The Shepherd of the North

by Richard Aumerle Maher

“I represent Joseph Winthrop, a voter of Racquette County.”

“I beg pardon, sir, of course. The committee quite understands that you do not come here in the interest of any one. But the gentleman who has just been before us spoke for the farmers who would be most directly affected by the prosperity of the railroad, including those of your county. Are we to understand that there is opposition in your county to the proposed grant?”

“Your committee,” said the Bishop, “cannot be ignorant that there is the most stubborn opposition to this grant in all three counties. If there had not been that opposition, there would have been no call for the bill which you are now considering. If the railroad could have gotten the options which it tried to get on those farms the grant would have been given without question. Your committee knows this better than I.”

“But,” returned the chairman, “we have been advised that the railroad was not able to get those 107 options because a boy up there in the Beaver River country, who fancied that he had some grievance against the railroad people, banded the people together to oppose the options in unfair and unlawful ways.”

The chairman paused an impressive moment.

“In fact,” he resumed, “from what this committee has been able to gather, it looks very much as though there were conspiracy in the matter, against the U. & M. Railroad. It almost would seem that some rival of the railroad in question had used the boy and his fancied grievance to manufacture opposition. Conspiracy could not be proven, but there was every appearance.”

The Bishop smiled grimly as he dropped his challenge quietly at the feet of the committee.

“The boy, Jeffrey Whiting,” he said, “was guided by me. I directed his movements from the beginning.”

The whole room sat up and leaned forward as one man, alive to the fact that a novel and stirring situation was being developed. Everybody had understood that the Bishop had come to plead the cause of the French-Canadian farmers of the hills.

They had supposed that he would speak only on what was a side issue of the case. No one had expected that he would attack the main question of the bill itself. And here he was openly proclaiming himself the principal in that silent, stubborn 108 fight that had been going on up in the hills for six months!