To establish posts through that great wilderness, now tenanted only by a few white settlers, Hudson's Bay traders and other traders who dealt in poison-whiskey with nomadic bands of Indians; and from these posts to enforce over every yard of that immensity the laws of Canada—that was their task. They played the dual role of soldier-pioneers.
But they were soldiers and soldiers only in the routine that governed them in camp and on the march. From dawn to dusk, each day slipped easily by. The advance led them over mile on mile of wind-swept prairie blazing with wild flowers, trilling with the songs of birds and insects, dappled with sun and shadow, sweetly perfumed, a hundred tales of hoof and claw on its broad surface and the cloudless sky above. Sunset, when the tired teams halted, the tents sprang up, the wagons marshalled themselves into line abreast, the scouts and guards came loping in and the smoke of cooking fires arose—sunset, when the glories of the Kingdom of Heaven flamed for a moment in the dusk, was an hour of splendor. Then, after supper, the older officers told them strange stories, they sang choruses to the accompaniment of mouth-organ, concertina or violin, and the happy half-breed drivers danced the Red River jig on a special door they carried in the carts. Coffee followed and a general departure to the tents; more laughing as all hands settled down for the night; and so they came to the last bugle-call of a day punctuated by bugle-calls, 'Lights Out' quivered dolefully through the lines, the orange cones of glowing canvas vanished one by one and the deep silence of night in vast spaces, broken only by the occasional stamping of restless horses, descended on the camp, leaving the sentries to watch the stars alone.
There was plenty of hard work and much discomfort, rising towards the end, for some of them, to real hardship. But they were young and as keen and vigorous as steel blades. They cheerfully stood it all.
Hector preferred duty with the advance-guard or scouts to anything else. There was much more to see and do there, and courage, strength and intense vigilance were essential. Many useful lessons were to be learned in front and, above all, the teacher was the finest scout, the wisest plainsman, the surest horseman in the column, old in Indian fighting, versed in all the legends of the country, knowing the Indians as a mother knows her children and the prairies as a postman knows his beat. Though usually silent and distant, this giant seemed to take a fancy to Hector and unbent to him always. After a time they made a custom of riding together. He was guide and interpreter; a quarter breed; and Martin Brent his name.
Old Martin told Hector everything he knew, and started him fairly off towards being one of the best men in the Force.
As they moved forward, week by week, through sun and storm, intense heat, dead calm, cold rain and blustering wind, the country changed. The wide levels of plain dotted with small bushes became little ridges, sharp bluffs and rounded hills. Then a maze of rivers appeared before them, running in all directions but Martin led them unerringly through. Next came a bolder roll of prairie, with wider valleys and steeper, larger crests, sweeping on again to blend with the confused jumble of foot-hills which fringe the Rocky Mountains. The Commissioner at last turned back Eastward. The Assistant-Commissioner pushed on, Hector's division with him. Indians hovered restlessly on their flanks and came to visit them with tokens of friendship. Not a shot was fired against them. Once they passed through immense herds of buffalo, covering the plains for miles like a restless sea, the rear-guard of a tribe fast disappearing. At last the long-expected mountains rose in the Assistant-Commissioner's path, marking the limits of their journey, a line of blanketed chiefs, a ridge of wintry sea hurling silvery crests against long palisades of angry sunset.
Here they halted and prepared to build their barracks, the great trek ended.
A thousand miles, or little less, had been covered since they left Dufferin. In their trail blossomed flowers of law and order. The wilderness became a Land of Promise as they passed. Today the iron road, laden with the traffic of a continent, gleams where their wagons rolled. Prosperous farms rise everywhere on the expanse which to them was only an Indian hunting-ground. Young towns stand where they pitched their lonely tents. Proud cities blaze and thunder where they built their lonely forts and in peace and ease a People reap the harvest sown by them in peril and privation.
III
Before winter took full command the barracks were built—rough cabins, enclosed in a stockade—and the Flag hoisted. They christened the place Fort Macleod, in honour of their chief.