Chapter III: Part 3

So Jordan went out to get my snowshoes. He came in with the unexpected news that my snowshoes, and likewise their two pair, had disappeared from their pegs. It was plain that Haddock was "wise," and had taken them along with him down creek in a well-meant effort to make me stay indoors. I would have to go six miles down the trail and back to get another pair, and they also might not be there. That was out of the question. I hesitated only long enough to picture the trail. There was only that one mile on which I used the shoes, and though the snow there was deep I could wade through without them. It would mean perhaps an hour longer, but it wasn't two o'clock yet and I had a full six hours to travel fifteen miles. I decided to go.

I set out and made fast time until I struck the drifts on the summit. The short spell of gloom we called day had ended, and it was rapidly growing dark. Before I got over that mile there would be no light, and this unpleasant white fog would be blindfolding my eyes as well. With it all I didn't worry. This was a difficult job that faced me, but I was in my own workshop, had my own tools, and was working at my own trade. Fate, however, had decreed that I should botch things this time.

Somehow, unwittingly, I turned a gradual quarter circle to the right in the drifts, and was then travelling along the low, undulating divide instead of across it. Laboriously but confidently I kept on through the darkness and the fog, unconscious of my error, until, after three hours, I found myself at the foot of a grade that I had thought was the slope down into the Sulphur valley. I soon found my mistake. It must have been some large cup-shaped depression on the divide, its bottom strewn with a fearsome tangle of fallen trees carried down by a snow or landslide. For two testing hours I fought my way through that piled up brush and snow. When I got clear I felt myself on an up-grade.

It was a long climb out of that hateful valley and I knew now that I was lost. To try to retrace my steps would have been suicide. I had given up all hope of reaching Sulphur in time for the Tree and was growing a trifle anxious. It was terribly cold and dark. I had been working extremely hard for hours and I was getting hungry. I didn't dare to stand still or rest. My moccasin thong had come undone and I had to take off my mitts to fix it. So sharp was the frost that my fingers grew almost too stiff to do the work and I nearly failed to tie the lace. They were white and numb when I thrust them into my fur gauntlets, beating them against my chest as I went on. My whole body sensed the chill and threat of that momentary stop. It told me that if I were forced to take my last chance for life and try to build a fire, I would almost surely fail; to find dry wood, to prepare it, to light it, and wait nursing it into a flame sufficient to warm me would be a succession of almost hopeless chances, too desperate to take now unless there were no other way.

My climb brought me at last out above the frost-fog, and I thanked God I could see His stars and get my bearings. Far away to right and left in the darkness I knew the valleys of Gold Run and Sulphur lay, but between me and them stretched impossible miles of rough country. Puzzled a moment my anxious eyes caught the flicker of a light, low down in the north, hardly to be distinguished from the stars on the sky-line. This was indeed my "star of hope." It meant warmth, and warmth was life to me. I fixed its location and with new heart headed for it.

For six hours I travelled straight away like a hunted moose. I was young, lean and fit as a wolf. I was tired but not at all exhausted. In wind and limb I was good for miles yet. But I was becoming exceedingly hungry, and felt the clutching, icy fingers of the frost getting through my clothes, and I knew there was no time to waste. Hunger and ninety-five degrees of frost on the trail combining against you with darkness as their ally, will soon club you into unconsciousness.

However the game isn't lost or won until the referee blows his whistle. I was determined to fight it right out to the finish. The light was my goal and I forgot all else. I must get to it even though I might have to crawl at last with frozen hands and feet. In the hollows I lost sight of it, picking it up again on higher ground, until, when I knew I hadn't much time left me, it glimmered clear, down hill, not a hundred yards away. I'll tell you the lights in Paradise will not look so beautiful to me as did the Jo-Jo Roadhouse bonfire that night, for they had a big fire outside under an iron tank melting snow for water and it was the flame of this I had seen.

My fumbling at the latch roused Swanson, the owner, from his sleep. He opened the door and pulled me in and I was safe. I had been beaten in my endeavour to get to Sulphur in time for the Tree, but I was victor in a more serious contest. I had won a game against heavy odds in which the stakes were life, or death, or maiming.

They told me later at Sulphur, that at half-past eight the crowd at the Tree got uneasy, and by nine o'clock the concert was declared off and a well-equipped search-party set out with dog-teams. They went the round-about but well-trodden trail down to the mouth of Gold Run, and up that creek, until they found my solitary tracks turning off to the divide. They sent their dogs back to the Gold Run cabin with one of the party, and followed my trail all night on snowshoes, making the Jo-Jo late next morning an hour after I had left on Swanson's shoes for Sulphur.

I arrived at that camp by an easy route early in the afternoon. I had made their Tree a failure, I had broken my word, I had disobeyed Police orders, but I didn't get a scolding even, from anybody.

