Lorimer of the Northwest Part 13

There was a jingle of gla.s.ses, and a damsel with very pink cheeks and lemon-colored hair, who apparently presided over the piano, went round with a tray. It was emptied several times, and I began to foresee that the temperance demonstration would fail miserably, as it might have done but for Johnston's ready wit and the opposite party's imprudence. Grinning derisively, Hemlock Jim led the waitress straight up to the orators'

platform, and, with the revolver showing significantly as he bent forward, he held out the tray saying:

"It will help the good feelin' if you have a drink with me."

This was a false step. A big man from the bush of Ontario, whose forebears had probably been Scottish Covenanters, stretched his long limbs out in front of Hemlock, while Johnston smiled as he answered:

"Not at present. Unfortunately I'm a little particular as to whom I drink with. Boys, don't you think it would be fairer if you heard our guests first, and then paid for your own refreshment afterward if they didn't convince you?"

Hemlock Jim deliberately set down his tray, the Ontario bushman seemed gathering himself together for some purpose, and there was an ominous glitter in Johnston's eyes, while just as I expected the fray to begin, the proprietor called out laughingly:

"Sit right down, Jim. Pa.s.s on them gla.s.ses, Jess. I guess they won't refuse you."

It was diplomatic, but Johnston's hint of fairness went further, and in spite of the frail beauty's smiles, a number of those who listened waved the tray aside with the words "I pa.s.s!"

Then, when some one called out to ask what was the matter with the circus, and whether the clown were lost, while others demanded "The lady!"

Johnston turned to Miss Marvin, and there was a hush as the slight girlish figure--and she seemed very young--stood upright before us. She thrust back the unlovely bonnet, and her thin face was flushed; but when, clenching nervous fingers upon the dowdy gown, she raised a high clear voice, every man in the a.s.sembly settled himself to listen. Perhaps it was a chivalrous respect for her womanhood, or mere admiration for personal courage, and she had most gallantly taken up the challenge; but I think she also spoke with force and sincerity, for my own pulse quickened in time to the rapid utterance. Then changing from the somewhat conventional tirade, she leaned forward speaking very gently, and one could hear the men breathe in the stillness, while, as far as I can remember, the plain words ran:

"It's not only for you I'm pleading; there are the women, too--the sweethearts, wives and daughters waiting at home for you. Just where and how are they waiting? Shall I tell you? 'Way back up yonder tending the cattle in the lonely ranch, where the timber wolves howl along ranges on the moonlight nights; and I guess you know it's lonely up there in the bush. Then I can see others sewing with heavy eyes and backs that are aching in a Vancouver shack. You had no money to leave them, and they had to do the best they could. Have they no use for the money you would spend in liquor here--the women who never cried out when they let you go? Don't heart-break and black, black solitude count anything with you? You're building railroads, building up a great Dominion, but the waiting women are doing their part, too. And I'm thinking of others still, gilt-edged and dainty, 'way in the old country. I've seen a few. Where's the man from an English college that used to feel himself better after they talked to him? Is he here with the fire of bad whisky in him, betting against the banker to win a smile from Jess of Caribou?"

This woman knew how to stir them, and there was an expressive murmur, while some fidgeted. Then the proprietor beckoned across the room, and Hemlock Jim spoke:

"This is only high-tone sentiment. Most of us aren't married, and don't intend to. No, sir, we've no use for a missis rustling round with a long-handled broom on the track of us, and I'm going to move an amendment."

"You can't do it," said Johnston. "You brought us in of your own will, and now you've got to hear us. This meeting is going on quietly to its conclusion if I hold the chair. Sit down, sir."

"I'll be shot if I do!" said the other, and it became evident that trouble was near, for a group of the disaffected commenced to sidle toward the platform, calling on Caribou Jessy to give them a song.

But Johnston was equal to the occasion. "If you're wanting music we've brought our own orchestra along. Mr. Harry Lorraine, the tenor, will oblige you."

