Irish Wit--Bears?--Death on the Red Pine Lake--A Grave in the Catholic
Cemetery--The First Dog-train--A Christmas Fête--Compulsory
Temperance--Contraband Goods--The Prisoner wins the Day--Whisky on the
Island--The Smuggler turned Detective--A Fatal Frolic--"Mr. K----'s Legs".
The chimneys in Mr. C----'s house were built of mud, and one of them,
which smoked whenever a fire was lighted, had to be pulled down and
rebuilt. The workmen, who were of various nationalities--Carrière an
Indian, old Cahill an Irishman, a Scotchman, and a Mennonite, who thumped
the mud mortar with a dogged perseverance that was quite amusing--were
all engaged on this chimney. One day I heard Carrière contradict an
assertion of Cahill's with regard to the work, calling it "a d----d lie!"
Stepping back from the foot of the ladder on which Carrière stood, the
old Irishman lifted his straw hat with the air of a courtier, and
replied politely, "Carrière, ye're a gintleman! an' _that's_
another."
Before the chimney was quite finished, Mr. and Mrs. C---- went down to
Kuwatin to spend a few days, leaving me with the maid and old Cahill to
superintend the house-cleaning; and many a half-hour's amusement had I,
listening to the old man's reminiscences of Ireland. When he found that I
knew and took an interest in many of the people in his own country his
delight was unbounded. The height of his ambition seemed to be to have
"tin min undher him," and his greatest trial was "huntin' thim tarmints
of cows." He was the butt of all the jokes and tricks in the camps round,
yet he took everything good-naturedly; "the boys must have their laugh
sometimes," being his only comment. He said he was only thirty-seven,
but, according to his own account, he had been "kept at school till he
was sixteen, lived tin years on the Knight o' Glynne's estate, and gone
fishin' with him in the Shannon, been twinty-five years with Colonel
Kitchener in Limerick, siven years undher Mr. Usborne of Aruprior Canady
West, and knew the Ottawa as well as any man, two years with his brother
in Michigan and two years in Kuwatin, and all the fault of the editor of
the _Ottawa Times_ newspaper, for praisin' up the country and
tellin' lies about the wages."
Cahill always dressed in his best on Sunday. How he managed to get up his
white shirts was a mystery. To be sure, one was made to last several
Sundays, for when one side got dirty he turned the other out. The navvies
called him the forest ranger, because he always took the gun with him
when he went for the cows, and each day as he passed the shanties on his
way back empty-handed, they chaffed him about his want of sport. One
evening he returned as usual, apparently empty-handed, but coming into
the kitchen for the milk-pails, he produced from his pockets five
partridges and four pigeons. When I asked him why he did not carry them
to show the men that he did shoot something sometimes, he gave me a
knowing look and said, "Shure, I wouldn't give thim that satisfaction."
We were glad of the game, as a change from the continual salt meat and
fish, being unable to get fresh meat until November, and then only
Montana beef. The second year the contractor bought only Canadian cattle.
The difference in the meat is very great, the one being hard and full of
thread-like sinews, the other juicy and tender.
The evening before the September mail went out, I was sitting up late
writing letters, when Mrs. C---- in a frightened tone called me to
"_listen to that queer noise_"--a crunching, rustling sound from the
rocks west of the house, just as if some heavy animal was making its way
through the underbrush and dry moss. Rumours of the vicinity of bears had
reached us that day, and we jumped at once to the conclusion that Bruin
was upon us. What was to be done? We were quite certain the poor calf,
tethered to a stump on the grass plot, would fall an easy victim. Then
all the windows were wide open downstairs, and we did not think it
probable Bruin would respect the mosquito-netting sufficiently for us to
depend upon it as a defence. Mr. C---- and the men were away down the line,
and the doctor, who had come in that day, was enjoying a slumber, from
which it seemed cruel to disturb him after his hard day's tramp. However,
as the noise increased, and seemed nearer every moment, it had to be
done. Did you ever try to wake a very sound sleeper, making apparently
noise enough to awaken the dead, and when about to give it up in despair
have him answer, after your last effort, in a mild, good-naturedly
aggravating tone, which impresses you with the belief that he has only
closed his eyes for a moment's meditation? Just so did our excellent
Esculapius. Imploring him to get up, and telling him that the bears were
upon us, I rushed to obey Mrs. C----, who screamed to me to shut all the
windows. While I was scrambling on to the kitchen table to reach the
last, the doctor appeared, very much _en déshabille_, with his hair
rumpled and a general air of incompleteness about him, demanding the
whereabouts of the bear; and at the same moment Mrs. C----, in her
night-dress, leant over the banisters above, listening with all her ears
for the answer. The absurdity of the whole scene so struck me that I could
scarcely refrain from laughing outright. Sallying forth, armed with a big
stick, the valiant doctor drove out from behind the wood-pile on the
rock--a large, half-starved dog, who was trying to worry a meal off the
dried hide of a defunct cow!