_VII._

_A Strange Meeting_

The German High Command had a big surprise to spring on the British Army in France early in 1918. Their preparations culminated in the smashing attack they made in March on the Fifth Army commanded by General Gough. The Canadians lay facing Mericourt beyond Vimy at that time. To our right, covering Arras and beyond, the Third Army, under General Byng was holding, on their right lay the Fifth Army. Before and during their great effort the Germans refused to be "drawn" at Mericourt into any serious retaliation, no matter how often we raided them. We knew why later when General Gough's line went to pieces. The Huns were going to "get us," they believed, in another and more thorough way than by counter-raids.

It looked for some weeks as if they might realize their hopes. The Fifth Army's formation was broken, and in confusion, they were driven back and back for miles, until with reinforcements they managed to hold only a short distance in front of Amiens. In a few days the British lost, in prisoners alone, 200,000 men. To save themselves from being outflanked the Third Army had to withdraw from a portion of their former line and swing their right wing back facing out. They completed the difficult movement with brilliant success, and presented to the enemy an unbroken front of fighting men, well-munitioned, and supported by an effective artillery fire. This move saved the British forces from what looked like imminent disaster.

Byng's men used Arras as their pivotal sector. It was only a few miles from us, and it was with anxious hearts we heard, those days and nights, the ceaseless thunder of the guns on our right, as the terrific struggle continued. It was dismal news too, that came from Belgium. There Mt. Kimmel had fallen, and the British had been strategically forced to evacuate all the ground we had won at such enormous cost around Passchendaele; and this, remember, was the fourth year of the war.

Those were fateful days for the Canadians. Our front was quiet, but we were nevertheless in an extremely perilous location. Vimy Ridge was behind us, and behind it again was lower ground which would be hard to hold in a flanking attack by our enemy. Many additional batteries had been crowded in on the Ridge with their silent guns trained on Arras lest the Third Army, which still occupied that town, should be broken and the Germans get through. In that event the Canadian Corps would probably have been cut off by the enemy's advance through the valleys behind us, and our career, as a Corps, would have ended. Certainly we would have sold our lives and freedom dearly, but with lines of communication cut our position would have soon been untenable, and successful retreat probably very nearly impossible. Don't dream that the front-line men were panicky. We knew that millions of brave men were still facing our common enemy and that back of them and us was the indomitable will of our Empire and our Allies. In this connection I recall a conversation between our Col. Urquhart (a thorough Scot), and a visiting officer, in which they referred to the situation at Arras. "It is very serious indeed," said our guest, "for if the British break there, we Canadians are in for our biggest tussle with the Hun." "Do you know," asked Urquhart, "what troops of ours are engaged there?" "Yes," was the reply, "the 15th Division." "Well," said the Colonel, "that is a Scottish Division, and I can assure you, sir, there will be no break at Arras." Nor was there. Those Scottish lads stood firm. Repeated and determined attacks by the finest German troops could not break their front, nor drive them from their ground. The critical days passed, the enemy's progress was everywhere effectually and permanently stopped. Then when we were thoroughly prepared we took the initiative, and in August, the same year, commenced that grand victorious advance which ended the war.

Those days we often keenly discussed the situation from many angles. I was in "A" Company's dug-out one time when we were giving our opinions as to the relative merits of some of the different units of the British Army. We got away from the present war into history, and were recalling other famous campaigns and the exploits of the troops engaged in them. Someone said that while Canada, since she became a Dominion, had not had much chance until now to become illustrious in war, yet for forty years she had maintained the finest force of military police in the world, the Royal North-West Mounted. I was proud to mention that my brother had served in that crack organization for thirty years, and from that remark I was eventually entangled in the yarn which I here unravel.

* * * * *

I am the youngest of ten. My two brothers, John and James, were grown up and away from home before I had got beyond infancy. John visited us frequently after I had reached boyhood. James enlisted with father's consent in the North-West Mounted Police, went west and never returned. That force was organized in 1873 and my brother joined them in 1878. When I was a young lad there was no doubt in my mind which was my favorite brother. John was a minister, and ministers were an unknown quantity to a youngster of my age, and so I wasn't much taken with my preacher brother.

But it was different with James. He was a soldier and a specially interesting sort of soldier. His business was chiefly, so I thought anyway, to go galloping on horseback across the prairies of our wild west, chasing bad Indians and horse-thieves, and having all kinds of real adventures. How I longed for him to come home! I pictured him, in fancy, riding down our main street in Police uniform, with pistols in his belt and perhaps a knife too, his carbine slung by his saddle, and handling easily a spirited horse! I would then point him out with pride to the other boys as my brother, and maybe, when he saw me, he would come riding over to the sidewalk and speak to me in front of all the other fellows. My boyish heart used to glow as I imagined what might possibly soon come true.