Harry promptly entered into the spirit of the thing, for he sat down good-humoredly, and, though I forget what he sang, it was a ballad with a catching refrain, which he rendered well, and hardly had the applause died away when the girl commenced again, while Lee, who followed, made a strong impression this time. Then, before the interest had slackened, Miss Marvin held up a little book, smiling sweetly as she said:

"It was kind of you to listen so patiently, and now I'm asking a last favor. Won't you all walk along and write your names down here?"

A number of the listeners did so, and when the rest refused jestingly, Johnston got up.

"The meeting is over," he said, "but there's one thing yet to do--to pa.s.s a vote of thanks to the proprietor for the use of his saloon. Then I should like to ask him to lay out his best cigars on the bar for every one to help himself."

There was acclamation, and the a.s.sembly would have dispersed peaceably but that just as we went out Hemlock Jim, who had gathered the disaffected round him, said to Johnston:

"I'm glad to see the last of you. Now sail out into perdition, and take your shameless woman with you. But--I'm not particular--she's got to pay tribute first."

He grasped the trembling girl's shoulder, dragged back the ample bonnet, but the next moment I had him by the throat, and he went reeling sideways among his comrades. Then, as by a signal the tumult began, for with a crash of splintered gla.s.s the nearest lamp went out, and a rush was made upon us. Something struck me heavily on the head; I saw Johnston stagger under a heavy blow; but I held myself before the girl as we were hustled through the doorway, and when a pistol-barrel glinted one of the railroad men whirled aloft an axe. We were outside now, but the pistol blazed before the blade came down, and a man beside me caught at a veranda pillar with a cry just as the door banged to.

"It's Pete of the shovel gang!" somebody said. "It was Hemlock Jim who shot him. Where's the man with the axe to chop one of these pillars for a battering-ram? Roll round here, railroad builders!"

A roar of angry voices broke out, and it was evident that popular sympathy was on the reformers' side, while my blood was up. Pete of the shovel gang, a quiet, inoffensive man, sat limply on the veranda, with the blood trickling from his shoulder, and there was the insult to the girl to be avenged; while, if more were needed, somebody hurled opprobrious epithets at us from an upper window. I wrenched the axe from its owner--and he resisted stubbornly--whirled it round my shoulder, and there was another roar when after a shower of splinters the stout post yielded. It was torn loose from the rafters, swung backward by sinewy arms, and driven crashing against the saloon door, one panel of which went in before it. Twice again, while another pistol-shot rang out, we plied the ram, and then followed it pell-mell across the threshold, where we went down in a heap amid the wreckage of the door, though I had sense enough left to remove Hemlock's smoking revolver which lay close by, just where he had dropped it on the floor. He evidently had not expected this kind of attack and suffered for his ignorance. We could not see him, but a breathless voice implored somebody to "Give them blame deadbeats socks!" and there was evidently need for prompt action, because the rest of our opponents had entrenched themselves behind the bar, which was freely strengthened by chairs and tables; also, as we picked ourselves up, an invisible man behind the barricade called out in warning:

"Stop right there. Two of us have guns!"

"Will you come out, and give up Hemlock Jim?" asked Johnston, while half a dozen men who had found strangely a.s.sorted weapons gathered alert and eager behind him, a little in advance of the rest, and Lee panted among them with the blood running down his face.

"If you want him you've got to lick us first!" was the answer. "We don't back down on a partner. But I guess he's hardly worth the trouble, for he's looking very sick--your blank battering-ram took him in the stummick."

"One minute in which to change your mind!" said Johnston, holding up his watch. "Bring along that log, boys, and get her on the swing;" and tightening my grip on the axe I watched the heavy beam oscillate as our partner called off the last few seconds.

"Fifty-four! fifty-five! fifty-six!--"

But he got no further. Swinging sideways from the waist, he was only just in time, for once more a pistol flashed among the chairs; and when another man loosed his hold Johnston roared, "Let her go!"

The head of the beam went forward; we followed it with a yell. There was a crash of splintered redwood, and my axe clove a chair. Then shouting men were scrambling over the remnants of the bar, while just what happened during the next few moments I do not remember, except that there was a great destruction of property, and presently I halted breathless, while the leader of the vanquished, who were hemmed in a corner, raised his hand.

