JOE ATTACKS THE FIRE AT CLOSE QUARTERSJOE ATTACKS THE FIRE AT CLOSE QUARTERS
JOE ATTACKS THE FIRE AT CLOSE QUARTERSJOE ATTACKS THE FIRE AT CLOSE QUARTERS
"Lower away," he shouted, and then nodded to Sam to turn his hose on him. "Keep the water going, and start my hose," he called to those at the edge of the hatchway. "Now, slowly does it."
Very gently the engineman slacked out the rope running over the top of the derrick, causing Joe to slowly disappear within the open mouth of the hatchway. Meanwhile those in charge of the hoses paid the one out which Joe carried, and Sam, as if he were bent on doing his young friend an injury, sent a stream of water squirting against our hero till the latter was drenched, and till the force of the impact of the stream caused him to sway and twist at the end of the sling.
"Steady!" he shouted. "Less water; you'll drown me!" and, obedient to the order, Sam shouted to the men and saw that the stream was reduced. He sent a cascade downward now, for Joe had descended still lower, causing the water to fall on his shoulders and then go tumbling and hissing to the floor beneath. And, thanks to this deluge, and to the water spouting from the hose he carried, Joe was able to prepare the way before him. He could hear the fluid actually hissing, and see it rising in thick clouds of steam as it fell on iron and woodwork. It bubbled as it tumbled in a heavy cascade on huge masses of tightly-packed machinery directly beneath him, and then it began to settle into quiet pools.
"Steady!" he shouted again. "Hold on till things get a little cooler."
But ten minutes later he called to them to lower away, and in a little while had stepped from the sling and was actually advancing into the hold. A sailor joined him, and then Sam, both filled with enthusiasm. There were five hoses going within the hour, while another was all the while directing a powerful stream through the gap forward. Smoke gave way in time to steam, while the clouds of the latter, which had risen from every heated surface, and particularly from the vessel's plates, became far less in quantity. When three hours had passed, the atmosphere in the hold was almost pleasant, and certainly not too hot for safe working, while the fire appeared to have been conquered entirely. Then the ship's head was turned towards the west, and once again her turbines sent the decks throbbing. They came to Sam and Joe in the bunks which they occupied and told them of it; for the intense heat which they had faced, the stifling smoke, and the strenuous fight they had made had had their natural effect. Both had been hoisted from the hold in an insensible condition.
"Eh?" asked Sam. "She's right? Fire under? Then call me late in the morning. I've never yet travelled first class aboard a ship, and this bunk's just lovely. Hallo! That Joe? Eh? He's unconscious? Well, I am sorry; guess there's many a one will say he helped a heap to save this vessel."
They slept profoundly side by side, and the sun was high in the heavens before either opened his eyes. When Joe looked round, it was with a groan of recognition and remembrance. His hands were blistered all over and in bandages. His face was smeared with some greasy preparation, while there no longer trace of eyelashes, eyebrows, or hair. He was bald—a terrible object—with lips and tongue hugely swollen.
"My word," exclaimed Sam, staring at him, "what a sight!"
Joe giggled. After all, however tired, however sore with a struggle, he could look on the queer side of things. "My eye!" he gurgled, for speech was almost impossible. "Just you take a look at yourself; it'll make you feel downright faint, I do assure you." Then he went off into a laugh, which ended in a cry of pain and tribulation, for cracked and swollen lips make laughing painful. As for Sam, he rose in his bunk, leaned outwards, and stared into the mirror. It was with a groan of resignation that he threw himself backward, for, like Joe, he was wonderfully disfigured.
"The wife wouldn't know me," he said. "What a sight! No wonder you giggled."
But time does wonders for sore hearts and sore heads. Five days later, when the ship put into Quebec, both were moderately presentable, though Joe still had his hands in bandages. But think of the reward! A thousand and more disembarked passengers from the steamshipKansas Cityawaited their arrival and cheered them to the very echo as they landed. It was Joe's welcome to Canada, the land wherein he trusted to make his fortune.
CHAPTER V
One of the Settlers
"Now we get right in to business," said Sam, two days after the ship had brought them to Quebec, and he and Joe had gradually recovered their usual appearance. For, till then, they were hardly presentable, both having had every hair singed from their heads, while Sam, who wore a moustache, as a rule, merely retained a few straggling ends of that appendage. As for Joe, his hands were so blistered, that even now he was able to do little for himself.
"But you've got something inside there in your pocket that'll make amends," grinned Sam, as they sat in the parlour of the little hotel to which Sam had taken his wife, and whither Joe, Jim, and Claude had accompanied them. "You've got notes in that 'ere pocket that'll make you ready and eager to get burned again. There! Ain't I speaking the truth? I'm fair jubilant."
A cockney from his birth upward, Sam had not, even now, lost touch with the Old Country and its manner of speech, though into his conversation there was now habitually pressed many a Canadian slang expression, many an Americanism which to people of the Old World is so peculiarly fascinating. He pulled a huge leather wallet from his own hip pocket, a capacious affair that accommodated quite a mass of material, and was fellow to one on the far side harbouring a revolver. Not that Sam was of a pugnacious frame of mind; on the contrary, he was just one of the numerous citizens of Canada whose daily thoughts were centred in "making good". Indeed, as is the case with all in the Dominion, with few exceptions, Sam was out, as he frankly admitted, to make a pile, to build up a fortune.
