Produced by Marlo Dianne
THE HOMESTEADERS
A NOVEL OF THE CANADIAN WEST
by
Robert J. C. Stead
Author of "Kitchener and Other Poems," "Songs of the Prairie," "The
Cow Puncher," ETC
The Musson Book Company Limited
Publishers Toronto
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1916.
CONTENTS
PRELUDE
I. THE BECK OF FORTUNE
II. INTO THE WILDERNESS
III. PRAIRIE LAND
IV. ROUGHING IT
V. THE SHORES OF THE INFINITE
VI. IN THE SPELL OF THE MIRAGE
VII. THE CALL OF THE FARTHER WEST
VIII. INTO THE NIGHT
IX. CRUMBLING CASTLES
X. INTO THE FARTHER WEST
XI. THE PRICE OF "SUCCESS"
XII. A WHIFF OF NEW ATMOSPHERE
XIII. SETTING THE TRAP
XIV. THE GAMBLERS
XV. THE LURE OF EASY MONEY
XVI. THE HONOUR OF THIEVES
XVII. THE FIGHT IN THE FOOTHILLS
XVIII. CONVERGING TRAILS
XIX. PRISONERS OF FATE
XX. AN INQUEST--AND SOME EXPLANATIONS
THE HOMESTEADERS
PRELUDE
Six little slates clattered into place, and six little figures stood
erect between their benches.
"Right! Turn!" said the master. "March! School is dismissed"; and six
pairs of bare little legs twinkled along the aisle, across the
well-worn threshold, down the big stone step, and into the dusty
road, warm with the rays of the Indian summer sun.
The master watched them from the open window until they vanished
behind a ridge of beech trees that cut his vision from the
concession. While they remained within sight a smile played upon the
features of his strong, sun-burned face, but as the last little
calico dress was swallowed by the wood the smile died down, and for a
moment he stood, a grave and thoughtful statue framed within the
white pine casings of the sash. His sober grey eyes stared unseeing
into the forest, while the light wind that stirred the golden maple
leaves toyed gently with his unruly locks.
His brown study lasted only a moment. With a quick movement he walked
to the blackboard, caught up a section of sheepskin, and began
erasing the symbols of the day's instructions.
"Well, I suppose there's reward in heaven," he said to himself, as he
set the little schoolroom in order. "There isn't much here. The
farmers will pay a man more to doctor their sick sheep than to teach
their children. But, of course, they get both mutton and wool from a
sheep. I won't stand it longer than the spring. If others can take
the chance I can take it too. If it were not for her I would go
to-morrow."
The last remark seemed to unlink a new chain of thought. The grey
eyes lit up again. He wielded the broom briskly for a minute, then
tossed it in a corner, fastened the windows, slipped a little folder
into his pocket, locked the door behind him, carefully placed the key
under the stone step where the first child in the morning would find
it, and swung in a rapid stride down a by-path leading from the
little schoolhouse into the forest.
Ten minutes' quick walking in the woods, now glorious in all their
autumn splendour, brought him to a point where the sky stood up, pale
blue, evasive, through the trees. The next moment he was at the
water's edge, and a limpid lake stretched away to where the forests
of the farther shore mingled hazily with sky and water. The point
where he stood was a little bay, ringed with water-worn stones and
hemmed around by the forest, except for one wedge of blue that
broadened into the distance. He glanced about, as though expecting
someone; he whistled a line of a popular song, but the only reply was
from a saucy eavesdropper which, perched on a near-by limb, trilled
back its own liquid notes in answer.
"I may as well improve the moments consulting my chart," he remarked
to his undulating image in the water. "This thing of embarking on two
new seas at once calls for skilful piloting." He seated himself on a
stone, drew from his pocket the folder, and spread a map before him.
In a few moments he was so engrossed that he did not hear the almost
noiseless motion of a canoe as it thrust its brown nose into the blue
wedge before him. The canoe slid with its own momentum gracefully
through the quiet waters, suddenly revealing a picture for the heart
of any artist. Kneeling near its stern, her paddle held aloft and
dripping, her brown arms and browner hair glistening in the mellow
sun, her face bright with the light of its own expectancy, was a
lithe and beautiful girl. In an instant her eye located the young man
on the bank, and her lips moulded as though to speak; but when she
saw how unobserved she was she remained silent and upright as an
Indian while the canoe slipped gently toward the shore. Presently it
cushioned its nose in the velvety sand. She rose silently from her
seat, and stole on moccasined tip-toes along the stones until she
could have touched his hair with her fingers. But her eyes fell over
his shoulder on the papers before him.
