Part 29 (1/2)

”What's the meaning of this nonsense, Ellis?” thundered an angry voice behind him, and the superintendent, black with scowling, glared at first the boy, then the engineer. ”What's this stop for, when you know I haven't a minute to spare getting to Dubuc? You nearly broke my neck, too, downing brakes. What does it mean, I say?”

But when the boys, bold with excitement, dragged the great man around the curve, and pointed to the doomed trestle, with its already falling timbers, it was another story altogether. From the engineer's white lips he listened to the history of Benny's ”signal code.” Then for a long time the great man stood looking at the burning trestle. Once he muttered aloud, ”All our lives, a priceless engine, valuable freight, rolling stock, _all saved_!” Then, whirling rapidly on his heel, he said, ”Ellis, we want your boy on the road when he's bigger. The boy who can invent a useful plaything and keep his head in an emergency is the boy we want to make into a man on the great Transcontinental. Will you let us have him?”

”Ask Benny what he wants to do!” smiled the engineer.

”Well, little 'Signal Code' man, what do you want to do?” asked the superintendent. ”Speak, old man.”

The boy was looking him directly in the eyes. ”Go on the great Transcontinental, if I get the chance,” he replied.

”You'll get the chance all right,” said the superintendent. ”_I'll_ see that you get it. Ellis, you may back the train down into town now.

There's lots to see to about reconstructing the trestle.” Then under his breath he added: ”That's the sort of boy we want on the railroad. That's the sort of boy!”

The Shadow Trail

A Christmas Story

Peter Ottertail was a full-blooded Mohawk Indian, who, notwithstanding his almost eighty years, still had the fine, thin features, the upright shoulders, and the keen, bright eyes of the ancient, warlike tribe to which he belonged. He was a great favorite with Mr. Duncan, the earnest Scotch minister, who had made a personal companion of Peter all through the years he had been a missionary on the Indian Reserve; and as for the two Duncan boys, they had literally been brought up in the hollow of the old Indian's hands. How those boys had ever acquired the familiar names of ”Tom” and ”Jerry” no one seemed to remember; they really had been christened Alexander and Stuart by their own father in his own church.

Then Peter Ottertail had, after the manner of all Indians, given them nicknames, and they became known throughout the entire copper-colored congregation as ”The Pony” and ”The Partridge.” Peter had named Alexander, alias ”Tom,” ”The Pony,” because of his st.u.r.dy, muscular back and firm, strong little mouth, that occasionally looked as if it could take the bit right in its teeth and bolt; and Stuart, alias ”Jerry,”

was named ”The Partridge,” because of his truly marvellous habit of disappearing when you tried to drum him up to go errands or carry wood.

Fortunately for the boys themselves, they were made of the good stuff that did not mind nicknames and jests; and when, at the ages of ten and twelve, they were packed off to school in a distant city, they were the very first to tell their schoolfellows Peter's pet names, which, however, never ”took root” on the school playground, ”Tom” and ”Jerry”

being far more to the taste of young Canadian football and lacrosse players.

During the school terms, old Peter Ottertail would come to the parsonage every Sunday after church, would dine seriously with Mr. and Mrs.

Duncan, and, when saying good-bye, would always shake his head solemnly, and say, ”I'll come no more until my Pony and Partridge come home.” But the following Sunday saw him back again, and the first day of vacation was not hailed with greater delight by the boys than by their old friend Peter. The nearest railway station was eleven miles distant, but rain or s.h.i.+ne, blood-heat or zero, Peter always. .h.i.tched up his own team and set out hours too early to meet the train. On arriving at the station, he would tie up his horses and sit smoking his black stone pipe for a long time. The distant whistle of the incoming train alone aroused him from rapt thought, and presently his dark old face was beaming on his boys, who always surprised him by having grown greatly during the term, and who made as much fuss and hilarious welcome over him as if Mr. Duncan himself had come to drive them home. So this delightful comrades.h.i.+p went on, year in, year out. The boys spent every day of their holidays in the woods or on the river with Peter. He taught them a thousand things few white boys have the privilege of learning. They could hollow canoes, shape paddles, make arrows and ”feather” them, season bows, distinguish poisonous plants from harmless ones, foretell the wind and the weather, the various moons, and the habits of game and fish, and they knew every tale and superst.i.tion on the reserve.

