Books: THE PROSPECTOR

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It was partly the sea-rover in his blood, making impossible the
familiar paths trodden bare of any experience that could stir the
heart or thrill the imagination, but more that high ambition that
dwells in noble youth, making it responsive to the call of duty
where duty is difficult and dangerous, that sent David McIntyre out
from his quiet country home in Nova Scotia to the far West. A
brilliant course in Pictou Academy, that nursing mother of genius
for that Province by the sea, a still more brilliant course in
Dalhousie, and afterwards in Pine Hill, promised young McIntyre
anything he might desire in the way of scholastic distinction. The
remonstrance of one of his professors, when he learned of the
intention of his brilliant and most promising student to give his
life to Western mission work, was characteristic of the attitude of
almost the whole Canadian Church of that day.

"Oh, Mr. McIntyre!" said the Professor, "there is no need for such a
man as you to go to the West."

Equally characteristic of the man was McIntyre's reply.

"But, Professor, someone must go; and besides that seems to me great
work, and I'd like to have a hand in it."

It was the necessity, the difficulty, and the promise of the work
that summoned young McIntyre from all the openings, vacancies,
positions, and appointments his friends were so eagerly waving
before his eyes and set him among the foot-hills in the far front as
the first settled minister of Big River, the pride of his Convener's
heart, the friend and shepherd of the scattered farmers and ranchers
of the district. Once only did he come near to regretting his
choice, and then not for his own sake, but for the sake of the young
girl whom he had learned to love and whose love he had gained during
his student days. Would she leave home and friends and the social
circle of which she was the brightest ornament for all that he could
offer? He had often written to her, picturing in the radiant colours
of his own Western sky the glory of prairie, foot-hill, and
mountain, the greatness and promise of the new land, and the worth
of the work he was trying to do. But his two years of missionary
experience had made him feel the hardship, the isolation, the
meagreness, of the life which she would have to share with him. The
sunset colours were still there, but they were laid upon ragged
rock, lonely hill, and wind-swept, empty prairie. It took him days
of hard riding and harder thinking to give final form to the last
paragraph of his letter:

"I have tried faithfully to picture my life and work. Can you brave
all this? Should I ask you to do it? My work, I feel, lies here, and
it's worth a man's life. But whether you will share it, it is for
you to decide. If you feel you cannot, believe me, I shall not blame
you, but shall love and honour you as before. But though it break my
heart I cannot go back from what I see to be my work. I belong to
you, but first I belong to Him who is both your Master and mine."

In due time her answer came. He carried her letter out to a
favourite haunt of his in a sunny coolie where an old creek-bed was
marked by straggling willows, and there, throwing himself down upon
the sloping grass, he read her message.

"I know, dear, how much that last sentence of yours cost you, and my
answer is that were your duty less to you, you would be less to me.
How could I honour and love a man who, for the sake of a girl or for
any sake, would turn back from his work? Besides, you have taught me
too well to love your glorious West, and you cannot daunt me now by
any such sombre picture as you drew for me in your last letter. No
sir. The West for me! And you should be ashamed--and this I shall
make you properly repent--ashamed to force me to the unmaidenly
course of insisting upon going out to you, 'rounding you up into a
corral'--that is the correct phrase, is it not?--and noosing, no,
roping you there."

When he looked up from the letter the landscape was blurred for a
time. But soon he wondered at the new splendour of the day, the
sweetness of the air, the mellow music of the meadow-lark. A new
glory was upon sky and earth and a new rapture in his heart.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Dear little soul! She doesn't know, and
yet, even if she did, I believe it would make no difference."

Experience proved that he had rightly estimated her. For a year and
a half she had stood by her husband's side, making sunshine for him
that no clouds could dim nor blizzards blow out. It was this that
threw into her husband's tone as he said, "My wife, Mr. Macgregor,"
the tenderness and pride. It made Shock's heart quiver, for there
came to him the picture of a tall girl with wonderful dark grey eyes
that looked straight into his while she said, "You know I will not
forget." It was this that made him hold the little woman's hand till
she wondered at him, but with a woman's divining she read his story
in the deep blue eyes, alight now with the memory of love.

