I had been with the 43rd about two months and during that time we had been out in "rest" twice, once at Villers-au-bois and once at Camblin l'Abbe. They were very interesting French towns, especially to one who had always lived in western Canada, and although they had been pretty badly knocked about by shelling they were havens of refuge, rest, and comfort to us after the trenches. But my man Macpherson wouldn't grow enthusiastic with me over these two places. "Wait till you see Auchel, sir, that's the place for us. Why it's the French 'home' of the 43rd. That's a real town and fine people, and they think there's no other battalion quite as good as ours." I heard the town often spoken about in the same way by others and was delighted when I learned one day that we were to move back to Auchel. I wasn't disappointed in my expectations. The place had been a prosperous farming village until the discovery of coal nearby had developed it into a fine little town. It had retained much of its former quaintness, and the mines had brought it in contact with newer ideas by which it had benefited, and the town was vastly cleaner, better lighted, had better stores, and was generally more up-to-date than the old village had been.
As in all the many thousand French towns and villages, the Roman Catholic church edifice was by far the largest building. At Auchel it was located in the Market Square without any enclosing fence, and on the weekly market-day when the Square was crowded with stalls many of them would be placed against the buttresses of the church.
Auchel was unique among the towns we knew in France in having a neat little Protestant Church as well, called "L'Église Evangelique." It was a plain building seating perhaps 150 people and built after the style of our own small country churches. On the wall at the right of the platform was the verse in French, "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God," and on the other side, "He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities." High on the wall behind the pulpit was inscribed the verse, "Dieu est Amour," and just behind the speaker were the words, "God bless our Sunday School." Their pastor gladly gave us the use of the church. We held our Communion Service in it on Sunday and turned it into a reading-room during the week.
It was in this Protestant church at our own sacrament service that Capt. Jack Verner was baptised and took his first communion. He is buried overseas.
It was in Auchel, when our battalion had been warned to be ready to move at an hour's notice, that the padre gathered a dozen Camerons who were not on duty, got a lorry and driver, and went off with his men to a town twenty-five miles away to get a supply of books, magazines, writing-paper and benches for his reading-room. I needed the men to load and unload the equipment. We were away all afternoon. When we came back, the adjutant, a conscientious Scot, gave me what, from a military point of view I richly deserved, a right good scolding. No orders to move had come, but if they had, there would have been a serious reprimand coming to somebody. "All's well that ends well." We didn't move for a full ten days and in the meantime the men had their reading-room. Our parade services were held in the ramshackle building which had been a cinema before the war. The most inspiring part of our worship was the singing. There was a piano to give us the right pitch and tempo, the congregation did the rest. It would have thrilled you to stand on the platform and hear those eight hundred men singing the grand old songs of Zion. It was glorious. I was "lifted," and when the time came for the sermon I couldn't help preaching with heart as well as voice. It gave me an idea of the great loss we may sustain in over-modernizing our church services. The congregation often doesn't sing, or sings feebly. Its voice of praise is frequently drowned out by the pipe-organ or choir. We obtrude these latter so much upon the eyes and ears of the people that we seem almost to merit the observation of a critical Roman Catholic, that he would rather bow before an altar and a crucifix in church, than before a showy, loud-voiced pipe-organ and choir, performing in front of an audience which apparently took little part in the service except to listen.
It was in Auchel, too, that our battalion received its great gift from the Women's Canadian Club of Seattle, Washington. On May 16th, 1918 the consignment reached us. It was, as far as I know, the biggest present in kind that was ever given a Canadian battalion in France. How such bulky stuff got through at all and in such prime condition is a miracle that someone else will have to explain. But there it was. Six big wooden boxes each half as large as a piano-box and packed full. There were many kinds of things and practically enough of every kind to give everybody in the battalion a good share of it all. I had to have a parade (voluntary), and Macpherson and I handed out the stuff, which we had unpacked and arranged, to the men as they lined up. There were great quantities of fine candies in bulk and in many small fancy boxes, lots of chewing-gum and tobacco, hundreds of cigars and thousands of cigarettes. There were a score of immense homemade fruit cakes. Then there was a generous abundance of dates, raisins, figs, writing-paper, pipes, pencils, fountain-pens, safety razors, snuff, vaseline, soap, tooth-brushes, wash-rags, socks, sapadilla, handkerchiefs, tooth-paste, shaving-soap, medicines, joke-books and many odds and ends in smaller quantities. Most of the smaller parcels were tied up in pretty ribbon and white tissue-paper with Christmas cards in them and ornamented with Christmas labels, for the boxes had been due three months before.
