Chapter XIII: Battleford

Three-quarters of the following day was spent in extricating the wagons from the voracious alkali. Even after they had finished their own wearisome toil, and were all loaded up once more ready to proceed, they found it impossible not to go to the assistance of other colonists who were less fortunately situated than themselves. How could a lone man, no matter how willing, and possibly with no help but that which a nerve-exhausted and travel-satiated wife could give, struggle with a ton or so of heavy baggage across a bottomless ooze? A still more unanswerable question presented itself. How could such helplessness be ignored? Weren't they all penetrating deeper and deeper into the wilderness, where every vestige of help and encouragement must come from each other?

Unskilled, perhaps; innocent, maybe; foolish, possibly; but heroic without a shadow of a doubt, were these hundreds of men and women who plodded resolutely on to achieve a set purpose, with, in the territory where they were going, not even so much as a footprint in the grass as a suggestion of hope.

Almost continuously the stream of colonists and freighters dribbled along and into the morass. There was no other way round. The highly-deceptive surface of the long, narrow plain refused even to support an empty wagon. Not until weeks later, when the hot sun had baked the ground to the hardness of stone, were any colonists able to pass that spot without leaving some mark or other, either on the whitening soil with a spade, or on their own spirits with the experience.

Compelled at last to disregard their fellow-unfortunates' claims for succour, the Trailey party continued their journey. Another day's ups and downs brought them to a substantial steel bridge, spanning the Battle River. Crossing this, they climbed into historic Battleford.

Old capital of the North-West Territories; Headquarters of C Division of the North-West Mounted Police; Hudson's Bay Company post; Indian and half-breed centre, Battleford occupied a magnificent site high up on a plateau at the extreme tip of the acute angle formed by the confluence of the mighty North Saskatchewan and the much smaller, though swift-flowing, Battle River.

Such a position for a town should bring warmth to the heart of a military commander. Whether it has ever done so or not is questionable; anyhow, it most surely did to the hearts of the travel-stained Barr Colonists in the spring of nineteen hundred and three.

Here was their final contact with civilization, and their last opportunity for purchasing stores and other supplies. Here, for them, was the last outpost of the omnipotent and revered god Mammon, who is accustomed to hang out his sign in gold mines, oil wells, ammunition factories, occasionally in pawn-shops, but for preference in places called banks. Here was their ultimate chance to post a letter, send a telegram, buy a drink (legally, of course), or call a policeman.

On a much smaller scale, a tented camp similar to the one which was fast melting away at Saskatoon dotted the sandy plain contiguous to the little town. Considerable business of buying and selling was done. Banking accounts were opened with a surprising minimum of fuss. The Bank of British North America at this point made no inquiries about anyone's antecedents, though had they done so, such questions would have been easily answered satisfactorily, for plenty of the Barrites boasted pedigrees as long as your arm, some of them vanishing dubiously into mists of aristocratic illegitimacy.

A great deal of wealth melted away rapidly. Newly-acquired cheque books accelerated the spending orgy. Whatever else the Barr Colonists may be accused of, they can never be charged with parsimony. Many Western fortunes grew suddenly vigorous, their tap-roots absorbing sustenance from the open-handed spending of the colonists.

Sam and Bert borrowed an old buckboard from a Battleford resident in which to transport the limping Trailey to the bank. Sam himself disdained to patronize the institution.

"Wot's the good?" he remarked to Bert. "'Ere's my few quid," and he patted, somewhat affectionately--for he valued money, though a Londoner--a leather pocket on a broad, red-and-white-striped belt which encircled his waist.

The other two men were differently placed. Although possessing but a tithe of Sam's adaptability and energy, they were men of wealth compared with him. But the little Cockney was not the slightest bit envious. A sort of unwritten understanding existed between him and Bert, whereby the latter paid for the equipment, and the incidentals of the trek, in return for which Sam gave freely of his advice, labour and company--an arrangement so simple, that it not only overcame the disparity of riches, but proved advantageous in numerous other ways.

They rested at Battleford three days, during which time they were agreeably impressed with the little town's picturesqueness. The genuineness of the inhabitants was very noticeable. The come-into-my-web, God-bless-you-brother look of the hang-you-I'm-all-right, scheming salesman was here practically not to be found. The change was very welcome.