"Always at your studies," she cried, as he sprang eagerly to his
feet. "You must be seeking a professorship. But I suppose you have to
be always brushing up," she continued, banteringly. "Your oldest
pupil must be--let me see--not less than eight?"
He smothered her banter with his affection, but she stole the map
from his fingers.
"I declare, if it isn't Manitoba! What next? Siberia or Patagonia? I
thought you were still in the Eastern Townships."
"So I am--in school. But out of school I am spending a good deal of
my time in Manitoba, Mary."
She caught a grave note in his voice as he said her name. Seizing his
cheeks between her hands she turned his face to her. "Answer me, John
Harris. You are not thinking of going to Manitoba!"
"Suppose I say I am?"
"Then I am going too!"
"Mary!"
"John! Nothing unusual about a wife going with her husband, is
there?"
"No, of course, but you know--"
"Yes, I know"--glancing at the ring on her finger. "This still stands
at par, doesn't it?"
"Yes, dear," he answered, raising the ring to his lips. "You know it
does. But to venture into that wilderness means--you see, it means so
much more to a woman than to a man."
"Not as much as staying at home--alone. You didn't really think I
would do that?"
"No, not exactly that. Let us sit down and I will tell you what I
thought. Here, let me get the cushion...There, that's better. Now let
me start at the beginning.
"Until you came here last summer--until all this happened, you
know--I was quite satisfied to go on teaching--"
"And I have sown discontent--"
"Please don't interrupt. Teaching seemed as good as anything else--"
"As good as anything else! Better than anything else, I should say.
What is better than training the tender child, inspiring him with
your ideals--"
"Oh, I know all about that. Until I began to have some genuine ideals
of my own I was satisfied with it. But now--well, everything is
different."
"I know," she answered. "The salary won't support two. There's the
rub."
They sat for some minutes, gazing dreamily across the broad sheet of
silver.
"And so you are going to Manitoba?" she said at length.
"Yes. There are possibilities there. It's a gamble, and that is why I
didn't want to share it with you--at first. I thought I would spend a
year; locate a homestead; get some kind of a house built; perhaps
break some land. Then I would come back."
"And you weren't going to give me a word in all those preparations
for our future? You have a lot to learn yet, John. You won't find it
in that folder, either."
He laughed lightly--a happy, boyish laugh. For weeks the
determination to seek his fortune in the then almost unknown Canadian
West had been growing upon him, and as it grew he shrank more and
more from disclosing his plans to his _fiancee_. Had she been one of
the country girls of the neighbourhood, a daughter of the sturdy
backwoods pioneers, bred to hard work in field and barnyard, he would
have hesitated less. But she was sprung from gentler stock. It seemed
almost profane to think of her in the lonely life of a homesteader on
the bleak, unsettled plains--to see her in the monotony and drudgery
of the pioneer life. He had been steeling himself for the ordeal;
schooling himself with arguments; fortressing his resolve,
unconsciously, perhaps, with the picture of his own heroism in
braving the unknown. And she had scaled every breastwork at a bound,
and captured the citadel by the adroit diplomacy of apparent
surrender.
She had snatched his confession at an unguarded moment. He had not
meant to tell her so much--so soon. As he thought over the wheels he
had set in motion their possible course staggered him, and he found
himself arguing against the step he contemplated.
"It's a gamble," he repeated. "The agricultural possibilities of the
country have not been established. It may be adapted only to buffalo
and Indians. They say the Selkirk settlers have seen hardships
compared with which Ontario pioneers lived in luxury...We may be far
back from civilization, far from neighbours, or doctors, or churches,
or any of those things which we take as a matter of course."
"Then you will need me with you, John, and I am going."
She could not mistake the look of admiration in his eyes. "Mary," he
said, "you are a hero. I didn't think it was in you. I mean I--"
"A heroine, if you please," she corrected. "But I am not that--not
the least bit. I want go because--because to go with you, even to
Manitoba, is not nearly so dreadful as to stay home without you."
"But come," said the girl, springing lightly to her feet, "we have
matters of great moment for immediate consideration."