It was in Auchel that I talked to my men about northern dogs. One evening we gathered in L'Église Evangelique and I told them some stories about wolf-dogs I had known or handled.
* * * * *
One winter I heard that a group of men were prospecting on Duncan Creek about two hundred miles farther out than my location at Gold Bottom. I decided to take a month or two away from my regular circuit on the creeks around me and pay a visit to these new diggings, take along some reading matter, tell them the news, have some services, and bring back their mail.
I needed a dog-team for the trip. My own dogs were not then old enough for a long journey nor were they properly broken, and so I picked up an odd dog here and there on the creek until I had a string of six. They were of mixed sorts but all had been broken to the sleigh, and their owners, who had no work for them, were glad to have the dogs taken off their hands, fed and cared for.
I'm not going to speak of them all but only of three that had more distinctive characters than the others.
When we travel with dogs in the North they are hitched up tandem (usually) to a sleigh about two feet wide, a foot from the ground, and eight or nine feet long, and are guided by voice and gestures only. There are no reins. Of course you carry a black-snake whip to urge the lazy ones on. This whip is about ten feet long with a heavy loaded butt needed for protection if a refractory husky should turn on you. The leader is the all-important dog. The others have only to keep their traces taut and follow on, but the leader has to use his head with all his wolf and dog senses and instincts. He must find and keep on top of the old trail if there is one buried under the drifts, know whether new ice is safe enough or not, and avoid the serious peril of water under the snow, for at very low temperature, with creek channels frozen solid, water is squeezed out and runs under the snow. It of course freezes very quickly, but if you and your dogs get into it, while still liquid in extreme cold weather, it means an immediate camping to save your feet and those of your dogs, and dry wood may not be near just then. This may well mean death, for death soon comes to the crippled man or dog away from help in the sub-arctic winter if he cannot build a fire. Your leader too, must respond to all the few words of command. These are "Mush!", a corruption, through the old French-Canadian Coureurs-du-bois of "Marchez!"; "Whoa!", the whole team knows that welcome word; "Gee!" to turn to the right, and "Haw!" to swing to the left.
Now this pick-up dog-team of mine was strange to me and I to them, so the introduction was a fight or two until they knew I was boss. Then I had to "learn" my dogs and place them in the string so that they could work properly, and also see that they all did work until they became a real team where each dog was doing his share.
I first picked on a big grey-muzzled malemute named Steal as a likely fellow to lead. Dogs' names there don't usually indicate their character, but his did. All malemutes are born thieves, some men think. I don't agree, but in this case I had a thief by nature, education, and name. He would break into your "cache" if it could be done and steal what he fancied. His owner claimed he could read labels on canned goods, for he would carry away bully-beef tins but not canned-fruit. It was his keen nose, not his eyes of course, that told him the difference. Once you knew of this failing it could be easily guarded against on the trail. It would have been of little moment if Steal had done his duty as leader. He knew all the tricks of the trail and would have made a fine leader if he had tried to do his bit. But I hadn't gone far before I realized that he wouldn't work away from the whip. Running behind the eight-foot sleigh I had it and the five dogs between me and Steal. His traces were always trailing. He would rarely quicken his pace no matter how fiercely I shouted "Mush on, you malemute!", nor for the crack of the whip. I had to run along beside the team on the narrow trail, throwing them partly off, before I could reach him with the whip. Then he would dig in for a few hundred yards but soon commenced to slow down, continually looking back to see if I were coming at him again. This performance was demoralizing to team and driver, so some change had to be made. I put a smaller dog named Mike in the lead and hitched Steal up next the sleigh as my "wheel-dog." He worked there. He knew perfectly that his game was up and put his shoulder against the collar from that on. He was that sort of dog that works well under the lash, although as a fact I never had to strike him now. I simply cracked the whip above him if he showed signs of shirking and he would get right in and pull, at the same time emitting a series of howls that could not have been more woeful if he were being killed. Anyway, I could see that the dogs in front took it as a warning of the punishment awaiting the laggard and would pull so hard I would sometimes have to slow them down.
