Irish Wit—Bears?—Death on the Red Pine Lake—A Grave in the Catholic
Cemetery—The First Dog-train—A Christmas Fête—Compulsory
Temperance—Contraband Goods—The Prisoner wins the Day—Whisky on the
Island—The Smuggler turned Detective—A Fatal Frolic—"Mr. K——'s Legs".
The chimneys in Mr. C——'s house were built of mud, and one of them, which smoked whenever a fire was lighted, had to be pulled down and rebuilt. The workmen, who were of various nationalities—Carrière an Indian, old Cahill an Irishman, a Scotchman, and a Mennonite, who thumped the mud mortar with a dogged perseverance that was quite amusing—were all engaged on this chimney. One day I heard Carrière contradict an assertion of Cahill's with regard to the work, calling it "a d——d lie!" Stepping back from the foot of the ladder on which Carrière stood, the old Irishman lifted his straw hat with the air of a courtier, and replied politely, "Carrière, ye're a gintleman! an' that's another."
Before the chimney was quite finished, Mr. and Mrs. C—— went down to Kuwatin to spend a few days, leaving me with the maid and old Cahill to superintend the house-cleaning; and many a half-hour's amusement had I, listening to the old man's reminiscences of Ireland. When he found that I knew and took an interest in many of the people in his own country his delight was unbounded. The height of his ambition seemed to be to have "tin min undher him," and his greatest trial was "huntin' thim tarmints of cows." He was the butt of all the jokes and tricks in the camps round, yet he took everything good-naturedly; "the boys must have their laugh sometimes," being his only comment. He said he was only thirty-seven, but, according to his own account, he had been "kept at school till he was sixteen, lived tin years on the Knight o' Glynne's estate, and gone fishin' with him in the Shannon, been twinty-five years with Colonel Kitchener in Limerick, siven years undher Mr. Usborne of Aruprior Canady West, and knew the Ottawa as well as any man, two years with his brother in Michigan and two years in Kuwatin, and all the fault of the editor of the Ottawa Times newspaper, for praisin' up the country and tellin' lies about the wages."
Cahill always dressed in his best on Sunday. How he managed to get up his white shirts was a mystery. To be sure, one was made to last several Sundays, for when one side got dirty he turned the other out. The navvies called him the forest ranger, because he always took the gun with him when he went for the cows, and each day as he passed the shanties on his way back empty-handed, they chaffed him about his want of sport. One evening he returned as usual, apparently empty-handed, but coming into the kitchen for the milk-pails, he produced from his pockets five partridges and four pigeons. When I asked him why he did not carry them to show the men that he did shoot something sometimes, he gave me a knowing look and said, "Shure, I wouldn't give thim that satisfaction."
We were glad of the game, as a change from the continual salt meat and fish, being unable to get fresh meat until November, and then only Montana beef. The second year the contractor bought only Canadian cattle. The difference in the meat is very great, the one being hard and full of thread-like sinews, the other juicy and tender.
The evening before the September mail went out, I was sitting up late writing letters, when Mrs. C—— in a frightened tone called me to "listen to that queer noise"—a crunching, rustling sound from the rocks west of the house, just as if some heavy animal was making its way through the underbrush and dry moss. Rumours of the vicinity of bears had reached us that day, and we jumped at once to the conclusion that Bruin was upon us. What was to be done? We were quite certain the poor calf, tethered to a stump on the grass plot, would fall an easy victim. Then all the windows were wide open downstairs, and we did not think it probable Bruin would respect the mosquito-netting sufficiently for us to depend upon it as a defence. Mr. C—— and the men were away down the line, and the doctor, who had come in that day, was enjoying a slumber, from which it seemed cruel to disturb him after his hard day's tramp. However, as the noise increased, and seemed nearer every moment, it had to be done. Did you ever try to wake a very sound sleeper, making apparently noise enough to awaken the dead, and when about to give it up in despair have him answer, after your last effort, in a mild, good-naturedly aggravating tone, which impresses you with the belief that he has only closed his eyes for a moment's meditation? Just so did our excellent Esculapius. Imploring him to get up, and telling him that the bears were upon us, I rushed to obey Mrs. C——, who screamed to me to shut all the windows. While I was scrambling on to the kitchen table to reach the last, the doctor appeared, very much en déshabille, with his hair rumpled and a general air of incompleteness about him, demanding the whereabouts of the bear; and at the same moment Mrs. C——, in her night-dress, leant over the banisters above, listening with all her ears for the answer. The absurdity of the whole scene so struck me that I could scarcely refrain from laughing outright. Sallying forth, armed with a big stick, the valiant doctor drove out from behind the wood-pile on the rock—a large, half-starved dog, who was trying to worry a meal off the dried hide of a defunct cow!
The night was brilliant; bright moonlight lay like a long string of diamonds on the bosom of the lake; a blue, cloudless sky spread over our heads; but far away to the south a great bank of murky clouds, lined with silver, was momentarily rent by fierce flashes of forked lightning, followed by the muttering of distant thunder.
In November a very sad accident occurred, by which Mr. C—— lost one of his staff. The weather was cold and disagreeable, just the few transition days between the beautiful Indian summer and clear Canadian winter. Until then the thermometer had registered 70 degrees in the shade at noon, but the change had come suddenly, as it always does in Manitoba, and in a few days the smaller lakes had frozen over wholly, but the larger ones only partially. The mail had been delayed in consequence of there being no means of passage either by land or water. On the 10th Mr. W—— and Mr. K—— dined at Inver, and the former resisted all persuasions to remain until the morning, being anxious to reach his station, Ingolf, next day in time to intercept the expected mail-carrier, and feeling sure he could reach the intermediate station, Kalmar, before dark. He left about three o'clock. What seeming trifles sometimes make all the difference between life and death! That day dinner was half an hour late, an unusual thing in our punctual house, and if he had only had that half-hour more of daylight, his fate would have been changed. He crossed the three first lakes in safety upon the ice, and naturally thought that he should find the fourth equally firm, forgetting that the sun had been, shining on the north side with a heat doubled by the high, rocky shore. He attempted to cross, but, alas, never reached the other side.
The next evening (Saturday), not hearing him work the telegraph, Mr. K——, who had been detained at Inver, asked Kalmar when Mr. W—— left, and the answer that he had not seen him told us the sad news at once. Next morning at daybreak a party went in search of the unfortunate man, and found his body not thirty feet from the shore. His hat, profile (or map), and the long pole carried by all who have to cross unsound ice, were floating near. His large boots, which were so strapped round his waist that it was impossible to get them off, had kept him down. The lake (Red Pine) is small but deep, and he had died alone in the forest, with only the giant rocks around him to echo back his dying cries. While I write, memory recalls his laughing air, when telling me that morning how he had tried to cross the narrows of our lake, but had desisted, fearing a ducking on such a cold day; and I, pointing to his immense boots, said they were scarcely fit to wear when running such risks. How little I dreamt what harm they were doomed to do! His great brown eyes, with the sad, far-away look in them, as if, unknown to himself, they saw into the future; his graceful, manly figure, as he sprang up the hill behind the house, and his cheery "Good-bye, till I see you again," can never be forgotten.
When the winter roads became passable, they took him into Winnipeg, and laid him in the Roman Catholic cemetery there—alone, away from all he loved, without a kindly hand to tend his last resting-place. His death cast a gloom over all our party. Though grieving for him and missing him continually, we could never realize that he was really dead. And the knowledge that it was so even to us made our hearts fill with sympathy for one far away, to whom the sad tidings would have more than the bitterness of death.