BEHIND THE HILLS.
"Behind the hills, that's where the fairies are,
Behind the hills, that's where the sun goes down."
I fell asleep in the cupola of the caboose and dreamed that my head was
a rubber band holding too many notes, and that it was going to snap any
second. "Hit's the bloomin' haltitude in your 'ead, Ma'am," explained
a Cockney later, and I expect he was right, for we have made an ascent
of over one thousand feet since leaving Edmonton.
When I awake the train is standing stock-still. Here is the trouble!
the heavy rains have been playing havoc with the newly-made grades that
have hardly been shaken down to stay, and progress is necessarily slow
till the proper ballast has been laid on. Outside, on the grade, the
fireman is swearing with remarkable precision. His language is not
exactly that described by the Prayer-book as "comfortable words," but
then, a man who fires up with slack coal when the thermometer is
sometimes thirty degrees below zero naturally becomes proficient in the
use of secular expletives.
I open my window above him and say very distinctly, "Wicked man! swear
not by the Lord Christ." Then I lean back so that he may not see me.
It must have surprised him to hear such a reproof in this no-woman's
land. Out he goes and looks up and around, and up again, but I keep
well hidden. That writer who conceived the horror of _The Wandering
Voice_ was no nid-noddy fellow, I can tell you.
As I was thinking this very thing, a voice close behind said to me,
"Wicked woman! play not the oracles," and almost I fell out of the
cupola with fright. It was the glorious tall stranger, and he was
laughing mightily. I almost hated him. Indeed, I quite hated till I
saw the joke and laughed too.
He had been reading in the opposite bunk and, incidentally, watching so
that I might not roll out, for it is a high climb to the cupola bunk,
and there are no sides to it. He says that he is an engineer and that
the boys who left the train at Bickerdike gave him instructions to see
that I got through all right. Did I say mean things awhile ago about
certain northern men? Did I? Well then, I am a spiteful jade and my
tongue should be split.
He has yellow fruit for me, and cherries, but hands them out carefully,
for the smell of steam from the stove shows that dinner is deliciously
imminent. The cook is turning cakes on a pan with a spat like the
sound of clog-dancers on the stage. He turns them with a grace and
intelligence which I may never hope to equal. I have an idea his elbow
and wrist work on ball-bearings.
The glorious tall stranger whose name is _not_ Burney (but it will do
as well as any other) tells me he was reared down by the Miramichi
River. He went back East to see his mother last Christmas, but it took
her some days to get used to the grown man who had left home a lad. I
can see this thing in my mind's eye. His mother is very clever and has
a beautiful face. He need not have told me this. It is true of every
man's mother "back home."
Burney was among the first men who scouted for the railway to the West
and helped run the try-lines. Falling into the pose of the
raconteur--one very natural to the northman--he tells me tragic things,
and some that are both tragic and humorous.
One of these was about a Mounted Policeman who was sent out from his
post to bring in a murderer. It was terribly cold weather, the mercury
almost falling out of the tube. Now, the wanted murderer is the
wariest game in the world, and to take him in those mountains one needs
boldness and caution in the right proportions--that is to say
ninety-nine per cent. of the former, and one per cent. of the latter.
The policeman who was sent out was only a stripling, but there was no
yellow in him save the streak on his trouser-legs. The round journey
was one hundred and twenty miles, but, alone and unaided, he brought in
his man, not even waiting to sleep. Almost immediately on a fresh
mount, he again started out from the post, but this time to bring in
the corpse. The second hundred and twenty miles were terribly long and
arduous ones, and the cold cut like a blade. By shutting your eyes you
can see and feel this thing: the two frost-covered horses plodding
through the bleak and sterile mountains that are grim as eternity--no
sound save the cry of starveling wolves, or the white whine of the
sleepless wind, these and the sharp-drawn breath of the men. No! we
must be mistaken. Only one man breathes, the other seems strangely
still, and his lips are tight shut. There is something peculiarly
defective in his stony eyes and stony face. If you look closer you can
see he is roped close to the horse, and that he doesn't give to the
lope.... God of men and beasts! that is a dead man that rides through
the snow, and he rides to confront his slayer.... And when the two
reached the police post, the live dare-doing man was found to be
terribly exhausted from hunger, lack of sleep, and the long, long ride,
so that his brittle nerves were like to snap in two. This was how they
came to give him the stimulants which in some way (it is not for a
tattling civilian to say the way) had not entirely worn off when he was
summoned to give evidence at the inquest.
The auditory consisted of engineers, and chainmen from the residencies
who resented this grim sitting with a murderer, a judge and accuser,
and the white, stark man on the table, whom presently they would put to
bed with a spade. They were sitting austerely upright with grave faces
as became the occasion, when it came upon them suddenly that the police
stripling was intoxicated. It is true he faced the judge with an
uncompromising attitude and stood erect, and "at attention" as if a
perpendicular rod braced his body from his crown to his heels, but when
the judge's glance wandered for the fraction of a moment, the stripling
would wink prodigiously at the engineers, and in an unholy manner that
threw them into suppressed convulsions. The thing was grievously
grotesque. It was as though a stone altar-saint had suddenly awaked
and had put his fingers to his nose in a way that was sinister. Comedy
with her wry face was peeping through a tragic mask. It is a way of
hers.