"That light is not for me," she said to herself, and welcomed him
with a welcome of one who had been so recently and, indeed, was
still a lover.

The interval between supper and bed-time was spent in eager talk
over Shock's field. A rough map, showing trails, streams, sloughs,
coolies, and some of the larger ranches lay before them on the
table.

"This is The Fort," said McIntyre, putting his finger upon a dot on
the left side of the map. "Twenty-five miles west and south is Loon
Lake, the centre of your field, where it is best that you should
live, if you can; and then further away up toward the Pass they tell
me there is a queer kind of ungodly settlement--ranchers,
freighters, whisky-runners, cattle thieves, miners, almost anything
you can name. You'll have to do some exploration work there."

"Prospecting, eh?" said Shock.

"Exactly. Prospecting is the word," said McIntyre. "The Fort end of
your field won't be bad in one way. You'll find the people quite
civilised. Indeed, The Fort is quite the social centre for the whole
district. Afternoon teas, hunts, tennis, card-parties, and dancing
parties make life one gay whirl for them. Mind you, I'm not saying a
word against them. In this country anything clean in the way of
sport ought to be encouraged, but unfortunately there is a broad,
bad streak running through that crowd, and what with poker,
gambling, bad whisky, and that sort of thing, the place is at times
a perfect hell."

"Whisky? What about the Police? I have heard them well spoken of,"
said Shock.

"And rightly so. They are a fine body of men with exceptions. But
this infernal permit system makes it almost impossible to enforce
the law, and where the Inspector is a soak, you can easily
understand that the whole business of law enforcement is a farce.
Almost all the Police, however, in this country are straight
fellows. There's Sergeant Crisp, now--there is not money enough in
the Territories to buy him. Why, he was offered six hundred dollars
not long ago to be busy at the other end of the town when the
freighters came in one night. But not he. He was on duty, with the
result that some half dozen kegs of whisky failed to reach their
intended destination. But there's a bad streak in the crowd, and the
mischief of it is that the Inspector and his wife set the pace for
all the young fellows of the ranches about. And when whisky gets a-
flowing there are things done that it is a shame to speak of. But
they won't bother you much. They belong mostly to Father Mike."

"Father Mike, a Roman Catholic?"

"No, Anglican. A very decent fellow. Have not seen much of him. His
people doubtless regard me as a blooming dissenter, dontcherknow.
But he is no such snob. He goes in for all their fun--hunts, teas,
dances, card-parties, and all the rest of it."

"What, gambling?" asked Shock, aghast.

"No, no. I understand he rakes them fore and aft for their gambling
and that sort of thing. But they don't mind it much. They swear by
him, for he is really a fine fellow. In sickness or in trouble
Father Mike is on the spot. But as to influencing their lives, I
fear Father Mike is no great force."

"Why do you have a mission there at all?" enquired Shock.

"Simply because the Superintendent considers The Fort a strong
strategic point, and there are a lot of young fellows and a few
families there who are not of Father Mike's flock and who could
never be persuaded to attend his church. It doesn't take much you
know, to keep a man from going to church in this country, so the
Superintendent's policy is to remove all possible excuses and
barriers and to make it easy for men to give themselves a chance.
Our principal man at The Fort is Macfarren, a kind of lawyer, land-
agent, registrar, or something of that sort. Has cattle too, on a
ranch. A very clever fellow, but the old story--whisky. Too bad.
He's a brother of Rev. Dr. Macfarren."

"What? Dr. Macfarren of Toronto?"

"Yes. And he might be almost anything in this country. I'll give you
a letter to him. He will show you about and give you all
information."

"And is he in the Church?" Shock's face was a study. McIntyre
laughed long and loud.

"Why, my dear fellow, we're glad to get hold of any kind of half-
decent chap that is willing to help in any way. We use him as usher,
manager, choir-master, sexton. In short, we put him any place where
he will stick."

Shock drew a long breath. The situation was becoming complicated to
him.