He was at her heels. One hand resting on his strong arm sufficed to
steady her firm body as she tip-toed over the stones. Somewhere in
the canoe she found a parcel, wrapped in a white napkin. Under a
friendly beech she laid her dainties before him.
In a crimson glory the sun had sunk behind the black forest across
the lake. The silver waters had draped in mist their fringe of
inverted trees along the shore, and lay, passive and breathing and
very still, beneath the smooth-cutting canoe... One by one the stars
came out in the heavens, and one by one their doubles wavered and
mimicked in the lake. A duller point of light bespoke a settler's
cabin on the distant shore.
"And we shall build our own home, and live our own lives, and love
each other--always,--only, for ever and ever?" she breathed.
"For ever and ever," he answered.
A waterfowl cut the air in his sharp, whistling flight. The last
white shimmer of daylight faded from the surface of the lake. The
lovers floated on, gently, joyously, into their ocean of hope and
happiness.
CHAPTER I
THE BECK OF FORTUNE
The last congratulations had been offered; the last good wishes,
somewhat mixed with tears, had been expressed. The bride, glowing in
the happy consciousness of her own beauty, and deified by the great
tenderness that enveloped her new estate like a golden mist, said her
farewells with steady voice and undrooping eyes. Once only, when two
frail arms drew her to the great mother-heart that was fighting with
joy and unspoken sorrow through its travail of the soul, did their
bright rays moisten and tremble like sun-shafts in a pool. It was for
the moment only; one hallowing kiss on the dear, white cheek; then,
with uplifted head, she said good-bye, and the mother smiled upon her
in a pride that was deeper than her pain. The breed that had not
feared, a generation back, to cross the seas and carve a province and
a future from the forest, was not a breed to withhold its most
beautiful and noble from the ventures of the greater West.
It had been a busy winter for John Harris, and this, although the
consummation of his great desire, was but the threshold to new
activities and new outlets for his intense energies. Since the face
and form of Mary Allan had first enraptured him in his little
backwoods school district, a vast ambition had possessed his soul,
and to-day, which had seemed to be its end, he now knew to be but its
beginning. The ready consent of his betrothed to share his life in
the unknown wilderness between the Red River and the Rocky Mountains
had been a tide which, taken at its flood, might well lead him on to
fortune. At the conclusion of his fall term he had resigned his
position as teacher, and with his small savings had set about
accumulating equipment essential to the homesteader. A team of
horses, cows, a few ducks, geese, and hens; a plough, a wagon, a
sleigh, a set of carpenter's tools; a gun, an axe, a compass, a chest
of medicine, a box of books; a tent, bedding, spare clothing--these
he had gathered together at the village store or at farmers' "sales,"
and the doing so had almost exhausted the winter and his money.
Because his effects were not enough to fill a car he had "doubled up"
with Tom Morrison, a fine farmer whose worldly success had been
somewhat less than his deserts, and who bravely hoped to mend his
broken fortunes where land might be had for the taking. Their car had
already gone forward, with Morrison's hired man nestling obviously in
the hay, and two others hid under the mangers. When railways were
invented they were excepted from the protection of the Eighth
Commandment.
So John Harris and his bride took the passenger train from her city
home, while their goods and chattels, save for their personal
baggage, rumbled on in a box-car or crowded stolidly into congested
side-tracks as the exigencies of traffic required.
At a junction point they were transferred from the regular passenger
service to an immigrant train. Immigrant trains, in the spring of
'eighty-two, were somewhat more and less than they now are. The
tourist sleeper, with its comfortable berths, its clean linen, its
kitchen range, and its dusky attendant, restrained to an attitude of
agreeable deference by his anticipation of a gratuity, was a grey
atom of potentiality in the brain of an unknown genius. Even the
colonist car, which has done noble service in later days in the
peopling of the Prairie West, was only in the early stages of its
evolution. The purpose of immigrant trains was to move people. To
supply comforts as well as locomotion was an extravagance undreamed
of in transportation.
The train was full. Every seat was taken; aisles were crowded with
standing passengers who stumbled over bundles and valises with every
pitch in the uncertain road-bed; women fought, bravely with memories
too recent to be healed, and children crowed in lusty abandon or
shrieked as they fell between the slippery seats. The men were making
acquaintances; the communities from which they came were sufficiently
interwoven to link up relationships with little difficulty, and
already they were exchanging anecdotes in high hilarity or discussing
plans and prospects with that mutual sympathy which so quickly arises
among those who seek their fortunes together under strange
conditions.