"And I'll tell you for why," he had once said to our hero. "It ain't only because dollars look nice and can buy nice things. It ain't only because I'd like to be rich, to put by a heap and feel and know that me and the missus needn't want when the rainy day comes along, and we're took by illness or old age. Don't you go and believe it. There's people will tell you that Canadians think and dream of nothing but dollars, and jest only for the sake of the dollars. Don't you go and believe it. They're jest like me; they've been, many a one of 'em, down on their beam ends in the Old Country—couldn't get work, for one cause or another. Then they've emigrated, fought their way through, nearly gone to the wall maybe, and then made good. It's making good that fascinates us, young feller. Making good! Jest that and mostly only that. I'd be a proud man if I could put by a pile; for, don't yer see, it shows as I've succeeded. That's what I and many another are after. We've been failures, perhaps. We want to show the world that we're good for something. Dollars spells success—that's why we're after them all the time."
But Sam was not pugnacious, as we have observed. He dragged his huge leather case from one hip pocket and his revolver from the other, laying both on the table.
"I always carry a shooter," he said to Joe, "and so'll you after a bit. The usual run of fellow you come across is a decent, hard-working man. But this here country's full of 'bad men', as we call 'em. Ne'er-do-weels, remittance men, as some are known, loafers, and thieves. A chap as shows he's got sommat to defend himself with has a good chance of sendin' 'em off; so I carry a shooter. But we was talking of the stuff you'd got in your pocket, same as me. That makes up for burned hands."
Very deliberately he began to count out the values of the flimsy, blue-backed money notes rolled in his wallet, while Joe dived into an inner pocket and did likewise. He drew out quite a respectable bundle and counted the amounts also.
"Two hundred and fifty dollars," said Sam solemnly. "Reward for work done aboard the burning ship."
"Seven hundred and fifty dollars," murmured Joe, blushing when he thought of the amount.
"Jest so—reward for pluck and fer gumption," declared Sam. "My, wasn't you bashful up in the office when we was called in! You was for refusing almost. Said as you'd done nothing. That ain't the way of Canadians, lad. You did do good work; it was you who organized the volunteers and led 'em. That's a deal. It ain't nothing! It helped a whole heap, and therefore a reward was earned. That's the way in Canada—but let's get to business. What'll you do?"
"Act on advice you've already given," said Joe, pocketing his money. "My idea is to learn farming out here, and some day to take up a quarter section of land. But I'm going to learn the work first. I couldn't so much as milk a cow at this moment."
"Jest so," observed Sam dryly. "That's sense, that is. There's prosperity in this country, as I've told you often enough, but only for the workers. There's millions of acres, too, and no fear that if you wait you'll find none left for you. But where men fail is if they come out ignorant like you and pitch upon a quarter section when they ain't got the knowledge to choose their country. Their difficulties would often enough kill a man with farming knowledge; but, bless you! without even that knowledge, often enough with precious little money, they goes under almost afore they've had time to look round. So I say it's sound advice to you to say, 'Learn the farming work first'. Then take up your quarter section; for you'll be eighteen by then. Now, New Ontario's booming. Me and the missus will make there and prospect for a little. A single man can take a hundred acres in New Ontario for nothing. So can a married man; while, ef he's got a child under sixteen years of age, he can have two hundred fer the asking. Any more that's wanted costs two shillings and a halfpenny an acre. Cheap, ain't it? Wall, now, we comes again to you. You learn farming this summer. In the winter, get along into the towns and take most any job; next summer come right along to us. We'll have fixed a location by then, and you can take up a holding close handy. We'll get Claude and Jim in too, with one or two others, and we'll run co-operative farms. That is, instead of each man having a bunch of hosses, we'll keep enough for all, and help plough each other's holdings. We'll buy seed in bulk and get it cheaper fer that reason. And we'll sell our stuff in the same market, making one doing of the transport—so you come along next summer."
"I will," agreed Joe. "I've thought it over a lot, and will do as you advise; meanwhile, I shall bank most of the money."
"And mighty wise of you; only, see here," said Sam, his face wrinkling. "There's money to be made often enough by a wise fellow if only he has a little capital. With the sixty pounds you brought along, and the hundred and fifty you've been given, you've a tidy nest egg. Now you bank most of it, keeping twenty pounds for emergencies. One of these days, along where you're working, you'll drop on a site where the railway's approaching, and where there's likely to be a town. Towns spring up in new countries like mushrooms. Acres bare now, and worth perhaps two shillings, are worth twenty and thirty and more pounds in English money within a few years if they gets covered by a town. So, likely enough, you may drop on sich a place. Then draw the money you've banked, buy your land, and sit down to wait. Only, don't put all the money into one holding. Spread it about, young fellow. Don't put all the eggs into one basket."
There was little doubt that Sam was perfectly right, indeed, the experience of huge numbers in the Dominion goes to prove that. Towns do spring into being almost with the rapidity of mushrooms. A tiny settlement composed of wooden huts, called "shacks", and perhaps a log church, may, in the matter of three or four years, develop into a town, and, later on, even into a city. Those with knowledge and experience, and possessed of far-seeing eyes, may, by a fortunate purchase in the early days reap a big reward, and many a one has done so.