The prairies were undoubtedly a very long distance off in those days. There were no rail-ways on them, none indeed to carry you to their outer-boundaries in Canada. Parties of police recruits went down through the United States to Fort Benton or other suitable points, and then came north, mostly by trail, to the Canadian plains. It was a long journey, I knew, but on the other hand mother used to get letters from him, and he would say in them that he might be home for Christmas, a treasured hope. Nearing Christmas mother would be busier than ever in the kitchen, making the cakes and other good things we always had in abundance at that festive season. I liked to be on hand then for there were bowls, in which tasty confections had been mixed, that required scraping out and it was my delight to attend to them. She would often talk to me then about her soldier boy, and I was an eager listener. "Maybe your brother James will be home this Christmas," she would say with a glad note in her voice. Then there would come the letter containing the unwelcome news that he couldn't get a furlough this year, they were so short of men and had such a vast territory to patrol, but we would surely see him next year. Mother would go into her room for a while with the letter, and when she came out she would take me on her knee, hug me up to her and kiss me, then would go about her work strangely silent. Her soldier boy never came home. He went farther west and north, and my story is of the first meeting I had with my brother, the first anyway I had any memory of. It occurred in the Yukon in a roadhouse on Eureka creek.

I visited that creek regularly about once a month. To reach it I had to "mush" down the Indian River valley, ten miles from the mouth of Gold Run, and then cross the river to Eureka which flowed in from the opposite side. Five miles up Eureka was the first cabin. Above that on both forks of the stream there were miners. In summer I could cross Indian by a shallow ford and in winter on the ice, but for a trip or two in the Spring it was a tumultuous flood which I had to navigate on a make-shift raft.

It was in the Spring of 1902 when making this trip I found the river, as I expected, in spate. I was prepared with axe, rope, and a few spikes, and in an hour or two had a small, rough float constructed. I made and launched it a hundred yards above the point I sought to reach on the other bank, for I knew the rapid current would carry me down that distance at least before I could effect a landing. On this side of the river there was no one nearer than ten miles, for this was the "back-entrance" to Eureka, (Bonanza and Dawson lying off in another direction), so I always wrote out a note stating what I was attempting to do, dated it, and put it up on a tree by the trail. Thus if anything unexpected happened, some "musher," coming by within a week or two, would know the circumstances.

Then I pushed out into the water with my rough paddle. I had a light pack on my back holding my shoes, a dry pair of socks, and other trail accessories. That time I had made my raft rather too small. I had to stand in the centre or it would tip me off, and it wasn't easy to keep my poise in rough water with the logs mostly out of sight under my feet. When within a few yards of the other side, my frail craft caught for a moment on a hidden snag which tore some of the lashings loose, and the two outside logs showed signs of getting adrift. If that occurred I would shortly be swimming for my life in the surging, ice-cold water. The raft was only about seven feet across and to save it from breaking up I "spread-eagled" on it, catching the rope ends with each hand and thus holding it together. I had to lie almost flat to do this, and for the next five minutes was giving a life-like imitation of a submarine about to submerge. Luckily my raft struck the bank, I caught the limb of a tree and swung myself ashore. I made the five miles to Macmillan's cabin in double-quick time and stayed the day there in the bunk, with my clothes drying out around the stove.

During the next two days I went around the cabins visiting, and "ringing the church bell" for a meeting in the roadhouse. There we gathered in the evening, not a man absent that could come. The roadhouse became a church, with the bar-counter my lectern. On it I had a lighted candle which I had to hold in my right hand, the book in my left, when I read or we sang, so that I could see the words distinctly. The business of the place was practically suspended except the cooking at the kitchen end, and at odd times when a traveller came in for a drink or a meal he would be served quietly, and then go on his way or stay as he was minded. The stools and benches were filled and some men were sitting on the floor around the walls.

In the middle of my sermon two "mounties" entered at the door behind me. They closed the door and stood near it listening. I turned my head for a casual glance at the newcomers, stammered, stuck, and couldn't go on. I turned from my congregation, and, taking the candle in my hand, stepped nearer. There before me was the man whose face I had so often gazed at, with silent admiration, as I saw it in the photograph in my mother's room. It was indeed my brother James, the hero of my boyhood days! Our hands clasped as I spoke his name. I turned to the crowd, told them what had happened, and that I couldn't go on with the address. They understood. We sang a hymn and ended the service forthwith.

The talk I had with my new-found brother can be better imagined than described. He had been sent from the upper country, the Tagish Post, to the Eureka detachment, had arrived that evening and had heard that a "George Pringle" was having a meeting on the creek. He had come over confident that it was his "little" brother, for he knew I was in the Klondike.

