Tilford--Pedestrians under Difficulties--The Railway at last--Not exactly
a First-class Carriage--The Jules Muskeg--Whitemouth and Broken-Head
Rivers--Vagaries of the Engine-driver--The Hotel at St. Boniface--Red
River Ferry--Winnipeg--"A Vagabond Heroine"--The Terrier at fault.
We reached Tilford about six. How we pitied the pretty, sad-looking
woman, wife of the engineer, for having to live in a house stranded upon
a bank of mud, just high enough to keep the water out, and with mud and
marsh on all sides for miles, making it impossible to go out! They had no
society, and only the bare necessaries of life about them; the mail
carrier and the telegraph were their only means of communication with the
outside world.
Excusing our travel-stained appearance, they persuaded us to stay to
dinner. My hands were so muddy that I tried to keep them under the table
as much as possible; but, finding this awkward, I looked to see if it was
noticed, and was relieved by finding I had companions in misery.
We left Tilford at seven, and for some little distance the road seemed
better. Fortunately, it was a moonlight night, or we should have had
difficulty in keeping the trail. For some distance it ran along the muddy
dump, then came a great open culvert, with a gang of men sitting round a
fire at the bottom. One of them called out as we appeared, "Ye's can't
git down here; ye's'll have to go round." Retracing our steps a hundred
feet, we found a track down the side to a submerged bridge, which we
traversed as quickly as possible, but not without getting wet to our
knees in ice-cold water. Next we climbed up a narrow path, so close to
the edge that a false step would have precipitated us ten or twelve feet
to the rock below. A steep, uneven fragment of path had to be traversed,
and we were in the middle of the cutting. Just beyond was another culvert
in a more advanced stage; and we walked carefully across a narrow single
board, whose ends lay loosely over one another in the careless way in
which men generally run up scaffolding, so that one nail is the only
thing that keeps them in this world. The planks were slippery, and in the
uncertain moonlight we scarcely breathed while crossing them. On, on,
through more mud and water, until, about half-past eight, we saw the
whitewashed walls of the telegraph office at the end of the track, and
Mr. M---- came springing down the bank to meet us.
"I have just been asking if you were still at Tilford," he said. "I never
thought you could get through but would give in and stay there all night.
The engine-driver was getting impatient to be off, so I came to find
out."
When we reached the train a load of ties blocked the way, so we had to
climb up on a truck, jump down again, and go round a cattle-van to the
open truck or freight-car, where our luggage was already piled, and on
which we were to make our trip to Winnipeg. Spreading the robes on the
floor, Mr. M---- piled the bags and valises in the centre for us to lean
against, and covered us with blankets and shawls. Before settling down,
however, I took friendly advice, and trusting to the covering of the
semi-darkness, changed my shoes, throwing the mud-laden ones overboard.
Then, when well under the blankets, I was comparatively warm. Carrière
and Frank came to say good-bye before the train started. They, poor
fellows, had to trudge back to the ranche that night, and I, being
perhaps the only one of the party who was never likely to see them again,
parted from the kindly, good-natured men with regret. Mr. D---- also left
us, with many good wishes and good-byes.
The track was not ballasted for the first forty-five miles, and the car
rocked frightfully. The wind was bitterly cold, and we crouched down
closer under the blankets, but were unable to keep warm until after ten
o'clock, when Mr. F---- stopped the train at Whitemouth and borrowed a
roll of blankets from the engineer there. With this additional covering,
we succeeded in warming our wet clothes. The dear little baby slept all
the time in its mother's arms, as cozy and comfortable as possible. Her
only dread was that it might be smothered, and many an anxious peep was
taken under its many coverings to make sure of its existence. We talked
in snatches; and until after eleven amused ourselves with learning some
railway technicalities, in order that we might be able to talk of "when
we were out on the line." But as the moonlight faded, we grew very quiet
and drowsy. Once, when I was just dropping into a little nap, Mrs. F----'s
caution, "Don't go to sleep, or you will roll off!" roused me to the
consciousness of not having a sofa or even _terra firma_ to repose
upon.
On that part of the line the country is flat and uninteresting, entirely
muskeg or marsh, with the exception of one small rock cutting, where the
necessary drainage formed the principal item in the cost of construction.
On each side we could see the long "take offs" glittering in the
moonlight, like silver ribbons thrown at random on the grass. The Jules
muskeg, about two miles across, was at first only passable when frozen in
winter, except for pedestrians, and we heard of several gangs of men who
were sent there to work, digging all day and being unable next morning to
find any trace of their labours. The only breaks in this monotonous marsh
are Whitemouth and Broken-Head Rivers, flowing between wooded shores. The
former is about forty miles from Ingolf, and the latter nearly seventy.
Both are small streams flowing into the most southerly end of Lake
Winnipeg. At the junction near Selkirk are a small store and bar-room,
apparently well patronized, if one may judge from the mental and physical
wanderings of a man who asked the way to Winnipeg, and the wild notes of
a fiddle issuing from the open doorway. While the train waited for the
switch signal, we were too tired to take much note of our surroundings,
the appearance of a rail fence between the track and the outlying country
being more suggestive of approaching civilization to our Ontario eyes
than anything else.
