The Shagganappi

by E. Pauline Johnson

"And peace has reigned ever since?" asked the boy, still looking at the far-off sky through the branches overhead.

"Peace has reigned ever since," replied Queetah. "The Mohawks and the palefaces are brothers, under one law. That was the last Avenging Knife. It is Canadian history."

The Signal Code

Ever since Benny Ellis had been a little bit of a shaver he had played at "railroad." Not just now and again, as other boys do, but he rarely touched a game or a sport before he would ingeniously twist it into a "pretend" railroad. Marbles were to him merely things to be used to indicate telegraph poles, with glass and agate alleys as stations. Sliding down hill on a bobsleigh, he invariably tooted and whistled like an engine, and trudging uphill he puffed and imitated a heavy freight climbing up grade. The ball grounds were to him the "Y" at the Junction, the shunting yards, or the turn bridge at the roundhouse, for Benny's father was an engineer, who ran the fast mail over the big western division of the new road, where mountains and forests were cut and levelled and tunnelled for the long, heavy transcontinental train to climb through, and in his own home the boy heard little but railroad talk, so he came by his preferences honestly.

"Well, Benny, been railroading to-day?" his father would often ask playfully, on one of the three nights in the week when he was home, with the grime of the engine coal-oiled from his big hands, and his blue over-jeans hanging out behind the kitchen door.

"Yes, daddy," the youngster would begin excitedly, and climbing on to the arm of his father's chair, he would beat his little heels together in his eagerness to get the story out in speech, and proceed to explain how he had built a "pretend" track in the yard with curves and grades, over which his little express cart ran "bully." "And 'round the curves we just signal to the other train and have whistles with real meanings to them, like a really big train."

"Oho! getting up the signal system, are you, now?" his father would grin. "Why, you'll be big enough and wise enough soon to come on Number 27 and wipe the engine or 'fire' for daddy. Won't that be nice?" Then the big man would set the chubby child of six years down on the floor to play, as he winked knowingly at Benny's mother, who nodded a smiling reply.

But it did not take many years to make Benny a pretty big boy, and one of the boy-kind who always start schemes and devices among their schoolfellows. He seemed to be a born leader, with a crowd of other boys always at his heels ready to follow where he ventured, or to mimic what he did. No one ever walked ahead of him, no one ever suggested things to do or places to go, when the engineer's son was around. He was always the vanguard, but fortunately was the kind of boy who rarely, if ever, led his followers into trouble. Finally someone nicknamed him "the Con," as short for "Conductor," for he still played at railroading, and had long since decided that when school days were over he would go as a train hand, and perhaps be lucky enough to be sometimes in his father's crew. It was about this time, when Benny was twelve, that he invented the signal code, and more than once it got "the gang" out of serious trouble. The little divisional town where he lived was shut in between hills so closely that it was a veritable furnace in summer, and all who could went out camping, or built shacks on the Three Islands in the little lake two miles farther down the track. So Benny and his little brother and sister went with their mother to join some neighbors camping, and dad would come down on a hand-car on off nights to get a breath of air, and the coal dust blown out of his keen eyes. It did not take the shrewd engineer long to discover that the boys on the islands had a signal code. One would stand on his boat landing and wave a strip of white cotton into a lot of grotesque figures, and far off on another island some other boy would reply with similar figures, and after much "talking," the various boys would act with perfect understanding, either meeting out on the lake, in the boats, or going swimming, or building camp fires—it did not matter much what they decided upon, but after these signals they all worked in unison.

And one night something happened of real import. It was just sunset one beautiful August day, and Mr. Ellis, wearied with a long, hard run, lay drinking in the wild beauty of the lonely lake, with its forest-covered shores and its rocky islands. Over on the mainland the McKenzie's camp gleamed white in the sunset. One could discern every movement in the clear air, although the tents were a full mile, if not more, from where the wearied engineer lay, grateful for the stillness, after hours of the heated convulsions of the great steed he drove, day after day.

"There go the McKenzie boys for a swim, Benny," called out his father. "Too bad you're not with them, but you and I'll go in together here, if you like."