CHAPTER XV.
I awakened with a consciousness that the shack was very, very cold. Under the blankets I was warm enough, but the breath with which I filled my lungs was the breath of the Arctic. The cabin was in inky darkness. Outside, the whine of the gale had risen to a roar, and the frail timbers of the little shanty creaked and trembled under its fury. I thought of Jack, and wondered. The telephone—best of all God's good gifts through the inventive mind of man to those who live in the isolation of vast distances—was as yet not in general use on the prairies. As I look to-night at the telephone on my desk by means of which I can speak instantly to Jack's house or any other house in the neighbourhood I am reminded that these miracles of to-day are accepted so much as a matter of course that we are in danger of forgetting what the world was before they came. But that night there was no telephone on my wall, or Jack's; no fire-shod messengers from house to house could bear through the storm the cheerful news that all was well.
So I thought of Jack and wondered. Jean had accepted his absence with composure; she afterwards said that Brook, the Mounted Policeman, had told her that the man who was prairie-wise, when caught away from home by a storm, stayed where he was safe, even if his doing so occasioned some uneasiness to his friends.
"It is better that your friends should be uneasy while the storm is on than that they should follow you with flowers when the weather clears," Brook had declared, and Jean, after accepting the philosophy, had passed it on to Jack. She had no doubt that he was as safe on Fourteen as was I on Twenty-two.
But I had none of this philosophy to steady me, and I was decidedly uneasy about Jack. My brief wrestle with the storm had shown me how easy it was to become hopelessly lost even among the most familiar surroundings and how soon exhaustion would overpower one. A little irresistible shiver of nervousness ran up my spine as I realized how fortunate I had been in coming back to my starting point. I might have missed it and gone on into the night. . . .
As the frost settled down about me I at length, by a great effort, sprang out of bed and went groping for my clothes. I was not yet pioneer enough to know that it is fine business in very cold weather to sleep with your clothing, or at least your underwear and socks, under your pillow; it lessens the ordeal of that first break from the warm blankets into the wintry atmosphere. At length I found my clothes and scrambled into them, chattering and blowing prodigiously in the operation. No man—still less woman—knows what haste he can develop in his dressing operations until he has had a below-zero temperature as a pace-maker.
Finding matches I lighted my lamp and sallied forth into the main room. The boards beneath me creaked dismally as my weight came upon them; a drift of snow several feet in length and the shape of a great fish had formed across the room as a result of a crack in the door; the stove was ice cold; the water pails were frozen over; the little clock on the shelf had stopped. My watch was of better mettle and revealed the fact that it was seven-thirty. We had slept well.
I made shavings from a poplar stick in the wood box and soon had a fine fire roaring. When once it was started the great draft of the storm drew it impetuously up the sheet-iron pipes, and I was obliged to apply the damper. No more unhappy irony can befall the homesteader than to burn down his shack in his attempts to warm it.
"Good morning, Frank!" said a voice which set the pumps of my heart going to jig music. I think Jean's voice was really her most wonderful quality; she was enough of the artist to appreciate and cultivate the fine manners of the voice. It had the lilt of singing birds, the limpidity of purling water, the softness of rose-leaves in the twilight, the tinkling of silver bells at dawn, and if I can think of any other figure it had that, too, for me in those old love-hallowed days of mine.
"Good morning, Frank. No word of Jack?"
"No word, Jean."
"He is all right. He is over at Fourteen, and not up yet, I'll wager. Now suppose you go into the men's apartments and face the wall—that fire looks most inviting!"
I did as I was bidden, in part at least, while Jean dressed by the fire. After a little she gave me the "All clear!" and I swept out and seized her in my arms. . . It was a very wonderful way to begin the day.
"There now," she expostulated at length, "let me get the porridge on. That's more to the purpose."
"Porridge is poor business when there's loving to be done," I argued.
"You won't always think so," she replied as though with some strange glimpse of prophecy, and set busily about preparing breakfast. In these operations she discovered that everything that could freeze had frozen; we had to thaw the bread in the oven, and then to toast it; we melted the butter until it ran over the stove and then we gathered it up and spread it on the toast. We could not afford to be fastidious.