Receiving the signal, the train backed down the Pembina branch. There the
wind was less trying, the road smoother, and we were getting accustomed
to our cramped position. Gradually the train slackened, until it was
almost at a footpace. Scarcely had we begun to wonder what was wrong,
when the speed suddenly increased, and after rushing madly along for a
few minutes slackened again, without any apparent cause. The man who had
held a lantern at the back of our truck from the junction now began to
grumble. "What can the driver mean by going at such a rate?" he
exclaimed. Then, when the train slackened, he growled, "Hang the fellow,
he's gone to sleep!" At last Mr. F---- said he would go in the engine-car
and keep the man awake. When we stopped to take in water a few minutes
afterwards he left us, and we reached the station at St. Boniface, the
terminus of the railway, at three o'clock, without any further anxiety.
There were only a couple of sleepy porters at the station, so we left the
blankets, etc., lying on the platform until one porter found the man who
had the key of the storehouse. Picking up our satchels, and shivering as
the cold morning air came in contact with our wet clothes, we went over
the prairie a hundred yards or so to a hotel, hastily put up for the
accommodation of benighted travellers, there being no means of crossing
the Red River for Winnipeg before seven.
The house was crowded to excess, the bar-room was full of noisy
revellers, the landlord was in bed, and there were no rooms to be had. We
waited at the head of the narrow flight of stairs, while a sleepy porter
roused five men from their slumbers in the sitting-room, and heard a
very grumbling discussion going on behind a half-open door near us, a
woman in an injured tone protesting that, "It weren't no good wakin' her!
She couldn't help the house not bein' big enough, nor more people coming
nor it would hold;" while the man said, "It weren't his'n, neither; but
places must be found to put 'um in."
Presently the sitting-room door opened, and a young man, looking as if he
had slept in his hat and used his coat for a pillow, emerged, staring at
us as if taking an inventory of our wardrobe, and disappeared downstairs.
With a great yawn, and a muttered remark about something being "a d----d
shame," a man who looked like a cattle-dealer followed. Then his partner
appeared, an energetic, scrubby-looking little man, who informed us that
we might enter: which we did, glad to get a place to sit down in; but
hastily retreated, on discovering another man just getting up from the
floor, and one busy lacing his boots. When the latter raised his head we
recognized our clergyman from the Contract. He had come in over the
Dawson route with the poor man who had lost his eyesight and arm by
striking the rock where nitro-glycerine had been spilt. His fellow
workmen had among themselves collected eleven hundred dollars towards
supporting him, or getting him into some asylum, and he was now returning
by the line.
Mr. M---- went back to the station to fetch a robe and some blankets,
which we spread on the floor, and lay down, to wait for morning. The room
was small--eight by ten feet--the furniture, a short uncomfortable sofa,
two chairs, a table, and a couple of pictures, of Pope Leo IX. and St.
Joseph. Daylight seemed a long time coming.
Mr. M---- looked more like a ghost than anything else. The poor man had
walked up and down the station platform all the time. Neither storekeeper
nor key being found, he had feared to leave our luggage lying about
unguarded. Crossing the river in the clear bright morning among
tidy-looking women going to market, and natty men in clean white shirts
and well-brushed clothes, made us feel more disreputable than ever. And
we _were_ disreputable! Our skirts, draggled and muddy half-way to
our waists, clinging and wet still; our hair un-brushed, our faces
bespattered with mud, and blackened with smoke and dust from the engine
and our night's travel--the railway hotel not having afforded us
sufficient water to wash them; while the fatigue and wakeful night gave
us a haggard, wobegone, been-out-on-a-spree appearance quite
indescribable.
It is a long walk from the Red River ferry to the Canada Pacific Hotel,
but our anxiety to arrive there before Winnipeg was abroad, made us get
over it as quickly as possible. Haverty, the manager, received us,
regretting that until after breakfast he could only let us have one room.
Fortunately, I had some friends whom I did not mind disturbing at that
early hour, so leaving my satchel to be sent after me, and taking the
back streets as much as possible, I went in search of them. The maid who
answered my knock was a stranger to me, and, putting on a very forbidding
expression of decided refusal, was not, until I told my name, inclined to
let me in. My friend was not up, but a few minutes afterwards I was
warmly welcomed and given a bath and clean clothes before any one but her
husband saw me.
We were detained in Winnipeg nearly a week, waiting for our luggage.
Fortunately for me, the friend with whom I took refuge was about my own
height, and very kindly lent me what I needed until I could procure
garments of my own. This was, however, a great cause of trouble to a
little English terrier, of which she made a pet. Recognizing her
mistress's slippers and dress, she rubbed her head against my feet and
was very affectionate, but glancing up at my face and discovering that of
a stranger, she jumped back growling. Shortly afterwards, tempted by the
familiar clothes, she again made friendly advances, only to snarl out her
disapproval upon hearing my voice, evidently feeling so puzzled and
imposed upon, that, until I had my own clothes, she declined to make
friends with me at all. Every one was so kind that the days in Winnipeg
were all too short, but the luggage arriving on Wednesday, October the
10th, left us no further excuse to remain, and with many regrets at
parting, I said good-bye.