Do not think I was cruel, or drove the dogs at their top speed always. In the north there is more real kindness and expert care used by dog-mushers in handling their wolf-dogs than in the way pet-dogs and house-dogs are treated in our cities. A dog doesn't appreciate having its nose kissed by human lips, and it is gross unkindness to let unthinking impulse lead you to over-feed them, or give them wrong food and make them sick and weak. It is cruel to keep your dog chained up for days at a time alone in your back-yard, varied only by taking him out for a walk usually on a leash. Our trail-dogs are almost always healthy, hungry, and happy. Each day they have, what every dog really needs and loves above all else, a long run in the wilds with other dogs, satisfying the old, inborn, "pack" instinct. They are carefully fed, not much in the morning, perhaps a chunk each of dried salmon and the same at noon. A good feed at dawn or during the day would mean a sick or "heavy" dog along the trail. But at night the first meal prepared is for the dogs, a good, big, hot feed of boiled rice, cornmeal, or oatmeal, with a liberal allowance of fat bacon cut up and mixed in and perhaps a couple of dog-biscuits each to crunch for dessert. Every toe of every dog was examined daily and any sign of sensitiveness would mean a salve, or, if expedient, a soft moccasin small enough to fit the foot and protect it from the trail. The dogs were felt carefully all over to see if they were sore anywhere. Too much depended on his dogs on the trail for a man to be careless, or harsh, or ignorant, in their handling.
Mike was a dandy little dog and served me well the whole journey through. He wasn't as knowing on the trail as Steal and got us into a tumble that might have had troublesome results. Travelling along a ledge running about fifteen feet above the bottom of the gulch, he took the team too near the edge and got on the "comb" of snow which broke off with him and he dragged the whole team, sleigh, and driver over the brink, to roll in a confused heap to the bottom. It took me an hour, when daylight was precious, to get straightened out and going again, but otherwise we were none the worse.
I found that Mike had one other fault. It took me two or three days to notice it. He had the knack of keeping his traces straight but not tight. He rarely pulled more than enough just to keep them from sagging. No matter how hard the going Mike was only a "leader." He never got down and pulled. I hesitate to criticize him, for at least he did do his work as leader when without him I'd have been in a fix. He did his own part, carried his own harness, and willingly. That's a great, good quality, in dog or man. Often, though, I wished he would forget being a leader, drop his dignity, and just be an ordinary work-dog, especially in deep snow climbing a steep bank when the other dogs and the driver were pulling and shoving with all our strength to make the grade.
At Duncan I found a hearty welcome and spent ten days visiting around the cabins. Before I started back an old-timer named Brodeur came into camp limping behind his dogs. His axe had glanced while felling a tree and gashed his foot. First-aid was given, but it was evident that he should be taken to Dawson where he could get expert surgical treatment. We arranged that he should come back with me. Before we left he sold his dogs and sleigh for thirty-five ounces of gold, about five hundred dollars. The dog he wouldn't sell was his leader, named Shep, the best sleigh-dog I have ever seen in the north. Brodeur refused to sell him for any money, not, however, because of the dog's usefulness, that would have had a market value, but for what you would call sentimental reasons. To put it simply, they loved each other.
Of course there was only one place in the team for this king among dogs and Mike now came second in the string. What a grand dog Shep was! I can't tell you half his fine qualities. I don't know what noble dog breed was mixed with the wolf in him, but he was master of the team, in harness and out of it, from the start, and they seemed to sense it and not resent it. The first night Steal tried to dispute it by leaving his own pile of hot rice to snap some from the far-side of Shep's. Before you could think Steal was down half-buried in the snow yelling in his accustomed way, while Shep nipped a few little slits in his ears. It wasn't a fight. It was corrective punishment properly administered, in the same spirit in which you spank your little boy. A dog can travel quite as well with a few healthy cuts in his ears as without. Was it Shep's way of boxing his ears? Shep was no bully, but he wouldn't allow any fights among the dogs. He had, too, the rare art of "jollying" the team along the trail. This was seen when the going had been hard all day and the dogs were growing weary. Then he would talk to them as he travelled in his whining, malemute way, and it would seem to brighten them up. Perhaps he told them funny dog stories, or pictured the joys of a good supper when they got to dry timber and camped. Whatever your explanation, Shep was the cause, and the effect was seen in a brisk and willing lot of dogs going strong at the close of the day. Always he pulled his best. Whenever it was heavy sledding he would get right down dog-fashion, with his belly close to the trail, tongue hanging out, and do all he knew to keep things moving; heart, lungs, muscles, toe-nails and teeth were all enlisted in his effort to serve the man he loved who was riding under the robe in the sleigh behind. How did he use his teeth? This way—Climbing up a bank through the brush, making around an overflow on the creek, we were nearly being stalled; Shep, not content with his usual efforts, had managed to grip with his teeth a stout branch that stretched conveniently near, and was using teeth and neck-muscles to add to his pulling power! Do you wonder that Brodeur loved the dog? Shep never knew the feel of the whip in punishment. At night when the team was unharnessed his first move was to the sleigh where he shoved his muzzle into the old man's hand and looked into his face asking him, I suppose, if everything was going well.
