CHAPTER I

THE SKY PILOT

A TALE OF THE FOOTHILLS

By Ralph Connor

PREFACE

The measure of a man's power to help his brother is the measure of the

love in the heart of him and of the faith he has that at last the good

will win. With this love that seeks not its own and this faith that

grips the heart of things, he goes out to meet many fortunes, but not

that of defeat.

This story is of the people of the Foothill Country; of those men of

adventurous spirit, who left homes of comfort, often of luxury, because

of the stirring in them to be and to do some worthy thing; and of those

others who, outcast from their kind, sought to find in these valleys,

remote and lonely, a spot where they could forget and be forgotten.

The waving skyline of the Foothills was the boundary of their lookout

upon life. Here they dwelt safe from the scanning of the world, freed

from all restraints of social law, denied the gentler influences of home

and the sweet uplift of a good woman's face. What wonder if, with the

new freedom beating in their hearts and ears, some rode fierce and hard

the wild trail to the cut-bank of destruction!

The story is, too, of how a man with vision beyond the waving skyline

came to them with firm purpose to play the brother's part, and by sheer

love of them and by faith in them, win them to believe that life is

priceless, and that it is good to be a man.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. The Foothills Country

II. The Company of the Noble Seven

III. The Coming of the Pilot

IV. The Pilot's Measure

V. First Blood

VI. His Second Wind

VII. The Last of the Permit Sundays

VIII. The Pilot's Grip

IX. Gwen

X. Gwen's First Prayers

XI. Gwen's Challenge

XII. Gwen's Canyon

XIII. The Canyon Flowers

XIV. Bill's Bluff

XV. Bill's Partner

XVI. Bill's Financing

XVII. How the Pinto Sold

XVIII. The Lady Charlotte

XIX. Through Gwen's Window

XX. How Bill Favored “Home-Grown Industries”

XXI. How Bill Hit the Trail

XXII. How the Swan Creek Church was Opened

XXIII. The Pilot's Last Port

THE SKY PILOT

CHAPTER I

THE FOOTHILLS COUNTRY

Beyond the great prairies and in the shadow of the Rockies lie the

Foothills. For nine hundred miles the prairies spread themselves out in

vast level reaches, and then begin to climb over softly rounded mounds

that ever grow higher and sharper till, here and there, they break

into jagged points and at last rest upon the great bases of the mighty

mountains. These rounded hills that join the prairies to the mountains

form the Foothill Country. They extend for about a hundred miles only,

but no other hundred miles of the great West are so full of interest

and romance. The natural features of the country combine the beauties

of prairie and of mountain scenery. There are valleys so wide that the

farther side melts into the horizon, and uplands so vast as to suggest

the unbroken prairie. Nearer the mountains the valleys dip deep and ever

deeper till they narrow into canyons through which mountain torrents

pour their blue-gray waters from glaciers that lie glistening between

the white peaks far away. Here are the great ranges on which feed herds

of cattle and horses. Here are the homes of the ranchmen, in whose wild,

free, lonely existence there mingles much of the tragedy and comedy, the

humor and pathos, that go to make up the romance of life. Among them are

to be found the most enterprising, the most daring, of the peoples of

the old lands. The broken, the outcast, the disappointed, these too

have found their way to the ranches among the Foothills. A country it is

whose sunlit hills and shaded valleys reflect themselves in the lives

of its people; for nowhere are the contrasts of light and shade more

vividly seen than in the homes of the ranchmen of the Albertas.

