Part 28 (1/2)

And, Jack, you must stop sending me money, for I do not need it and I will not use it, and I just keep putting what you send me in the bank for you. The Lord has given me many friends, and He never has allowed me to want.

'I shall wait two weeks, and then send you Kalman--that is his name, Kalman Kalmar, a nice name, isn't it? And he is a dear good boy; that is, he might be.' ”Good heart, so might we all,” cried Jack. 'But I love him just as he is.' ”Happy boy.” 'Wouldn't it be fine if you could make him a good man? How much he might do for his people! And if he stays here he will get to be terrible, for his father was terrible, although, poor man, it was hardly his fault.' ”I surely believe in G.o.d's mercy,” said poor Jack.

'This is a long rambling letter, dear Jack, but you will forgive me. I sometimes get pretty tired.' And Jack's brown lean hand closed swiftly. 'There is so much to do. But I am pretty well and I have many kind friends. So much to do, so many sick and poor and lonely. They need a friend. The Winnipeg people are very kind, but they are very busy.

'Now, my dear Jack, will you do for Kalman all you can? And--may I say it?--remember, he is just a boy. I do not want to preach to you, but he needs to be under the care of a good man, and that is why I send him to you.

'Your loving sister, 'Margaret.'

There was a grim look on Jack French's face as he finished reading the letter the second time.

”You're a good one,” he said, ”and you have a wise little head as well as a tender heart. Don't want to preach to me, eh? But you get your work in all the same. Two weeks! Let's see, this letter has been four weeks on the way--up to Edmonton and back! By Jove!

That boy ought to be along with Macmillan's outfit. I say, Jimmy,”

this to Jimmy Green, who, besides representing Her Majesty in the office of Postmaster, was general store keeper and trader to the community, ”when will Macmillan be in?”

”Couple of days, Jack.”

”Well, I guess I'll have to wait.”

And this turned out an unhappy necessity for Jack French, for when the Macmillan outfit drove up to the Crossing he was lying incapable and dead to all around, in Jimmy Green's back store.

CHAPTER XI

THE EDMONTON TRAIL

Straight across the country, winding over plains, around sleughs, threading its way through bluffs, over prairie undulations, fording streams and crossing rivers, and so making its course northwest from Winnipeg for nine hundred miles, runs the Edmonton trail.

Macmillan was the last of that far-famed and adventurous body of men who were known all through the western country for their skill, their courage, their endurance in their profession of freighters from Winnipeg to the far outpost of Edmonton and beyond into the Peace River and Mackenzie River districts. The building of railroads cut largely into their work, and gradually the freighters faded from the trails. Old Sam Macmillan was among the last of his tribe left upon the Edmonton trail. He was a master in his profession. In the packing of his goods with their almost infinite variety, in the making up of his load, he was possessed of marvellous skill, while on the trail itself he was easily king of them all.

Macmillan was a big silent Irishman, raw boned, hardy, and with a highly developed genius for handling ox or horse teams of any size in a difficult bit of road, and possessing as well a unique command of picturesque and varied profanity. These gifts he considered as necessarily related, and the exercise of each was always in conjunction with the other, for no man ever heard Macmillan swear in ordinary conversation or on commonplace occasions. But when his team became involved in a sleugh, it was always a point of doubt whether he aroused more respect and admiration in his attendants by his rare ability to get the last ounce of hauling power out of his team or by the artistic vividness and force of the profanity expended in producing this desired result. It is related that on an occasion when he had as part of his load the worldly effects of an Anglican Bishop en route to his heroic mission to the far North, the good Bishop, much grieved at Macmillan's profanity, urged upon him the unnecessary character of this particular form of encouragement.

”Is it swearing Your Riverence objects to?” said Macmillan, whose vocabulary still retained a slight flavour of the Old Land. ”I do a.s.sure you that they won't pull a pound without it.”

But the Bishop could not be persuaded of this, and urged upon Macmillan the necessity of eliminating this part of his persuasion.

”Just as you say, Your Riverence. I ain't hurried this trip and we'll do our best.”

The next bad sleugh brought opportunity to make experiment of the new system. The team stuck fast in the black muck, and every effort to extricate them served only to imbed them more hopelessly in the sticky gumbo. Time pa.s.sed on. A dark and lowering night was imminent.

The Bishop grew anxious. Macmillan, with whip and voice, encouraged his team, but all in vain. The Bishop's anxiety increased with the approach of a threatening storm.

”It is growing late, Mr. Macmillan, and it looks like rain.

Something must be done.”

”It does that, Your Lords.h.i.+p, but the brutes won't pull half their own weight without I speak to them in the way they are used to.”

The good man was in a sore strait. Another half hour pa.s.sed, and still with no result. It was imperative that his goods should be brought under cover before the storm should break. Again the good Bishop urged Macmillan to more strenuous effort.