Meanwhile Mary plodded along with her housework, toiling doggedly from five in the morning until half-past nine or ten at night. Beulah's departure had left all the labours of the home upon her hands; her husband had made no suggestion of securing help, and she had not asked any. The new man made no offer to milk any of the cows; a dozen hours in the field was day enough for him, and whatever time was over he spent smoking cigarettes in the shelter of the barn. Allan occasionally did help with the milking, and more frequently with turning the separator, but it was so late when he stopped his work in the field she was sorry for him, and tried to have the milk cleared away before he arrived on the scene. One or two postcards she had had from Beulah, but they brought no great information. They came in the open mail; her husband was welcome to read them if he chose, but as he had sought his own company exclusively since Beulah's departure she made no attempt to force them upon him.
At last one morning came a letter, a big fat letter, left in by a neighbour passing by, as the custom was for any settler going to town to bring out the mail for those who lived along his route. She tore the envelope open nervously and devoured its contents with hungry eyes.
"My DEAR MOTHER,
"Here I am, in the shadow of the Rockies. That may sound poetical, but it's a literal fact. It is still early in the evening, but the sun has disappeared behind the great masses to the west, and the valley which my window overlooks is filling up with blackness. The Arthurses are pure gold, and I have told them everything. They don't blame anyone, not even father. How is he? Slaving as usual, I suppose.
"Well, I must tell you about my trip. When I left the house that night I had no idea where I was going, but the simplest thing seemed to be to go first to Plainville. The North Star led that way, and it seemed a good guide to follow. As I walked the lights came out in the Arctic sky—a great bow of them, swelling and fading in their delicate tints. I watched them and plodded along, trying not to think very much about anything.
"You've no idea how heavy that suit-case got, but I took my time, as there was nothing to gain by reaching town before daylight. When I got there it struck me it might be a good plan to have some breakfast, so I walked round to Goode's boarding-house. Mrs. Goode was bustling about, and received me with open arms. 'Well, my Land! if it ain't Beulah Harris!' she exclaimed—she always called me Beulah—'Goodness, child, what are you doing about this early in the morning? But there, I needn't ask, knowin' what a worker your father is. I'll be bound he drove you in before sunrise to lose no time with his ploughin'. Well, that's what makes the mare go. I wish my man had some of it—he's snorin' up on the second floor at this minute like to lift the shingles. I often say to myself, 'For the little he does and the lot he eats the Lord knows what keeps him so thin.' It's a grievance of Mrs. Goode's that her husband won't fatten up; she thinks it's a reflection on her cooking. 'And with your suit-case! You'll be taking the train? West, is it, or East? But you'll be hungry, child. Take off your things there while I see to my buns—I always give the boarders hot buns for breakfast—' you know how she rattles on. But she's a good soul, if a bit conceited over her looking, and wouldn't take a cent for my keep either. Of course she didn't wait for me to answer her questions, and she really suggested the plan which I took. After breakfast I went over to the station, and asked what the fare was to Arthurs' station; I found I had enough money for the trip, and I bought a ticket without further ado.
"I won't try to tell you all about my trip—it would take a book. But what a country it is! Of course I had learned in school that there was about two feet of map between the Red River and the Rockies, but there's only one way to know how big it is, and that's to travel it. If you've got any imagination at all a trip over these enormous prairies must set it stirring. For the most part there's no settlement; not a house, nor stack, nor any sign of life. Pretty much like Manitoba was, I guess, when you first saw it, but bigger, and grander, and more suggestive of the future. You see, Manitoba has made good, for all the doubters, and this bigger West will do the same, on a bigger scale. As we rolled along through that unbroken prairie, with here and there a great herd of horses or cattle in the distance, I felt at last that I was really beginning to live. Not that I was doing anything grander than running away from home, but still that feeling came over me—the feeling that here was a country where things were going to happen, and that I was going to play some part in their happening.
"Well, if I ramble on like this it'll be a real book after all. Calgary is the big cow-town of the West, just beginning to aspire to higher—or lower (there's a real question there)—civilization, and mixing schaps and silks on its streets in a strange struggle between the past and the future. But my stay there was short, as I was able to catch my branch train with little delay, and that night saw me at Arthurs' nearest station. The homestead rush is on here in earnest; the trains are crowded, mostly with Americans, and the hotels are simply spilling over. They're a motley crowd, these homesteaders. Down with us, you know, the settlers were looking for homes, and a chance to make a living, but up here they're out for money—the long green, they call it. Their idea is to prove up and sell their lands, when they will either buy more or leave the country. But the great point is that they are after money rather than homes. They belong to a class which has been rushing for a generation ahead of a wave of high land values—I heard a man say that in the train, and I made a note of it—they're rovers by birth and training, with no great home instinct! To them one place is as good as another—provided always there's money to be made there—and one flag is almost as good as another. Of course this will right itself in time; the first flood of land-seekers are soil-miners, but the second are home-builders—the man said that too; you see I'm picking things up; I want to know about something besides the weather—and when that second flood comes this country won't know itself.
"But to come back to the hotel; that's what I did when I had taken a good walk about the little town, and admired myself almost homesick looking at fine horses tied to hitching-posts and fine men swaggering about in the abandon of cow-boy costumes. One thing I have learned already, and the discovery shocked me a little at first; the cow-boy considers himself better clay than the farmer—the 'sod-buster' he calls him—and treats him with good-humoured contempt. I wanted to ask someone about Arthurs, and I didn't like to inquire in the hotel. There was a lot of drinking going on there. But near the door were two young men talking, and I overheard one of them mention Arthurs' name. Pulling myself together, I asked him if he could tell me where Arthurs lived.
"'Yes, miss,' he answered, lifting a big hat and showing when he spoke a clean set of teeth. 'It's twenty-five miles up the river. Were you expecting him to meet you?'