But such a breakfast as it was! The porridge was bubbling hot, rising in little volcanoes which erupted their jets of steam and oat-meal lava into the general aroma of the room; the tea was piping hot; the bacon was sizzling hot; even the toast, so recently frozen, was now hot and filled to the saturation point with hot butter. We ate and drank, and laughed and were happy and cared not a tuppence for all the storms that ever blew!
About mid-forenoon came a sudden smash at the door, and Jack precipitated himself into our presence. He was masked in snow, but his first glance was at me, and I knew by the sudden drawing of his lips the relief it was to see me safe and well.
"I was afraid for you, Frank," he said; "afraid you'd try it."
"I did try it." And then I told him the story of my attempt.
"We have a great deal to be thankful for," Jack said, soberly, when I had finished. "A very great deal indeed."
"Yes, more than you know," I returned, joyously, eager to spread the good news. "Jean has consented to be my wife."
Jack refused to be excited. "Congratulations, old boy," he said, pressing my hand, "but, really, that is hardly a news item. Jean has been—well, on the point of consent for a long, long while."
"Oh, Jack, that isn't fair!"
"Sorry, Sister, perhaps it isn't quite. But you two have been so beastly slow over this business you've tied up the whole progress of events, and now you want me to be surprised about something that's long overdue."
"Well, it's settled now, anyway," said I, "and as soon as you and Marjorie can make up your minds we will fix a date."
"As soon as Marjorie and I can make up our minds!" Jack exclaimed. "Son, our minds were made up months ago. We've been waiting, waiting. At last we concluded that we really must speed things up a little, so it was arranged that Marjorie would send you over here last night, and I would accidentally miss you in the gully and go over to Marjorie's. Of course, we didn't know there was a storm coming. It rather overdid things from a conventional point of view, but fortunately Mrs. Grundy hasn't moved out here yet."
"Why, I never thought of such a thing!" cried Jean, indignantly. "How can you——?"
"Of course you didn't, you old dear," said Jack, drawing her within his arm, "and, I'll bet a wedding present, neither did Frank. And listen, little woman, you're getting one of the best little chums and one of the whitest men between the Red River and the Rockies—and beyond. And as for you, you old son-of-a-gun," punching me in the ribs, "if there are two angels in the world to-day one of them is Jean Lane."
Although the storm still raged daylight now struggled through the wind-swept screen of snow, and there was no great danger in making the short trip from Twenty-two to Fourteen. Jack confessed that Marjorie was uneasy for me so I went home very soon after his arrival.
Marjorie flew into my arms as I opened the door. "I was so frightened, Frank, so frightened!" she whispered, in half sobs. "I didn't know it was going to be such a storm. I was almost sure you'd come back and when you didn't I couldn't help wondering, and every little while through the night I would waken and see you fighting in the snow; fighting, and stumbling, and falling." She wrapped her arms about me and pressed her cheek against my face. "Oh Frank, Frank, it's good to have you here!" she murmured.
I had never known Marjorie to be so demonstrative. She came of solid old Eastern stock that carries its heart a long, long way in. I was not psychologist enough to realize that if ever there was to be a time when Marjorie would be very human she was now entering it.
"There, there," I said, comforting her as best I could. "It's all over now. And listen—I have great news. Jean and I are to be——"
"At last!" she interrupted. "Well, that shows what a little planning will do. You dear old silly, did you suppose——"
"I know all about it—now. Jack confessed. But your little joke nearly cost me my life," and I went on to tell of my battle with the storm, taking care that it should lose nothing in the telling. In this I hope I measured up to the established standard of the typical Westerner.
Marjorie was penitent. "I am so sorry," she said. "I had no idea that might happen. Oh, Frank, wouldn't it have been dreadful?"
"It would, but it isn't. On the contrary, it is worth it."
I am tempted to dwell upon the days that followed, but you cannot be interested in our journeyings across the gully now piled deep with snow, nor how it fell about that Jack spent most of his evenings on Fourteen while I spent mine on Twenty-two. This became so much a habit that Jack laughingly remarked that he and I seemed to have traded residence duties, and he hoped it would not come to the ears of the Homestead Inspector!
Spoof drove over one Sunday early in December after an absence of three weeks. The fact was we were beginning to be concerned about Spoof, and had it not been that every fine day—and most of the days were bright and fine, now that the first blizzard of the winter had spent itself,—we could see a blue taper of smoke curling up from the shanty on section Two, Jack or I would before this have gone over to investigate. These little columns of neighbourly smoke were the semaphores by which the community kept itself advised that all was well, or nearly so.
