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THE
LAST SPIKE
AND OTHER
RAILROAD STORIES
BY
CY WARMAN
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1906
_Copyright, 1906_,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published February, 1906
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE LAST SPIKE 1
THE BELLE OF ATHABASCA 31
PATHFINDING IN THE NORTHWEST 49
THE CURÉ'S CHRISTMAS GIFT 61
THE MYSTERIOUS SIGNAL 85
CHASING THE WHITE MAIL 107
OPPRESSING THE OPPRESSOR 119
THE IRON HORSE AND THE TROLLEY 135
IN THE BLACK CAÑON 151
JACK RAMSEY'S REASON 165
THE GREAT WRECK ON THE PÈRE MARQUETTE 181
THE STORY OF AN ENGLISHMAN 193
ON THE LIMITED 211
THE CONQUEST OF ALASKA 219
NUMBER THREE 237
THE STUFF THAT STANDS 253
THE MILWAUKEE RUN 273
THE LAST SPIKE
"Then there is nothing against him but his poverty?"
"And general appearance."
"He's the handsomest man in America."
"Yes, that is against him, and the fact that he is always _in_ America.
He appears to be afraid to get out."
"He's the bravest boy in the world," she replied, her face still to the
window. "He risked his life to drag me from under the ice," she added,
with a girl's loyalty to her hero and a woman's pride in the man she
loves.
"Well, I must own he has nerve," her father added, "or he never would
have accepted my conditions."
"And what where these conditions, pray?" the young woman asked, turning
and facing her father, who sat watching her every move and gesture.
"First of all, he must do something; and do it off his own bat. His old
father spent his last dollar to educate this young rascal, to equip him
for the battle of life, and his sole achievement is a curve that nobody
can find. Now I insist he shall do something, and I have given him five
years for the work."
"Five years!" she gasped, as she lost herself in a big chair.
"He is to have time to forget you, and you are to have ample opportunity
to forget him, which you will doubtless do, for you are not to meet or
communicate with each other during this period of probation."
"Did he promise this?"
"Upon his honor."
"And if he break that promise?"
"Ah, then he would be without honor, and you would not marry him." A
moment's silence followed, broken by a long, deep sigh that ended in
little quivering waves, like the faint ripples that reach the
shore,--the whispered echoes of the sobbing sea.
"O father, it is cruel! _cruel! cruel!_" she cried, raising a tearful
face to him.
"It is justice, stern justice; to you, my dear, to myself, and this fine
young fellow who has stolen your heart. Let him show himself worthy of
you, and you have my blessing and my fortune."
"Is he going soon?"
"He is gone."
The young woman knelt by her father's chair and bowed her head upon his
knee, quivering with grief.
This stern man, who had humped himself and made a million, put a hand on
her head and said:
"Ma-Mary"--and then choked up.
II
The tent boy put a small white card down on General Dodge's desk one
morning, upon which was printed:
J. BRADFORD, C.E.
The General, who was at that time chief engineer in charge of the
construction of the first Pacific Railroad, turned the bit of pasteboard
over. It seemed so short and simple. He ran his eyes over a printed
list, alphabetically arranged, of directors, promoters, statesmen,
capitalists, and others who were in the habit of signing "letters of
recommendation" for young men who wanted to do something and begin well
up the ladder.
There were no Bradfords. Burgess and Blodgett were the only B's, and the
General was glad. His desk was constantly littered with the "letters" of
tenderfeet, and his office-tent filled with their portmanteaus, holding
dress suits and fine linen.
Here was a curiosity--a man with no press notices, no character, only
one initial and two chasers.
"Show him in," said the General, addressing the one luxury his hogan
held. A few moments later the chief engineer was looking into the eye of
a young man, who returned the look and asked frankly, and without
embarrassment, for work with the engineers.
"Impossible, young man--full up," was the brief answer.
"Now," thought the General, "he'll begin to beat his breast and haul out
his 'pull.'" The young man only smiled sadly, and said, "I'm sorry. I
saw an 'ad' for men in the _Bee_ yesterday, and hoped to be in time," he
added, rising.
"Men! Yes, we want men to drive mules and stakes, to grade, lay track,
and fight Indians--but engineers? We've got 'em to use for cross-ties."
"I am able and willing to do any of these things--except the
Indians--and I'll tackle that if nothing else offers."
"There's a man for you," said the General to his assistant as Bradford
went out with a note to Jack Casement, who was handling the graders,
teamsters, and Indian fighters. "No influential friends, no baggage, no
character, just a man, able to stand alone--a real man in corduroys and
flannels."
Coming up to the gang, Bradford singled out the man who was swearing
loudest and delivered the note. "Fall in," said the straw boss, and
Bradford got busy. He could handle one end of a thirty-foot rail with
ease, and before night, without exciting the other workmen or making any
show of superiority, he had quietly, almost unconsciously, become the
leader of the track-laying gang. The foreman called Casement's
attention to the new man, and Casement watched him for five minutes.
Two days later a big teamster, having found a bottle of fire-water,
became separated from his reasoning faculties, crowded under an old
dump-cart, and fell asleep.
"Say, young fellow," said the foreman, panting up the grade to where
Bradford was placing a rail, "can you skin mules?"
"I can drive a team, if that's what you mean," was the reply.
"How many?"