We spent a day together, one of the never-to-be-forgotten days of my life. Then the next morning I started back on my circuit. He came with me to Indian. We built a good raft together, and he watched me safely over and until I was out of sight in the trees. Then I took down my "notice" and hit the trail for Gold Run. George Earsman, living in the first cabin I came to on that creek, was a sympathetic listener while I told of the strange meeting. But he could not forbear humorously remarking that I had in a sense, "turned the tables" on my brother. Back in Gait, he said, no doubt James had often put me to sleep, and when next we met I was trying to put him to sleep!

I saw my brother only once more. Ed. Blanchfield brought me a letter from Dawson some weeks after marked "urgent." It was from Jim, stating that orders had been received requiring him to leave the Yukon for Police headquarters at Regina, Saskatchewan. He had to take the first up-river boat, the _Casca_, which sailed the next day. I made record time over the twenty miles from Gold Bottom next morning. John came in nine miles from Bonanza, and I spent a happy afternoon with my two "big" brothers before the steamboat pulled away for the south.

After those many strenuous years serving Canada in wild and dangerous days on the prairies, and among the forests and mountains of the northland, he now takes his rest. His is a lonely grave near one of the outposts of settlement on the northern reaches of our prairies.

_VIII._

_Ben_

One of the pluckiest deeds I have ever seen done by any airman I witnessed in 1918 on the Mericourt front. On a line two or three miles behind us, and stretching roughly from Arras along Vimy Ridge to the Souchez valley, we had our usual complement of observation balloons. These were held by long wire cables and contained two observers each.

One fine clear day five of these balloons were up, high in the air, watching movements behind the German lines. Macpherson and I were tramping along through one of our deep communication trenches on some errand, when the sound of distant, anti-aircraft shells bursting in the air, reached our ears. We climbed out at the Beehive dug-out to see what was up. Far above the balloon nearest Arras there was appearing, against the blue sky, many little white clouds of smoke caused by exploding shrapnel, while near the ground we saw two open parachutes descending, the observers had "jumped for it." From the smoke above there emerged an aeroplane darting straight down on the balloon. Almost quicker than I can tell it, a volley of incendiary bullets from the plane had ignited the big bag, and it fell to the earth like a twisted torch in smoke and flame.

The German never swerved, but headed away for the next balloon. The observers from that one by this time were nearing the ground under their parachutes, and in a few minutes the observers of all five were either on the ground, or floating gracefully to the earth beneath their big "umbrellas," seeking safety from this nervy Hun. By this time everything along the Ridge that could reach him was turned loose. There was a perfect storm of shrapnel, machine-gun and rifle-fire. Hundreds of shells exploded around him and thousands of bullets sped towards him, and it seemed impossible that he could continue. But he didn't even try to escape. He went right on through that deadly fusilade, courting death every second, until he had reached the Souchez and had burned every one of our five balloons. Then and not till then, did he turn towards Hun-land.

In spite of our irritation at his complete success, we could not deny the pilot's great bravery. The recognition of his courage was heartier because he really put none of our men in actual jeopardy, although he offered himself and his machine-gunner as an absurdly easy target to our guns throughout the whole affair. No doubt his mate, he himself, and the plane were hit a good many times but not enough to bring them down or stop their work. In all probability the plane would have to go to the repair sheds and the men into hospital after they landed.

The whole show, which we had seen clearly from start to finish, was over in ten minutes, and we went down to tell the fellows in the dug-out what we had just seen. The description called up memories of other deeds of bravery, and some stirring stories were told. I offered one about my dog Ben who, I claimed, had a place by right in the world's list of heroes.

* * * * *

It is hard to believe that dogs do not think along much the same lines as we do in the simpler relations of life. I find it impossible to disbelieve in affection existing between dogs and men, and in a marvellous readiness on the part of the dog to go the whole way in laying down its life for the man it loves. I do not know how to interpret their actions otherwise.

One winter, among my dogs I had a half-mastiff, half-wolf, that I had raised from a pup. He was my favorite, a big, awkward, good-natured fellow who wanted to follow me everywhere, and when I left him at home would cry, in his own way, with vexation. He would go wild with joy when I returned. He also seemed to take upon himself the guarding of the cabin. Strangers might come and go for all the others cared, but Ben would always stop every man he didn't know at the cabin door, not in an ugly or noisy way, but as a matter of duty, until I opened the door and welcomed the stranger in. He never interfered with those who had been once admitted to the cabin should they come again, noticing them only to give a friendly whine and wag of the tail. I suppose you can all match my story thus far, but let me go on.

One hard winter in the Yukon, when the snow was very deep on the hills, and there had been a prolonged spell of unusually extreme frost, the wolves commenced to come down at night into the valleys close to the cabins to hunt and devour stray dogs, or anything else they could get. One night I was roused from sleep by the very unpleasant noise of a howling, snarling, wolf-pack fighting over something not far from my cabin. I wrapped my fur robe hastily about me, and opening the door peered out. They were gathered in a circle round what was apparently a crippled wolf, doing it to death. I shut the door and hurried into my clothes. I wanted to have a shot at them, for there was a bounty on wolves, and their furs were worth something.

