"Saw ye my wee ham, saw ye my ain ham,
Saw ye my pork ham down on yon lea?
Crossed it the prairie last night in the darkness
Borne by an old and unprincipled Cree?"
sang Kate, loosening the tent ropes. Altogether, we got a great deal
more fun out of that ham than if we had eaten it.
As Kate had predicted, the day was glorious. The mists rolled away and
the sun shone brightly. We drove all day without stopping, save for
dinner--when the lost ham figured largely in our conversation--of
course. We said so many witty things about it--at least, we thought
them witty--that we laughed continuously through the whole meal,
which we ate with prodigious appetite.
But with all our driving we were not getting on very fast. The country
was exceedingly swampy and we had to make innumerable detours.
"'The longest way round is the shortest way to Bothwell,'" said Kate,
when we drove five miles out of our way to avoid a muskeg. By evening
we had driven fully twenty-five miles, but we were only ten miles
nearer Bothwell than when we had broken camp in the morning.
"We'll have to camp soon," sighed Kate. "I believe around this bluff
will be a good place. Oh, Phil, I'm tired--dead tired! My very
thoughts are tired. I can't even think anything funny about the ham.
And yet we've got to set up the tent ourselves, and attend to the
horses; and we'll have to scrape some of the mud off this beautiful
vehicle."
"We can leave that till the morning," I suggested.
"No, it will be too hard and dry then. Here we are--and here are two
tepees of Indians also!"
There they were, right around the bluff. The inmates were standing in
a group before them, looking at us as composedly as if we were not at
all an unusual sight.
"I'm going to stay here anyhow," said Kate doggedly.
"Oh, don't," I said in alarm. "They're such a villainous-looking
lot--so dirty--and they've got so little clothing on. I wouldn't sleep
a wink near them. Look at that awful old squaw with only one eye.
They'd steal everything we've got left, Kate. Remember the ham--oh,
pray remember the fate of our beautiful ham."
"I shall never forget that ham," said Kate wearily, "but, Phil, we
can't drive far enough to be out of their reach if they really want to
steal our provisions. But I don't believe they will. I believe they
have plenty of food--Indians in tepees mostly have. The men hunt, you
know. Their looks are probably the worst of them. Anyhow, you can't
judge Indians by appearances. Peter Crow looked respectable--and he
was a whited sepulchre. Now, these Indians look as bad as Indians can
look--so they may turn out to be angels in disguise."
"Very much disguised, certainly," I acquiesced satirically. "They seem
to me to belong to the class of a neighbour of ours down east. Her
family is always in rags, because she says, 'a hole is an accident, a
patch is a disgrace,' Set camp here if you like, Kate. But I'll not
sleep a wink with such neighbours."
I cheerfully ate my words later on. Never were appearances more
deceptive than in the case of those Stoneys. There is an old saying
that many a kind heart beats behind a ragged coat. The Indians had no
coats for their hearts to beat behind--nothing but shirts--some of
them hadn't even shirts! But the shirts were certainly ragged enough,
and their hearts were kind.
Those Indians were gentlemen. They came forward and unhitched our
horses, fed, and watered them; they pitched our tent, and built us a
fire, and cut brush for our beds. Kate and I had simply nothing to do
except sit on our rugs and tell them what we wanted done. They would
have cooked our supper for us if we had allowed it. But, tired as we
were, we drew the line at that. Their hearts were pure gold, but their
hands! No, Kate and I dragged ourselves up and cooked our own suppers.
And while we ate it, those Indians fell to and cleaned all the mud off
our democrat for us. To crown all--it is almost unbelievable but it is
true, I solemnly avow--they wouldn't take a cent of payment for it
all, urge them as we might and did.
"Well," said Kate, as we curled up on our brush beds that night,
"there certainly is a special Providence for unprotected females. I'd
forgive Peter Crow for deserting us for the sake of those Indians, if
he hadn't stolen our lovely ham into the bargain. That was altogether
unpardonable."
In the morning the Indians broke camp for us and harnessed our
shaganappies. We drove off, waving our hands to them, the delightful
creatures. We never saw any of them again. I fear their kind is
scarce, but as long as I live I shall remember those Stoneys with
gratitude.
