Chapter V: Saskatoon--William Trailey

So sanguine is youth, and so undismayed by the future, that Sam and Bert were not the slightest bit disturbed either by the profound muddle Barr's leadership had sunk into, or by the contemplation of their long, rugged trek into the unknown. But to the calmly thoughtful, middle-aged colonists, especially those having nearly as many young children as dollars, the prospect looked dark indeed. In the whole badly-managed scheme, the only certainty these men could reckon on was the grim uncertainty of everything.

Barr added nothing to his fading reputation by appointing another clergyman to his staff--the Rev. Dr. Robbins. As far as physical beauty went, this latest addition to Headquarters' establishment was hardly an Adonis. In ability, he ranked nowhere. He wasn't even interesting. He called himself a doctor, but what of, nobody knows, for sure--certainly he never cured a colonist of any ailment, either mental, spiritual or physical. Why he joined the colonists at Saskatoon at all is a mystery. He left no mark on their affairs, unless a memory of his bulbous figure so much like that of a comic brewer's drayman can be counted one. Two thousand men, women and children waiting to be led deep into the wilderness by a triumvirate of parsons surely makes the Barr Colony unique, even if nothing else does.

Fortunately, the serious-minded immigrants, those with grit, and perseverance, to say nothing of self-respect and ambition, were no more affected by the behaviour of the incompetent freaks at the head of things than the weather is influenced by the planet Jupiter (always excepting, herein, the conduct of the Rev. G. E. Lloyd, whose exemplary management, when later it got its chance, set him miles apart from, and above, the others).

Having laid in a plentiful supply of cigarettes and such like things so essential to successful pioneering, Sam and Bert were quite ready for a very early departure from Saskatoon the following morning--about half-past ten o'clock, Bert suggested.

Two candles, inserted in the clefts of a couple of split willow-sticks driven in the loose soil, shed a spluttering glimmer which fought bravely with the tent's obscurity. A little oblong camp-stove, the smoke-pipe of which issued from a tin-bound hole in the sloping canvas wall, radiated a drowsy but slowly dying heat.

Everything except such articles as were likely to be needed for bed and breakfast was packed away in the wagon's bulging load outside. Bert reclined on a folding camp-bed. He was swapping portions of perfectly good eyesight for slabs of a horribly lurid novel. Brilliantly robed for sleeping purposes in a stunning suit of violet-and-white-striped pyjamas, with huge pearl buttons on it made from oyster shell, he presented a gorgeous appearance as he flipped the ash off his cigarette with the careless air of a rajah. In the adventuring line, he aped the splendour of the Count of Monte Cristo rather than the simplicity of style set by Robinson Crusoe.

Sam was scrawling a message on a picture-postcard--depicting a busy street scene in Regina--to send to his people in quiet and deserted London. Sitting cross-legged on three grey army blankets, which were spread out on the trampled grassy floor, he was alternately sucking at a stubby pencil in quest of ideas, and swearing softly to himself to aid him in putting them into words after he had trapped the elusive things.

Boots, belts, a dagger in a yellow leather sheath, outer clothing, and other odds and ends, were all strewed about with that delightful abandon so characteristic of young bachelors when separated from their sisters' habits of tidiness. Lending a sporting touch to the tent's somewhat bare interior, a double-barreled shotgun, loaded, leaned totteringly against the canvas, close to Bert's blonde head.

Being only the twenty-fourth of April, the night was cold. A frosted crescent, slender, chill, remote, floated majestically in the velvety sky, suffusing the world with a luminous paleness. A scarcely perceptible night-wind breathed softly through the camp. One by one the lights in the tents snapped out, the momentary after-blackness quickly dissolving in the pale wan light of the sickle moon. Here and there venturesome stars peeped out from the fathomless recesses of space.

Horses munched contentedly in the shadows of the schooner-tops--those with anything to eat did, at any rate. A cough, a ringing laugh, the fragment of a song, broke the silence at varying intervals. Now and again voices raised in sudden argument proclaimed to wakeful ears the universal clash of human opinions.

A dog barked; another answered the challenge; soon a regular chorus burst forth; then, after that died down, two or three competed for the last spasmodic yelp with a persistence worthy of something considerably more entertaining. Then silence again.

A horse whinnied; another squealed and fought its mate viciously, for even animals fall out with one another. Near Bert's tent, someone with a gift for dairying had acquired a blue-roan cow with numbers of wrinkles on its black-tipped horns. Nature's law of reproduction, working overtime, had decreed that this rather antique "bossy" should astonish herself by again becoming a mother. Begotten of old age, the calf was slightly anæmic, so when it discovered that it had been born among a horde of very green Englishmen, it quietly looked round, thought to itself "Hang this lot," then calmly threw back its head and wisely died--a sample of excellent judgment which by no means deterred the mother from uttering her lamentations in spasms of ear-bludgeoning roars whenever she remembered her loss.