As I slipped out of the door after dressing, it occurred to me to see if my dogs were secure under cover. They were whining and uneasy, but I found them wisely keeping safe in their stout log kennels, all but one of them. Ben's kennel was empty.

Instantly I knew what the brave young dog had done. Here was a band of strangers, suspicious looking characters, coming towards the cabin. He went out to meet them alone. He must have known by instinct, as the others did, that savage death would meet him in those dim, gray, howling forms. Maybe he trembled with fear, but he went out for my protection to engage in a hopeless fight against a pack of ravenous timber-wolves.

Immediately I grasped the situation I fired at the edge of the pack. They commenced to run, disappearing like ghosts in the moonlight on the white mountain-side, but not before I got two of them. Poor Ben was badly torn. I carried him in my arms into the cabin, lit the fire, and in the candle-light dressed the great, tearing gashes. A few minutes more and they would have had him killed and eaten.

For two days I worked as best I knew to save his life. But he was suffering agony, and at last I decided it would be more merciful to put an end to his pain by having him shot. I went up to the N.W.M.P. Post and got Corp. "Paddy" Ryan to come and do it for me. We carried him a little distance from the cabin, and laid him at the side of the trail. I confess I turned my head away while Ryan shot. Ben rolled down the hill a few yards through the snow, until he stopped against a bush. We watched to see if there was any move. "He is dead," we said, but to be sure I gave my whistle. For a minute nothing happened, and then I saw his faithful, battered head moving up very slowly out of the snow, and swaying to and fro. Ryan shot again. Ben's head dropped and he died.

I think I did what was best in the circumstances, and maybe I'm imagining motives that weren't there, but all the same there comes an ache in my heart whenever I remember that last shot. In his death-throes, blind and broken, his controlling impulse was to come to me when I whistled. Perhaps he thought I needed him. I believe there are dogs in heaven. Because the Bible says there are dogs kept out, it is not accurate exegesis to assume that there are none let in. And if I meet Ben I feel as if I'll have to try to explain it all and ask forgiveness. But I don't think he will bear any grudge. He was too big-hearted for that. I gave him a good grave on the hillside near my cabin door. It was all I could do for him then.

_IX._

_A Trail Sermon_

In October, 1917, orders came to join in the big push on the Flanders front in what proved a vain attempt to cut the enemy lines of communication with the Belgian coast held by the Germans and used as a resort for submarines. The Canadians were asked to take Passchendaele Ridge which rose abruptly about 300 feet above the miles of mud flats its guns dominated. These muddy fields had been captured by Australians and New Zealanders after desperate fighting, but it was almost impossible to hold them without terrible punishment from the concentrated German artillery fire, bombing, and machine-gunning because of the enemy's position on the Ridge. No trenches could be made in the mud for the sides would slip back in, and there was practically no protection for our men outside the few small concrete blockhouses or "pill boxes" the Huns had built. So we had either to withdraw or go on and chase the enemy off the Ridge.

The 9th brigade of the famous Third Canadian division was chosen for the post of honour. This was the task of capturing the almost unassailable German positions on Bellevue Spur which was a part of the Passchendaele heights lying immediately in front of us. Of the brigade, the 43rd battalion (the "Camerons" of Winnipeg) and 58th were to make the attack, with the 52nd in close support. The 116th, junior battalion of the brigade, was employed as a labour battalion, and a dirty, dangerous job they had, "packing" ammunition and "duck-walks" at night through the mud up to the attack area, doing pick-and-shovel work, and afterwards carrying back wounded men under shell-fire.

Friday, October 26th, was the fateful day. Someone suggested that Friday was unlucky and 26 was twice 13, but this was countered by the seven letters in October and the lucky number at the end of 1917! It wasn't luck in sevens or thirteens that won the battle, but simply that we had men and officers with an unyielding determination to carry on in spite of all obstacles, unless wounded or killed, until their objective was gained. Contributing causes there were in training, equipment, and leadership that helped our men to do the impossible, but the deciding factor, the real cause of victory, lay in the brave hearts of the soldiers who faced the Spur that chill October morning.

The ground had been reconnoitred by Lt.-Col. Grassie, our O.C., who had to leave for Canada before the attack took place. Our operations were carried out under the skilful direction of Major Chandler.

In one of my old note-books I find a description of the affair scribbled Oct. 27th during a leisure moment in Waterloo pill-box. "From Banks Farm we moved up to within striking distance of Bellevue Spur taking over from a battalion of Wellington New Zealanders. Headquarters occupied the concrete blockhouse near the foot of the spur and about 400 yards away from the enemy lines. We were under direct machine-gun fire and sniping from their posts on the crest of the hill we had to capture. Our blockhouse was continually shelled. The enemy guns had its location to a nicety and kept it under almost constant fire. Twelve men in all were killed at the door at different times during the few days we stayed there.