The night was brilliant; bright moonlight lay like a long string of
diamonds on the bosom of the lake; a blue, cloudless sky spread over our
heads; but far away to the south a great bank of murky clouds, lined with
silver, was momentarily rent by fierce flashes of forked lightning,
followed by the muttering of distant thunder.
In November a very sad accident occurred, by which Mr. C---- lost one of
his staff. The weather was cold and disagreeable, just the few transition
days between the beautiful Indian summer and clear Canadian winter. Until
then the thermometer had registered 70 degrees in the shade at noon, but
the change had come suddenly, as it always does in Manitoba, and in a
few days the smaller lakes had frozen over wholly, but the larger ones only
partially. The mail had been delayed in consequence of there being no
means of passage either by land or water. On the 10th Mr. W---- and Mr.
K---- dined at Inver, and the former resisted all persuasions to remain
until the morning, being anxious to reach his station, Ingolf, next day
in time to intercept the expected mail-carrier, and feeling sure he could
reach the intermediate station, Kalmar, before dark. He left about three
o'clock. What seeming trifles sometimes make all the difference between
life and death! That day dinner was half an hour late, an unusual thing
in our punctual house, and if he had only had that half-hour more of
daylight, his fate would have been changed. He crossed the three first
lakes in safety upon the ice, and naturally thought that he should find
the fourth equally firm, forgetting that the sun had been, shining on the
north side with a heat doubled by the high, rocky shore. He attempted to
cross, but, alas, never reached the other side.
The next evening (Saturday), not hearing him work the telegraph, Mr. K----,
who had been detained at Inver, asked Kalmar when Mr. W---- left, and
the answer that he had not seen him told us the sad news at once. Next
morning at daybreak a party went in search of the unfortunate man, and
found his body not thirty feet from the shore. His hat, profile (or map),
and the long pole carried by all who have to cross unsound ice, were
floating near. His large boots, which were so strapped round his waist
that it was impossible to get them off, had kept him down. The lake (Red
Pine) is small but deep, and he had died alone in the forest, with only
the giant rocks around him to echo back his dying cries. While I write,
memory recalls his laughing air, when telling me that morning how he had
tried to cross the narrows of our lake, but had desisted, fearing a
ducking on such a cold day; and I, pointing to his immense boots, said
they were scarcely fit to wear when running such risks. How little I
dreamt what harm they were doomed to do! His great brown eyes, with the
sad, far-away look in them, as if, unknown to himself, they saw into the
future; his graceful, manly figure, as he sprang up the hill behind the
house, and his cheery "Good-bye, till I see you again," can never be
forgotten.
When the winter roads became passable, they took him into Winnipeg, and
laid him in the Roman Catholic cemetery there--alone, away from all he
loved, without a kindly hand to tend his last resting-place. His death
cast a gloom over all our party. Though grieving for him and missing him
continually, we could never realize that he was really dead. And the
knowledge that it was so even to us made our hearts fill with sympathy
for one far away, to whom the sad tidings would have more than the
bitterness of death.
Our great excitement after winter had set in in earnest was the arrival
of the first dog-train. Hearing the shrill "Marsh-sha" (Marcha) of the
driver, we all rushed to the window to see the pretty beasts, in their
gaily-worked saddle-cloths and merry bells, come down the hill; then,
when a halt was called, to watch them sit down on their haunches and look
proudly about them, as if quite aware of the interest they excited. The
taboggans they drew were not heavily laden, and as far as I can judge
from my limited experience, the dogs are invariably kindly treated by
their drivers; all looked well fed and in good condition. During the
summer, and sometimes in the winter, when the poor Indians themselves are
more than half-starved, it is little wonder that the dogs fare as badly
as their masters, and look lean and miserable.
The winter of 1878 was mild and open, more so than had been known in the
North-west for thirty years. The snow had vanished almost completely from
the portages, and water covered the ice on many of the lakes. When, at
Christmas, the staff accepted Mrs. C----'s invitation to spend the day at
Inver, the question was whether they would come with dogs or canoes?
Neither, however, were practicable, and they had to walk--some of them
eighteen miles.