"Well," said Bradford, with his quiet smile, "when I was a boy I used to
drive six on the Montpelier stage."
So he took the eight-mule team and amazed the multitude by hauling
heavier loads than any other team, because he knew how to handle his
whip and lines, and because he was careful and determined to succeed.
Whatever he did he did it with both hands, backed up by all the
enthusiasm of youth and the unconscious strength of an absolutely
faultless physique, and directed by a remarkably clear brain. When the
timekeeper got killed, Bradford took his place, for he could "read
writin'," an accomplishment rare among the laborers. When the bookkeeper
got drunk he kept the books, working overtime at night.
In the rush and roar of the fight General Dodge had forgotten the young
man in corduroys until General Casement called his attention to the
young man's work. The engineers wanted Bradford, and Casement had
kicked, and, fearing defeat, had appealed to the chief. They sent for
Bradford. Yes, he was an engineer, he said, and when he said it they
knew it was true. He was quite willing to remain in the store department
until he could be relieved, but, naturally, he would prefer field work.
He got it, and at once. Also, he got some Indian fighting. In less than
a year he was assigned to the task of locating a section of the line
west of the Platte. Coming in on a construction train to make his first
report, the train was held up, robbed, and burned by a band of Sioux.
Bradford and the train crew were rescued by General Dodge himself, who
happened to be following them with his "arsenal" car, and who heard at
Plumb Creek of the fight and of the last stand that Bradford and his
handful of men were making in the way car, which they had detached and
pushed back from the burning train. Such cool heroism as Bradford
displayed here could not escape the notice of so trained an Indian
fighter as General Dodge. Bradford was not only complimented, but was
invited into the General's private car. The General's admiration for the
young pathfinder grew as he received a detailed and comprehensive report
of the work being done out on the pathless plains. He knew the worth of
this work, because he knew the country, for he had spent whole months
together exploring it while in command of that territory, where he had
been purposely placed by General Sherman, without whose encouragement
the West could not have been known at that time, and without whose help
as commander-in-chief of the United States army the road could not have
been built.
As the pathfinders neared the Rockies the troops had to guard them
constantly. The engineers reconnoitered, surveyed, located, and built
inside the picket lines. The men marched to work to the tap of the drum,
stacked arms on the dump, and were ready at a moment's notice to fall
in and fight. Many of the graders were old soldiers, and a little fight
only rested them. Indeed there was more military air about this work
than had been or has since been about the building of a railroad in this
country. It was one big battle, from the first stake west of Omaha to
the last spike at Promontory--a battle that lasted five long years; and
if the men had marked the graves of those who fell in that fierce fight
their monuments, properly distributed, might have served as mile-posts
on the great overland route to-day. But the mounds were unmarked, most
of them, and many there were who had no mounds, and whose home names
were never known even to their comrades. If this thing had been done on
British soil, and all the heroic deeds had been recorded and rewarded, a
small foundry could have been kept busy beating out V.C.'s. They could
not know, these silent heroes fighting far out in the wilderness, what a
glorious country they were conquering--what an empire they were opening
for all the people of the land. Occasionally there came to the men at
the front old, worn newspapers, telling wild stories of the failure of
the enterprise. At other times they heard of changes in the Board of
Directors, the election of a new President, tales of jobs and looting,
but they concerned themselves only with the work in hand. No breath of
scandal ever reached these pioneer trail-makers, or, if it did, it
failed to find a lodging-place, but blew by. Ample opportunity they had
to plunder, to sell supplies to the Indians or the Mormons, but no one
of the men who did the actual work of bridging the continent has ever
been accused of a selfish or dishonest act.
During his second winter of service Bradford slept away out in the
Rockies, studying the snowslides and drifts. For three winters they did
this, and in summer they set stakes, keeping one eye out for Indians and
the other for wash-outs, and when, after untold hardships, privation,
and youth-destroying labor, they had located a piece of road, out of the
path of the slide and the washout, a well-groomed son of a politician
would come up from the Capital, and, in the capacity of Government
expert, condemn it all. Then strong men would eat their whiskers and the
weaker ones would grow blasphemous and curse the country that afforded
no facilities for sorrow-drowning.
Once, at the end of a long, hard winter, when spring and the Sioux came,
they found Bradford and a handful of helpers just breaking camp in a
sheltered hollow in the hills. Hiding in the crags, the warriors waited
until Bradford went out alone to try to shoot a deer, and incidentally
to sound a drift, and then they surrounded him. He fought until his gun
was unloaded, and then emptied his revolver; but ever dodging and
crouching from tree to rock, the red men, whose country he and his
companions had invaded, came nearer and nearer. In a little while the
fight was hand to hand. There was not the faintest show for escape; to
be taken alive was to be tortured to death, so he fought on, clubbing
his revolver until a well-directed blow from a war club caught the gun,
sent it whirling through the top of a nearby cedar, and left the
pathfinder empty-handed. The chief sprang forward and lifted his hatchet
that had caused more than one paleface to bite the dust. For the
faintest fraction of a second it stood poised above Bradford's head,
then out shot the engineer's strong right arm, and the Indian lay flat
six feet away.
For a moment the warriors seemed helpless with mingled awe and
admiration, but when Bradford stooped to grab his empty rifle they came
out of their trance. A dull blow, a sense of whirling round swiftly, a
sudden sunset, stars--darkness, and all pain had gone!