We got on fairly well that third day, and made about fifteen miles
before dinner time. We ate three of the sergeant's prairie chickens
for dinner, and enjoyed them.
"But only think how delicious the ham would have been," said Kate.
Our real troubles began that afternoon. We had not been driving long
when the trail swooped down suddenly into a broad depression--a swamp,
so full of mud-holes that there didn't seem to be anything but
mud-holes. We pulled through six of them--but in the seventh we stuck,
hard and fast. Pull as our ponies could and did, they could not pull
us out.
"What are we to do?" I said, becoming horribly frightened all at once.
It seemed to me that our predicament was a dreadful one.
"Keep cool," said Kate. She calmly took off her shoes and stockings,
tucked up her skirt, and waded to the horses' heads.
"Can't I do anything?" I implored.
"Yes, take the whip and spare it not," said Kate. "I'll encourage them
here with sundry tugs and inspiriting words. You urge them behind with
a good lambasting."
Accordingly we encouraged and urged, tugged and lambasted, with a
right good will, but all to no effect. Our ponies did their best, but
they could not pull the democrat out of that slough.
"Oh, what--" I began, and then I stopped. I resolved that I would not
ask that question again in that tone in that scrape. I would be
cheerful and courageous like Kate--splendid Kate!
"I shall have to unhitch them, tie one of them to that stump, and ride
off on the other for help," said Kate.
"Where to?" I asked.
"Till I find it," grinned Kate, who seemed to think the whole
disaster a capital joke. "I may have to go clean back to the
tepees--and further. For that matter, I don't believe there were any
tepees. Those Indians were too good to be true--they were phantoms of
delight--such stuff as dreams are made of. But even if they were real
they won't be there now--they'll have folded their tents like the
Arabs and as silently stolen away. But I'll find help somewhere."
"I can't stay here alone. You may be gone for hours," I cried,
forgetting all my resolutions of courage and cheerfulness in an access
of panic.
"Then ride the other pony and come with me," suggested Kate.
"I can't ride bareback," I moaned.
"Then you'll have to stay here," said Kate decidedly. "There's nothing
to hurt you, Phil. Sit in the wagon and keep dry. Eat something if you
get hungry. I may not be very long."
I realized that there was nothing else to do; and, rather ashamed of
my panic, I resigned myself to the inevitable and saw Kate off with
a smile of encouragement. Then I waited. I was tired and
frightened--horribly frightened. I sat there and imagined scores of
gruesome possibilities. It was no use telling myself to be brave. I
couldn't be brave. I never was in such a blue funk before or since.
Suppose Kate got lost--suppose she couldn't find me again--suppose
something happened to her--suppose she couldn't get help--suppose it
came on night and I there all alone--suppose Indians--not gentlemanly
Stoneys or even Peter Crows, but genuine, old-fashioned
Indians--should come along--suppose it began to pour rain!
It did begin to rain, the only one of my suppositions which came true.
I hoisted an umbrella and sat there grimly, in that horseless wagon in
the mud-hole.
* * * * *
Many a time since have I laughed over the memory of the appearance I
must have presented sitting in that mud-hole, but there was nothing in
the least funny about it at the time. The worst feature of it all was
the uncertainty. I could have waited patiently enough and conquered my
fears if I had known that Kate would find help and return within a
reasonable time--at least before dark. But everything was doubtful. I
was not composed of the stuff out of which heroines are fashioned and
I devoutly wished we had never left Arrow Creek.
Shouts--calls--laughter--Kate's dear voice in an encouraging cry from
the hill behind me!
"Halloo, honey! Hold the fort a few minutes longer. Here we are. Bless
her, hasn't she been a brick to stay here all alone like this--and a
tenderfoot at that?"
I could have cried with joy. But I saw that there were men with
Kate--two men--white men--and I laughed instead. I had not been
brave--I had been an arrant little coward, but I vowed that nobody,
not even Kate, should suspect it. Later on Kate told me how she had
fared in her search for assistance.
