The House of Cariboo, and Other Tales from Arcadia

by A. Paul Gardiner

In this same little room during the Winter days Cameron and LeClare often visited together. They talked of their plans for the future, of the task before them in the Springtime, but never of the camp in the Cariboo, nor their returning, which so sadly had been ended. At one of these conferences, on a stormy day of early Winter, as LeClare, seated before the fire in the grate, was reading from a selection of new books he had bought while upon one of his recent trips to the city, he was suddenly interrupted by his friend, who till then had been idly standing, one hand upon the window pane, the other fumbling the watch chain at his vest.

“I have just thought, Edmond,” he began, “as I have looked out upon this icebound expanse, this great river which for months of the year is the busy highway of so much traffic, that now it is bound, like ourselves, to await the pleasure of the season, inactive, only waiting. Perhaps you may think my deductions commonplace, Edmond; but hear me through. Since the beginning of Glengarry’s history there have been, to my knowledge at least, no innovations to disturb the serenity of the established customs of our people, and these customs are few to relate. In the Summer we labor a little and house our crops, that in the Winter we may comfortably live to consume them. The following year, and the years to come, the same highly exciting programme is certain to be followed. For the coming Summer we have provided the diversion of the building of our mansion, but for the lonesome days of our snowbound season we have not provided. Why not advertise our Summer engagement at The Nole, and interest our friends in advance?”

Soon after the conversation held in the library at Laughing Donald’s a team hitched to a farmer’s sled was slowly passing in the roadway. The driver, carefully selecting an opening between the deep snowdrifts piled high on the river embankment, turned his horses abruptly to the left and drove them down the incline and out upon the frozen river. Quickly he dumped the load of cobblestones in a heap upon the snow and ice. Thus returning at intervals of an hour each day, Bill Blakely was engaged throughout the week, till irregular lines of stone heaps covering a considerable area of the river fronting Cameron’s house stood as monuments to his labors.

Since Cameron and LeClare had taken up their residence with Laughing Donald speculation over their reported doings was at fever heat in the neighborhood. Fraser, the carpenter, was frequently called on by his friends from The Gore, but his own lack of information concerning Cameron’s future plans aroused to a greater curiosity the contingent from the adjoining town, of which Nick Perkins was the acknowledged leader. Still smarting from the humiliating blow over his failure to secure the Cameron homestead, Perkins nursed his wrath in silence. A resolve had already formed in his evil mind to pursue even to the finish the destinies of the Camerons at The Front, and already his machinations could be seen at work in the questions he directed at those he met as he drove along the snow-heaped roads.

It was on a Saturday, and Perkins was on his way to the county town, when he met Bill Blakely coming up into the roadway, after having deposited a load of stones upon the ice. Filled with wonderment at what he saw, he inquired of Bill in his blandest tones what he was drawing the stones for.

“Well, Perkins,” replied Bill, “to be truthful with you, it’s for a dollar a load I am doing it principally, but another good reason is that Cameron has asked me to do it. If you think you’d like the job, go ask Cameron. They say his credit is good. Even you ought to know that, Mr. Perkins,” and Bill passed on without saying good-day to him. Perkins bit his lip and made no reply, but drove on to the village.

Other farmers from the neighborhood soon began hauling to the dumping grounds on the river facing the farm at The Nole. Angus Ferguson had hauled to Cameron’s ice raft, as he called it, the old stone wall which had for so long disfigured the view in front of his house. Stopping each evening at the little office at Laughing Donald’s, he received, like the rest, a dollar a load for the number of trips he had made during the day.

The work of the farmers whom Cameron had seen fit to employ, and who seemed to vie one with another in quickly disposing of the useless materials collected about their farm-yards and disfiguring their homes, progressed so rapidly that ere long whole acres of the frozen river front resembled a congested lumber yard. The fabulous prices paid to them by Cameron for the worthless accumulations of their farm-yards, which he had placed upon the ice to be carried away with the floods in the Spring, caused a storm of comment, the echo of which came over from The Gore in volumes of inquiries.

“Where did Cameron get his money?” they queried. “And why can’t we get a share of it while it lasts?” For Nick Perkins was heard to remark that “a fool from his money was soon parted.”

While the commotion among those engaged in hauling at The Front was still in progress, Bill Blakely and Cameron were paying their respects to certain residents of The Gore. To many of these gentlemen favored by a call Bill was attached by tender recollections of former fistic encounters at the four corners. His welcome, of course, was not always the most cordial, but when Cameron announced very quietly that Mr. Blakely wished to buy a few thousand of their best cedar fence posts at a price which could not be disputed, they soon became more communicative. “Deliver the posts at Mr. Blakely’s, beginning to-morrow,” said Cameron, continuing without any further parleying: “You will be paid by the hundred. We will drive, Bill,” and Cameron was through with the bargaining.