III
When Bradford came to they were fixing him for the fun. His back was
against a tree, his feet pinioned, and his elbows held secure by a
rawhide rope. He knew what it meant. He knew by the look of joy on the
freshly smeared faces at his waking, by the pitch-pine wood that had
been brought up, and by the fagots at his feet. The big chief who had
felt his fist came up, grinning, and jabbed a buckhorn cactus against
the engineer's thigh, and when the latter tried to move out of reach
they all grunted and danced with delight. They had been uneasy lest the
white man might not wake.
The sun, sailing westward in a burnished sea of blue, seemed to stand
still for a moment and then dropped down behind the range, as if to
escape from the hellish scene. The shadows served only to increase the
gloom in the heart of the captive. Glancing over his shoulder toward the
east, he observed that his captors had brought him down near to the edge
of the plain. Having satisfied themselves that their victim had plenty
of life left in him, the Indians began to arrange the fuel. With the
return of consciousness came an inexpressible longing to live. Suddenly
his iron will asserted itself, and appealing to his great strength,
surged until the rawhide ropes were buried in his flesh. Not for a
moment while he stood on his feet and fought them on the morning of that
day had hope entirely deserted him. Four years of hardship, of
privation, and adventure had so strengthened his courage that to give up
was to die.
Presently, when he had exhausted his strength and sat quietly, the
Indians went on with the preliminaries. The gold in the west grew
deeper, the shadows in the foothills darker, as the moments sped.
Swiftly the captive's mind ran over the events of the past four years.
This was his first failure, and this was the end of it all--of the
years of working and waiting.
Clenching his fists, he lifted his hot face to the dumb sky, but no
sound escaped from his parched and parted lips. Suddenly a light shone
on the semicircle of feather-framed faces in front of him, and he heard
the familiar crackling of burning boughs. Glancing toward the ground he
saw that the fagots were on fire. He felt the hot breath of flame, and
then for the first time realized what torture meant. Again he surged,
and surged again, the cedars crackled, the red fiends danced. Another
effort, the rawhide parted and he stood erect. With both hands freed he
felt new strength, new hope. He tried to free himself from the pyre, but
his feet were fettered, and he fell among his captors. Two or three of
them seized him, but he shook them off and stood up again.
But it was useless. From every side the Indians rushed upon him and bore
him to the ground. Still he fought and struggled, and as he fought the
air seemed full of strange, wild sounds, of shouts and shots and
hoof-beating on the dry, hard earth. He seemed to see, as through a
veil, scores of Indians, Indians afoot and on horseback, naked Indians
and Indians in soldier clothes. Once he thought he saw a white face
gleam just as he got to his feet, but at that moment the big chief stood
before him, his battle-axe uplifted. The engineer's head was whirling.
Instinctively he tried to use the strong right arm, but it had lost its
cunning. The roar of battle grew apace, the axe descended, the left arm
went up and took the blow of the handle, but the edge of the weapon
reached over and split the white man's chin. As he fell heavily to the
earth the light went out again.
* * * * *
Save for the stars that stood above him it was still dark when Bradford
woke. He felt blankets beneath him, and asked in a whisper: "Who's
here?"
"Major North, me call him," said the Pawnee scout, who was watching over
the wounded man.
A moment later the gallant Major was leaning over Bradford, encouraging
him, assuring him that he was all right, but warning him of the danger
of making the least bit of noise.
IV
With all his strength and pluck, it took time for Bradford to
recuperate. His next work was in Washington, where, with notes and maps,
his strong personality and logical arguments, he caused the Government
to overrule an expert who wanted to change an important piece of road,
and who had arbitrarily fixed the meeting of the mountains and plains
far up in the foothills.[1]
When Bradford returned to the West he found that the whole country had
suddenly taken a great and growing interest in the transcontinental
line. Many of the leading newspapers had dug up their old war
correspondents and sent them out to the front.
These gifted prevaricators found the plain, unvarnished story of each
day's work as much as they cared to send in at night, for the builders
were now putting down four and five miles of road every working day.
Such road building the world had never seen, and news of it now ran
round the earth. At night these tireless story-tellers listened to the
strange tales told by the trail-makers, then stole away to their tents
and wrote them out for the people at home, while the heroes of the
stories slept.
The track-layers were now climbing up over the crest of the continent,
the locaters were dropping down the Pacific slope, with the prowling
pathfinders peeping over into the Utah Valley. Before the road reached
Salt Lake City the builders were made aware of the presence, power, and
opposition of Brigham Young. The head of the church had decreed that the
road must pass to the south of the lake, and as the Central Pacific had
surveyed a line that way, and General Dodge had declared in favor of the
northern route, the Mormons threw their powerful influence to the
Southern. The Union Pacific was boycotted, and all good Mormons
forbidden to aid the road in any way.
Here, again, the chief engineer brought Bradford's diplomacy to bear on
Brigham and won him over.