"So that's fixed," said Sam. "And now fer orders. We leaves here to-morrow fer Sudbury—that's beyond Ottawa. There me and the missus gets off the train. We'll buy a "rig", as a cart and horse are known, and we'll make off to the north-west looking fer a holding. You'd better come along with us to Montreal, where you can switch off fer Toronto, and look out in that direction fer a farm job, or you can come right along to or beyond Sudbury. Round Toronto you get Old Ontario, the country that's been known and settled this many a year. They're mostly fruit and dairy farmers about Toronto. North-west Ontario, New Ontario as it's called, is a different country. People kinder missed it till lately. It wasn't known that it was jest as good as many another, and no colder. But it's booming now, and there's where you'll find heaps of men jest wheat-growing. You could, of course, go right along to Manitoba, getting off at Winnipeg or somewheres close. But it's wheat-growing land there also; so ef you're going to join up with us later on you might jest as well stay somewheres near in Ontario."
Joe put on his cap and went out for a sharp walk. He clambered up the steep, old-fashioned streets of Quebec, still preserving their old French houses, to the Plains of Abraham, once the scene of a fierce engagement between English and French, when the gallant Wolfe won Canada for our Empire from the equally gallant Montcalm. He looked out from the heights across the flowing St. Lawrence River to the Isle d'Orleans, where Wolfe's batteries once thundered against the forts of Quebec, and past which the fierce Irroquois Indians, in days long since gone by, paddled their war canoes and kept the French colonists from crossing. And all the while he debated his future movements, for with the practical mind that his father had helped to train in him, Joe wanted to see his way clear. He had his future to make; a false step now might delay that success at which he aimed, at which, according to the worthy Sam, all newcomers and old colonists of the Dominion aim. Let those who would sneer at the seemingly grasping methods of many in Canada not forget what Sam had to say. Dollars do not spell happiness; they spell success. The immigrant who has few, if any to speak of, on arrival, and who fails to make wealth, is a failure, and failure causes a man to become despondent and to lose self-esteem. But gain, riches to one who was poor, who broke from old paths, left home and friends and all to start a new life, dollars in his case spell success, success that raises his head and his own self-esteem.
"I'll go along to Sudbury," Joe told himself. "Then I'll look out for a farm, and I'll bank all the money save fifty dollars. That's it; pay for my transport, and then bank all but fifty dollars, keeping father's letter with me."
The following morning found our hero aboard the train bound for Sudbury. They occupied places in a long car with two rows of seats, one on either side. At the far end of the car there was a miniature kitchen, where a fire was burning in a stove. Others who had crossed from England were with them, and the party soon settled down to their journey. Mrs. Fennick, with experience gained by earlier travel, had provisioned a basket, and with the help of Joe's kit, containing kettle and teapot, the little party were never at a want for good things to eat and drink. At night the seats, which were arranged in pairs facing one another were pulled out, making a respectable couch for one person, while the negro attendant lowered other bunks hinged to the side walls of the enormous car high overhead.
Late the following day the train pulled up at Sudbury, and they got down. Then Joe, Claude, and Jim waited till the Fennicks had bought a rig and had set out on their journey, when they, too, shouldered their bundles and strode off along the track, out of the town and into the open country. An hour or more later his two companions had accepted an engagement with a farmer whom they met driving along the track. Joe bade farewell to his two chums and strode onward.
"I'll make away more into the open," he told himself. "I'll get away from the settlements, so as to see what the life is really like, and whether the loneliness is so irksome as some make out."
Trudging along contentedly, he had covered some miles by noon, and then sat down to devour his luncheon. All that day he tramped, and the following one also, spending the night in the open; for it was beautiful weather, and frosts had long since departed from the land. Here and there he came upon settlements, and many a time was employment offered him, for the busy season with farmers was at hand, and labour always scarce. Sometimes he passed isolated farms, and on the third night put up in the shack of a settler who had little cause to complain of his progress.
"Came out as a youngster," he told Joe. "Took jobs here and there for four years, and then applied for a quarter section. It happened to be free from trees, though there was many an old rotting stump in the ground. I ploughed a quarter of the acreage the first year and secured a fine crop. Next year I did better, and broke up still more ground. If things go along nicely I shall do well, while already the section is worth some hundreds of dollars. Am I lonely? Don't you think it! I've too much doing in summertime and sufficient in winter. The chaps as is lonely are those who've lived in towns all their lives, and are used to people buzzing about them, and to trains and trams. They want to go to a theatre or a picture entertainment most every night, and having none about find things lonesome. I don't. If I want company I get the rig and drive off to a neighbour, or use the sleigh if the snow's too deep. Then there's a moose hunt at times, while always there's work to be done—tending the cattle, feeding the pigs and poultry, sawing logs, and suchlike. In summer there's picnics with the neighbours—shooting and fishing too at times. No, I ain't lonely."
Joe left his hospitable roof and pressed on towards the north-west, with his back to the railway. And a little later he came upon a small settlement, with farms immediately adjacent. Here he had no difficulty in obtaining work as a farm hand, the payment to be ten dollars a month and his board and keep.
"Know anything?" asked his employer, a man of some forty years of age, a colonial born, to whom Joe soon took a liking.
"Know anything about farming?" repeated Peter Strike, the man in question.
"Nothing," was Joe's answer, with an accompanying shake of the head.
"Never farmed, eh?"
"Never; couldn't milk a cow."
"Yer don't say so," grinned the farmer. "Now you'll do, you will, fine."
