An injured knee—The "Laird"—Kit destroyed by fire—Hunting round
Strathclair—Trapping—“Batching.”
I may here record a little experience I had in Calgary, which, while it
turned out all right in the end, caused me considerable excitement at
the time. I and George Berney were batching at the out-ranch on Pine
Creek, getting out black poplar posts for a fence we were building at
the home ranch. We used to take it in turns every couple of weeks to go
into town with the wagon for the mail and provisions, taking in a load
of posts at the same time. On one of these occasions, when it was
George’s turn to go, he told me he was going to stay in town for a
couple of days to go to some entertainment or other that was coming on.
He left at dawn, and I took my broad-axe and went out to square up some
logs we were dressing for a grain-house we were going to build. After I
had been working some little time my axe glanced off a small knot, and
the heel of the blade went into the hollow inside the left knee, just
below the knee-cap. I must mention that I am a left-handed chopper—that
is, I hold the butt of the axe-handle in my left hand, and so work on
the left side of the log I am standing over. The cut was not very
serious, though for a moment it numbed my leg. However, I went over to
the house and bound it up, and stopped my chopping for the time being.
In a couple of hours my leg had swollen to twice its normal size and
throbbed furiously, and by noon I could not walk without considerable
trouble. By afternoon I was considerably worried, being young and
inexperienced at the time, as I could not expect George back till about
the evening of the fourth day, and my nearest neighbours were two miles
away; and by night I had it all figured out that I was due to cash in my
checks. That night and the next morning I used my gun to try and attract
attention, but no one heard me. But about four o’clock in the afternoon
I heard a wagon coming up our trail, and soon was delighted to recognise
our own horses, and George driving. Some matter of importance in
connection with the sale of some horses had turned up, and his father
had bundled him back to attend to it. The team was too tired (having
done seventy-six miles, half of the way loaded, in two days) to make the
return trip that night. I would not wait till morning; and as we had no
other driving team, George caught my horse and saddled him, and, by dint
of wrapping and rolling my leg up in plenty of cloth and slipping on my
leather “chapps,” I made the thirty-eight miles into town to Dr. George,
who soon had me up and around again.
Now to return to Strathclair and Manitoba, about which I was writing. On
our return from the lumber camp we made a detour, and stopped one night
at Charlie Geekie’s house. He was the eldest of four brothers who were
settled in the neighbourhood; he was known as the Laird, and was at the
time I mention reeve of the township (a sort of mayor); a fine old
Highlander he was, too. I drove a jumper, with a five-gallon keg of
whisky in the hind end, in his interests during the election, which
happened to be held while I was there; but, unfortunately, he was
beaten. During the evening that we stayed at his house, which was
perched up on a hill, some one noticed a glare of fire in the direction
of Strathclair, which was about ten miles off. But as we were too far
off to do any good, and it was late, we decided not to go in till
morning. How some nights stick in one’s memory! That is one I shall not
easily forget—the red-hot stove, the deafening squeal of the bagpipes,
played by the laird (who was an immense, bushy-haired and bushy-bearded
man). He was a sight to see as he pranced up and down, full of whisky
and music. This he and his brother alternated with old Scotch songs and
ballads, while we refreshed ourselves with whisky, which we drank out of
polished horn cups. One of these the laird gave me, which I kept as a
memento for many years after. Horn, he told me, was the proper vessel to
drink out of, as no one but yourself could know the size of your tot! In
the morning we went on to Strathclair, to find that the fire had been in
the railroad station, which was burned to the ground, including the
station-master’s house and the freight warehouse. All my trunks were
lost, and I had nothing left but the clothes I stood in, my rifle,
shot-gun, and a few things I had in a gladstone bag. This necessitated
my return to Guelph to replenish my wardrobe; but Geekie was pressing in
his invitation to stay on a few weeks, and draw on him for anything I
needed in the way of clothes.
The hunting round Strathclair was very good, there being plenty of
rabbits, prairie chickens in myriads, and a few miles north, in the
timber country, plenty of moose, elk, and spruce partridge; while on the
prairie there was plenty of fun to be had shooting wolves, coyotes, and
foxes for their pelts, and in trying to trap them. I say trying to trap
them, as I put in a week at the game, trying every device I had ever
read or heard of, and only succeeded in catching one coyote in a trap.
However, I poisoned a good many, using a rabbit for a drag on horseback,
and dropping baits at intervals; but in this method there is
considerable trouble in finding your game after you have poisoned them,
as they will sometimes travel miles from where they picked up the bait,
and trailing on hard snow is slow work. The most satisfactory way is to
shoot them, and I got more this way than any other, but it means heavy
walking in the snow. Geekie had a fine larder, such as is only found up
in that country. It consisted of an unchinked log-house, in which hung,
while I was there, three sides of moose and simply hundreds of prairie
chicken and spruce partridge, uncleaned and unplucked, but frozen as
hard as a rock. This was his winter’s meat supply. I heard a story
there, in regard to being careful while trapping, about a poor old man
who made a living trapping, and who was accidentally found with both his
hands caught in a trap he had been setting, and which was chained to a
log. He had been dead a couple of days when found, from the cold. No one
will ever know how such a man, who had spent years at the business, came
to be caught.
Manitoba is not all prairie, nor timberless, as so many people imagine.
In the west and the south are immense stretches of country, dead level,
and with hardly a tree; but north, on the Manitoba North-Western
Railroad towards Strathclair, the country is rolling, and there are
patches of timber, mostly small. Still farther north the country gets
quite hilly, and there are large stretches of fine timber. It is all
capital wheat country, and also good for cattle, the only drawback being
occasional summer frosts and poor means of transport, though this latter
will soon be remedied by the advent of the new Grand Trunk Railway which
is building across the country; and also, as I understand, the Hudson
Bay Railway is finally to be built. The country, however, is far from
beautiful.
The people dispense hospitality with a lavish hand so far as they are
able. The accounts of toasting and drinking in India in the early days
remind me of a dance I attended near Strathclair, where the host, having
lost the use of his legs, lay propped up in his bed (his bedroom being
used by the men for their wraps and coats), with a keg of whisky on a
chair by his side. There he lay in state, not too far gone still to
dispense his hospitality and drink with every one who came into the
room. After a few weeks’ stay I left Manitoba and returned to the
college at Guelph. In the spring of 1893 I started for Chicago, really
to begin the earning of my own living.
The expression “batching,” mentioned before, means men doing for
themselves—a rough business out West. Exhausted with labour, the man
comes in, has a wash, cuts and toasts some rashers, prepares scones,
half-burnt, half-raw, from the barrel of flour in the corner, and brews
coffee. He had no time in the morning to sweep or to make his bed. There
it is, some tumbled blankets in a box of straw; and after a pipe he
rolls into it, to sleep like a log till habit wakes him an hour before
dawn to split wood, fetch water, light a fire, and prepare his meal as
before. Such was the _ménage_ of the young Lincolnshire men referred to
in the first of these experiences. Such was the life which awaited
myself but for the fire which destroyed, not my trunk only, but my
farming outfit, and made me abandon the idea of exploiting my land in
Strathclair. But if Western farming life is hard for men, what is it for
women who are not to the manner born? The natives can stand it, also the
Russian, Scandinavian, and German immigrants, all of the labouring
classes. But “back to the land” is madness for well-nurtured
Englishwomen; better the shop, or even domestic service.