While the Union Pacific was building west, the Central Pacific had been
building east, and here, in the Salt Lake basin, the advance forces of
the two companies met. The United States Congress directed that the
rails should be joined wherever the two came together, but the bonus
($32,000 to the mile) left a good margin to the builders in the valley,
so, instead of joining the rails, the pathfinders only said "Howdy do!"
and then "Good-bye!" and kept going. The graders followed close upon the
heels of the engineers, so that by the time the track-layers met the two
grades paralleled each other for a distance of two hundred miles. When
the rails actually met, the Government compelled the two roads to couple
up. It had been a friendly contest that left no bad blood. Indeed they
were all willing to stop, for the iron trail was open from the Atlantic
to the Pacific.
V
The tenth day of May, 1869, was the date fixed for the driving of the
last spike and the official opening of the line. Special trains,
carrying prominent railway and Government officials, were hurrying out
from the East, while up from the Golden Gate came another train
bringing the flower of 'Frisco to witness, and some of them to take an
active part in, the celebration. The day was like twenty-nine other May
days that month in the Salt Lake Valley, fair and warm, but with a cool
breeze blowing over the sagebrush. The dusty army of trail-makers had
been resting for two days, waiting for the people to come in clean store
clothes, to make speeches, to eat and drink, and drive the golden spike.
Some Chinese laborers had opened a temporary laundry near the camp, and
were coining money washing faded blue overalls for their white comrades.
Many of the engineers and foremen had dressed up that morning, and a few
had fished out a white shirt. Judah and Strawbridge, of the Central, had
little chips of straw hats that had been harvested in the summer of '65.
Here and there you saw a sombrero, the wide hat of the cowboy, and the
big, soft, shapeless head cover of the Mormon, with a little bunch of
whiskers on his chin. General Dodge came from his arsenal car, that
stood on an improvised spur, in a bright, new uniform. Of the special
trains, that of Governor Stanford was first to arrive, with its
straight-stacked locomotive and Celestial servants. Then the U.P. engine
panted up, with its burnished bands and balloon stack, that reminded you
of the skirts the women wore, save that it funnelled down. When the
ladies began to jump down, the cayuses of the cowboys began to snort and
side-step, for they had seen nothing like these tents the women stood up
in.
Elaborate arrangements had been made for transmitting the news of the
celebration to the world. All the important telegraph offices of the
country were connected with Promontory, Utah, that day, so that the blow
of the hammer driving the last spike was communicated by the click of
the instrument to every office reached by the wires. From the Atlantic
to the Pacific the people were rejoicing and celebrating the event, but
the worn heroes who had dreamed it over and over for five years, while
they lay in their blankets with only the dry, hard earth beneath them,
seemed unable to realize that the work was really done and that they
could now go home, those who had homes to go to, eat soft bread, and
sleep between sheets.
Out under an awning, made by stretching a blanket between a couple of
dump-carts, Bradford lay, reading a 'Frisco paper that had come by
Governor Stanford's special; but even that failed to hold his thoughts.
His heart was away out on the Atlantic coast, and he would be hurrying
that way on the morrow, the guest of the chief engineer. He had lost his
mother when a boy, and his father just a year previous to his
banishment, but he had never lost faith in the one woman he had loved,
and he had loved her all his life, for they had been playmates. Now all
this fuss about driving the last spike was of no importance to him. The
one thing he longed for, lived for, was to get back to "God's country."
He heard the speeches by Governor Stanford for the Central, and General
Dodge for the Union Pacific; heard the prayer offered up by the Rev. Dr.
Todd, of Pittsfield; heard the General dictate to the operator:
"All ready," and presently the operator sang out the reply from the far
East:
"All ready here!" and then the silver hammer began beating the golden
spike into the laurel tie, which bore a silver plate, upon which was
engraved:
"The Last Tie
Laid in the Completion of the Pacific
Railroads.
May 10, 1869."
After the ceremony there was handshaking among the men and some kissing
among the women, as the two parties--one from either coast--mingled, and
then the General's tent boy came under the blanket to call Bradford, for
the General wanted him at once. Somehow Bradford's mind flew back to his
first meeting with this boy. He caught the boy by the arms, held him
off, and looked at him. "Say, boy," he asked, "have I changed as much as
you have? Why, only the other day you were a freckled beauty in
high-water trousers. You're a man now, with whiskers and a busted lip.
Say, have I changed, too?"
"Naw; you're just the same," said the boy. "Come now, the Gen's
waitin'."
"Judge Manning," said General Dodge, in his strong, clear voice, "you
have been calling us 'heroes'; now I want to introduce the one hero of
all this heroic band--the man who has given of muscle and brain all that
a magnificent and brilliant young man could give, and who deserves the
first place on the roll of honor among the great engineers of our time."
As the General pronounced the Judge's name Bradford involuntarily
clenched his fists and stepped back. The Judge turned slowly, looking
all the while at the General, thrilled by his eloquent earnestness, and
catching something of the General's admiration for so eminent a man.
"Mr. Bradford," the General concluded, "this is Judge Manning, of
Boston, who came to our rescue financially and helped us to complete
this great work to which you have so bravely and loyally contributed."
"Mr. _Bradford_, did you say?"
"Well, yes. He's only Jim Bradford out here, where we are in a hurry,
but he'll be Mr. Bradford in Boston, and the biggest man in town when he
gets back."
All nervousness had gone from Bradford, and he looked steadily into the
strong face before him.
"Jim Bradford," the millionnaire repeated, still holding the engineer's
hand.
"Yes, Judge Manning, I'm Jim Bradford," said the bearded pathfinder,
trying to smile and appear natural.