Joe was at a loss to understand. It seemed somewhat curious to him to hear that a hand engaged on a farm would do well when it was known that he was utterly ignorant. He explained the difficulty.
"Of course you don't understand," said Peter, guffawing loudly; for Joe's open speaking delighted him. "Of course you don't, 'cos back in England a man would be expected to know everything. But I'll tell you how it is with us. You're English; wall, now, in past years Englishmen got such a name with us colonials that we wouldn't employ him if we could help it. Eh? You'd like to know why? That's easy. Your Englishman would reach here dressed in knickers, perhaps—a regular swell. Us colonials with our old clothing would be fair game for him. Then he'd know everything. He'd be wanting to do things as he'd done 'em back in his own country, and not as we've learned they has to be done here. He'd want to teach his master, and grumble—my word, nothing pleased him! Now that's all getting altered. We find immigrants readier to learn, and you're one of 'em. Mind you, there's faults with others besides the Englishman who knows everything. There's faults with us. There's a sight of colonials who think they know more than they do, and when they get having advice from a man fresh out to the country—why, they get testy. It makes 'em angry. They ain't too fair to the newcomer. But guess that's getting altered, as I've said. Anyway, you don't know anything, ain't that it?"
"Nothing," laughed Joe; for the open-hearted Peter amused him.
"Then you come along in and see the missus and the children. Afterwards there's a job for you."
Joe was introduced to Peter's family circle, consisting of his wife and four small children. He found the shack to contain three rooms, a somewhat liberal allowance.
"Most of 'em has but one or two," explained Peter. "A man who has to be his own house builder can't afford too much time for fixing rooms. However, I made two, the kitchen here and the bedroom. Later on I built a lean-to, making an extra room. That'll be for you. Now we'll feed. Like beans and bacon?"
"Anything," said Joe heartily. "I've had a long tramp and am hungry. This fine air gives one an appetite."
"It's jest the healthiest place you could strike anywhere," cried Peter, his face glowing. "We've been here this four years. I bought the section from a man who had broken most of it and then got tired. You see, we've prairie all round, save for the settlement close handy. They say that the railway'll soon be along here. Anyway, there's no muskegs (swamps) hereabouts, and therefore no mosquitoes to speak of."
"He don't know what's a muskeg," laughed Mrs. Strike. "Tell him."
"It's a swamp, that's all," came the answer, "and there's miles of them in Canada. Often enough they're covered with low bush and with forests of rotting trees that ain't worth nothing as timber. But here we've open prairie, with plenty of wood, and huge forests at a little distance; so it's healthy. Now, you come along out and fix this job," he said, when Joe had finished the meal and had swallowed a cup of tea. "I'm so busy I haven't had time to see to a number of things, specially since my man was taken ill and left. There's the pigsty, for instance; it wants cleaning out. You jest get in at it."
Joe had long since donned his colonial outfit. He wore a slouch hat, with which no one could find a fault save for its obvious newness. An old pair of trousers covered his legs, and thick, nailed boots were on his feet. His jacket he had carried over his arm, and it was now reposing with his baggage, while a thick brown shirt and a somewhat discoloured red handkerchief completed his apparel. He followed Peter to an outhouse, and found at the back a range of wooden pigsties which might, with truth, be said to be in an extremely unsavoury condition. There was a fork and a spade near at hand, together with an old tin bucket.
"Right," he said briskly, turning up the ends of his trousers; "I'll make a job of it. I should say that a chap who had no knowledge of farming could do this as well as any other. I'll come along when I've finished."
Peter stood watching his new hand for some few moments, and then strode off out of sight. Joe turned his sleeves up, climbed into the sty, and set to work with a will.
"Not an overnice job," he told himself, "but then it's part of farming work. If I turn up my nose at this sort of thing and think myself too good for it—why, that would be a nice sort of beginning! Someone has to clean the sties on a farm. I'm the labourer, and so it's my job."
His jovial whistle could be heard in the shack as he worked, and brought Mrs. Strike to the door with an infant in her arms.
"Why, it's the new hand," she told her husband. "He's whistling, as if he liked the job you'd given him. Now I think that was a little hard. You can see as Joe's a better sort of lad. He's had an education, and I wouldn't wonder if he was something in the Old Country. And you put him right off to clean out the sty."
She regarded her lord and master with some severity; but the latter only grinned. Peter had a most taking face; in fact, his features were seldom severe, and more often than not wore a smile. He was a tall, burly man, with broad shoulders and long limbs. Possessed of fair hair and of a peaked beard, he was quite a handsome fellow, though wonderfully neglected as to his raiment. Indeed, contrasting Joe and Peter, one would have said offhand that the latter was the labourer and Joe the owner of the property.
But that is just the curious part of things outside the settlements in Canada. The more patched a man's garments, the more probable it is that he is successful. A colonist is not there judged by his fellows because of his clothing. He is judged by results—results of his labours on the soil or his astuteness in business. Compare this with England, where fine clothes make fine birds, where appearance is of so much importance, and do not let us sneer at either people. Custom has brought either condition about, and no doubt with good reason.
As for Peter, he was grinning widely as his wife turned somewhat sharply upon him.
"You've given him right off the nastiest job, and he quite green," she said.
