
justify the high opinion already referred to, but at Jean's sudden
interference I pressed the trigger, or, as I always claimed, it pulled
itself against my finger, and went off. There was a loud report, and the
sound of shot harmlessly lashing the water.
"Did you get him--did you get him?" shouted Marjorie and Jack, rushing
down upon us.
"No, I didn't get him," I explained. "I didn't even try to get him. I
just wanted to see how far the gun would carry."
"I wouldn't let him," said Jean. "It would have been a--just a horrible
thing to shoot one of those poor creatures, the very first night we were
here! How beautiful they were, and how--how loving!" She said the last
word with a bashful, falling inflection that was wonderful to hear.
"It's much more horrible to have no wild duck--ducklet I mean--for
to-morrow's dinner," said Jack.
"And those cartridges cost ever so much; what is it?--three or four
cents each," Marjorie remonstrated. "Well, let's go back."
We returned to our camp and started to make ready for the night. But
Jack, true to his promise, gathered up his blankets, waded the cold
stream, and slept under the stars of Twenty-two. We had begun our
"period of residence."