It was not until the judge observed the policeman constantly dropping
his papers and picking them up in a stiff unjointed way, that the
reason of the court's commotion became apparent to him.
"What is the rest of the story?" you ask. I do not know. I am a
reviewer of books and never go so far as the end.
Sirs and Mesdames, but it is an athletic feat climbing out of the
cupola of a caboose. I stepped on the shoulder of Burney, who is
admirably strong, and then down to a chair. The brakesmen enter the
cupola off the roof and have a way of sliding to the floor backward.
It looks easy, and if I were alone, I would surely try it.
There were four of us for dinner, and we had pork and beans, beefsteak,
potato-cakes, rolls, peaches and coffee. The butter was tinned, but
withal toothsome, and so was the milk. The butter is shipped here from
Nova Scotia, and is supplied to all the camps on the road. I help the
cook clear away the dishes, but he thinks me rather unhandy, for I
upset both the sugar and salt. He comes from Kilmarnock in Scotland,
and is a nice lad, I can see that. He has a thicket of hair that
stands erect from his head like a growth of young spruce, and he always
looks as if he had just heard some good idea. His latest idea, he
confides, is a job with the purveyors who contract for the supplies for
all the grading camps on the line.
Hitherto, I have always looked upon a caboose as something commonplace,
but now, I know it may be truly a Castle of Indolence. I have a sweet
tooth for this kind of life, and have no objection to continuing it for
a month. Journalists, and important people with stamped passes, go on
private cars, but the advantage of mediocrity is that you can travel in
a caboose and need not view the scenery as a commercial commodity.
When I can think of what to say, I will write a story called "The
Romance of a Railway Van." Its setting will be in the hills. The
heroine will be a southern girl of probably twenty summers (with a
corresponding number of winters). She shall be no fine die-away lady,
but middling strong and built to go out in all weather. Each move of
the romance will be made by invisible kelpies, ogres and dryads, who
will say "Ha! Ha!" and "Ho! Ho!" and who will clap their hands when
the wicked flourish, or valour wins against the odds. But I never
could think this story out, so I pass it on to you.
At the McLeod River the grades begin to spy into the mountains. These
mountains have all the bewilderment of an elusive dream, and in the
thin northern air seem nearer than they really are. There is a
come-hither look about them. It is well, at first, to thus see from a
distance, for to stand against a mountain is to lose one's sense of
proportion and symmetry.
At Prairie Creek the road runs high up on a ridge to the south of the
Athabaska Valley, so that it looks like a ribbon of steel basted on to
the hills. The Athabaska River is wide and swift here, and has what
the Japanese call the language of line. The Cree Indians call it the
_Mistahay Shakow Seepee_, meaning thereby the great river of the woods.
A semi-spectral mist rises off its waters, as if it were an incense to
the mighty spirit, Manitou.
It would be well if I, one of the first of the tourists who, world
without end, will travel through these hills, could tell how they
impress me, but I am crushed into a wordless incompetency. I cannot
speak the language of this land nor interpret its spirit. These hills
of White Alberta have something to say, but they will not say it. It
must be true what the essayist wrote, that you cannot domesticate
mountains.
There appears to be no life here, nor any form of sentience, but when
it is dark, the grizzly bear, the lynx, the moose, and other
night-things, will move out for purposes of life or death.
Alexander Mackenzie, who entered these defiles one hundred and
twenty-five years ago, wrote down that the Atnah Indians believed all
this land was made by a mighty bird whose eyes were fire, the noise of
his wings thunder, and the glances of his eyes lightning. This bird
created all things from the earth except the Chipewyans, who were made
from dogs. Now the Chipewyans and the Atnahs were not on borrowing
terms.
These were the times when the Indians were as plentiful in the
Athabaska Valley as dandelions in a meadow, and they told this
Mackenzie of Inverness how, in the good old days, their ancestors lived
till their throats were worn out with eating and their feet with
walking.
The Athabaska Valley is enclosed by a circle of the hills, the two most
prominent of these being Roche Perdrix, or Folding Mountain, and Roche
Miette. The latter peak takes its name from the French word _roche_,
meaning "rock," and _miette_ which is the Cree for sheep, this because
of the mountain-sheep which make it their home. It is 8,000 feet high
(I give you the height because it is not legal to go down the line
without so doing). Somewhere, near here, at Fiddle Creek, at a height
of 1,200 feet above the railway, there are wonderful hot springs
concerning which Burney talks learnedly. I pretend to understand all
about sulphuric anhydride, and carbon dioxide, and 127 degrees
Fahrenheit, but do not really know if there are things which should be
remembered or forgotten.
Other of the peaks which enclose the Valley are Roche Ronde, Roche
Jacques, Bullrush and Roche Suette. Off to the west, the range of
hills silhouetted against the sky is known as the Fiddle Back Range.