"And I've done so with a reason," laughed Peter. "There's men I have hired before who had obviously seen something better back where they came from. They would have kicked at doing that sty. They would have forgotten that their old life was nothing to me, and that they were seeking their living in this country. Their old pride would be too much for 'em, and I would have to suffer. Now a chap who comes out here has to drop pride. If he's ignorant, he oughtn't to be above starting right at the bottom. I like hearing that lad whistling; he ain't too proud to earn an honest living, even if the job is what it is."
"Hallo!" he called, coming over to Joe some half-hour later and looking into the sty. "How're you doing?"
"Fine," said our hero, borrowing an expression somewhat common in the Dominion. "Almost finished."
"Then you've been mighty slippy," admitted Peter, his eyes opening when he saw that our hero had indeed almost finished the task. "This lad'll do for me," Peter said to himself. "He works, he does. He's the kind of fellow who likes to get ahead, whether he's working for another or for himself. My, if he ain't washing the place down now!"
Evidently his new hand was cleanly also, and that was pleasing. Peter began to think that in gaining Joe's services he had made quite a bargain.
"That'll fix it right, lad," he sang out. "You've made a fine job of it. Jest you hop out now, and put the fork and spade back where you found 'em. It's yer first lesson in farming and in other things."
Joe looked up smiling. "Eh?" he said.
"Yes," went on Peter, "Mrs. Strike's been pitching into me for giving you such a job first off; but I wanted to see for meself whether you'd kick, or whether you meant to get on whatever came along. Reckon you'll do—now come along in and feed the hosses."
When a month had passed, Joe found another ten dollars added to the fifty he had kept by him; also he had settled down wonderfully with the Strikes, and was already getting along with his farm work.
"He's a treasure is that lad," admitted Mrs. Strike warmly, when she and her husband were alone one evening. "It don't matter what it is that's wanted, he'll do it. If it's one of the children to mind, he'll smile and wink at the bairn. If it's water for the shack, he's willing. And if it's a log for the stove, he jest takes the saw and goes off whistling. That lad'll get along in the world."
"He's fine," agreed Peter. "He's the sort we want out from the Old Country."
Whether he was or not, Joe had taken kindly to the new life, without a shadow of doubt. His attentive mind was constantly absorbing details from the garrulous Peter or from his neighbours, and the end of that month's service on the farm had taught him quite a smattering of the profession he was to follow. As for being lonely, that he certainly was not; he was almost too busy even to have time for thinking of such a matter. Then, too, there were neighbours, while each shack actually possessed a telephone. However, if there were monotony in the life he was living, it was not long before an exciting incident occurred that would have aroused anyone even more lethargic than our hero.
CHAPTER VI
A Canadian Bad Man
"You jest put the hosses into the rig and make along to Hurley's," said Peter, Joe's employer, one early morning when the land was already ploughed, harrowed, and sown, and there was little to do but tend the animals and await the growth of the wheat crop, upon which Peter anticipated so much. "And don't stop longer than you need, lad. He's a bad man is Hurley, one of England's ne'er-do-weels, who came out years ago, and has now taken to farming. I've lent him a seeder this two seasons, and he hasn't returned it. Jest hitch it on to the back of the rig and bring it along."
"And you can take something from me along to Mrs. Hurley," said Peter's wife, who was one of those kind-hearted colonists one so often meets. "She's a poor, down-trodden thing, and most like she doesn't have too many of the good things. Here's butter for her, and eggs, and a leg of pork."
Joe was by now quite an adept at the management of the rig, and soon had his horses harnessed in, an operation of which he had been supremely ignorant before his arrival. He mounted into the cart, having placed Mrs. Strike's basket there already, cracked the whip, and went off across the prairie track between the ploughed acres already sprouting into greenness.
Hurley's quarter section was a matter of four miles away, and Joe had met the man only once before. But already something of his reputation had reached his ears, and Joe had gathered that amongst a farming class of industrious fellows this Hurley was looked at askance.
"He's a bully, and a sullen bully with it all," Peter had said once before. "He don't keep a hand more'n a month, as a general rule, while I reckon the boy as he has apprenticed to him has none too good a time. Hurley's a man I don't take to."
Bearing all this in mind, Joe whipped up his horses and took them at a smart pace across the fields. On every hand lay wooded country, with clearings to right and left, where the industry of the settlers had felled the trees, paying toll to the Government of Canada for them, and had then rooted the land, broken it, and placed therein the seed which was to spring into such bounteous growth. In every case a log hut was erected somewhere on the quarter section, consisting of one hundred and sixty acres; and these log huts often enough disclosed from their outward lines something of the character of the inmates, for in one case the shack was barely twelve feet by twelve.
"Jim Canning's," Joe told himself, for he had met Jim and liked him. "A confirmed old bachelor; been in Canada for ten years and more, and seems to like living by himself. He's a jovial fellow. Hallo, Jim!" he shouted, seeing that worthy crossing his section towards him. "How'dy."
Observe the expression, and gather the fact that even his own short residence in the Dominion had already caused Joe to copy those who lived about him. He was becoming quite a Canadian in his speech. Already one could detect something of that pleasant drawl that marks the sturdy colonial.
"Hallo, Joe!" shouted the stranger, beaming at our hero and disclosing handsome features, sunburned to a degree, while even his chest was of a deep brown; for Jim wore no collar, and had discarded the customary neckcloth. He was, in fact, a tattered-looking object—a huge patch in the seat of his trousers, a shirt which might have been blue or green or red in its palmy days, but which was now of a curious brown, evidently from much exposure to the sun. "How'dy," he cried. "Where away?"