The experiences of my life have confirmed in me the orthodox conviction

that Providence sends his rain upon the evil as upon the good; else I

should never have set my eyes upon the Foothill country, nor touched its

strangely fascinating life, nor come to know and love the most striking

man of all that group of striking men of the Foothill country--the dear

old Pilot, as we came to call him long afterwards. My first year in

college closed in gloom. My guardian was in despair. From this distance

of years I pity him. Then I considered him unnecessarily concerned about

me--“a fussy old hen,” as one of the boys suggested. The invitation from

Jack Dale, a distant cousin, to spend a summer with him on his ranch in

South Alberta came in the nick of time. I was wild to go. My guardian

hesitated long; but no other solution of the problem of my disposal

offering, he finally agreed that I could not well get into more trouble

by going than by staying. Hence it was that, in the early summer of

one of the eighties, I found myself attached to a Hudson's Bay Company

freight train, making our way from a little railway town in Montana

towards the Canadian boundary. Our train consisted of six wagons

and fourteen yoke of oxen, with three cayuses, in charge of a French

half-breed and his son, a lad of about sixteen. We made slow enough

progress, but every hour of the long day, from the dim, gray, misty

light of dawn to the soft glow of shadowy evening, was full of new

delights to me. On the evening of the third day we reached the Line

Stopping Place, where Jack Dale met us. I remember well how my heart

beat with admiration of the easy grace with which he sailed down upon

us in the loose-jointed cowboy style, swinging his own bronco and the

little cayuse he was leading for me into the circle of the wagons,

careless of ropes and freight and other impedimenta. He flung himself

off before his bronco had come to a stop, and gave me a grip that made

me sure of my welcome. It was years since he had seen a man from home,

and the eager joy in his eyes told of long days and nights of lonely

yearning for the old days and the old faces. I came to understand this

better after my two years' stay among these hills that have a strange

power on some days to waken in a man longings that make his heart grow

sick. When supper was over we gathered about the little fire, while Jack

and the half-breed smoked and talked. I lay on my back looking up at the

pale, steady stars in the deep blue of the cloudless sky, and listened

in fullness of contented delight to the chat between Jack and the

driver. Now and then I asked a question, but not too often. It is

a listening silence that draws tales from a western man, not vexing

questions. This much I had learned already from my three days' travel.

So I lay and listened, and the tales of that night are mingled with the

warm evening lights and the pale stars and the thoughts of home that

Jack's coming seemed to bring.

Next morning before sun-up we had broken camp and were ready for our

fifty-mile ride. There was a slight drizzle of rain and, though rain and

shine were alike to him, Jack insisted that I should wear my mackintosh.

This garment was quite new and had a loose cape which rustled as I moved

toward my cayuse. He was an ugly-looking little animal, with more white

in his eye than I cared to see. Altogether, I did not draw toward him.

Nor did he to me, apparently. For as I took him by the bridle he snorted

and sidled about with great swiftness, and stood facing me with his feet

planted firmly in front of him as if prepared to reject overtures of

any kind soever. I tried to approach him with soothing words, but he

persistently backed away until we stood looking at each other at the

utmost distance of his outstretched neck and my outstretched arm. At

this point Jack came to my assistance, got the pony by the other side of

the bridle, and held him fast till I got into position to mount. Taking

a firm grip of the horn of the Mexican saddle, I threw my leg over his

back. The next instant I was flying over his head. My only emotion was

one of surprise, the thing was so unexpected. I had fancied myself a

fair rider, having had experience of farmers' colts of divers kinds, but

this was something quite new. The half-breed stood looking on, mildly

interested; Jack was smiling, but the boy was grinning with delight.

“I'll take the little beast,” said Jack. But the grinning boy braced me

up and I replied as carelessly as my shaking voice would allow:

“Oh, I guess I'll manage him,” and once more got into position. But no

sooner had I got into the saddle than the pony sprang straight up into

the air and lit with his back curved into a bow, his four legs gathered

together and so absolutely rigid that the shock made my teeth rattle.

It was my first experience of “bucking.” Then the little brute went

seriously to work to get rid of the rustling, flapping thing on his

back. He would back steadily for some seconds, then, with two or three

forward plunges, he would stop as if shot and spring straight into the

upper air, lighting with back curved and legs rigid as iron. Then he

would walk on his hind legs for a few steps, then throw himself with

amazing rapidity to one side and again proceed to buck with vicious

diligence.

“Stick to him!” yelled Jack, through his shouts of laughter. “You'll

make him sick before long.”

