Part 11 (1/2)

The mocking refrain seemed to have been shouted into his ears; he started as though he had been struck, seized the reins, and dashed into the gathering storm.

A Perilous Encounter.

It is not because I am unduly sensitive of my altered appearance that I have told so few the story of the ugly scar that disfigures my face, but on account of the horror that I yet experience when recalling the terrible incidents that led to my receiving it. How many lives were saved by that wound I shall never know.

The great Canadian Pacific Railway, which to-day connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific, was in the year 1882 built only about two hundred miles west of Winnipeg, leaving a huge gap of several hundred miles of untouched prairie before one of the world's wonders, the famed Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, was reached.

Such was the rapidity with which the rails were laid and telegraph offices erected, that when winter set in, fifty telegraph operators were needed to take charge of the empty stations.

The management found it hard to induce men to go out and bury themselves for the winter in the vast prairie, which was only then being opened up. To-day, men are only too happy to make homes in this wonderful country, which has very aptly been termed the future granary of the world.

Money is a loadstone that few men can resist, and when I heard that $80 a month was being paid out there for operators, I resigned my position in Montreal, and with $20 and a pa.s.s in my pocket started for Manitoba.

On reaching Winnipeg, I was at once sent out to Elkhorn, a bit of a station 150 miles farther west. When I took charge, in November, four inches of snow already hid the earth, which did not see the sun again till March.

Two pa.s.senger trains a day, and an occasional construction train, formed the only break in the monotonous life which I led. It was a dreadfully solitary existence. I was alone in the station, and as December began to wane, and the dread blizzards commenced their wild revelry, heaping the snow into such huge mounds on the tracks that the trains were delayed for days, I got as homesick and nervous as a girl of fourteen instead of a young man of twenty.

Christmas eve ushered in bitter weather. All day it had been snowing and storming. At 1 a.m. the gla.s.s showed twenty-two below zero. The storm had risen and risen until it was blowing a perfect blizzard from the west. The riotous wind, as it swept along the vast prairie, un.o.bstructed for scores of miles by houses or trees, caught up the newly-fallen snow in its mad embrace, and drove it with amazing force against the little telegraph office which sheltered me from its deathly embrace, as though enraged against this earnest of approaching civilization. So fierce, at times, was the onslaught that the tense telegraph wires could be heard humming even above the demoniacal glee of the storm.

I knew it was unmanly, but I could not help it: the tears would start to my eyes. It was Christmas, and I was spending it in such a queer manner! My thoughts had been with mother and dear old London, where I had left her two years before to try my fortune in Montreal. I knew she was thinking of her eldest born.

”Christians, awake, salute the happy morn.”

All I had to do was to close my eyes, and I could hear my companions singing that grand old hymn in the greatest city in the world.

It was a relief to hear the telegraph instrument, which had been quiet for hours, call my office. Both pa.s.senger trains were nearly ten hours late, and were slowly struggling towards my station. It was just 2 a.m. when I received the order from the dispatcher at Winnipeg to detain the east-bound train at my station when she arrived, till the west-bound express crossed her--double tracks are yet unknown out there.

I replied back that I understood the order, and was just about to let the red lantern swing round from the station and face the track, when I was startled by hearing a tremendous kicking and howling at the door. In my surprise, I forgot to turn the lamp which was to signal the engineer to stop at the station for orders.

Little wonder I was agitated. The nearest house was seven miles away, and no white man could have walked a tenth of that distance in such a blizzard and have lived. Had the shouting and kicking been less imperative, I might have been superst.i.tious. With trembling hands I drew the bolt. Before I could step aside the door was thrown violently open, and to my dismay two stalwart Cree Indians burst into the little office. It was the manner of the savages in entering that made me feel nervous. It was no uncommon thing for me to have Indians drop into the station at night, and to see roaming bands of them pa.s.s the station at all hours; but two drunken Cree Indians, even a native scout might have been pardoned for fearing had he been unarmed and placed in my position.

Without appearing to notice me, the braves walked over to the glowing wood stove and began to warm themselves. I wanted to show that I trusted them, and brought two chairs and asked them to be seated. As I spoke they both turned their wicked, black eyes on me, but did not deign to speak. Kicking the chairs to one side they began taking off their great skin-coats and caps and red-and-white blankets.

As the taller of the two petulantly threw his wraps down, something hard struck the floor heavily. He gave a cry of greedy exultation, felt in the pocket of the coat, drew out a bottle of whiskey, and proceeded without delay to break off the neck on the stove. It was contrary to the law to sell liquor to Indians, but that did not matter much, they always managed to get it.

Just as he was about to raise the ragged mouth of the bottle to his lips, the telegraph instrument began to work. It had the effect that I feared. Both the Indians, with superst.i.tious dread in their eyes, involuntarily took a couple of steps back toward the wall, where I was sitting, devoutly hoping they would wrap themselves up in their blankets and go off to sleep. No such good fortune.

The room was about ten feet wide and fifteen feet long. In the centre was the stove, and near the door, about six feet to the right, was the instrument. I was sitting facing the door at the opposite side of the room. Pretending that I thought they were going to back up against me, I rose and calmly began to walk toward the instrument.

I had not pa.s.sed them two feet when they both caught me violently by the shoulders, and in excited, guttural tones, began in a threatening manner to say something to me. Seeing that I did not understand, the tall brave, pointing the bottle, which he still tightly clutched in his left hand, at the talkative instrument, said fiercely, ”No go there! no go there!”

I quickly understood what they meant; the Indian's fear of telegraph instruments, and his inability to understand electricity, were known to every operator west of Winnipeg.

In their drunken fear they imagined that if I got possession of the wires I would have it in my power to do them an injury.