"In the attack yesterday morning, fifty of our men in the centre were able to make and hold their objective, but the battalion on our right was forced to fall back to the edge of the hill after being exposed to a fire which cut it down to ineffective strength. One of our companies on the left ran into a murderous fire from a group of German posts opposed to them. We withdrew to the brow of the hill and sent word back for re-inforcements. Our centre still held but their position was precarious and before nightfall would have become untenable if these Germans to their left were not dislodged. The 52nd were ordered to reinforce our left wing and renew the attack. This time we were successful, 150 prisoners were captured in half-an-hour and the whole front cleared. The 58th were enabled to advance and we had no further trouble in consolidating our position."

Two V.C's were won that day. Bobby Shankland, a subaltern in the 43rd, under enemy observation with its consequent machine-gun and rifle fire, made the trip from one of our advanced platoons back to battalion headquarters and out to his men again. He brought accurate information at a critical time when prompt action properly directed meant victory; the lack of it meant defeat. The renewed attack on the left wing with the definite objective he advised saved the day for us. He was recommended for the highest award and it was duly awarded him. Lt. O'Kelly of the 52nd won the coveted honor by the gallant and effective way in which, regardless of personal risk, he led a company of the 52nd against a group of pill-boxes filled with machine-gunners.

Many other gallant deeds were done on the hill that day of which there was no one left to tell.

During this time a stream of wounded had been coming back past Waterloo Pill-box where our battalion Medical Aid Post was at work. The floor of the blockhouse was a foot deep in mud and water. The stretchers were almost submerged and the back of the man was almost always in the water. At times the stretcher-cases were lying in three rows outside in the cold, the rain, and the mud. There they were constantly in danger of death from shelling. Twice shells burst among them, killing and wounding again a dozen men on each occasion. Half the cases never got into the dressing station. They were given a look-over, fixed up as well as we could, and sent hobbling off over the "duck-walks" to safer areas farther back. Only the most severe cases were held for the attention of the overworked M.O. The long stretcher journeys to the rear were terrible experiences for both bearers and wounded. They had to pass through shelling, gas, and bombing. The carrying parties often became stretcher cases themselves on the way back, and the wounded in that rough journey must have suffered tortures of both mind and body.

The outstanding memory of it all is that of the mud. It would seem impossible for a sensible man to develop a bitter hatred towards an inanimate and apparently harmless thing like mud. But it was "the very devil" to our minds. We walked in it for endless miles. It held our feet and wore us out. If you fell sideways you would probably break or sprain your ankle. We sat down in the mud, slept in it, fought in it. It clogged our rifles and machine-guns. We cursed it with intensity. We ate rations that tasted of mud, wore clothes that were loaded with it, carried with aching muscles stretchers and wounded that were made heavy with mud. Many wounded were lost in it, and many of our dead, that we never found, were swallowed by it. Hindenburg in his memoirs considers Passchendaele the most terrible affair his armies had anywhere engaged in. It was bad for them but it was worse for us attacking, and the thing that made conditions almost unbearable for both sides was that omnipresent vampire of those rain-soaked Flanders' fields.

On the 28th we were relieved and moved back and, in a day or two, found ourselves in tents in the mud of a ploughed field near Nine Elms back of Poperinghe. We had done nobly, so they told us, added fresh laurels to our fine record, fought a fight and won a victory, the praises of which would resound throughout the Empire. Needless to say we were glad we had not failed but for all that there was much unspoken sorrow in the men's hearts. So many of our comrades had been killed. What a remnant our 100 men looked when the battalion paraded to hear some fine words of heartsome praise from our brigade commander, Gen. Hill.

On the Sunday morning we had a parade service. It lasted altogether only fifteen minutes. It was a prayer for the mourners at home, a hymn of thanksgiving, and a word of cheer to ourselves. Towards evening Sergt-Major Lowe told me that some of the men wanted me to come over and talk to them. In one of the tents, I found thirty or so crowded in to hear a story of the Yukon, and in the tents close around others were listening as I talked. We were all in a serious mood, and somehow the consciousness of this influenced me, that night, to weave my stories into a message in which there would be comfort and cheer for men who had been hard hit, and had faced in roughest form the stern realities of life, and death, and suffering. There was help in it, I know, because I spoke of Jesus of Nazareth. When you want to minister to men in such times, don't your thoughts just naturally turn to the Man of Nazareth? So I spoke of Him and clothed my message in Klondike phrases and imagery. Here it is very much as I gave it that evening at Nine Elms.