One or two of the passengers had already made the trip to Manitoba,
and were now on the journey a second time, accompanied by their wives
and families. These men were soon noted as individuals of some
moment; they became the centre of little knots of conversation, and
their fellow-immigrants hung in reverent attention upon every word
from their lips. Their description of the great plains, where one
might look as far as the eye could carry in every direction without
seeing house or tree or any obstruction of the vision, fell with all
the wonder of the Arabian Nights upon the eager company. Stories of
the trail, of Red River cart and ox-team, of duck shooting by the
prairie sleughs, the whiff of black powder from their muzzle-loaders
and the whistle of sharp wings against the sky; of the clatter of
wild geese which made sleep impossible, and the yelp of prairie
wolves snapping up through the darkness; of thunder and lightning, of
tempest and rain, of storm and blizzard and snow and cold--cold that
crackled in the empty heavens like breaking glass and withered the
cheek like fire; of Indians, none too certain, slipping like
moccasined ghosts down the twilight, or peering unexpectedly through
cabin windows; of hardship and privation and strength and courage and
possibilities beyond the measure of the imagination--these fell from
the lips of the favoured old-timers, punctuated with jest and
prophecy and nicely-timed intervals of silence.
"And is there no stones there, or stumps?" asked a woman, big of
bicep and deep of chest from years of wrestling with the rocks and
timbers of Lanark. "Has the bush all been cleared away?"
"Bush? There's no bush to clear. The prairie's as bald as yer
table--no reflection on yer cookin', ma good woman, but so it is,
excep' for the grass that tickles yer fingers as ye walk an' the
pea-vine that up-ends ye when ye're no thinkin'. Bush! Ah've burnt
more bush from ma ten-acre clearin' than ye'll find in a dozen
counties. 'Deed, ye'll think a little more bush 'd be a guid thing
when ye have yer house to build an' a hungry stove to keep roarin'
from November to April."
"But whereby do they make their fences, if they ha' no cedar rails?"
demanded the woman, still unconvinced.
"Fences? An' why for would ye fence a farm, ye unsociable body? To
keep the gophers out? Or to keep the badgers in? Seein' ye have all
out-doors for yer cattle, an' the days of the buffalo are over,
thanks to the white man's powder an' shot, what would ye have with
fences?"
"But are ye sure it has no been all ploughed some time?" persisted
the woman, who could not bring herself to believe that Nature,
unaided, had left great areas ready for the hand of the husbandman. A
life of environment amid forests and rocks had sorely cramped her
imagination.
"Ah'm no sayin' for sure, but whoever ploughed it took a man's order.
It will be a thousand miles long, Ah'm thinkin', an' nobody knows how
wide. Pioneers like you an' me ha' been workin' our hands off in
Canada" (it was a trick of the old-timers to think only of the
Eastern Provinces as Canada), "an' in a hundred years we have no
cleared what'd be a garden patch to that farm out yonder. Ah'm
thinkin' it was a bigger Hand than yours or mine that did that
clearin'."
"Tell us about the crops," said one of the men passengers. "What like
wheat can ye grow?"
"Like corn," said the narrator, with great deliberation. "Heads like
ears o' corn. Wheat that grows so fast ye can hear it. Nothin'
uncommon to walk into wheat-fields when they's knee-high, an' have to
fight yer way out like a jungle."
"Is the Injuns werry big?" piped a little voice. "My pa's go'n'to
make me a bone-arrow so I can kill 'em all up."
"That's a brave soldier," said the man, drawing the child to his
knee. "But Ah know a better way to fight Indians than with bows an'
arrows. D'ye want me to tell ye a story?"
"'S about Moses?"
"No, Ah ain't quite up-to-date on Moses, but Ah can tell ye a story
about a better way to fight Indians than with arrows an' powder. Ah
fight 'em with flour an' blankets an' badger-meat, an' it's a long
way better."
The child climbed up on the friendly knee, and interested himself in
the great silver watch-chain that looped convenient to his fingers.
"Go on wif your story, man," he said. "I's listenin'."
And big Aleck McCrae forgot the immigrants crowded around, forgot the
lurch of the train and the window-glimpse of forests heavy-blanketed
with snow, as he ploughed his fertile imagination and spread a sudden
harvest of wonderment before the little soul that clung to his great
watch-chain.