"About Loon Lake," continued McIntyre, "I can't tell you much. By
all odds the most interesting figure there is the old Prospector, as
he is called. You have heard about him?"

Shock bowed.

"No one knows him, though he has been there for many years. His
daughter, I understand, has just come out from England to him. Then,
there's Andy Hepburn, who runs a store, a shrewd, canny little Scot.
I have no doubt he will help you. But you'll know more about the
place in a week than I could tell you if I talked all night, and
that I must not do, for you must be tired."

When he finished Shock sat silent with his eyes upon the map. He was
once more conscious of a kind of terror of these unknown places and
people. How could he get at them? What place was there for him and
his mission in that wild, reckless life of theirs? What had he to
bring them. Only a Tale? In the face of that vigorous, strenuous
life it seemed at that moment to Shock almost ridiculous in its
inadequacy. Against him and his Story were arraigned the great human
passions--greed of gold, lust of pleasure in its most sensuous
forms, and that wild spirit of independence of all restraint by law
of Good or man. He was still looking at the map when Mr. McIntyre
said:

"We will take the books, as they say in my country."

"Ay, and in mine," said Shock, coming out of his dream with a start.

Mrs. McIntyre laid the Bible on the table. Her husband opened the
Book and read that great Psalm of the wilderness, "Lord, thou hast
been our dwelling place," and so on to the last cry of frail and
fading humanity after the enduring and imperishable, "Let the beauty
of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our
hands upon us: yea, the work of our hands establish thou it."

As he listened to the vivid words that carried with them the very
scent and silence of the hungry wilderness, there fell upon Shock's
ears the long howl and staccato bark of the prairie wolf. That
lonely voice of the wild West round them struck Shock's heart with a
chill of fear, but following hard upon the fear came the memory of
the abiding dwelling place for all desert pilgrims, and in place of
his terror a great quietness fell upon his spirit. The gaunt spectre
of the hungry wilderness vanished before the kindly presence of a
great Companionship that made even the unknown West seem safe and
familiar as one's own home. The quick change of feeling filled
Shock's heart to overflowing, so that when Mr. McIntyre, closing the
Book, said, "You will lead us in prayer, Mr. Macgregor," Shock could
only shake his head in voiceless refusal.

"You go on, David," said his wife, who had been watching Shock's
face.

As Shock lay that night upon his bed of buffalo skins in the corner,
listening to the weird sounds of the night without, he knew that for
the present at least that haunting terror of the unknown and that
disturbing sense of his own insufficiency would not trouble him.
That dwelling place, quiet and secure, of the McIntyres' home in the
midst of the wide waste about was to him for many a day a symbol of
that other safe dwelling place for all pilgrims through earth's
wilderness.

"Poor chap," said McIntyre to his wife when they had retired for the
night, "I'm afraid he'll find it hard work, especially at The Fort.
He is rather in the rough, you know."

"He has beautiful honest eyes," said his wife, "and I like him."

"Do you?"

"Yes, I do," she replied emphatically.

"Then," said her husband, "in spite of all appearances he's all
right."

VIII

THE OLD PROSPECTOR

Loon Lake lay in the afternoon sunlight, shimmering in its glory of
prismatic colours, on one side reflecting the rocks and the pines
that lined the shore and the great peaks that stood further back,
and the other lapping the grasses and reeds that edged its waters
and joined it to the prairie. A gentle breeze now and then breathed
across the lake, breaking into myriad fragments the glassy surface
that lay like sheets of polished multi-coloured metal of gold and
bronze and silver, purple and green and blue.

A young girl of about sixteen years, riding a cayuse along the lake
shore, suddenly reined in her pony and sat gazing upon the scene.

"After all," she said aloud, "it is a lovely spot, and if only
father could have stayed, I wouldn't mind."