* * * * *

We are all feeling a little bit down these days. The savagery of war and our heavy losses in men we knew and loved has stirred deep thoughts in us, grave inner questionings why these things should be, perplexing difficulties about the meaning of life and the power of death, the reason of suffering and the goodness of a God who permits it, criticisms of a social order, nominally Christian, which produces the barbarities we have witnessed and taken part in. We are groping for light like the blind, and wishing we could find a sure guide in our thinking on these tangled problems, in whose solution we might find satisfaction and assurance.

There is one song of all our soldier-songs that I think will live and that is the one where we sing of "a long, long trail a-winding into the land of our dreams." There's something true to experience about the thought of the long road of life. It takes me back to old trail days in the North, and I picture the long, long, trail of life winding its way from out of the mists of the past, through pleasant valleys and over windswept mountain summits, on and on into the unexplored land of the future. My message is simple enough. It is an appeal straight from your padre's heart that in your sorrow and uncertainty you decide to take Jesus of Nazareth as your guide down the trail of life for all the days that are to come. I ask you to follow Him because He is the very guide you need to find the right trail and keep it under your feet to the end. Life is all we've got and it is therefore too precious to risk in any unnecessary way. It is so important that we find and keep the right trail and save our lives from spiritual death, we cannot afford to accept any guide who has not the very finest credentials. What are the credentials of Christ when He offers himself as our Guide? They may be spoken of in many ways, but I am going reverently to put him to the three tests any guide in the Yukon would have to face before he could qualify to lead anyone on a mid-winter trip into new country over an unknown trail beset with dangers.

But before I can get to this examination of His credentials I know many of you are mentally stumbling over difficulties you have with or about the Bible. It has been said with much truth that "the Bible has kept many an earnest man from Christ." It is not going to do it with you if I can prevent it. I have heard you wondering about the truth of the Garden of Eden story, about a God who hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he could slay the first-born of all the Egyptians, the story of Jonah and the fish, the difficulties of accepting Biblical science and history, the miracles, and such like things, and when you all have given your special stumbling-blocks I could probably add some of mine that you hadn't thought of. I am not going to attempt just now to deny or remove any of these particular difficulties but show you a way round them, a right way of approach to the Bible, so that instead of keeping you from Christ it can fulfill its divine mission of revealing Him.

I had a partner with me for one winter in my log-cabin at Gold Bottom, way in the Klondike hills. His name was Jack Crowe, a Nova Scotian, who had come out from Dawson to teach the little school we had started for the dozen children on the creek. We took turns at cooking. One winter morning, the mercury clear out of sight in the bulb of our thermometer, it was my turn to get out and light the fire and make breakfast. This consisted principally of oatmeal porridge, bacon, bread of our own make, and coffee. There were two big bowls of porridge with nothing left in the pot. We sat down, asked a blessing, and commenced our breakfast. The first spoonful I took my teeth struck on something hard. It wasn't porridge and I took it out of my mouth. It was a button. What did I do? Throw my bowlful of porridge away and do without half a breakfast on account of that button which I couldn't swallow? No, I did just what you or any other ordinary man would have done. I placed the button beside my plate and ate the porridge with relish, and I think if there had been twenty-five buttons in that porridge I'd have done the same, an odd button or two out of place wasn't going to deprive me of my needed breakfast. Fifty below zero makes you too hungry to be fastidious. Further, let me take you into my confidence, I found the place where that button belonged before the day was over, sewed it on, and it did good service.

Of course you see my point. I don't blink the difficulties in our thinking about the Bible. They exist. Most of them can be explained when we study the subject a bit, some few are still half-solved puzzles to me which I enjoy working at when I have leisure, and some I suppose I shall never quite see through; but just let us lay them all aside for the time being and go straight to bed-rock and see if there is gold in the claim of Christ himself. You know, by the way, it is strange how what at one time we thought useless material in the Bible finds its place as we gain more experience of life. When I was very young the psalms seemed almost meaningless. Now some of them voice the deepest longings of my soul for I have learned the bitterness of life as well as its sweetness. The minor prophets at the end of the Old Testament seemed to be "cumberers of the ground" until I learned something of the crookedness of present day politics, the prevalence of the cancer of sanctimonious hypocrisy, and the power of Mammon-worship to obstruct social reforms long overdue. Then it seemed that a book like Amos was not only up-to-date, but far ahead of us. There are passages in the fifth chapter that should be painted in giant letters on the walls of legislatures, in halls of justice, in the market-place, and above the pulpits of Christendom.

But leave your lesser problems unsolved for the time and get the first, biggest question settled as to the validity of Christ's claim to be able to guide us safely through life.

In the old stampede days up there, and it's the same still, the first qualification demanded in a guide was that he should know the trail. It was impossible to talk business on any other basis. Every other virtue your would-be guide possessed would be useless without that essential one. Christ is prepared to stand that test, make it as "acid" as you like. How can we test Him when we do not ourselves know the way? We all have a God-given intuition by which we can tell that the direction the guide would have us go is right or wrong. Even a Canadian who had never been in Scotland and wanted to go there would have "horse-sense" enough not to follow a man who offered to take him to Edinburgh by going five thousand miles due West from Halifax.