Suddenly realizing that some explanation was due the General, the Judge
turned and said, but without releasing the engineer's hand: "Why, I know
this young man--knew his father. We were friends from boyhood."
Slowly he returned his glance to Bradford. "Will you come into my car in
an hour from now?" he asked.
"Thank you," said Bradford, nodding, and with a quick, simultaneous
pressure of hands, the two men parted.
VI
Bradford has often since felt grateful to the Judge for that five years'
sentence, but never has he forgotten the happy thought that prompted the
capitalist to give him this last hour, in which to get into a fresh suit
and have his beard trimmed. Bradford wore a beard always now, not
because a handsome beard makes a handsome man handsomer, but because it
covered and hid the hideous scar in his chin that had been carved there
by the Sioux chief.
When the black porter bowed and showed Bradford into Mr. Manning's
private car, the pleasure of their late meeting and the Judge's kindly
greeting vanished instantly. It was all submerged and swept away,
obliterated and forgotten in the great wave of inexpressible joy that
now filled and thrilled his throbbing heart, for it was Mary Manning who
came forward to greet him. For nearly an hour she and her father had
been listening to the wonderful story of the last five years of the
engineer's life. When the wily General caught the drift of the young
lady's mind, and had been informed of the conditional engagement of the
young people, he left nothing unsaid that would add to the fame and
glory of the trail-maker. With radiant face she heard of his heroism,
tireless industry, and wonderful engineering feats; but when the
narrator came to tell how he had been captured and held and tortured by
the Indians, she slipped her trembling hand into the hand of her
father, and when he saw her hot tears falling he lifted the hand and
kissed it, leaving upon it tears of his own.
The Judge now produced his cigar case, and the General, bowing to the
young lady, followed the great financier to the other end of the car,
leaving Mary alone, for they had seen Bradford coming up the track.
The dew of her sweet sorrow was still upon her face when Bradford
entered, but the sunshine of her smile soon dried it up. The hands he
reached for escaped him. They were about his face; then their great joy
and the tears it brought blinded them, and the wild beating of their
happy hearts drowned their voices so that they could neither see nor
hear, and neither has ever been able to say just what happened.
On the day following this happy meeting, when the consolidated special
was rolling east-ward, while the Judge and the General smoked in the
latter's car, the tent boy brought a telegram back to the happy pair. It
was delivered to Miss Manning, and she read it aloud:
"WASHINGTON, May 11, 1869.
"GENERAL G.M. DODGE:
"In common with millions I sat yesterday and heard the mystic taps of
the telegraph battery announce the nailing of the last spike in the
Great Pacific Road. All honor to you, to Durant, to Jack and Dan
Casement, to Reed and the thousands of brave followers who have wrought
out this glorious problem, spite of changes, storms, and even doubts of
the incredulous, and all the obstacles you have now happily surmounted!
"W.T. SHERMAN,
"_General_."
"Well!" she exclaimed, letting her hands and the telegram fall in her
lap, "he doesn't even mention my hero."
"Oh, yes, he does, my dear," said Bradford, laughing. "I'm one of the
'thousands of brave followers.'"
Then they both laughed and forgot it, for they were too happy to bother
with trifles.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The subsidy from the Government was $16,000 a mile on the
plains, and $48,000 a mile in the mountains.]
THE BELLE OF ATHABASCA
Athabasca Belle did not burst upon Smith the Silent all at once, like a
rainbow or a sunrise in the desert. He would never say she had been
thrust upon him. She was acquired, he said, in an unguarded moment.
The trouble began when Smith was pathfinding on the upper Athabasca for
the new transcontinental. Among his other assets Smith had two camp
kettles. One was marked with the three initials of the new line, which,
at that time, existed only on writing material, empty pots, and equally
empty parliamentary perorations. The other was not marked at all. It was
the personal property of Jaquis, who cooked for Smith and his outfit.
The Belle was a fine looking Cree--tall, strong, _magnifique_. Jaquis
warmed to her from the start, but the Belle was not for Jaquis, himself
a Siwash three to one. She scarcely looked at him, and answered him
only when he asked if she'd _encore_ the pork and beans. But she looked
at Smith. She would sit by the hour, her elbow on her knee and her chin
in her hand, watching him wistfully, while he drew crazy, crooked lines
or pictured mountains with rivers running between them--all of which,
from the Belle's point of view, was not only a waste of time, but had
absolutely nothing to do with the case.
The Belle and her brown mother came to the camp of the Silent first one
glorious morn in the moon of August, with a basket of wild berries and a
pair of beaded moccasins. Smith bought both--the berries for Jaquis, out
of which he built strange pies, and the moccasins for himself. He called
them his night slippers, but as a matter of fact there was no night on
the Athabasca at that time. The day was divided into three shifts, one
long and two short ones,--daylight, dusk, and dawn. So it was daylight
when the Belle first fixed her large dark eyes upon the strong, handsome
face of Smith the Silent, as he sat on his camp stool, bent above a map
he was making. Belle's mother, being old in years and unafraid, came
close, looked at the picture for a moment, and exclaimed: "Him Jasper
Lake," pointing up the Athabasca.
"You know Jasper Lake?" asked the engineer, glancing up for the first
time.