Her tone was one of discontent. Her face was not beautiful, and its
plainness was increased by a kind of sullen gloom that had become
its habit. After gazing across the lake for some minutes she turned
her horse and cantered toward a little cluster of buildings of all
sizes and shapes that huddled about the end of the lake and
constituted Loon Lake village. As she drew near the largest of the
houses, which was dignified by the name of Loon Lake Stopping Place,
she came upon a group of children gathered about a little cripple of
about seven or eight years of age, but so puny and poorly developed
that he appeared much younger. The little lad was sobbing bitterly,
shrieking oaths and striking savagely with his crutch at the
children that hemmed him in. The girl sprang off her pony.

"Oh, shame on you!" she exclaimed, rushing at them. "You bad
children, to tease poor Patsy so. Be off with you. Come, Patsy,
never mind them. I am going to tell you a story."

"He was throwin' stones at us, so he was," said his brother, a
sturdy little red-headed lad of six. "And he hit Batcheese right on
the leg, too."

"He pu--pu--pulled down my mountain right to the ground," sobbed
Patsy, lifting a pale, tear-stained face distorted with passion.

"Never mind, Patsy," she said soothingly, "I'll help you to build it
up again."

"And they all laughed at me," continued Patsy, still sobbing
stormily. "And I'll knock their blank, blank heads off, so I will!"
And Patsy lifted his crutch and shook it at them in impotent wrath.

"Hush, hush, Patsy! you must not say those awful words," said the
girl, laying her hand over his mouth and lifting him onto her knee.

"Yes, I will. And I just wish God would send them to hell-fire!"

"Oh, Patsy, hush!" said the girl. "That's awful. Never, never say
such a thing again."

"I will!" cried Patsy, "and I'll ask God to-night, and mother said
He would if they didn't leave me alone."

"But, Patsy, you must not say nor think those awful things. Come now
and I'll tell you a story."

"I don't want a story," he sobbed. "Sing."

"Oh, I'll tell you a story, Patsy. I'll come into the house to-night
and sing for you."

"No, sing," said the little lad imperiously, and so the girl began
to sing the thrilling love story of The Frog and The Mouse, till not
only was Patsy's pale face wreathed in smiles, but the other
children were drawn in an enchanted circle about the singer. So
entranced were the children and so interested the singer that they
failed to notice the door of the Stopping Place open. A slovenly
woman showed a hard face and dishevelled hair for a moment at the
door, and then stole quietly away. In a few moments she returned,
bringing her husband, a huge man with a shaggy, black head and
repulsive face.

"Jist be afther lookin' at that now, will ye, Carroll!" she said.

As the man looked his face changed as the sun breaks through a
storm-cloud.

"Did ye iver see the loikes av that?" she said in a low voice.
"She'd draw the badgers out av their holes with thim songs av hers.
And thim little divils have been all the mornin' a-fightin' and a-
scrappin' loike Kilkenny cats."

"An' look at Patsy," said her husband, with wonder and pity in his
eyes.

"Yis, ye may say that, for it's the cantankerous little curmudgeon
he is, poor little manny."

"Cantankerous!" echoed her husband. "It's that blank pain av his."

"Whist now, Tim. There's Thim that'll be hearin' ye, an' it'll be
the worse f'r him an' f'r you, beloike."

"Divil a fear have Oi av Thim," said her sceptical husband
scornfully.

"Aw, now, do be quiet, now," said his wife, crossing herself. "Sure,
prayin' is jist as aisy as cursin', and no harrum done, at all." She
shut the door.

"Aw, it's the beautiful singer she is," as the girl struck up a new
song. "Listen to that now."

Full, clear, soft, like the warbling of the thrush at evening, came
the voice through the closed door. The man and his wife stood
listening with a rapt look on their faces.

"Phat in Hivin's name is she singin', at all?" said Mrs. Carroll.

"Whisht!" said her husband, holding up his hand. "It's like a wild
burrd," he added, after listening a few moments.

"The pore thing. An' it's loike a wild burrd she is," said Mrs.
Carroll pityingly. "Left alone so soon afther comin' to this
sthrange counthry. It's a useless man altogether, is that ould
Prospector."

Carroll's face darkened.

"Useless!" he exclaimed wrathfully, "he's a blank ould fool, crazy
as a jack rabbit! An' Oi'm another blank fool to put any money into
'im."