"Hurley's, fetching a seeder."
"Huh! Then you look lively back agin," came the answer. "There's ructions down there. Hurley's been fighting with his hands, and though I believe they've settled the quarrel for the time bein', you never know when it won't break out again; he ain't no use ain't Hurley."
They waved to one another and then parted, Joe jogging along the rough track, now with the wheels on one side deep in an old rut, which threatened to upset the rig, and then bumping over boulders and tree stumps, which made riding anything but comfortable. But what cared Joe? He whistled shrilly; his face was rosy and tanned, his eyes clear, his broad-brimmed hat thrust back on his head, till a lock of hair showed to the front. Nor could his own clothing be very favourably contrasted with Jim's; for Joe's shirt had a large rent in it, made that very morning. A portion of the brim of his hat was missing, while the ends of his trousers were threadbare, to say the least of them.
"Clothing don't make the man, anyhow," Peter had said many a time. "You ain't any the wuss fer a rent in yer breeks."
"Hallo, Joe!" came a hail across from another quarter section. "How's the Strikes?"
Joe shouted back a greeting, and was soon exchanging others with farmers farther on. Indeed, he called at one of the shacks, a magnificent affair, showing the pluck and ability of its owner. It belonged to a city clerk from the city of London, one who had been ignorant of farming conditions, and when Joe was last in this direction it was not entirely finished.
"I thought I'd just drop in and see the house," he said, as he pulled up at the door. "It wouldn't have been neighbourly to have passed without a call."
"That it wouldn't," laughed a small but active lady, who emerged and shook hands with him. "Hi, Jack, here's Mr. Joe come to see us! Isn't the shack a beauty, just?"
She stood away from the shack, regarding it with a proud eye. And Joe eagerly extolled its magnificence; for this city clerk had built a house which none need be ashamed of.
"Not bad by half, eh?" he grinned, as he came up to Joe. "My cousin, who's farming with me, gave a hand. There's four rooms inside, and a covered way to the stables and the piggeries. It's cost us a heap of labour, but it's done now, and mighty pleased we are. How's the Strikes? Crops showing well, eh? We're doing fine; and the wife is making money with her fowls and eggs and such things. My boy, I wouldn't be back on an office stool for double the pay. I'm free here—free, my boy! I can breathe out in this country. And look at the kids—they're as healthy as we could wish."
Joe took in his surroundings with an observant eye, and heartily congratulated his friends. Here he saw before him an example of what a man from a city can do in the Dominion, if only he have the pluck and the tenacity to face the difficulties and disappointments which are sure to come along at first, and have the perseverance to work.
"How did you manage?" he asked Jack, the owner of the place.
"Manage! Well, now, like this. I was ill back in the Old Country, and I'll say this for the people who employed me—they treated me handsomely. They paid my salary for a whole year; then the doctor recommended Canada, and out we came, drawing all our savings. Tom, my cousin, had been here four years working on the farms, and we went into partnership right away. Of course I knew nothing. I trusted to him, and I've learned steadily. It's been uphill work, my boy. But there you are."
He held out an open palm towards the house, eyeing it with supreme satisfaction. And no wonder. Here was a man who through ill-health had failed, more or less, in England. Canada had given him a new lease of life and new opportunities. But let us remember that the Dominion gives nothing without effort on the side of immigrants. Jack had worked—his elaborate shack showed that distinctly—while he had been aided and abetted by a clever wife who fell in at once with the ways of the country, who did not grumble because she was far outside a town, but set to work to master the intricacies of chicken rearing, or butter making, and a thousand and one things, hidden arts to her till that moment. And the result was success—success and happiness.
Joe shouted a farewell, promised to call in for a meal on his way back, and again whipped up his horses. In half an hour the rough track and his rig brought him to the door of the Hurleys, a tumble-down shack, showing obvious slackness on the part of the owner; and as he climbed out of the rig he heard cries and shouts coming from the interior of the shack.
"A ruction," he told himself. "Perhaps I'd better wait; other people's quarrels have nothing to do with me."
He paused half in and half out of the rig for a little while, till, of a sudden, the door of the shack flew open, and a lad some fifteen years of age dashed out. After him came a burly, bearded fellow, whose knitted brows and scowling face showed that he was in a temper. There was a whip in his hand, and no sooner was he out of the door than he sent the lash curling about the flanks of the lad who had preceded him, causing the latter to give vent to a cry of pain and to take cover by the rig. Then Hurley—for he it was—swung round on our hero.
"Huh!" he growled, drawing in the slack of his lash. "What do you want? You ain't been asked here. Clear off!"
Joe dropped from the rig and stepped a pace nearer. "I've come for Peter Strike's seeder," he said.
"Strike! Eh? You get off!" came the furious answer, for it seemed as if Joe's arrival had increased the anger of the individual. "You get right off, or I'll give yer strike jest as I'm a-going to do with this little rascal. Come you here, Tom; I'll learn you to leave the door of the stable open of a night and have all the cattle treading over the corn. You ain't coming? Then I'll have to fetch you."
The huge bully bore down upon the trembling lad he had addressed, and who seemed too scared to move. He cowered by the side of the rig till Hurley was upon him, and was then dragged towards the door of the shack.