I remember thinking that unless his insides were somewhat more

delicately organized than his external appearance would lead one to

suppose the chances were that the little brute would be the last to

succumb to sickness. To make matters worse, a wilder jump than ordinary

threw my cape up over my head, so that I was in complete darkness. And

now he had me at his mercy, and he knew no pity. He kicked and plunged

and reared and bucked, now on his front legs, now on his hind legs,

often on his knees, while I, in the darkness, could only cling to

the horn of the saddle. At last, in one of the gleams of light that

penetrated the folds of my enveloping cape, I found that the horn had

slipped to his side, so the next time he came to his knees I threw

myself off. I am anxious to make this point clear, for, from the

expression of triumph on the face of the grinning boy, and his encomiums

of the pony, I gathered that he scored a win for the cayuse. Without

pause that little brute continued for some seconds to buck and plunge

even after my dismounting, as if he were some piece of mechanism that

must run down before it could stop.

By this time I was sick enough and badly shaken in my nerve, but the

triumphant shouts and laughter of the boy and the complacent smiles on

the faces of Jack and the half-breed stirred my wrath. I tore off the

cape and, having got the saddle put right, seized Jack's riding whip

and, disregarding his remonstrances, sprang on my steed once more, and

before he could make up his mind as to his line of action plied him so

vigorously with the rawhide that he set off over the prairie at full

gallop, and in a few minutes came round to the camp quite subdued, to

the boy's great disappointment and to my own great surprise. Jack

was highly pleased, and even the stolid face of the half-breed showed

satisfaction.

“Don't think I put this up on you,” Jack said. “It was that cape. He

ain't used to such frills. But it was a circus,” he added, going off

into a fit of laughter, “worth five dollars any day.”

“You bet!” said the half-breed. “Dat's make pretty beeg fun, eh?”

It seemed to me that it depended somewhat upon the point of view, but I

merely agreed with him, only too glad to be so well out of the fight.

All day we followed the trail that wound along the shoulders of the

round-topped hills or down their long slopes into the wide, grassy

valleys. Here and there the valleys were cut through by coulees through

which ran swift, blue-gray rivers, clear and icy cold, while from the

hilltops we caught glimpses of little lakes covered with wild-fowl that

shrieked and squawked and splashed, careless of danger. Now and then we

saw what made a black spot against the green of the prairie, and Jack

told me it was a rancher's shack. How remote from the great world, and

how lonely it seemed!--this little black shack among these multitudinous

hills.

I shall never forget the summer evening when Jack and I rode into

Swan Creek. I say into--but the village was almost entirely one of

imagination, in that it consisted of the Stopping Place, a long log

building, a story and a half high, with stables behind, and the store in

which the post-office was kept and over which the owner dwelt. But the

situation was one of great beauty. On one side the prairie rambled down

from the hills and then stretched away in tawny levels into the misty

purple at the horizon; on the other it clambered over the round, sunny

tops to the dim blue of the mountains beyond.

In this world, where it is impossible to reach absolute values, we are

forced to hold things relatively, and in contrast with the long,

lonely miles of our ride during the day these two houses, with their

outbuildings, seemed a center of life. Some horses were tied to the rail

that ran along in front of the Stopping Place.

“Hello!” said Jack, “I guess the Noble Seven are in town.”

“And who are they?” I asked.

“Oh,” he replied, with a shrug, “they are the elite Of Swan Creek; and

by Jove,” he added, “this must be a Permit Night.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, as we rode up towards the tie rail.

“Well,” said Jack, in a low tone, for some men were standing about the

door, “you see, this is a prohibition country, but when one of the boys

feels as if he were going to have a spell of sickness he gets a permit

to bring in a few gallons for medicinal purposes; and of course, the

other boys being similarly exposed, he invites them to assist him in

taking preventive measures. And,” added Jack, with a solemn wink, “it is

remarkable, in a healthy country like this, how many epidemics come near

ketching us.”

And with this mystifying explanation we joined the mysterious company of

the Noble Seven.