"_Oui_," said the old woman (Belle's step-father was half French); "know
'im ver' well."
Smith looked her over as a matter of habit, for he allowed no man or
woman to get by him with the least bit of information concerning the
country through which his imaginary line lay. Then he glanced at Belle
for fully five seconds, then back to his blue print. Nobody but a
he-nun, or a man already wedded to the woods, could do that, but to the
credit of the camp it will go down that the chief was the only man in
the outfit who failed to feel her presence. As for Jaquis, the alloyed
Siwash, he carried the scar of that first meeting for six months, and
may, for aught I know, take it with him to his little swinging grave.
Even Smith remembers to this day how she looked, standing there on her
two trim ankles, that disappeared into her hand-turned sandals or faded
in the flute and fringe of her fawn skin skirt. Her full bosom rose and
fell, and you could count the beat of her wild heart in the throb of
her throat. Her cheeks showed a faint flush of red through the dark
olive,--the flush of health and youth,--her nostrils dilated, like those
of an Ontario high-jumper, as she drank life from the dewy morn, while
her eye danced with the joy of being alive. Jaquis sized and summed her
up in the one word "magnific." But in that moment, when she caught the
keen, piercing eye of the engineer, the Belle had a stroke that comes
sooner or later to all these wild creatures of the wilderness, but comes
to most people but once in a lifetime. She never forgot the gleam of
that one glance, though the Silent one was innocent enough.
It was during the days that followed, when she sat and watched him at
his work, or followed him for hours in the mountain fastnesses, that the
Belle of Athabasca lost her heart.
When he came upon a bit of wild scenery and stopped to photograph it,
the Belle stood back of him, watching his every movement, and when he
passed on she followed, keeping always out of sight.
The Belle's mother haunted him. As often as he broke camp and climbed a
little higher upstream, the brown mother moved also, and with her the
Belle.
"What does this old woman want?" asked the engineer of Jaquis one
evening when, returning to his tent, he found the fat Cree and her
daughter camping on his trail.
"She want that pot," said Jaquis.
"Then for the love of We-sec-e-gea, god of the Crees," said Smith, "give
it into her hands and bid her begone."
Jaquis did as directed, and the old Indian went away, but she left the
girl.
The next day Smith started on a reconnoissance that would occupy three
or four days. As he never knew himself when he would return, he never
took the trouble to inform Jaquis, the tail of the family.
After breakfast the Belle went over to her mother's. She would have
lunched with her mother from the much coveted kettle, but the Belle's
mother told her that she should return to the camp of the white man, who
was now her lord and master. So the Belle went back and lunched with
Jaquis, who otherwise must have lunched alone. Jaquis tried to keep her,
and wooed her in his half-wild way; but to her sensitive soul he was
repulsive. Moreover, she felt that in some mysterious manner her mother
had transferred her, together with her love and allegiance, to Smith the
Silent, and to him she must be true. Therefore she returned to the Cree
camp.
As the sinking sun neared the crest of the Rockies, the young Indian
walked back to the engineer's camp. As she strode along the new trail
she plucked wildflowers by the wayside and gathered leaves and wove them
into vari-colored wreaths, swinging along with the easy grace of a wild
deer.
Now some women would say she had not much to make her happy, but she was
happy nevertheless. She loved a man--to her the noblest, most god-like
creature of his kind,--and she was happy in abandoning herself to him.
She had lived in this love so long, had felt and seen it grow from
nothing to something formidable, then to something fine, until now it
filled her and thrilled her; it overspread everything, outran her
thoughts, brought the far-off mountains nearer, shortened the trail
between her camp and his, gave a new glow to the sunset, a new glory to
the dawn and a fresher fragrance to the wildflowers; the leaves
whispered to her, the birds came, nearer and sang sweeter; in short it
was her life--the sunshine of her soul. And that's the way a wild woman
loves.
And she was to see him soon. Perhaps he would speak to her, or smile on
her. If only he gave a passing glance she would be glad and content to
know that he was near. Alas, he came not at all. She watched with the
stars through the short night, slept at dawn, and woke to find Jaquis
preparing the morning meal. She thought to question Jaquis, but her
interest in the engineer, and the growing conviction that his own star
sank as his master's rose, rendered him unsafe as a companion to a young
bride whose husband was in the hills and unconscious of the fact that he
was wedded to anything save the wilderness and his work.
Jaquis not only refused to tell her where the engineer was operating,
but promised to strangle her if she mentioned his master's name again.
At last the long day died, the sunset was less golden, and the stars
sang sadder than they sang the day before. She watched the west, into
which he had gone and out of which she hoped he might return to her.
Another round of dusk and dawn and there came another day, with its
hours that hung like ages. When she sighed her mother scolded and Jaquis
swore. When at last night came to curtain the hills, she stole out under
the stars and walked and walked until the next day dawned. A lone wolf
howled to his kith, but they were not hungry and refused to answer his
call. Often, in the dark, she fancied she heard faint, feline footsteps
behind her. Once a big black bear blocked her trail, staring at her with
lifted muzzle wet with dew and stained with berry juice. She did not
faint nor scream nor stay her steps, but strode on. Now nearer and
nearer came the muffled footsteps behind her. The black bear backed from
the trail and kept backing, pivoting slowly, like a locomotive on a
turntable, and as she passed on, stood staring after her, his small eyes
blinking in babylike bewilderment. And so through the dusk and dark and
dawn this love-mad maiden walked the wilderness, innocent of arms, and
with no one near to protect her save the little barefooted bowman whom
the white man calls the God of Love.