That indefinable something which makes the real old-time Western spirit such an admirable trait of character, was in the Battleford country seen at its very best. The total indifference to pretence; the unbounded, unabated hospitality; the almost complete absence of the sinking of individuality in the pursuit of wealth; the unrehearsed naturalness of the people's generosity--(not offers of it)--were all qualities which delighted the more observant of the colonists, who had but recently sailed away from an environment where the Golden Rule is admired--like a king's coronation--for the rareness of its performance.

Trailey and Bert spent money lavishly. They stocked up with every imaginable thing, regardless of transportation problems. With an astonishing display of diplomacy in one so young, Bert presented Mrs. Trailey with a pair of weighty, handsome, vividly-scarlet Hudson's Bay blankets.

"Oh, you shouldn't, Mr. Tressider," the good lady remonstrated. "A pretty penny they've cost, I'll be bound. They'll come in useful, though, if we get any more snowstorms," and she fingered their soft, fleecy surface admiringly. "Oh, my goodness!" she exclaimed, as she lifted the blankets up, "what a weight they are! My husband will never stop sleeping when he gets these over him."

William Trailey happened to be dozing in a folding camp-chair just outside the tent, in which position he was soaking up sunshine like an equatorial lizard on a rock. Every now and then he emitted a subdued grunt of perfect content.

Esther was learning how to darn a woollen sweater, with her mother as an acrimonious tutor.

"Dad doesn't need anything to induce him to sleep," she laughed.

"Sleep! H'm!" snorted her mother. "Your father doesn't sleep; he goes into trances. Look at him--he's in one now. It's my opinion this isn't a country for lazy people. We're rushing into trouble," she continued reflectively, as she pursued her train of thought. She was busy peeling some potatoes which that morning she had attempted to refuse at the hands of a generous matron of the town. "I can feel it in my bones. Poverty, and worse, is staring us in the face all the time. Besides, I dropped my mirror this morning, and broke it; and that's a sure sign of trouble. One of your grandma's pictures fell off the wall the night your Uncle Tom was born. You remember him, Esther, don't you? He was the one who turned out to be a journalist, y'know, and tried to write poetry. I've heard your grandma say many a time it was a wonder she herself wasn't taken. The midwife..."

"In which event," interposed Esther quickly, "you wouldn't have been here to tell us about it, mamma."

Esther's face became suffused with blushes at the turn her mother's remarks were taking. Bert was quite composed. He thought she had never looked so adorable. "She's mine, or my name's not Tressider," he vowed to himself as he watched the flush slowly fade from his companion's lovely, rose-petal skin. "What a magnificent girl!" he mused, his mind wandering back among the romantic incidents of the trek, dwelling with leisurely joy upon the charming intimacies with which such a life abounds. But, like a lot more bliss, he merely longed for what he already possessed. It was merely a matter of revelation.

A trifle reluctantly, they finally set off from Battleford. The trail was sandy and good, well-worn by the vehicles of wandering Indians, who went frequently into the little town from their reservations close by. Here and there long wagons had drawn faint lines in the pale, yellow grass, tracing the path of a more or less aimless endeavour in some dusky Indian's untroubled mind. Beautifully natural tufts of poplar grew everywhere. A gigantic arch of sky rested its pale-green rims on the rounded buttresses of the Battle and Saskatchewan River hills to right and left. Far away in front, the prairie, stained a deep blue-black with distance, and futurity, stretched illimitably, waiting with implacable patience for the arrival of the unsuspecting Barr Colonists.

Soon a smoke, like a thin haze, enveloped everything, seeping into the crystal atmosphere apparently from nowhere at all. As the party travelled on hour after hour, it grew thicker and thicker. It flowed in over the prairie as imperceptibly as did the sentiment of affection over Esther and Bert. This latter emotional phenomenon was fast becoming so dense that at times the victims of it were perfectly unable to detect anything but the light shining from each other's eyes. Without an inkling of the nearness of any special declaration; scarcely aware that the vague, pleasant fondness they had conceived for one another was but the enchanting prelude to something more serious, and therefore more risky, the pair of lovers penetrated deeper and deeper into the spiritual haze of a mutual attachment.