"Did ye put much in, Tim?" ventured Mrs. Carroll.

"Too much to be thrown away, anyhow."

"Thin, why does ye do it, Tim?"

"Blanked if Oi know. It's the smooth, slippin' tongue av 'im. He'd
talk the tale aff a monkey, so he would."

At this moment a loud cry, followed by a stream of oaths in a shrill
childish voice, pierced through the singing.

"Phat's that in all the worrld?" exclaimed Mrs. Carroll. "Hivin
preserve us, it's little Patsy. Tim, ye'll 'av to be spakin' to that
child for the swearin'. Listen to the oaths av 'im. The Lord forgive
'im!"

Tim strode to the door, followed by his wife.

"Phat the blank, blank is this yellin' about? Phat d'ye mane
swearin' loike that, Patsy? Oi'll knock yer blank little head aff if
Oi catch ye swearin' agin."

"I don't care," stormed little Patsy, quite unafraid of his father
when the other children fled. "It's that blank, blank Batcheese an'
Tim there. They keep teasin' me an' Mayan all the time"

"Let me catch yez, ye little divils!" shouted Carroll after the
children, who had got off to a safe distance. "Go on, Marion, an'
sing phat ye loike. It's loike a burrd ye are, an' Oi loikes t' hear
ye. An' Patsy, too, eh?"

He took the little cripple up in his arms very gently and held him
for some minutes.

"You're a big man, dad, aint ye?" said Patsy, putting his puny arm
round his father's hairy neck. "An' ye can lick the hull town, can't
ye?"

"Who wuz tellin' ye that, Patsy?" asked his father, with a smile.

"I heard ye meself last week when the big row was on."

"Ye did, be dad! Thin Oi'm thinkin' ye do be hearin' too much."

"But ye can, dad, can't ye?" persisted the boy.

"Well, Oi'll stick to phat Oi said, anyway, Patsy boy," replied his
father.

"An' I'll be a big man like you, dad, some day, an' lick the hull
town, won't I?" asked Patsy eagerly.

His father shuddered and held him close to his breast.

"I will, dad, won't I?" persisted the lad, the little face turned
anxiously toward his father.

"Whisht now, laddie. Sure an' ye'll be the clivir man some day,"
said the big man huskily, while his wife turned her face toward the
door.

"But they said I'd niver lick anybody," persisted Patsy. "An' that's
a blank lie, isn't it, dad?"

The man's face grew black with wrath. He poured out fierce oaths.

"Let me catch thim. Oi'll break their backs, the blank, blank little
cowards! Niver ye heed thim. Ye'll be a betther man thin any av
thim, Patsy avick, an' that ye will. An' they'll all be standin'
bare-headed afore ye some day. But Patsy, darlin', Oi want ye to
give up the swearin' and listen to Marion yonder, who'll be afther
tellin' ye good things an' cliver things."

"But, dad," persisted the little boy, "won't I be—"

"Hush now, Patsy," said his father hurriedly. "Don't ye want to go
on the pony with Marion? Come on now, an' Oi'll put ye up."

"Oh, goody, goody!" shouted little Patsy, his pale, beautiful face
aglow with delight.

"Poor little manny!" groaned Carroll to his wife, looking after the
pair as they rode off up the trail. "It's not many ye'll be after
lickin', except with yer tongue."

"But, begorra," said his wife, "that's the lickin' that hurts,
afther all. An' it's harrd tellin' what'll be comin' till the lad."

Her husband turned without more words and went into the house.
Meantime Marion and Patsy were enjoying their canter.

"Take me up to the Jumping Rock," said the boy, and they took the
trail that wound up the west side of the lake.

"There now, Patsy," said Marion, when they had arrived at a smooth
shelf of rock that rose sheer out of the blue water of the lake,
"I'll put you by the big spruce there, and you can see all over the
lake and everywhere."