Meanwhile away to the west, high in the hills, where the Findlay flowing
into the Pine makes the Peace, then cutting through the crest of the
continent makes a path for the Peace, Smith and his little army,
isolated, remote, with no cable connecting them with the great cities of
civilization, out of touch with the telegraph, away from the war
correspondent, with only the music of God's rills for a regimental band,
were battling bravely in a war that can end only with the conquest of a
wilderness. Ah, these be the great generals--these unheralded heroes
who, while the smoke of slaughter smudges the skies and shadows the sun,
wage a war in which they kill only time and space, and in the end,
without despoiling the rest of the world, win homes for the homeless.
These are the heroes of the Anglo-Saxon race.
* * * * *
Finding no trace of the trail-makers, the Belle faced the rising sun and
sought the camp of the Crees.
The mysterious shadow with the muffled tread, that had followed her
from the engineer's camp, shrank back into the bush as she passed down
the trail. That was Jaquis. He watched her as she strode by him,
uncertain as to whether he loved or hated her, for well he knew why she
walked the wilderness all night alone. Now the Gitche in his unhappy
heart made him long to lift her in his arms and carry her to camp, and
then the bad god, Mitche, would assert himself and say to the savage
that was in him, "Go, kill her. She despises her race and flings herself
at the white man's feet." And so, impelled by passion and stayed by
love, he followed her. The white man within him made him ashamed of his
skulking, and the Indian that was in him guided him around her and home
by a shorter trail.
That night the engineers returned, and when Smith saw the Cree in the
camp he jumped on Jaquis furiously.
"Why do you keep this woman here?" he demanded.
"I--keep? Me?" quoth Jaquis, blinking as bewildered as the black bear
had blinked at the Belle.
"Who but you?--you heathen!" hissed the engineer.
Now Jaquis, calling up the ghosts of his dead sires, asserted that it
was the engineer himself who was "keeping" the Cree. "You bought
her--she's yours," said Jaquis, in the presence of the company.
"You ill-bred ----" Smith choked, and reached for a tent prop. The next
moment his hand was at the Indian's throat. With a quick twist of his
collar band he shut off the Siwash's wind, choking him to the earth.
"What do you mean?" he demanded, and Jaquis, coughing, put up his hands.
"I meant no lie," said he. "Did you not give to her mother the camp
kettle? She has it, marked G.T.P."
"And what of that?"
"_Voilà_," said Jaquis, "because of that she gave to you the Belle of
Athabasca."
Smith dropped his stick, releasing the Indian.
"I did not mean she is sold to you. She is trade--trade for the empty
pot, the Belle--the beautiful. From yesterday to this day she followed
you, far, very far, to the foot of the Grande Côte, and nothing harmed
her. The mountain lion looked on her in terror, the timber wolf took to
the hills, the black bear backed from the trail and let her pass in
peace," said Jaquis, with glowing enthusiasm. It was the first time he
had talked of her, save to the stars and to We-sec-e-gea, and he glowed
and grew eloquent in praise of her.
"You take her," said Smith, with one finger levelled at the head of the
cook, "to the camp of the Crees. Say to her mother that your master is
much obliged for the beautiful gift, but he's too busy to get married
and too poor to support a wife."
* * * * *
From the uttermost rim of the ring of light that came from the
flickering fire la Belle the beautiful heard and saw all that had passed
between the two men. She did not throw herself at the feet of the white
man. Being a wild woman she did not weep nor cry out with the pain of
his words, that cut like cold steel into her heart. She leaned against
an aspen tree, stroking her throat with her left hand, swallowing with
difficulty. Slowly from her girdle she drew a tiny hunting-knife, her
one weapon, and toyed with it. She put the hilt to the tree, the point
to her bare breast, and breathed a prayer to We-sec-e-gea, god of the
Crees. She had only to throw the weight of her beautiful body on the
blade, sink without a moan to the moss, and pass, leaving the camp
undisturbed.
Smith marked the faintest hint of sarcasm in the half smile of the
Indian as he turned away.
"Come here," he cried. Jaquis approached cautiously. "Now, you skulking
son of a Siwash, this is to be skin for skin. If any harm comes to that
young Cree you go to your little hammock in the hemlocks--you
understand?"
"_Oui, Monsieur_," said Jaquis.
"Very well, then; remember--skin for skin."
Now to the Belle, watching from her shelter in the darkness, there was
something splendid in this. To hear her praises sung by the Siwash, then
to have the fair god, who had heard that story, champion her, to take
the place of her protector, was all new to her. "Ah, good God," she
sighed; "it is better, a thousand times better, to love and lose him
than to waste one's life, never knowing this sweet agony."
She felt in a vague way that she was soaring above the world and its
woes. At times, in the wild tumult of her tempestuous soul, she seemed
to be borne beyond it all, through beautiful worlds. Love, for her, had
taken on great white wings, and as he wafted her out of the wilderness
and into her heaven, his talons tore into her heart and hurt like hell,
yet she could rejoice because of the exquisite pleasure that surpassed
the pain.