We amused ourselves icing the cake, inventing devices, with the aid of
scraps of telegraph wire, as supports for the upper decorations,
decorating the house with cedar and balsam wreaths, and providing as good
a dinner as it was possible to obtain in the woods. With the exception of
having nothing for our guests to drink, we succeeded tolerably well.
Being within the limits of prohibitory laws, it was necessary to ask the
Lieutenant-governor of Manitoba for an especial "permit" to have wine
sent out; and we were answered that, "if the men had to do without
whisky, the gentlemen might do without wine." So we had to content
ourselves with half a glass of sherry each, the remains of some smuggled
out with our luggage in the spring.
We soon had proof that the men rebelled against the prohibitory law. The
presence of whisky being suspected in a neighbouring camp, a constable
who had been but recently appointed, and was anxious to show his zeal,
never rested until he had discovered the smuggler and brought him to
justice; the clause that the informer was entitled to half the fine of
fifty dollars not diminishing his ardour.
To a lawyer the proceedings would have been amusing, for all parties
concerned were novices in their respective _rôles_. The justice of
the peace, with a great idea of his own importance, the majesty of the
law, and the necessity for carrying it out to the letter, had obtained
several manuals for the guidance of county justices of the peace and
stipendiary magistrates, over the technicalities of which he spent many a
sleepless hour. No sooner had he mastered the drift of one act, than the
next repealed so many of its clauses that the poor man became hopelessly
bewildered. Handcuffs there were none, neither was there a lock-up, and
the constable spent his time in keeping guard over the prisoner, being
paid two dollars a day for the service. The latter was fed and housed,
and, not having been overburdened with work or wages for some time, did
not object to the incarceration.
Ultimately he was tried, found guilty, and fined fifty dollars or a month
in jail. Many arguments arose between magistrate and constable, as the
latter, having served in the United States, and there learned a
smattering of Yankee law, was resolved to make his voice heard in the
case. The inability of the prisoner to pay the fine of course made it
necessary to fall back upon the alternative--thirty days in jail, which
jail was a hundred and odd miles off. There was no conveyance to take him
thither; and no roads even if there had been; and the man refused to
walk.
"If I had the money I'd pay the fifty and have done with it," he said;
"but, not having it, I can't do it. If I am to go to jail, all
right--take me; but whoever heard of a man walking there of his own
accord?" and he whittled away at the stick in his hand feeling that he
was master of the situation. Being remanded until the next day, to keep
up some semblance of proper procedure, he went away quite contentedly,
only to return the next day and the next to repeat the same farce. At last
both magistrate and constable began to look rather tired, while the
prisoner, on the contrary, was quite at his ease. The wire was down between
us and Winnipeg, and no advice could be obtained. So at last the constable,
agreeing to forfeit his share of the fine, and the magistrate to take a
time-bill on the contractor for the next section of the railway for the
remaining twenty-five dollars, they let the man go, neither of them, I am
sure, seeing him depart with regret.
The next whisky seizure that occurred in the neighbourhood was a small
two-gallon keg, found in the middle of a barrel of sugar. The load was
owned by one man and driven by another, whose consternation at finding he
was a holder of contraband goods was so genuine that the authorities
thought emptying the whisky on the snow was sufficient punishment,
and--possibly dreading a repetition of the last trial--let the man go.
Soon afterwards several kegs of whisky were found on an island in the
Lake of the Woods. The owner gave himself up, and entered the service of
the contractor as especial whisky detective, and such was his vigilance,
that no whisky ever passed him. He was quite impartial, not letting even
our mail bags go unquestioned, and so was not disliked. During his term
the line was quiet and orderly; but, unfortunately, he went into Winnipeg
on leave, shot a youth belonging to one of the river steamers in a
drunken frolic, and was convicted of the murder.
One day, hearing a very peremptory-sounding knock at the door--a knock at
any time being an event--I opened it in haste, to see a short,
jaunty-looking man, red-haired and red-faced, clad in long stockings drawn
well over his trousers and mocassins, a short skin coat tied round his
waist with a red sash, and on his head a long red _toque_.
"Good mornin', miss," said this odd apparition. "I'm come for Mr. K----'s
legs." Seeing that I had not the faintest idea of what he meant, he
touched his forehead again. "Please, 'm, Mr. K---- sent me for his legs.
He said I'd find them in the office;" and the little fellow, who seemed
all on springs, craned his neck round to see into the room. Fairly
puzzled, I stood aside to let him pass; so in he went, returning
instantly with a tripod on his shoulder.
"Here they are, miss," he said cheerfully. "Much obliged. Fine day,
miss;" and was off to the lake before I had recovered my surprise at his
amazing request and his general absurdity.