III
They buried Acey Smith on the crown of one of his native hills where trails fork to the cardinal points of the compass into the wild scenic grandeur he loved and called his home. There the shore-wash of the great lake is within ear-shot on the one side, while to the other the fantastic Laurentian ranges forever lift their scarred and battered breasts to heaven as if in mute testimony to the travail of man below.
On the mound above his resting-place the Indians set up a great totem-pole bearing graven images and painted faces relating his merits and his deeds, and on it they gave place for an epitaph from the white workers of his camps and boats.
Because none knew of any faith he held to there was no religious ceremony; but a little later there came a strange company to pay last respects to one who had proved their friend in the hours of dire need. There were aged ones, lame men and blind men—and with them was a woman; she whose daughter was a Mary Magdalene and had been snatched from the burning by the strange, whimsical man that was gone. They brought with them a few cheap wreaths as tributes of their regard; and, noting the absence of Christian emblems, these simple people made of birch boughs a little white cross which they planted in the centre of the grave in soil hallowed by their tears.
The following year Mrs. Josephine Hammond, accompanied by her husband, paid a visit to the grave to give instructions for the placing of a more substantial and appropriate monument there to the memory of Captain Alexander Carlstone, V.C. They found that the wind and the sun had riven the great totem-pole, and the frost had heaved its base so that it fell to one side.
But the little white birch cross of Christ’s poor remained firm in its place, where, in the evening shadow, it gleamed steadfastly like the good that endures when might and genius have passed away.
THE END