"When I left you, Phil, I felt much more anxious than I wanted to let
you see. I had no idea where to go. I knew there were no houses along
our trail and I might have to go clean back to the tepees--fifteen
miles bareback. I didn't dare try any other trail, for I knew nothing
of them and wasn't sure that there were even tepees on them. But when
I had gone about six miles I saw a welcome sight--nothing less than a
spiral of blue, homely-looking smoke curling up from the prairie far
off to my right. I decided to turn off and investigate. I rode two
miles and finally I came to a little log shack. There was a
bee-yew-tiful big horse in a corral close by. My heart jumped with
joy. But suppose the inmates of the shack were half-breeds! You can't
realize how relieved I felt when the door opened and two white men
came out. In a few minutes everything was explained. They knew who I
was and what I wanted, and I knew that they were Mr. Lonsdale and Mr.
Hopkins, owners of a big ranch over by Deer Run. They were 'shacking
out' to put up some hay and Mrs. Hopkins was keeping house for them.
She wanted me to stop and have a cup of tea right off, but I thought
of you, Phil, and declined. As soon as they heard of our predicament
those lovely men got their two biggest horses and came right with me."
It was not long before our democrat was on solid ground once more, and
then our rescuers insisted that we go back to the shack with them for
the night. Accordingly we drove back to the shack, attended by our two
gallant deliverers on white horses. Mrs. Hopkins was waiting for us, a
trim, dark-haired little lady in a very pretty gown, which she had
donned in our honour. Kate and I felt like perfect tramps beside her
in our muddy old raiment, with our hair dressed by dead reckoning--for
we had not included a mirror in our baggage. There was a mirror in the
shack, however--small but good--and we quickly made ourselves tidy at
least, and Kate even went to the length of curling her bangs--bangs
were in style then and Kate had long, thick ones--using the stem of a
broken pipe of Mr. Hopkins's for a curler. I was so tired that my
vanity was completely crushed out--for the time being--and I simply
pinned my bangs back. Later on, when I discovered that Mr. Lonsdale
was really the younger son of an English earl, I wished I had curled
them, but it was too late then.
He didn't look in the least like a scion of aristocracy. He wore a
cowboy rig and had a scrubby beard of a week's growth. But he was very
jolly and played the violin beautifully. After tea--and a lovely tea
it was, although, as Kate remarked to me later, there was no ham--we
had an impromptu concert. Mr. Lonsdale played the violin; Mrs.
Hopkins, who sang, was a graduate of a musical conservatory; Mr.
Hopkins gave a comic recitation and did a Cree war-dance; Kate gave a
spirited account of our adventures since leaving home and mother; and
I described--with trimmings--how I felt sitting alone in the democrat
in a mud-hole, in a pouring rain on a vast prairie.
Mrs. Hopkins, Kate, and I slept in the one bed the shack boasted,
screened off from public view by a calico curtain. Mr. Lonsdale
reposed in his accustomed bunk by the stove, but poor Mr. Hopkins had
to sleep on the floor. He must have been glad Kate and I stayed only
one night.
* * * * *
The fourth morning found us blithely hitting the trail in renewed
confidence and spirits. We parted from our kind friends in the shack
with mutual regret. Mr. Hopkins gave us a haunch of jumping deer and
Mrs. Hopkins gave us a box of home-made cookies. Mr. Lonsdale at first
thought he couldn't give us anything, for he said all he had with him
was his pipe and his fiddle; but later on he said he felt so badly to
see us go without any token of his good will that he felt constrained
to ask us to accept a piece of rope that he had tied his outfit
together with.
The fourth day we got on so nicely that it was quite monotonous. The
sun shone, the chinook blew, our ponies trotted over the trail
gallantly. Kate and I sang, told stories, and laughed immoderately
over everything. Even a poor joke seems to have a subtle flavour on
the prairie. For the first time I began to think Saskatchewan
beautiful, with those far-reaching parklike meadows dotted with the
white-stemmed poplars, the distant bluffs bannered with the airiest of
purple hazes, and the little blue lakes that sparkled and shimmered in
the sunlight on every hand.
The only thing approaching an adventure that day happened in the
afternoon when we reached a creek which had to be crossed.
"We must investigate," said Kate decidedly. "It would never do to risk
getting mired here, for this country is unsettled and we must be
twenty miles from another human being."
Kate again removed her shoes and stockings and puddled about that
creek until she found a safe fording place. I am afraid I must admit
that I laughed most heartlessly at the spectacle she presented while
so employed.
