“It’s not only for you I’m pleading; there are the women, too—the sweethearts, wives and daughters waiting at home for you. Just where and how are they waiting? Shall I tell you? ’Way back up yonder tending the cattle in the lonely ranch, where the timber wolves howl along ranges on the moonlight nights; and I guess you know it’s lonely up there in the bush. Then I can see others sewing with heavy eyes and backs that are aching in a Vancouver shack. You had no money to leave them, and they had to do the best they could. Have they no use for the money you would spend in liquor here—the women who never cried out when they let you go? Don’t heart-break and black, black solitude count anything with you? You’re building railroads, building up a great Dominion, but the waiting women are doing their part, too. And I’m thinking 145 of others still, gilt-edged and dainty, ’way in the old country. I’ve seen a few. Where’s the man from an English college that used to feel himself better after they talked to him? Is he here with the fire of bad whisky in him, betting against the banker to win a smile from Jess of Caribou?”
This woman knew how to stir them, and there was an expressive murmur, while some fidgeted. Then the proprietor beckoned across the room, and Hemlock Jim spoke:
“This is only high-tone sentiment. Most of us aren’t married, and don’t intend to. No, sir, we’ve no use for a missis rustling round with a long-handled broom on the track of us, and I’m going to move an amendment.”
“You can’t do it,” said Johnston. “You brought us in of your own will, and now you’ve got to hear us. This meeting is going on quietly to its conclusion if I hold the chair. Sit down, sir.”
“I’ll be shot if I do!” said the other, and it became evident that trouble was near, for a group of the disaffected commenced to sidle toward the platform, calling on Caribou Jessy to give them a song.
But Johnston was equal to the occasion. “If you’re wanting music we’ve brought our own orchestra along. Mr. Harry Lorraine, the tenor, will oblige you.”
Harry promptly entered into the spirit of the thing, for he sat down good-humoredly, and, though I forget what he sang, it was a ballad with a catching refrain, which he rendered well, and hardly had the applause died away when the girl commenced again, while Lee, who followed, made a strong impression this time. Then, before the interest had slackened, Miss Marvin held up a little book, smiling sweetly as she said:
“It was kind of you to listen so patiently, and now I’m asking a last favor. Won’t you all walk along and write your names down here?” 146
A number of the listeners did so, and when the rest refused jestingly, Johnston got up.
“The meeting is over,” he said, “but there’s one thing yet to do—to pass a vote of thanks to the proprietor for the use of his saloon. Then I should like to ask him to lay out his best cigars on the bar for every one to help himself.”