The Last Spike by Cy Warman (red white and royal blue hardcover .TXT) 📕

story and his admiration for the Indian.

"Little things like that," said the factor, filling his pipe, "make me timid when talking to a Cree about 'being good.'"

* * * * *

When summer came, and with it the smell of flowers and the music of running streams, the factor and his friend the cure used to take long tramps up into the highlands, but the cure's state of health was a handicap to him. The factor saw the telltale flush in the priest's face and knew that the "White Plague" had marked him; yet he never allowed the cure to know that he knew. That summer a little river steamer was sent up from Athabasca Lake by the Chief Commissioner who sat in the big office at Winnipeg, and upon this the factor and his friend took many an excursion up and down the Peace. The friendship that had grown up between the factor and the new cure formed the one slender bridge that connected the Anglican and the Catholic camps. Even the "heathen Crees" marvelled that these white men, praying to the same God, should dwell so far apart. Wing You, who had wandered over from Ramsay's Camp on the Pine River, explained it all to Dunraven: "Flenchman and Englishman," said Wing. "No ketchem same Glod. You--Clee," continued the wise Oriental, "an' Englishman good flend--ketchem same Josh; you call 'im We-sec-e-gea, white man call 'im God."

And so, having the same God, only called by different names, the Crees trusted the factor, and the factor trusted the Crees. Their business intercourse was on the basis of skin for skin, furs being the recognized coin of the country.

"Why do you not pay them in cash, take cash in turn, and let them have something to rattle?" asked the cure one day.

"They won't have it," said the factor. "Silver Skin, brother to Dunraven, followed a party of prospectors out to Edmonton last fall and tried it. He bought a pair of gloves, a red handkerchief, and a pound of tobacco, and emptied his pockets on the counter, so that the clerk in the shop might take out the price of the goods. According to his own statement, the Indian put down $37.80. He took up just six-thirty-five. When the Cree came back to God's country he showed me what he had left and asked me to check him up. When I had told him the truth, he walked to the edge of the river and sowed the six-thirty-five broadcast on the broad bosom of the Peace."

And so, little by little, the patient priest got the factor's view-point, and learned the great secret of the centuries of success that has attended the Hudson's Bay Company in the far North.

And little by little the two men, without preaching, revealed to the Indians and the Oriental the mystery of Life--vegetable life at first--of death and life beyond. They showed them the miracle of the wheat.

On the first day of June they put into a tiny grave a grain of wheat. They told the Blind Ones that the berry would suffer death, decay, but out of that grave would spring fresh new flags that would grow and blow, fanned by the balmy chinook winds, and wet by the dews of heaven.

On the first day of September they harvested seventy-two stalks and threshed from the seventy-two stalks seven thousand two hundred grains of wheat. They showed all this to the Blind Ones and they saw. The cure explained that we, too, would go down and die, but live again in another life, in a fairer world.

The Cree accepted it all in absolute silence, but the Oriental, with his large imagination, exclaimed, pointing to the tiny heap of golden grain: "Me ketchem die, me sleep, byme by me wake up in China--seven thousand--heap good." The cure was about to explain when the factor put up a warning finger. "Don't cut it too fine, father," said he. "They're getting on very well."

That was a happy summer for the two men, working together in the garden in the cool dawn and chatting in the long twilight that lingers on the Peace until 11 P.M. Alas! as the summer waned the factor saw that his friend was failing fast. He could walk but a short distance now without resting, and when the red rose of the Upper Athabasca caught the first cold kiss of Jack Frost, the good priest took to his bed. Wing You, the accomplished cook, did all he could to tempt him to eat and grow strong again. Dunraven watched from day to day for an opportunity to "do something"; but in vain. The faithful factor made daily visits to the bedside of his sick friend. As the priest, who was still in the springtime of his life, drew nearer to the door of death, he talked constantly of his beloved mother in far-off France--a thing unusual for a priest, who is supposed to burn his bridges when he leaves the world for the church.

Often when he talked thus, the factor wanted to ask his mother's name and learn where she lived, but always refrained.

Late in the autumn the factor was called to Edmonton for a general conference of all the factors in the employ of the Honorable Company of gentlemen adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay. With a heavy heart he said good-bye to the failing priest.

When he had come within fifty miles of Chinook, on the return trip, he was wakened at midnight by Dunraven, who had come out to ask him to hurry up as the cure was dying, but wanted to speak to the factor first.

Without a word the Englishman got up and started forward, Dunraven leading on the second lap of his "century."