We saw Spoof's oxen breaking trail for an hour or more before they came up to our door. Jack and Jean had also seen them coming, and rushed over to Fourteen to share in extending welcome. It is only among the pioneers that real welcomes occur. Jack swept Spoof into the house, and I turned our own oxen out and put his in the stable.
Spoof's attire in winter, I must tell you, was rather wonderful. He was busily engaged in wearing out a number of grotesque creations bought in London and especially recommended for the Canadian climate. Spoof, now wiser and poorer, mournfully admitted that he had gone to a tailoring firm which advertised as its specialty "Gentlemen's Outfits for the Colonies." There, at a cost of many guineas, he had laden himself with a mass of woolen and fur contraptions which might possibly have been of some value to an Arctic explorer, but which were quite unsuited to latitude fifty, which, by the way, is south of London. Spoof, however, was manfully making the best of it, and as he emerged with some difficulty from his complicated coverings he kept up a running comment of mock appreciation.
"There, you four-guinea leggings," he said at length, "skilfully designed to strangle the circulation and freeze my nether extremities, how joyously would I trade thee for a pair of Canadian felt boots!"
We were soon to learn the cause of Spoof's absence from our threshold for a full three weeks. It seemed that to protect his extensive supply of personal effects Spoof had bought a padlock for his shack, and one frosty morning this padlock fell to the ground. Spoof picked it up, and, wishing to use his hands for some other purpose, thrust the iron link of the lock in his mouth, thinking to hold it there a moment. He had no trouble holding it, but suddenly found to his dismay that he couldn't give it up! The frost in the iron had, with an effect very much like fire, seared his tongue and hung on so tenaciously that when at last he wrenched it out it carried some of the flesh of that tender organ with it.
"I couldn't speak," Spoof explained, in telling of his misfortune, "and there were so many things I needed to say just then."
His predicament had been bad enough. For several days he had been unable to eat. "So I've come over here to make up for it," he added.
After the first outburst over Spoof's arrival had subsided an embarrassing silence yawned across the path of our conversation. There were great things to be said and no one to say them. The girls glanced shyly at each other, and at us, and Jack, by pantomime behind Spoof's back, sought to convey the information that I was elected spokesman. So for lack of preparation I plunged in bodily as one may take a cold dip when he lacks the will power to do it slowly.
"Jack and I have also had a misfortune, of a sort," I said. "We, too, have lost the use of our organs of speech, permanently."
Spoof narrowed his eyebrows quizzically. "Then my ears make up for it," he said. "I hear you as usual."
"It isn't in effect yet," I explained. "We are to be married at Christmas. Behold the parties of the first part," and I waved a hand at Jean and Marjorie while I turned a phrase of Jake's to good account.
Spoof sprang to his feet. "Oh, by Jove, how wonderful! What lucky dogs! Your pardon, ladies, that my first word was to them; I fear my envy out-weighed my good manners—if I have any left. A bachelor's shack is not exactly a school of polite behavior. It is my visits at Fourteen which have saved me from becoming quite a savage. I—I feel that I should make a speech."
He was as good as his word. Mounting a chair he gave us a bantering dissertation on the joys and perils of married life, to which we listened with much seriousness. But underneath, and running through his words, was something which all his banter did not hide. Spoof was playing the game, but I wondered how many little yellow devils were skewering his heart.
The practical part of it was Spoof's ready offer of his help in arranging details. The problems of securing the services of a minister and buying the marriage licenses demanded attention. Even so ethereal a thing as marriage cannot entirely escape the humdrum of the material, but it was a time when we felt strangely incapacitated for the common-place. We were flying too high for earth worms; larks or eagles were our prey.
Jack suggested that we had thought of driving to the nearest railway station, some thirty miles distant, for the ceremony. We understood that a minister was located there and that the young man who ran the pool room was intrusted with the duty of issuing marriage licenses. He carried a small stock of tobacco as an auxiliary to his pool business and a small stock of jewelry as an auxiliary to his tobacco business and a small stock of wedding licenses as an auxiliary to his jewelry business.
