There is another test. My guide must not only know the trail and be able to get me through safely but he must be one with whom I can talk. Men used to go crazy in the North through sheer loneliness. Days alone on the trail with your dogs amid the deep silences of the sub-arctics makes you hungry for conversation with some other human being. I have turned ten miles out of my way on a heavy trail simply to get to some trapper or prospector where I might hear "the sweet music of speech." I remember having as a guide on a three weeks trip to the Lightning Creek Camp an Indian who was of the conventional silent type. He knew the trail and his duties perfectly. I had only one fault to find with him. He wouldn't or couldn't chat with me in either English or Chinook. I paid him off at Lightning. I couldn't stand it any longer. I hired another man for the return trip, not such a capable guide, but one with whom I could have a little chat around the camp fire in the evenings.
It is just like that on the trail of life. Many times we ache to unburden our hearts to someone who will hear and understand and speak comforting words to us. Our dearest earthly friends can't quite enter into the intimate sanctuaries of a man's life. There are many lonely places on our journey when heart and soul cry out for that companionship that none can give but Jesus of Nazareth. "Comfortable words He speaketh, while his hands uphold and guide."
He is my guide and I cannot do without Him. I would lose my life in the wilderness if He should leave me to fend for myself. I have utter confidence in Him. As I come to know Him better my faith grows stronger. At the end of the trail, if I have time to think, I shall have many regrets as I look back, but I know there is one thing I shall never regret and that is that long ago I placed myself in the hands of Jesus Christ for good and all.
So long thy power hath blest me,
Sure it still will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent,
Till the night is gone.
X.
How Cheechaco Hill was Named
The war did the work of a can-opener on many national and individual reputations, and discovered that their accepted labels were misleading. The estimates we had formed of certain nations have materially changed because of the part they took, didn't take, or were slow about taking in this world-crisis. We saw the effect more clearly on individuals. The standing a man had in his community might be taken at its face value in the battalion for a few weeks, but he was soon re-examined, and if necessary, the label changed to be true to contents. This was especially evident overseas when we were away from home and its influences. There is a camouflage possible in civilian life where a man's real self is not known much outside his own home. This camouflage was usually torn aside in the army. We were thrown into such continuous intimate relations with one another in the huts and outside them that there was little chance for any man to travel under false pretences. It wasn't many days before you were sized up physically, mentally, and morally. The O.C., Adjutant, and senior officers were the only ones in a battalion having more privacy and protected by military etiquette who, if they wished, might wear a mask for a time, but not for long. The whole battalion somehow soon got to know pretty much all about them, or thought it knew, and labelled them accordingly.
Some men with fair reputations in their home town in Canada were found in rare instances to be cads in camp and curs in the line. But to the honor of those of the old British stock, our own Canadian men in particular, the great fear in the hearts of multitudes of them was that they might not be able to do or be all that the highest traditions of race or family expected of them. They came from the comfort of peaceful homes where war had meant only an old, foolish, long-abandoned way of settling international disputes. At the call of brotherhood, they left those quiet homes and came in their hundreds of thousands to the old lands across the sea. There, in training, they were surrounded with strange conditions of life, and when later they went into the line were faced with tasks of incredible difficulty and harshness. Throughout the long years of war they were rarely disconcerted and never dismayed. Most of them were just good, ordinary, Canadian boys, practically untested until now, but in tribulation developing qualities that made them men "whom the King delighted to honor." Labelled, if you like, "plum-and-apple," when opened up they proved to be genuine "strawberry." Faithful comrades, brave soldiers, they played the new game so nobly and well during those weary, homesick, war-cursed years that they won for Canada a name unsurpassed in honor among the nations.
It was not so much the grand moment of an attack that revealed character but the strain and monotony of the common round of a soldier's life. It was the pack, the trenches, the mud, the dug-out, and the hut, that showed you up for what you really were. When you got a fruitcake from home did you "hog it" all yourself or share it with your chums in generous chunks? Did you squeeze in near the stove on a cold day no matter who else was shoved away? Did you barely do your routine duty or go further and lend a helping hand? These were the sort of tests in common-place forms that made it impossible to hide your own true self from the other fellows. If you asked me for instances I could fill a page with names from my own acquaintance of young chaps previously untried who proved themselves "gentlemen unafraid."
It was a severe test for the young men, but peculiarly hard for those in our volunteer army who were middle-aged. With habits formed and living a settled life at home, they abandoned it cheerfully, and unflinchingly set about accommodating themselves in the most unselfish spirit to necessary campaign conditions, which must have been to them almost intolerable.