Harris and his young bride found much to occupy their attention.
Their minds were big with plans, nebulous and indefinite but charged
with potentiality, which they should put into effect when they had
selected their prairie home. To the young girl, naturally of romantic
temperament, the journey of life upon which they had so recently
embarked together took on something of the glamour of knightly
adventure. Through the roseate lens of early womanhood the vague,
undefined difficulties that loomed before her were veiled in a mist
of glory, as she felt that no sacrifice could really hurt, no
privation could cut too deep, while she was fulfilling her destiny as
wife and comrade to the bravest and best of men. The vast plains,
heart-breaking in their utter emptiness, could only be full to
her--full of life, and love, and colour; full of a happiness too
great to be contained. She watched the gaunt trees rising naked from
the white forest, and her mind flitted on a thousand miles in
advance, while on the cold window-sill her fingers tapped time to the
click of the car wheels underneath.
Harris, too, was busy with his thoughts. He measured the obstacles
ahead with the greater precision of the masculine mind. To him, love
was not a magician's wand to dissolve his difficulties in thin air,
but a mighty power which should enable him to uproot them from his
path. No matter what stood in the way--what loneliness, what
hardship, what disappointment and even disillusionment--he should
fight his way out to ultimate victory for the sake of the dear girl
at his side. As she watched the wintry landscape dreamily through the
window he shot quick glances at her fine face; the white brow, the
long lashes tempering the light of her deep magnetic eyes; the
perfect nose, through whose thin walls was diffused the faintest pink
against a setting of ivory; lips, closed and tender as in the sleep
of a little child; chin, strong, but not too strong; and a neck full
and beautiful, the whole forming a picture of purity, gentleness, and
confidence which set his being aglow with the joy of immeasurable
possession. As he thought of her love, her faith, her confidence, he
swore in his own big heart that neither harm nor want nor sorrow
should come upon her; that through every adversity of life he would
be her protector, her champion, her defence. And so in the charm and
mirage of their young dream they rode dauntlessly, joyously, into the
unknown.
With Ned Beacon, the trusty hired man, in charge of the carload of
effects, under the direction of Tom Morrison, Harris was relieved of
many duties and responsibilities that would have broken in somewhat
rudely on his dream. Traffic was congested with the immigrant
movement; cars were side-tracked at nameless places for indefinite
periods, but stock had to be fed and cared for; bonds had to be
provided, and all the conditions of departmental red tape complied
with when the effects entered the United States, for in 1882 the
All-Canadian railway was a young giant fighting for life with the
mighty rocks of the North Shore route, and railway traffic with the
New West was, perforce, billed over American roads. These details and
a score of others called for patience, for tact, and a judicious
distribution of dollar bills. Harris made a mental note of his
obligation to Tom Morrison in the matter. He was shrewd enough to
surmise that this was the farmer's very practical wedding gift, but
he took debit for it nevertheless.
And so the journey wore on. As day succeeded day to the monotonous
rumble of the car wheels the immigrants became better acquainted, and
friendships took root that in after years were to brave every storm
of adversity and bloom forth in the splendid community of spirit and
sacrifice which particularly distinguished the pioneers. But the
strain of travel drew heavily upon physical endurance; meals eaten
stale from lunch-baskets, or hastily snatched at wayside stations;
the cramp of days spent in the crowded seats; lack of exercise and
lack of sleep; these laid their heavy finger on the strongest and
heartiest. But one night the word went round that daylight would see
them back on Canadian soil, and the lagging spirit of the travellers
was revived. Someone struck up an impromptu song, parodied from a
well-known hymn; men, and children joined in the chorus as they
caught the words, and rolled it forth with a vigour that vibrated
every timber of the car.
"O, Prairie Land, sweet Prairie Land,
Where everyone joins heart and hand,"
they sang, and the sociability of the party teemed to swell with the
volume of the song. A bond of human interest, human
interdependence--perhaps, even, some phase of human suffering, was
already linking them together with links of steel that should
withstand every shock of the coming years, and bind together the
foundations of a mighty land.
In the cold grey of a March morning, when the sun had not yet
dispelled the mists of night, and the fringing woods back from the
Red River loomed white and spectral through the frost, they
re-entered the Empire, and in a few minutes were detraining at
Emerson, the boundary town and gateway to the prairies which for a
thousand miles stretched into the mysteries of the unknown.