Occasionally the camp was enveloped in a mantle of pure silence.

Ducks swished low overhead like flights of unseen arrows. Once, high up, wild geese flying northwards sunk their hoarse notes deep into the night's chilly vastness. An ox would inflate his body, stop breathing for a few seconds, then would exhale a long, contented sigh, followed by several blissful grunts as he resumed his placid chewing of a brand-new cud.

Distances wove themselves into a veil and hung mysteriously about the tented camp. A meteor streaked down the sky like a blazing spear. Frost with icy fingers slowly gripped the surface of the earth. Drooping tents tightened and stiffened, then stood glistening phantasmally in the ghostly light, their pale, thin shadows draping the ground in angular caricatures.

From far away, there came floating through the night, a faint, melancholy wail.

"Sam!"

"Wot!"

"I think I shall go and drown myself."

"Drownd yerself! Wot for?"

"I'm in love."

"In love! Garn! 'oo are yer tryin' ter kid? Why, yer knows no more abaht the 'uman 'eart than yer does abaht 'orses."

"Don't be facetious, Sam. This chap in this book feels just like I do. He was on his way to a high cliff to jump into the sea when his girl ran after him and stopped him, just in time. By Jove! something like that might happen to me, y'know."

"She'd 'ave run arfter 'im jus' the same if 'e'd bin goin' to a music 'all."

"You unromantic little devil! How's the water in the river over here--very muddy?"

"Not 'arf--an' ruddy cold."

Just then, from close to the tent, as it seemed, a frightful wail of anguish rose and fell agonizingly, then died shudderingly away.

"Good Heavens!" cried Bert, half rising in bed, and flinging his book down. "What's that?"

Sam was much more startled by the novel falling than he was by the cry outside.

"P'raps it's one of them blinkin' ghos'es wot comes ter people wots abaht ter die," he said. "Ain't it creepy?"

Bert shivered slightly. It was a cool night. The stove was almost out; he hadn't much on--and there was no more wood.

"Creepy! Ghastly, you mean. Somebody's being murdered. I know I oughtn't to say it, but I hope it's--no, I don't--he's done me no harm. I say, Sam, was there anything left in the flask? I'm simply frozen."

Again the cry of horror split the night, this time a little farther off. Sam hastily rummaged in the "tuck-box" and produced the flask, which he threw across to Bert, who was about to tip it up to his lips, when a series of rapid and violent blows shook the wall of the tent, and a man's voice called:

"Halloo! Halloo! in there. May I come in?"

Sam scrambled to his feet and hurriedly untied the tent-flap, letting in a thick-set, man of medium height. He was a little past middle age, of rotund and comfortable appearance, with a well-trimmed, reddish-brown beard, and he wore a good tweed suit and cap. His eyes were big and blue, very trustful, and slightly wide open--obviously with absent-mindedness, not at all with lying. Bert recognized him immediately as a man called Trailey, who, with his wife and daughter, occupied a tent next but one to his own.

"Good evening, Mr. Trailey," Bert said affably when he saw who the visitor was. "What on earth was that dreadful noise? You didn't see anyone being strangled outside, did you?"

Trailey was blinking his eyes in the two-candle-power radiance. With podgy fingers, fat like a baby's, he gently pressed his eyelids before looking round the tent. Then, noticing the bed, with Bert on it, he replied:

"No, I didn't see anybody being killed. I heard some man say it was one of those coyote things that belong to the prairies. Shocking cry, wasn't it? Nearly frightened my wife and daughter out of their wits."

"Positively ghastly," Bert rejoined. "Got on my own nerves a bit. Have a drink," and he proffered the flask at arm's length.

With not the least show of enthusiasm, Trailey regarded the flask and shook his head negatively.

"No, thank you very much," he said, "I'm a total abstainer."

"Jolly good idea--wish I was," commented Bert, helping himself to a little swig. Trailey sighed a plainly audible "Ah-h-h"--very deprecatory, and very prolonged.

"Forgive my impertinence," he continued, when Bert had withdrawn the flask from his lips and tossed it to Sam with a muttered suggestion that it might as well be refilled; "but I heard you were starting for the Colony in the morning, Mr. Tressider. I wonder if you'd care to wait till we're ready--two or three days, perhaps?"

"Ye--s, certainly--that is, of course, if Sam----"

"My wife and daughter are a bit nervous," interposed Trailey, "though I don't see why they should be--having me with them. They say that Sam, here"--and he gave the little cockney a warm look of admiration--"is such an adaptable chap, that they'd really feel much more comfortable in their minds if they were travelling along with your wagon."