"It would take you two days to make that trip with old Buck and Bright," Spoof protested. "Perhaps more; they're soft with being stall-fed and may quit altogether on the road, and you may not find a convenient armful of hay with which to fix them. Fancy having to send word, 'Wedding postponed on account of the indisposition of Buck and Bright!' No, you must leave all these things to me. You boys are too busy with—much more important business—to be worried about details."
Spoof made his plans joyously. If he was not happy at heart over the fact that Jean was to marry me no one could have read it in his face. He would have a minister, he would have licenses, he would have wedding rings—leave it all to him.
A week later he came puffing across the crusted prairie, not in leggings this time, but in broad-soled Canadian felts.
"Admire my scows," he commanded, as he hove them into view. "Twin schooners of the deep—"
"Travelling in ballast," Jack interrupted.
"Nay, laden with good tidings. Ah, there she breaks out a line of signals," and Spoof started to wig-wag a message which none of us could decipher.
"'I fear thee, Ancient Mariner,'" said Jean, "but what are you driving at?"
"Just this, that the contract is let to one John Locke, minister, the lowest, and, in fact, the only bidder. He will be aided and abetted by an individual called Reddy, for reasons which will be obvious when you see him. Reddy, like Jake, appears to harbor no surname, although no doubt for official purposes he signs something to the marriage license. They will be out by mid-afternoon Christmas Day, and the ceremony will take place in the main drawing room of my country residence on section Two. Carriages at four-thirty. You see, I lost no time in going to town——"
"You to town, with those 'bullocks' of yours!" Jack exclaimed. "And you libelled Buck and Bright by suggesting——"
"I went to town, but not behind my bullocks. There are some things I will not do, even for so great a friendship as I bear for thee. I had a driver and a spanking team of mules."
"Mules? Whose?"
"Our American friend, Burke, lent his team and himself for the occasion. The fact is he had misgivings about lending the team without himself, so he came along. He was afraid I would not treat the mules diplomatically. Nothing, I assure you, was, or is, further from my intention. But, my word, such language! Driving bullocks is only a beginner's course compared with the demands made upon a muleteer. . . Burke rose very greatly in my estimation."
So we left the details in Spoof's hands, glad enough to be rid of responsibility for them. There was much to do, and Jack and I found ourselves banished to Twenty-two while the girls made use of the shanty on Fourteen for operations concerning which we were permitted to have nothing but curiosity. Their wedding splendor must, we knew, be designed with such skill as Marjorie and Jean possessed from the best of the clothing they had brought with them from the East. Love may laugh at locksmiths, but it has to bow to dollars and cents—when the trousseau is under consideration. Money, as Marjorie once remarked, may be bad for the heart, but it's good for the appearance. But there was no money to be had for this occasion, and Marjorie and Jean cut their cloth accordingly, literally as well as figuratively.
Also, the news had to be broken to those at home. Each of us wrote a letter, although, to save postage, we enclosed them all in one envelope. There had been little correspondence since we came to the homesteads, mainly because we were as yet thirty miles from a post office, and letters might lie for a month without a chance of delivery. But this was something to be written about. We began with a circumstantial account of our first season on the prairies, and it was not until we had exhausted all other subjects, like a friend seeking a favor, that we got down to the business in hand. Such news as that would be in the old home down by the mill, with Christmas snowdrifts over the fences and the river running softly under its blanket of white!
I recall that there was moonlight just then, and night on the prairie was a base of ivory cupped with an intangible bowl of blue. Always there was the nip of frost in the air, but it was a nip that was not unpleasant, and by no means did it succeed in confining us within doors. During these bright nights Jean and I took long, never-to-be-forgotten walks across the snow-piled, moon-swept plains. I could feel her firm little figure swaying with mine in our strong stride across the wind-packed snow, while our shadows—our shadow, I should say—fell in grotesque caricature by our side. There were moments when we were very, very close to the Infinity which bounded us on every hand, and the wonder of that great, white, silent ocean would surge into our hearts and mingle with the wonder of our love. A quarter of a mile from the shanties and we were as isolated from all living things as if we had been let down in the midst of the Polar Sea, or drawn by some mighty spirit into the farthest void of space. Even the boisterous wind paid attention enough to blur our footprints out behind us and so complete that sense of infinity of isolation. We were so tremendously alone that it seemed the world was full of ourselves and God.
But a gaunt phantom of doubt and uncertainty stalked us even on those moon-lit walks.