These are crowned with snow, but as the sky changes, take to themselves
its moods--coral-red, opal, stone-blue and a mellow, purple glow, which
blend and shift like the weird fantasy of the auroral lights.
It is an idea of mine that these hills are the lair of the running
winds which for past eons have swept in bitter streaks across the
prairies, winnowing them like a thresher would winnow grain.
Seven-leagued boots have they and no man has tracked them down. How
could a man when they fling dust in his eyes? They are the bitter
scouts of the North who fight as they go. I have no doubt their home
is hereabout. It might be found if we had time to stay, but this would
take too long, for you must surely understand these winds are
non-resident to a degree that is nothing short of scandalous.
At this point, we ought in all propriety to talk about Brule Lake,
which is not a lake at all, but an enlargement of the river. We should
nudge each other and remark that this is Jasper Park; that it consists
of 5,450 square miles, and that it is held in perpetuity for the
nation. I should ask, "Why do they call it Jasper Park?" and you, my
fine fellow-farer, should tell me how old Jasper Hawes was one of "the
gentlemen adventurers" of the Hudson's Bay Company, and doubtless a
purposeful man and clever. "But why do they call this defile 'the
Yellow Head Pass?'" I should further query, whereupon you ought to
reply, "I perceive you are an untaught person else you had heard how
this Jasper Hawes had hair the colour of September wheat in the sheaf,
so that the Indians called him 'Tete Jaune' or 'Yellow Head,' much
after our mischievous manner of turning about on the street to look
after a lady who is flaxen."
Yes! we should say all this, and more, but it might sound like the
private car "write-up," so we had better not. Besides, our engine has
come to a sit-still and will not go a step farther. The gossip we
heard at Bickerdike about the wash-out has been verified. The
officials in the private car are in no very graceful temper over this
landslide, and some of the men on the firing-line who dug and blasted
and built the grade, are going to have their hearts cut out because of
it.
The trouble is that these vastly particular officials conceive of the
mountain into whose body they have slashed as a dead thing--dead as
pickled pork--whereas it is splendidly alive. Because of the malapert
efforts of the builders, the mountain has shaken its monstrous sides
with laughter till the tears ran adown its face and washed out their
puny sticks and stones. One might hint this to the officials, but one
is scared to. They belong to the unamiable sex and are showing an
anger highly disproportioned to the cause. Indeed, I saw a very
special official put the hot end of his cigar in his mouth. Sometime
to-night, a few flat cars will come from the End of Steel to convey the
gang thither. The gang will climb up one side of the wash-out and down
the other, and I will too, if the train's agent will let me, but from
his hard-baked, non-committal manner, I glean he is predetermined to
take me back to Edson in the caboose.
The men have lighted a fire in the hills, and this fire seems to be the
kernel of the land. Strange elemental figures appear and disappear in
the darkness as though they were performing unnamed, unholy rites.
They seem human but, perhaps, they are spirits, for I have some
splendid clues that these mountains are the haunted house of the world.
Here, there are eyes that watch you all the time, but they are hidden;
and if you have a listening ear you may hear voices that call. The
gods come close in the hills. They go whispering about in the night
and calling your name.
Foolish folk there are who say that the world is old, and that all its
songs are sung. There is a new song that can never be told, else I
would tell it to you. Only it may be heard.
* * * * *
A man whose face is covered by the dark is spinning a yarn about an
engineer lad on this grade who truly loved an Indian girl. This is
what he says--
"She died a week ago, and the lad was with her. It is a beautiful
story, but I know another like hers. It is about a butterfly that had
specks of gold on its wings."
I did not see the gang climb down the crevasse and up the other side,
but I heard the low lorn echo from the train roll up along the crags
and die away in the snows. The train's agent said I could go to the
End of Steel if I insisted, but I was not to insist. This is why I am
travelling back to Edson. Only I am disappointed much, but he says I
may come again soon, when no one shall disallow me. It would have been
all right for me to go with the gang, and I could have taken care of
myself: any woman could who has been years and years "in society."
The agent and the Scotch boy have made a bed for me on a wide bench
with my blankets and cushions. If little private, the bed looks wholly
comfortable.
"You'll be after loosenin' your collar," says the young person from
Kilmarnock as he fluffs up another cushion, "an' ye 'ull be takin' off
baith your shoes an' your stockin's. I'll be keepin' the daftie loons
out o' the car till ye get a bit o' sleep."
For the benefit of the nervous readers I may add he does not say,
"ye'll be layin' off your bloose," but these are such nice lads I could
do so with absolute propriety.
And they turn the lamp low and shade it with paper while I am asking my
prayer. And I pray, "Spirits of the Mountains and Rivers, be not angry
with me for talking in the hills. Gods of the North, strong Gods who
watch over little children and us older ones, let me sleep in quietness
this night, and at last bring me home in safety where all the lights be
white ones."
And I press my lips to the palm of my heart-hand to say "Amen," and to
let the gods know I love them. To let them know I love them!