Sam, who was filling the flask from a not-quite-full reserve quart bottle, grinned sheepishly at the outspoken compliment, which had been expressed utterly without guile. He had carried water from the river for the Trailey camp at odd times, besides cajoling their fire to burn, and doing bits of things for the horses. Like everyone else in camp, they had called him "Sam" from the very first.

Bert looked at his diminutive partner less casually than usual. He was becoming convinced more and more that Sam really was a handy kind of fellow, and, in spite of not being a gentleman, extremely likeable.

"That'll be all right, Sam, won't it?"--and, without waiting for a reply, turned and spoke to Trailey again.

"We shall be delighted. We'll wait as long as you like. We're in no particular rush. How have Mrs. Trailey"--here Bert purposely assumed a slightly less solicitous air, which certainly deceived Trailey, though not Sam, nor himself--"and--er--your daughter stood the trip so far?"

"Pretty well. A little tired, and uneasy, perhaps, wondering what's before them. You know what women are, Mr. Tressider?" and, as Bert indicated with a solemn nod that he knew all about women, and their emotions, Trailey sighed deeply and at some length, adding:

"But we're in the Lord's hands, are we not?"

This remark was one of those which always left Bert uncomfortably speechless. Ever since he was able to reason things out for himself he had had a sort of vague idea that all human beings were in the Lord's hands, some, apparently, much more so than others.

"Yes, I suppose we are," he replied diffidently, and he felt greatly ill at ease while saying it. His respect for sacred things was deep, but, like the majority of average men, he disliked exhibiting it. Trailey, however, seemed highly gratified by the reply.

"It's very kind of you to wait for us, Mr. Tressider," he said--"Sam, too, of course. Drop in at our tent some time, and have a chat. Mrs. Trailey will be glad to thank you personally, I know. Good-night," and he made to depart, but his bump of locality being rather imperfectly developed, he forgot where the entrance to the tent was. He groped round the wall for the triangular flap like a man blindfolded. First he barked his shin on the stove, almost upsetting it; then he tripped over Sam's blankets; finally he succeeded in knocking the gun over. This was loaded in both barrels, but a merciful Providence saw to it that it didn't go off. Though it fell with its muzzle pointing directly at Bert's silk-covered stomach, that gentleman was innocently oblivious of the risk. He had suddenly become interested in his own thoughts.

Sam picked the gun up gingerly and set it against the canvas. Seeing that it was his first experience with a firearm, he was sufficiently wise to treat this one with great caution. Then he went to Trailey's assistance.

"'Ere y'are, sir," he volunteered, at the same time throwing the tent-flap wide open; "'ere's the 'ole. Mind the bloomin' step."

"Ah-h," breathed Trailey, gratefully. "Much obliged, Sam. Good-night," and he vanished through the opening into the moonlit camp, walking aimlessly off in the opposite direction to that which led towards his own tent.

"That man's 'elpless," observed Sam, in a pitying tone.

"Indeed," remarked Bert absently, his mind elsewhere.

"Not 'arf, 'e ain't. 'E's a hinfant in arms. 'E's lawst nah, fer a bob 'e is. 'E's goin' rarnchin'--like us. D'yer want anuvver drink, Yore 'Ighness, before I tell James ter sling the cat aht an' farsten the kitching door?" and Sam held the flask towards Bert, whose recumbent and luxurious figure he regarded with mock respect.

"No--go to the deuce! What is Miss Trailey like, Sam? You've spoken to her a good deal, I suppose?"

Sam began to refasten the tent-door. He smiled mischievously to himself as he tied some weird knots in the string, fumbling awkwardly among the shadows.

"'Eaps of times. 'An'somer 'n a paintin', she is. Calls me Sam. Arsks arfter my people. Inquired wot we was goin' ter do when we get to our land. She 'inted that 'er ole man's a insurance soupringtendent or somethink, an' is goin' in fer rarnchin'. She larfed abaht it."

"Oh, and then what?" Bert had snuggled down into bed again.

"Nothink much. But you ought ter see 'er 'air when she 'as 'er 'at orf. It's like an 'alo. Gawd!"

"Yes, and what else? What's her Christian name?"

"Esther."

"H'm. Pretty name--Old Testament."

"Wot's that?"

"Nothing--that is, nothing to interest you. It's the finest book in the world. People quarrel about it, which proves how important it is, I suppose. But what about Miss Trailey? Did she say anything to you about them wishing to travel along with us?"

"No, only she said sort of jokin'ly 'ow nice it 'ud be if I was goin' along wiv their waggin. You 'aven't seen 'er eyes when she puts affecshun in 'em, 'ave yer? 'Strewth! jus' like a hactress's."

"Humph! anything else?"

"The old woman ain't so bad, neither--religiouser 'n a preacher, she is, though."

Noticing that Bert had lapsed permanently into a thoughtful silence, Sam quietly crept into his simple bed, quenched the candles by flinging his jacket at them, then coiled himself up warmly for the night.