"What! You ain't gone?" growled Hurley, seeing that Joe had made no movement, but stood beside the rig regarding him, and gripping the butt of his whip. "Ef you ain't away in a jiffy, I'll give you summat of the same too."
"You'll give me the seeder first," said Joe, keeping his temper, and showing an unflinching front, "and then you'll take your hands off Tom. Even if he did leave the stable door open, he's sorry, no doubt, and there's no excuse for treating him so badly. I'd be ashamed if I was a big fellow the same as you."
Hurley let his lower jaw drop with amazement, showing a set of irregular teeth which were all discoloured. He almost foamed at the mouth, while his eyes narrowed with anger and seemed to disappear within their sockets. Joe could see the fingers of his one free hand crushed into the palm, while the man's muscles hardened and stood out prominently under the skin of his arm. He bellowed when he answered.
"So you'd like to concern yourself with things that ain't got nothing to do with you," he shouted. "You're one of the green chaps from over the water that thinks things out here should be run as if the boys was dressed in silk, and every one of them mammy's darlings. I'm going to lick this kid, and when I'm done, if you ain't gone, I'll give you a hiding jest the same."
Joe began to gather the fact that he was in for trouble, and debated what he ought to do. There may be some who, under similar circumstances, would have clambered into the rig and driven off; but few, very few we imagine. Joe, at any rate, was not to be numbered with them; he clenched the hand not gripping his whip and watched to see what happened. And Hurley did not keep him long waiting. He took the boy Tom by the scruff of his neck, forced him against the doorpost of the shack, and proceeded to bind him to it with a length of cord.
"That'll do," said Joe curtly, walking towards him. "Let that lad go!"
"Eh? Why, ef I don't think you're mad!" declared the bully, opening his mouth in amazement. Indeed, he never once thought seriously that our hero would interpose between him and his victim. For Hurley stood six feet in his socks, and was burly and heavy. Joe perhaps topped the measure at five feet nine, and wanted to fill out a great deal yet before he could compare with this fellow. If he had any advantage over such a man, and that was an extremely doubtful point, it lay in his activity. Joe was light and "nippy" on his feet. In the boxing ring he could dodge round his opponent till the latter was exhausted almost in his efforts to force the battle. Hurley, however, was heavy and fat and unwieldy; besides, the bully's face bore abundant evidence of indulgence. There were heavy lines beneath the eyes; the healthy tan and colour of the average colonist who works in the open was conspicuous by its absence, and instead his face was deadly pale. His deep and rapid breathing, too, told of his soft condition.
"He'd smash me like an egg," Joe told himself. "This is going to be a nasty business. But I can't, I really can't back out of it. Look here, Hurley," he said, attempting to reason with the angry man, "leave Tom alone. You know better than I do that your neighbours would never stand seeing you knocking him about. Bullying don't go down out in these parts."
There came a roar from Hurley. Reason was thrown away on the maddened ruffian, and if only the truth had been known, he had imbibed a sufficiency of liquor that morning to account for a great deal of violence. Indeed, this was a habit which had grown with him, and which spelled ruin to his farming and to the happiness of his home. The veins in his bull-like neck swelled out prominently, then he launched himself at Joe, and, swinging the whip overhead, sent the lash coiling about his face. Our hero answered with a rapidity that must have been startling. He dashed in with the quickness of lightning and brought the butt end of his whip handle down with a crash on the middle of Hurley's head. A minute later they were locked in one another's arms and engaged in a desperate struggle. Hurley gripped Joe round the shoulders, compressing his chest and arms. Then Joe managed to wrench his right fist free, and without a particle of hesitation sent it again and again into the bully's face, till blood streamed down upon him, while Hurley shouted and foamed with rage, and strained as if he would crush the life out of his youthful antagonist. His breath came in gasps, so great were his exertions. His eyes were bloodshot, and altogether he wore anything but a taking appearance.
"Now, let me go, and end the matter," said Joe, keeping his wits, and pressing the man away from him as far as possible.
"Not till I've half-killed you," came the grunting answer. "I'll learn you to interfere; I'll break yer back, young feller."
And thereupon he proceeded to attempt to put that plan into execution. He lifted Joe as if he were a feather, swung him round and hurled him against the shack, jarring the breath out of his body. It was only with a great effort that our hero kept his senses and struggled to hold an upright position, then, just as he had got his breath again, the man was on him. Joe let out with his right and left fists in quick succession, getting home on the bully's face on each occasion. Then, stooping quickly, he picked up his whip, and, gripping the handle again, brought the butt heavily across Hurley's head, sending the man staggering backward. Indeed, the fellow seemed to be incapable of further exertion, for he rested his back against the shack and stood there panting.
Joe went to the boy at once, cut the rope which bound him, and pointed to the shack.
"Get your traps at once," he said, "then climb into the rig. I'll take you along with me."
He turned once more to see what was happening to Hurley, and was only just in time to spring aside, and thereby escape a sweeping blow from a heavy fork handle with which the ruffian had armed himself.
"I'll show you who's master," shouted the fellow, his beard bristling with rage, his hat fallen from his head, and his clothing all awry. "I'll show you who's winner here, I will. I'll brain you before I've done with you."