"We're corralled, and give up," he said. "Here's Hemlock Jim--not much good to any one by the look of him. What are you going to do with us?"

"Are those men badly hurt?" asked Johnston.

"Not much," some one answered. "Pete's drilled clean through the upper arm; it missed the artery, and the ball just ripped my leg."

"Well, we'll settle about Jim afterward; it's surgical a.s.sistance he wants first. As to the rest of you, he led you into this, and we'll let you go on two conditions--you subscribe a dollar each to Miss Marvin's society and sign the pledge."

There was a burst of laughter, in which even some of the vanquished joined sheepishly; but as they filed past between a guard armed with shovels and empty bottles Johnston saw that they filled their names into the book, and duly handed each his ticket, while I regret to say that Harry's selection was daringly appropriate, as with full musical honors he played them out.

"There's a hat at the door!" said Johnston, "you can put your dollars in.

You have spent an exciting evening, and must pay for your fun." And presently that hat overflowed with money, while Lee, with his Ontario stalwarts, did huge execution with a shovel among such bottles as remained unwrecked behind the bar. We placed Hemlock Jim on a stretcher, groaning distressfully, while our two wounded declared themselves fit to walk, and before we marched off in triumph to the camp Johnston raised his hat as he placed a heavy package of silver in Miss Marvin's hand.

"I've no doubt your organization can make a good use of this," he said.

"It's also a tribute to your own bravery. I'll leave you half a dozen men who'll camp in the road opposite your lodgings, and see you safely back to the main line to-morrow. They're most sober Calvinists, with convictions of the Cromwellian kind, and I don't think any of our late disturbers will care to interfere with them."

When we approached the tents, chanting weird songs of victory, the surveyor met us, and in answer to his questions Johnston laughed.

"The temperance meeting was an unqualified success," he said. "We've broken up all the bottles in the Magnolia saloon--Lee reveled among them with a hammer. Then we made all the malcontents we could catch sign the pledge, and you'll find the chief dissenter behind there on the stretcher."

"Glad to hear it," remarked the surveyor, dryly. "Judging by your appearance the proceedings must have been of the nature of an Irish fair."

I remember that when we discussed the affair later Johnston said, "What did I do it for? Well, perhaps from a sense of fairness, or because that girl's courage got hold of me. Don't set up as a reformer--that's not me; but I've a weakness for downright if blundering sincerity, and I fancied I could indirectly help them a little."

The next morning we were astonished to find that Hemlock Jim had gone.

"Thought he was dyin' last night!" said the watcher, "and as that didn't matter I went to sleep; woke up, and there wasn't a trace of him." This was evidently true, and where he went to remained a mystery, for we heard no more of Hemlock Jim, though there was a marked improvement in the morals of Cedar Crossing, while, and this we hardly expected, some of those who signed that pledge honestly kept it.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HIRED TEAMSTER

Speaking generally, winter is much less severe in British Columbia, especially near the coast, than it is on the prairie, though it is sufficiently trying high up among the mountains, where as a rule little work is done at that season. Still, though the number of the track-layers was largely reduced, the inhabitants of the mining region had waited long enough, and so, in spite of many hardships, slowly, fathom by fathom, we carried the rail-head on.

Now and then for several days together we sat in our log-built shelter while a blinding snowstorm raged outside and the pines filled the valley with their roaring. Then there were weeks of bitter frost, when work was partly suspended, and both rock and soil defied our efforts. One of our best horses died and another fell over a precipice. Hay was hardly to be bought with money, provisions only at an exorbitant cost, and though we received a few interim payments it was, as Johnston said, even chances either way if we kept on top, because every day of enforced idleness cost us many dollars. However, floundering through snow-slush, swinging the axe in driving sleet and rain, or hauling the mossy logs through the mire of a sudden thaw, we persisted in our task, though often at nights we sat inside the shanty, which was filled with steaming garments, counting the cost, in a state of gloomy despondency. Except for the thought of Grace, there were moments when I might have yielded; but we were always an obstinate race, and seeing that I was steadfastly determined to hold out to the last, the others gallantly aided me. Now, when the time of stress is past, I know how much I owe to their loyalty.