So with Christ. He asks no blind faith or sanctified superstition. What direction would He lead us? What is the great burden of His message accepted by all Christian Churches down underneath the load of dogma, form and ceremony? Where would He lead us if we followed Him? The road is marked by two parallel lines, the eternal boundaries of the Christ trail, on the one side it is heart-righteousness and on the other brotherly kindness; and to show us what He meant, He walked that trail Himself His life through. It's a great thing to have a guide who knows the trail not only "on the map" but has been over every bit of it and knows it perfectly. He shows by His own life just what He means, the heart right as His was right, and a brotherly-kindness that gladly lays down its life to help others. Doesn't it seem to you to be the right direction, the right trail, the right guide?

This seems to me like trying to prove an axiom. You can't prove it by process of logic. To state it is to prove it. We know by intuition it is right and it is the only trail. Take the fundamental need of heart-rightness. It is the heart of man in which evil dwells. The cruel ambition that permitted this war originated in the hearts of a group of men. The greed for money that refuses to permit social iniquities to be removed has its habitation in men's _hearts_. The whole horrid brood whose mother is selfishness exists only in men's _hearts_. "_Out of the heart_" Christ said, evil comes. Cleanse the heart and you clean the world. But you can't have your heart right the way Christ teaches unless you have a place in it for your brother. A Christian must be and will be deeply interested in Social Reform. You can't follow Christ and forget your brother, for the trail of Christ is the trail of self-sacrifice for others. Christ then knows the right trail which would lead you and me and the whole world unto a happier, sweeter day. I know no other way that so completely satisfies my sense of what is right and true as the way of Christ.

The second test of the worth of a guide, after I was satisfied that he knew the way, was whether he was able and willing to help me when I got into difficulties in hard places. The trail leads dizzily round the mountain side with a precipice below. I'm a tenderfoot. I have neither the nerve nor skill to take my dogs and my sleigh safely past. I'd fall to my death surely if I attempt it. He tells me it's the only way through, and he is right. I say I can't make it. He replies that all he offered to do was to lead along the right trail. It is up to me to follow. Or the mountain climb is so steep and the snow so deep that I haven't strength for it. Again I appeal to this imaginary guide. He says it is not his business to do anything more than walk ahead and show me the way. But I can't follow him and I know to camp on the mountain-side means death. No matter what perfect knowledge such a guide would have it would mean tragedy for me unless he had more than knowledge. But there is no guide, white, Eskimo, or Siwash, that I have ever met would act that way. He would take his own dogs round the mountain then come back and, with expert strength, take me safely past the danger. He would help me somehow to make the steep grade.

So on the trail of life there are the towering mountains of sin. They lie across the right trail in every man's life. We are all sinners. You remember how Christ once dispersed a mob. He said, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone," and while He wrote on the ground they all took the chance, as we would have done, to sneak away self-condemned. Well, no man can cleanse his own heart of sin and yet no true man can rest content in sin. It must be done and no human power can do it. If we are to get past the mountains of our sins, and we must get past them or die, then our guide must be able to get us over. That's why we need a Saviour. It meant Gethsemane and Calvary to him. It is the Atonement, and whatever varying interpretations it may have, it must ever mean that the Guide is also a Saviour. He is getting us safe across to the God-ward side of our sins. They are no longer in our way if we will but give ourselves to Him to take us over. No longer are they a barrier between ourselves and God as we journey on. Before we reach the land of gold which we pilgrims are seeking, we also come to the dark valley and mystery of death. Can He find a safe way for our feet in the darkness? Will He leave us to follow when we cannot see him? Not He. He found His own way safely through--that's the meaning of His empty tomb--and He guarantees to hold us securely in that strange experience at the end of the trail till, going on, we make through the fog into the land beyond, and see the golden city of God. Our guide is stronger than sin and death.

There is another test. My guide must not only know the trail and be able to get me through safely but he must be one with whom I can talk. Men used to go crazy in the North through sheer loneliness. Days alone on the trail with your dogs amid the deep silences of the sub-arctics makes you hungry for conversation with some other human being. I have turned ten miles out of my way on a heavy trail simply to get to some trapper or prospector where I might hear "the sweet music of speech." I remember having as a guide on a three weeks trip to the Lightning Creek Camp an Indian who was of the conventional silent type. He knew the trail and his duties perfectly. I had only one fault to find with him. He wouldn't or couldn't chat with me in either English or Chinook. I paid him off at Lightning. I couldn't stand it any longer. I hired another man for the return trip, not such a capable guide, but one with whom I could have a little chat around the camp fire in the evenings.