Up went his formidable stick again, to be swung over his head; then with a rush he advanced on Joe. But the latter dodged behind the rig, and for a while attacker and attacked were separated. Joe, in fact, could have retired. But there was the lad Tom to be considered, for at this moment he emerged from the shack, a huge bundle under his arm.
"Go back, right in," bellowed Hurley. "I'll finish you too if you're not careful. Go right in; I'll give you what you've earned when I've done with this cub. Eh? You ain't going to?"
The smallest hesitation on the part of Tom was sufficient to send the blood again rushing to the face of the bully. He looked a terrible object as he sprang at the boy, and there is little doubt that he would have done him a serious injury, had not Joe again pluckily come to the rescue. Darting out from behind the rig, he was just in time to catch the end of the stout handle which Hurley wielded as it swung back over his shoulder. Then, with a howl of rage, the brute turned on him.
"You again!" he shouted. "Then that for you! That, and that, and that!"
He rained blows on our hero, one catching him across the shoulder and almost felling him. The remaining two he was lucky enough to escape by leaping aside. But he realized that such an attack could not last for ever, nor was he likely to escape another time. It was with a quick movement, therefore, that he closed with Hurley. His fists went crash into the man's face, and then they were once more locked together. But here the bully had all the advantage, and his strength was increased by the rage he felt. It mattered little to him that Tom, with a pluck that did him credit, seized Joe's whip and struck his tormentor over the head time and again. Hurley did not seem to feel the blows; all his frantic rage was concentrated on Joe.
"I'm a-going to kill you right out," he grunted. "I'll larn you to come interfering with me and mine."
He swung Joe upward clear of the ground and then hurled him downward, once again driving the breath out of Joe's body. But he was not defeated. The lad had more pluck than strength, to give him his due, as, gasping for breath, he rose swiftly and once more tackled his opponent. Reaching forward, he planted a heavy blow in Hurley's face, and contrived to spring away before the man could seize him.
"Go in again! Punch him for all you can!" shouted Tom, taking an active interest now in the proceedings, and dodging round the combatants, as if he were seeking another opportunity to strike his tormentor. "Watch him, though; he's got that stick again. If I'd a gun I'd shoot him."
"You would, would you?" growled Hurley, his head down, his neck sunk into his shoulders, and a demoniacal expression on his face. "You'd shoot me, young feller? But I'll deal with you in a while. Maybe I'll kill you. This fool here I will, sure as eggs."
He spat into his hands and gripped his stake again. As for Joe, had he been armed with a revolver, there is little doubt but that he would have made good use of the weapon; for if ever a man looked murderous it was Hurley. More than that, had Joe but known what the interior of the shack disclosed, and been armed, he would have fired at this ruffian without a second's hesitation; for Hurley's attack on Tom was not his only act of brutality on this eventful morning. He had begun to bully the boy an hour ago, in spite of his unhappy wife's appeal, and when she had at length endeavoured to intervene, he had struck her insensible. That was the class of ruffian our hero had to deal with. A glance at his face, at his gaping lips, his firm-clenched teeth, and his bristling beard showed that his mental condition approached madness. And now, having regained his breath in some measure, he fixed his eye on Joe and rushed at him as a bull would at one who had roused his anger.
"Watch him!" shouted Tom again, as if the warning were actually needed. "Here, let's run for it."
But it was too late to think of that. Besides, Joe had his master's property to consider. He stood his ground, therefore, and held up a warning hand.
"I warn you to desist," he shouted. "I have done you no wrong, but have prevented you from ill-treating this boy. You are much older than I am, and should know what the end of this will be. Then, stand off."
"Stand off, and know that you've interfered? Not me!" came the growling answer. "Besides, I know how the thing's going to end. I'm going to kill you sure for being fool enough to interfere with other people."
Hurley waited for no more. He had paused as Joe held up a hand and spoke; but now he hurled himself forward, and struck out blindly with his stake. As for Joe, he stepped aside and dealt the man a swinging blow behind the ear as he passed him; but it was his last effort. The fight was too unequal, for here was a man armed with a long stake and able to reach him with it. Up went the formidable weapon again, and when it fell Joe's head was beneath it. He fell with a crash and lay quite motionless. As for Tom, he dropped his bundle and went off at a run towards the nearest quarter section, shouting for help at the top of his voice.
"That's what I call justice," growled Hurley, looking at the result of his violence. "I promised I'd knock him out, and I've done it. Now for the next business. This row'll put the North-west Police on me, and the neighbours'll be only too ready to join in. I'll hook it."
He went to Joe and bent deliberately over his unconscious figure, and then, with the hand of one who had obviously had experience, he ran through his pockets. When he rose again he was tucking away within his coat the roll of bills which represented all our hero's savings, added to the small fund he had kept out of the bank, and in addition the precious envelope which Joe's father had left to him.
"Sixty-five dollars free," growled Hurley. "That's a windfall, seeing that there's scarce a cent in the shack. It'll do for the time being. Here's an envelope—valuables, perhaps. I'll look into it later. Now, I'll cut this farming and be off."
Hurley was a cool ruffian, even if at times he was violent. He entered the shack, and emerged after some five minutes carrying a bundle of clothes and a rifle. Then he mounted the rig, having previously picked up the whip which Joe had used, cracked it, and set off down the track in the direction of the railway. He left the figure of Joe Bradley lying motionless and forlorn on the very ground, where he had made such a brave fight to protect a lad little younger than himself against the attack of a hulking bully.