"Oh, for a camera, Kate!" I said, between spasms.
Kate grinned. "I don't care what I look like," she said, "but I feel
wretchedly unpleasant. This water is simply swarming with wigglers."
"Goodness, what are they?" I exclaimed.
"Oh, they're tiny little things like leeches," responded Kate. "I
believe they develop into mosquitoes later on, bad 'cess to them. What
Mr. Nash would call my pedal extremities are simply being devoured by
the brutes. Ugh! I believe the bottom of this creek is all soft mud.
We may have to drive--no, as I'm a living, wiggler-haunted human
being, here's firm bottom. Hurrah, Phil, we're all right!"
In a few minutes we were past the creek and bowling merrily on our
way. We had a beautiful camping ground that night--a fairylike little
slope of white poplars with a blue lake at its foot. When the sun went
down a milk-white mist hung over the prairie, with a young moon
kissing it. We boiled some slices of our jumping deer and ate them in
the open around a cheery camp-fire. Then we sought our humble couches,
where we slept the sleep of just people who had been driving over the
prairie all day. Once in the night I wakened. It was very dark. The
unearthly stillness of a great prairie was all around me. In that vast
silence Kate's soft breathing at my side seemed an intrusion of sound
where no sound should be.
"Philippa Blair, can you believe it's yourself?" I said mentally.
"Here you are, lying on a brush bed on a western prairie in the middle
of the night, at least twenty miles from any human being except
another frail creature of your own sex. Yet you're not even
frightened. You are very comfy and composed, and you're going right to
sleep again."
And right to sleep again I went.
* * * * *
Our fifth day began ominously. We had made an early start and had
driven about six miles when the calamity occurred. Kate turned a
corner too sharply, to avoid a big boulder; there was a heart-breaking
sound.
"The tongue of the wagon is broken," cried Kate in dismay. All too
surely it was. We looked at each other blankly.
"What can we do?" I said.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Kate helplessly. When Kate felt helpless
I thought things must be desperate indeed. We got out and investigated
the damage.
"It's not a clean break," said Kate. "It's a long, slanting break. If
we had a piece of rope I believe I could fix it."
"Mr. Lonsdale's piece of rope!" I cried.
"The very thing," said Kate, brightening up.
The rope was found and we set to work. With the aid of some willow
withes and that providential rope we contrived to splice the tongue
together in some shape.
Although the trail was good we made only twelve miles the rest of the
day, so slowly did we have to drive. Besides, we were continually
expecting that tongue to give way again, and the strain was bad for
our nerves. When we came at sunset to the junction of the Black River
trail with ours, Kate resolutely turned the shaganappies down it.
"We'll go and spend the night with the Brewsters," she said. "They
live only ten miles down this trail. I went to school in Regina with
Hannah Brewster, and though I haven't seen her for ten years I know
she'll be glad to see us. She's a lovely person, and her husband is a
very nice man. I visited them once after they were married."
We soon arrived at the Brewster place. It was a trim, white-washed
little log house in a grove of poplars. But all the blinds were down
and we discovered the door was locked. Evidently the Brewsters were
not at home.
"Never mind," said Kate cheerfully, "we'll light a fire outside and
cook our supper and then we'll spend the night in the barn. A bed of
prairie hay will be just the thing."
But the barn was locked too. It was now dark and our plight was rather
desperate.
"I'm going to get into the house if I have to break a window," said
Kate resolutely. "Hannah would want us to do that. She'd never get
over it, if she heard we came to her house and couldn't get in."
Fortunately we did not have to go to the length of breaking into
Hannah's house. The kitchen window went up quite easily. We turned the
shaganappies loose to forage for themselves, grass and water being
abundant. Then we climbed in at the window, lighted our lantern, and
found ourselves in a very snug little kitchen. Opening off it on one
side was a trim, nicely furnished parlour and on the other a
well-stocked pantry.
"We'll light the fire in the stove in a jiffy and have a real good
supper," said Kate exultantly. "Here's cold roast beef--and preserves
and cookies and cheese and butter."
Before long we had supper ready and we did full justice to the absent
Hannah's excellent cheer. After all, it was quite nice to sit down
once more to a well-appointed table and eat in civilized fashion.