She slipped off the pony, carefully lifted the boy down and set him
leaning against a big spruce pine that grew seemingly up out of the
bare rock and leaned far out over the water. This was the swimming
place for the boys and men of the village; and an ideal place it
was, for off the rock or out of the overhanging limbs the swimmers
could dive without fear into the clear, deep water below.

"There now, Patsy," said the girl after she had picketed her pony,
"shall I tell you a story?"

"No. Sing, Mayan, I like you to sing."

But just as the girl was about to begin he cried, "Who's that
comin', Mayan?" pointing down the trail.

The keen eyes of the lad had descried a horseman far away where the
long slope rose to the horizen.

"I don't know," answered the girl. "Who is it, Patsy? A cowboy?"

"No," said Patsy, after waiting for a few minutes, "I think it's
Perault."

"No, Patsy, that can't be. You know Perault went out with father
last week."

"Yes, it is," insisted Patsy. "That's father's pony. That's Rat-
tail, I know."

The girl stood up and gazed anxiously at the approaching rider.

"Surely it can't be Perault," she said to herself. "What can have
happened?"

She unhitched her horse, rolled up her picket rope, and stood
waiting with disturbed face. As the rider drew near she called,
"Perault! Ho, Perault!"

"Hola!" exclaimed Perault, a wizened, tough-looking little
Frenchman, pulling up his pony with a jerk "Bo jou, Mam'selle," he
added, taking off his hat.

Perault's manner is reassuring, indeed quite gay.

"What is it, Perault? Why are you come back? Where is father?" The
girl's lips were white.

"Coming," said Perault nonchalantly, pointing up the trail. "We
strak de bad luck, Mam'selle, so we start heem again."

"Tell me, Perault," said the girl, turning her piercing black eyes
on his face, "tell me truly, is father hurt?"

"Oui, for sure," said Perault with an exaggeration of carelessness
which did not escape the keen eyes fastened on his face, "dat ole
boss, you know, he blam-fool. Hees 'fraid noting. Hees try for sweem
de Black Dog on de crossing below. De Black Dog hees full over hees
bank, an' boil, boil, lak one kettle. De ole boss he say 'Perault,
we mak de passage, eh?' 'No,' I say, 'we try noder crossing.' 'How
far?' he say. 'Two--tree mile' 'Guess try heem here,' he say, an' no
matter how I say heem be blam-fool for try, dat ole boss hees laf
small, leele laf an' mak de start. Well, dat pony hees going nice
an' slow troo de water over de bank, but wen he struk dat fas water,
poof! wheez! dat pony hees upset hessef, by gar! Hees trow hees feet
out on de water. Bymbe hees come all right for a meenit. Den dat
fool pony hees miss de crossing. Hees go dreef down de stream where
de high bank hees imposseeb. Mon Dieu! Das mak me scare. I do'no
what I do. I stan' an' yell lak one beeg fool me. Up come beeg
feller on buckboard on noder side. Beeg blam-fool jus' lak boss. Not
'fraid noting. Hees trow rope cross saddle. De ole boss hees win'
heem roun' de horn. Poof! das upset dat pony once more. Hees trow
hees feet up on water, catch ole boss on head an' arm, knock heem
right off to blazes. 'Good bye,' I say, 'I not see heem more.' Beeg
feller hees loose dat rope, ron down on de bank hitching rope on
willow tree an' roun' hees own shoulder an' jump on reever way down
on bend an' wait for ole boss. For me? I mak dis pony cross ver'
queek. Not know how, an' pass on de noder side. I see beeg feller,
hees hol' de ole boss on hees coat collar wit bees teef, by gar! an'
sweem lak ottar. Sap-r-r-e! Not long before I pull on dat rope an'
get bot on shore. Beeg feller hees all right. De ole boss hees lie
white, white and still. I cry on my eye bad. 'Go get someting for
dreenk,' say beeg feller, 'queek.' Sac-r-re! beeg fool messef! Bah!
Good for noting! I fin' brandy, an' leele tam, tree-four minute, de
ole boss bees sit up all right. Le Bon Dieu hees do good turn dat
time, for sure. Send beeg feller along all right."

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