"Sweet We-sec-e-gea," she sighed, "good god of my dead, I thank thee for
the gift of this great love that stays the steel when my aching heart
yearns for it. I shall not destroy myself and distress him, disturbing
him in his great work, whatever it is; but live--live and love him, even
though he send me away."
She kissed the burnished blade and returned it to her belt.
When Jaquis, circling the camp, failed to find her, he guessed that she
was gone, and hurried after her along the dim, starlit trail. When he
had overtaken her, they walked on together. Jaquis tried now to renew
his acquaintance with the handsome Cree and to make love to her. She
heard him in absolute silence. Finally, as they were nearing the Cree
camp, he taunted her with having been rejected by the white man.
"And my shame is yours," said she softly. "I love him; he sends me away.
You love me; I send you from me--it is the same."
Jaquis, quieted by this simple statement, said good-night and returned
to the tents, where the pathfinders were sleeping peacefully under the
stars.
And over in the Cree camp the Belle of Athabasca, upon her bed of
boughs, slept the sleep of the innocent, dreaming sweet dreams of her
fair god, and through them ran a low, weird song of love, and in her
dream Love came down like a beautiful bird and bore her out of this life
and its littleness, and though his talons tore at her heart and hurt,
yet was she happy because of the exquisite pleasure that surpassed all
pain.
PATHFINDING IN THE NORTHWEST
It was summer when my friend Smith, whose real name is Jones, heard that
the new transcontinental line would build by the way of Peace River Pass
to the Pacific. He immediately applied, counting something, no doubt, on
his ten years of field work in Washington, Oregon, and other western
states, and five years pathfinding in Canada.
The summer died; the hills and rills and the rivers slept, but while
they slept word came to my friend Smith the Silent, and he hurriedly
packed his sleds and set out.
His orders were, like the orders of Admiral Dewey, to do certain
things--not merely to try. He was to go out into the northern night
called winter, feel his way up the Athabasca, over the Smoky, follow the
Peace River, and find the pass through the Rockies.
If the simple story of that winter campaign could be written out it
would be finer than fiction. But it will never be. Only Smith the
Silent knows, and he won't tell.
Sometimes, over the pipe, he forgets and gives me glimpses into the
winter camp, with the sun going out like a candle: the hastily made camp
with the half-breed spotting the dry wood against the coming moment when
night would drop over the forest like a curtain over a stage; the
"lean-to" between the burning logs, where he dozes or dreams, barely
beyond the reach of the flames; the silence all about, Jaquis pulling at
his pipe, and the huskies sleeping in the snow like German babies under
the eiderdown. Sometimes, out of the love of bygone days, he tells of
long toilsome journeys with the sun hiding behind clouds out of which an
avalanche of snow falls, with nothing but the needle to tell where he
hides; of hungry dogs and half starved horses, and lakes and rivers
fifty and a hundred miles out of the way.
Once, he told me, he sent an engineer over a low range to spy out a
pass. By the maps and other data they figured that he would be gone
three days, but a week went by and no word from the pathfinder. Ten days
and no news. On the thirteenth day, when Smith was preparing to go in
search of the wanderer, the running gear of the man and the framework of
the dogs came into camp. He was able to smile and say to Smith that he
had been ten days without food, save a little tea. For the dogs he had
had nothing.
A few days rest and they were on the trail again, or on the "go" rather;
and you might know that disciple of Smith the Silent six months or six
years before he would, unless you worked him, refer to that ten days'
fast. They think no more of that than a Jap does of dying. It's all in
the day's work.
Suddenly, Smith said, the sun swung north, the days grew longer. The sun
grew hot and the snow melted on the south hills; the hushed rivers,
rending their icy bonds, went roaring down to the Lakes and out towards
the Arctic Ocean. And lo, suddenly, like the falling of an Arctic night,
the momentary spring passed and it was summer time.
Then it was that Smith came into Edmonton to make his first report, and
here we met for the first time for many snows.
Joyously, as a boy kicks the cover off on circus morning, this Northland
flings aside her winter wraps and stands forth in her glorious garb of
summer. The brooklets murmur, the rivers sing, and by their banks and
along the lakes waterfowl frolic, and overhead glad birds, that seem to
have dropped from the sky, sing joyfully the almost endless song of
summer. At the end of the long day, when the sun, as if to make up for
its absence, lingers, loath to leave us in the twilight, beneath their
wings the song-birds hide their heads, then wake and sing, for the sun
is swinging up over the horizon where the pink sky, for an hour, has
shown the narrow door through which the day is dawning.
The dogs and sleds have been left behind and now, with Jaquis the
half-breed "boy" leading, followed closely by Smith the Silent, we go
deeper and deeper each day into the pathless wilderness.
To be sure it is not all bush, all forest. At times we cross wide
reaches of wild prairie lands. Sometimes great lakes lie immediately in
front of us, compelling us to change our course. Now we come to a wide
river and raft our outfit over, swimming our horses. Weeks go by and we
begin to get glimpses of the Rockies rising above the forest, and we
push on. The streams become narrower as we ascend, but swifter and more
dangerous.
We do not travel constantly now, as we have been doing. Sometimes we
keep our camp for two or three days. The climbing is hard, for Smith
must get to the top of every peak in sight, and so I find it "good
hunting" about the camp.