It was past midnight again when the _voyageurs_ arrived at the river. There was a dim light in the cure's cabin, to which Dunraven led them, and where the Catholic bishop and an Irish priest were on watch. "So glad to see you," said the bishop. "There is something he wants from your place, but he will not tell Wing. Speak to him, please."

"Ah, _Monsieur_, I'm glad that you are come--I'm weary and want to be off."

"The long _traverse_, eh?"

"_Oui, Monsieur_--_le grand voyage_."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked the Englishman. The dying priest made a movement as if hunting for something. The bishop, to assist, stepped quickly to his side. The patient gave up the quest of whatever he was after and looked languidly at the factor. "What is it, my son?" asked the bishop, bending low. "What would you have the factor fetch from his house?"

"Just a small bit of cheese," said the sick man, sighing wearily.

"Now, that's odd," mused the factor, as he went off on his strange errand.

When the Englishman returned to the cabin, the bishop and the priest stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Upon a bench on the narrow veranda Dunraven sat, resting after his hundred-mile tramp, and on the opposite side of the threshold Wing You lay sleeping in his blankets, so as to be in easy call if he were wanted.

When the two friends were alone, the sick man signalled, and the factor drew near.

"I have a great favor--a very great favor to ask of you," the priest began, "and then I'm off. Ah, _mon Dieu!_" he panted. "It has been hard to hold out. Jesus has been kind."

"It's damned tough at your time, old fellow," said the factor, huskily.

"It's not my time, but His."

"Yes--well I shall be over by and by."

"And those faithful dogs--Dunraven and Wing--thank them for--"

"Sure! If _I_ can pass," the factor broke in, a little confused.

"Thank them for me--for their kindnesses--and care. Tell them to remember the sermon of the wheat. And now, good friend," said the priest, summoning all his strength, "_attendez_!"

He drew a thin, white hand from beneath the cover, carrying a tiny crucifix. "I want you to send this to my beloved mother by registered post; send it yourself, please, so that she may have it before the end of the year. This will be my last Christmas gift to her. And the one that comes from her to me--that is for you, to keep in remembrance of me. And write to her--oh, so gently tell her--Jesus--help me," he gasped, sitting upright. "She lives in Rue ---- O Mary, Mother of Jesus," he cried, clutching at the collar of his gown; and then he fell back upon his bed, and his soul swept skyward like a toy balloon when the thin thread snaps.

When the autumn sun smiled down on Chinook and the autumn wind sighed in by the door and out by the open window where the dead priest lay, Wing and Dunraven sat on the rude bench in the little veranda, going over it all, each in his own tongue, but uttering never a word, yet each to the other expressing the silence of his soul.

The factor, in the seclusion of his bachelor home, held the little cross up and examined it critically. "To be sent to his mother, she lives in Rue ---- Ah, if I could have been but a day sooner; yet the bishop must know," he added, putting the crucifix carefully away.

The good people in the other world, beyond the high wall that separated the two Christian Tribes, had been having shivers over the factor and his fondness for the Romans; but when he volunteered to assist at the funeral of his dead friend, _his_ people were shocked. In that scant settlement there were not nearly enough priests to perform, properly, the funeral services, so the factor fell in, mingling his deep full voice with the voices of the bishop and the Irish brother, and grieving even as they grieved.

And the Blind Ones, Wing and Dunraven, came also, paying a last tearless tribute to the noble dead.

When it was all over and the post had settled down to routine, the factor found in his mail, one morning, a long letter from the Chief Commissioner at Winnipeg. It told the factor that he was in bad repute, that the English Church bishop had been grieved, shocked, and scandalized through seeing the hitherto respectable factor going over to the Catholics. Not only had he fraternized with them, but had actually taken part in their religious ceremonies. And to crown it all, he had carried, a respectable Cree and the Chinese cook along with him.

The factor's placid face took on a deep hue, but only for a moment. He filled his pipe, poking the tobacco down hard with his thumb. Then he took the Commissioner's letter, twisted it up, touched it to the tiny fire that blazed in the grate, and lighted his pipe. He smoked in silence for a few moments and then said to himself, being alone, "Huh!"

"Ah, that from the bishop reminds me," said the factor. "I must run over and see the other one."

When the factor had related to the French-Canadian bishop what had passed between the dead cure and himself, the bishop seemed greatly annoyed. "Why, man, he had no mother!"

"The devil he didn't--I beg pardon--I say he asked me to send this to his mother. He started to tell me where she lived and then the call came. It was the