Receiving the signal, the train backed down the Pembina branch. There the wind was less trying, the road smoother, and we were getting accustomed to our cramped position. Gradually the train slackened, until it was almost at a footpace. Scarcely had we begun to wonder what was wrong, when the speed suddenly increased, and after rushing madly along for a few minutes slackened again, without any apparent cause. The man who had held a lantern at the back of our truck from the junction now began to grumble. "What can the driver mean by going at such a rate?" he exclaimed. Then, when the train slackened, he growled, "Hang the fellow, he's gone to sleep!" At last Mr. F—— said he would go in the engine-car and keep the man awake. When we stopped to take in water a few minutes afterwards he left us, and we reached the station at St. Boniface, the terminus of the railway, at three o'clock, without any further anxiety. There were only a couple of sleepy porters at the station, so we left the blankets, etc., lying on the platform until one porter found the man who had the key of the storehouse. Picking up our satchels, and shivering as the cold morning air came in contact with our wet clothes, we went over the prairie a hundred yards or so to a hotel, hastily put up for the accommodation of benighted travellers, there being no means of crossing the Red River for Winnipeg before seven.
The house was crowded to excess, the bar-room was full of noisy revellers, the landlord was in bed, and there were no rooms to be had. We waited at the head of the narrow flight of stairs, while a sleepy porter roused five men from their slumbers in the sitting-room, and heard a very grumbling discussion going on behind a half-open door near us, a woman in an injured tone protesting that, "It weren't no good wakin' her! She couldn't help the house not bein' big enough, nor more people coming nor it would hold;" while the man said, "It weren't his'n, neither; but places must be found to put 'um in."
Presently the sitting-room door opened, and a young man, looking as if he had slept in his hat and used his coat for a pillow, emerged, staring at us as if taking an inventory of our wardrobe, and disappeared downstairs. With a great yawn, and a muttered remark about something being "a d——d shame," a man who looked like a cattle-dealer followed. Then his partner appeared, an energetic, scrubby-looking little man, who informed us that we might enter: which we did, glad to get a place to sit down in; but hastily retreated, on discovering another man just getting up from the floor, and one busy lacing his boots. When the latter raised his head we recognized our clergyman from the Contract. He had come in over the Dawson route with the poor man who had lost his eyesight and arm by striking the rock where nitro-glycerine had been spilt. His fellow workmen had among themselves collected eleven hundred dollars towards supporting him, or getting him into some asylum, and he was now returning by the line.
Mr. M—— went back to the station to fetch a robe and some blankets, which we spread on the floor, and lay down, to wait for morning. The room was small—eight by ten feet—the furniture, a short uncomfortable sofa, two chairs, a table, and a couple of pictures, of Pope Leo IX. and St. Joseph. Daylight seemed a long time coming.
Mr. M—— looked more like a ghost than anything else. The poor man had walked up and down the station platform all the time. Neither storekeeper nor key being found, he had feared to leave our luggage lying about unguarded. Crossing the river in the clear bright morning among tidy-looking women going to market, and natty men in clean white shirts and well-brushed clothes, made us feel more disreputable than ever. And we were disreputable! Our skirts, draggled and muddy half-way to our waists, clinging and wet still; our hair un-brushed, our faces bespattered with mud, and blackened with smoke and dust from the engine and our night's travel—the railway hotel not having afforded us sufficient water to wash them; while the fatigue and wakeful night gave us a haggard, wobegone, been-out-on-a-spree appearance quite indescribable.
It is a long walk from the Red River ferry to the Canada Pacific Hotel, but our anxiety to arrive there before Winnipeg was abroad, made us get over it as quickly as possible. Haverty, the manager, received us, regretting that until after breakfast he could only let us have one room. Fortunately, I had some friends whom I did not mind disturbing at that early hour, so leaving my satchel to be sent after me, and taking the back streets as much as possible, I went in search of them. The maid who answered my knock was a stranger to me, and, putting on a very forbidding expression of decided refusal, was not, until I told my name, inclined to let me in. My friend was not up, but a few minutes afterwards I was warmly welcomed and given a bath and clean clothes before any one but her husband saw me.
We were detained in Winnipeg nearly a week, waiting for our luggage. Fortunately for me, the friend with whom I took refuge was about my own height, and very kindly lent me what I needed until I could procure garments of my own. This was, however, a great cause of trouble to a little English terrier, of which she made a pet. Recognizing her mistress's slippers and dress, she rubbed her head against my feet and was very affectionate, but glancing up at my face and discovering that of a stranger, she jumped back growling. Shortly afterwards, tempted by the familiar clothes, she again made friendly advances, only to snarl out her disapproval upon hearing my voice, evidently feeling so puzzled and imposed upon, that, until I had my own clothes, she declined to make friends with me at all. Every one was so kind that the days in Winnipeg were all too short, but the luggage arriving on Wednesday, October the 10th, left us no further excuse to remain, and with many regrets at parting, I said good-bye.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Minnesota again—Souvenirs of Lord and Lady Dufferin—From
Winnipeg by Red River—Compagnons du Voyage—A Model
Farm—"Bees"—Manitoba a good Field for Emigrants—Changes at Fisher's
Landing—A Mild Excitement for Sundays—Racing with Prairie
Fires—Glyndon—Humours of a Pullman Sleeping Car—Lichfield.
We came up the Red River in the Minnesota, the vessel in which I had gone down two years and a half before; the same, too, used by Lord and Lady Dufferin, with their party. Some Americans who were with us good-temperedly vied with each other in their efforts to get the state-rooms occupied by the vice-regal party, and the steward was asked many questions as to their sayings and doings. All the Americans took great interest in everything about them; carrying their admiration to the extent of making birch-bark-covered needle-books of the coarse red flannel spread upon the ground for Lord Dufferin to walk upon—intending them as valuable souvenirs for their friends.