Then we washed up all the dishes and made everything snug and tidy. I
shall never be sufficiently thankful that we did so.
Kate piloted me upstairs to the spare room.
"This is fixed up much nicer than it was when I was here before," she
said, looking around. "Of course, Hannah and Ted were just starting
out then and they had to be economical. They must have prospered, to
be able to afford such furniture as this. Well, turn in, Phil. Won't
it be rather jolly to sleep between sheets once more?"
We slept long and soundly until half-past eight the next morning; and
dear knows if we would have wakened then of our own accord. But I
heard somebody saying in a very harsh, gruff voice, "Here, you two,
wake up! I want to know what this means."
We two did wake up, promptly and effectually. I never wakened up so
thoroughly in my life before. Standing in our room were three people,
one of them a man. He was a big, grey-haired man with a bushy black
beard and an angry scowl. Beside him was a woman--a tall, thin,
angular personage with red hair and an indescribable bonnet. She
looked even crosser and more amazed than the man, if that were
possible. In the background was another woman--a tiny old lady who
must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of her tininess, a
very striking-looking personage; she was dressed all in black, and had
snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid, coal-black
eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but she didn't look
cross.
I knew something must be wrong--fearfully wrong--but I didn't know
what. Even in my confusion, I found time to think that if that
disagreeable-looking red-haired woman was Hannah Brewster, Kate must
have had a queer taste in school friends. Then the man said, more
gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and what business have you
here?"
Kate raised herself on one elbow. She looked very wild. I heard the
old black-and-white lady in the background chuckle to herself.
"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?" gasped Kate.
"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time. "This place
belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters in the spring. They
moved over to Black River Forks. Our name is Chapman."
Poor Kate fell back on the pillow, quite overcome. "I--I beg your
pardon," she said. "I--I thought the Brewsters lived here. Mrs.
Brewster is a friend of mine. My cousin and I are on our way to
Bothwell and we called here to spend the night with Hannah. When we
found everyone away we just came in and made ourselves at home."
"A likely story," said the red woman.
"We weren't born yesterday," said the man.
Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything, but when the other two had
made their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of
mirth, shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her
hands.
If they had been nice to us, Kate would probably have gone on feeling
confused and ashamed. But when they were so disagreeable she quickly
regained her self-possession. She sat up again and said in her
haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
you will have the decency to leave our room--this room--until we can
get up and dress we will not transgress upon your hospitality" (Kate
put a most satirical emphasis on that word) "any longer. And we shall
pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night's lodging we
have taken."
The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her
hands, but not a sound did she make. Whether he was cowed by Kate's
tone, or appeased by the prospect of payment, I know not, but Mr.
Chapman spoke more civilly. "Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all
right."
"They shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White
in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you
haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a
mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be
charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman
lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot
all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia
married you and you've made her as bad as yourself. But I'm boss here
yet. Here, you, Robert Chapman, take yourself out of here and let
those girls get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook a
breakfast for them."
I never, in all my life, saw anything like the abject meekness with
which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went, and stood not
upon the order of their going. As the door closed behind them, Mrs.
Matilda Pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her
merriment.
"Ain't it funny?" she said. "I mostly lets them run the length of
their tether but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it
with a jerk. Now, you can take your time about dressing, my dears, and
I'll go down and keep them in order, the mean scalawags."
When we descended the stairs we found a smoking-hot breakfast on the
table. Mr. Chapman was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Chapman was
cutting bread with a sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman was sitting in an
armchair, knitting. She still wore her bonnet and her triumphant
expression. "Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she
said.
"We are not hungry," said Kate, almost pleadingly. "I don't think we
can eat anything. And it's time we were on the trail. Please excuse us
and let us go on."
Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting needle playfully at Kate. "Sit
down and take your breakfast," she commanded. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman
commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman--even Robert and
Amelia. You must obey her too."
We did obey her. We sat down and, such was the influence of her
mesmeric eyes, we ate a tolerable breakfast. The obedient Amelia never
spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either, but she knitted
furiously and chuckled. When we had finished Mrs. Matilda Pitman
rolled up her knitting. "Now, you can go if you want to," she said,
"but you don't have to go. You can stay here as long as you like, and
I'll make them cook your meals for you."