One day, just before the Christmas holidays old Peter appeared at the parsonage. Mrs. Duncan herself opened the door, smiling, sweet and a little younger-looking than when he had seen her the previous Sunday.

”Come in! Come in, Peter!” she cried, brightly. ”We're all in a turmoil, but happy as kittens! Tom and Jerry are coming to-morrow, and bringing two friends with them, nice boys from Jamaica, who are too far away from their home to return for Christmas. They've never seen snow in their lives until this winter, and we must all try to give the little fellows a good time, Peter. I'm busy already with extra cooking. Boys must eat, mustn't they?”

”Yes, Mis' Duncan,” answered the old man, slowly, ”and these snow-seers will eat double in the north country. Yes, I'll go and fetch them with my big lumber sleigh, and take plenty of buffalo robes and wolf skins to keep these children of the sun warm.”

Mrs. Duncan smiled. She could already hear Peter nicknaming the little chaps from Jamaica ”The Snow-Seer” and ”The Sun Child,” in his own beautifully childlike and appropriate fas.h.i.+on. And she was quite right.

Peter had hardly shaken hands and tucked the four boys snugly into his big bob-sleigh, before the names slipped off his tongue with the ease of one who had used them for a lifetime.

Tom and Jerry had fully prepared their Southern friends for everything.

They had talked for hours with great pride of their father's devotion to his Indian congregation, of their mother's love for the mission, of the Indians' responsive affection for them, of the wonderful progress the Mohawks had made, of their beautiful church, with its city-like appointments, its stained windows, its full-toned organ and choir of all Indian voices, until the Jamaica boys began to feel they were not to see any ”wild” Indians at all. Peter, however, rea.s.sured them somewhat, for, although he was not clad in buckskin and feathers, he wore exquisitely beaded moccasins, a scarlet sash about his waist, a small owl feather sticking in his hat band, and his ears were pierced, displaying huge earrings of hammered silver. Yes, they decided that Peter Ottertail was unmistakably a Mohawk Indian.

Tom and Jerry had never entertained any boys before, and, after the first day at home, they began to fear things would be dull for their friends at Christmas, who always spent such gay city holidays. They need not have worried, however, for the boys found too much novelty even in this forest home ever to feel the lack of city life. They of course, fell in love with old Peter at once, and not a day pa.s.sed but all four of them could be seen driving, snowshoeing, tobogganing, skating, with the old Mohawk looming not very far distant; and, as Christmas approached, with all its church interests, they swung into the festivities of the remote mission with all the zest that boys in their early teens possess.

The young Southerners had never visited at a minister's house before, and at first they were very sedate, laughed not too loudly, and carried themselves with the dignity of little old gentlemen; but within a day they learned that, because a man was a great, good, n.o.ble missionary, it did not necessarily mean that he must look serious and never enjoy any fun with the boys. Mr. Duncan always made it a rule that no house in existence must be more attractive to Tom and Jerry than their own home, and that it depended very largely upon their father as to whether they longed to stay in their own home and bring their young friends in, too, or whether they longed to go outside their father's house to meet their playfellows. Needless to say that, with such a father, Tom and Jerry had a pretty good time at home, and it was only what they expected when, the day before Christmas, as all four boys were racketing around the kitchen and nearly convulsing Mrs. Duncan with laughter by their antics, while she tried almost vainly to finish cooking the last savory dainties for the morrow, that Mr. Duncan should suddenly appear in the doorway, and say:

”Now, boys, to-night will be Christmas Eve. You know in the heart of the forest we can't get much in the way of entertainment, and I don't want our young Jamaica friends to feel homesick for their beautiful, Southern country to-night of all nights. I've racked my brains to think of some amus.e.m.e.nt after supper this Christmas Eve, but I seem to have failed.

Can't you, Tom and Jerry, help me out?”