We reached Dawson in good form and soon had Brodeur comfortably located in the "Good Samaritan" hospital. Shep made his bed, the first night, in the snow a few yards from the door, but he discovered which window was Brodeur's, and he camped under it against the logs of the hospital until his master was well. The foot mended rapidly and soon the old trapper and his noble dog were back in the hills again.
In March and April, 1918, the Canadians were lying along the low ground beyond Vimy Ridge, facing the Germans who held the Lens-Mericourt-Arleux front. The 43rd was entrenched about a mile forward from the base of the Ridge. We had taken over from the "Yorks and Lane's" who had done a lot of excellent engineering in the sector they had been holding. The trenches had been deepened and well drained. The dug-outs were numerous, large, and mostly safe. The months of their tenure had been quiet, and everything was in good repair. No Man's Land was wide, a quarter mile in places, smooth, covered with grass, and inhabited by colonies of larks. Apparently no raiding had been done, for that always brings some artillery retaliation showing in parapets and barbed wire knocked about, and ground torn by explosives.
When the Canadians commenced raiding, the Hun still held himself well in check, in spite of the loss of a few men killed or taken prisoner every night or two. He had a tremendous surprise developing for our Fifth Army away to our right flank, and he didn't care to "start anything" with us that might disarrange his plans. Not that we were left severely alone, for it was on this same comparatively quiet front, on Wednesday afternoon, April 3rd, that I saw more enemy shells drop on one particular spot in a limited time than I ever saw happen in any other sector.
Our Regimental Aid Post was a spacious comfortable place underground off "Vancouver Road," and there some 3rd Field Ambulance "bearers" had taken up their quarters along with our medical section. The dug-out had only the one defect of not being any too deep for safety. Well, it so happened that something had aroused the enemy's suspicions about our Post. Maybe the fresh earth thrown out from a little trench-improvement work near us had attracted the notice of the German air-men. Whatever the cause they evidently had come to the decision that it would be wise to "shoot us up," which they did with a vengeance. Captain Mackenzie and I were coming down the sunken road when the fusilade opened. At first we thought it was the usual stray shell or two, but for three hours we couldn't get within fifty yards of the place. The Hun gunners lobbed them over unceasingly. The dust of an explosion was still in the air when you could hear the hum of another shell coming. We were held up and just had to wait for the "strafe" to cease, anxiously wondering if the roof was holding and our men were safe.
It stopped at last and we ran down the road. One of the entrances was smashed in but the other still held up. We went downstairs to find our men crowded into one small portion of the Post that remained intact. All around was evidence of their miraculous escape. I shuddered to think what would have been, had a shell penetrated the roof there and burst among them.
McClymont told me that their lights were blown out seventy-two times by the concussion of shells exploding near the entrances, and that when they went out about the twenty-fifth time Macpherson started them singing some music-hall choruses to relieve the strain. About the fiftieth time, by mutual unspoken consent, they changed to hymns! I'd have changed long before that; indeed I doubt if I could have found voice steady enough for song!
The foregoing facts I glean from an old notebook in which at the time I further jotted down that "the Hun threw 235 "5.9" shells on and around our R.A.P. in less than three hours. One entrance was crumpled in and dirt and bricks heaped on our beds. Twenty men there but no one hurt. The shelling represents a waste of twenty-five thousand dollars, and our cosy home gone."
That night we moved across the road to a deeper dug-out, one that had been built by the Germans, located by Sergt. Sims. Talking in the evening after supper about the day's event, our conversation naturally went afield to other adventures, and I was led to speak of a narrow escape from death I had in very different circumstances in a distant land.
* * * * *
In nearly eleven years of the Yukon trails, living on the creeks among the mountains in early Klondike days, I could not fail to have my share of memorable experiences, some of them with more than a spice of hazard. I lived just the regular life of a "musher"—a man on the trail—and while that mode of life assuredly held nothing of monotony, yet I grew so accustomed to it that it all seemed part of the usual, familiar course of things.
After the summer, beautiful but brief, there came the eight months of grim, relentless winter. Then we had to face the long darkness and the deadly cold; to travel vast, white valleys filled with an almost terrifying silence broken only by the ugly howling of the wolves; to battle through deep and drifting snow along miles of lonely summits, with blizzards blinding and bewildering. But against each problem or task that Nature set us we matched, with zest, our wits and skill. There was the joy of conflict in it. Experience made us self-reliant and we learned to love the life, so free and clean, so full of stirring incident and victorious combat with the elements. Only now am I commencing to get the true perspective of those Yukon days, and by comparison with the soft conventional life of these later years, recognizing how unique and interesting they were.
There comes to my mind a very unpleasant time I had one winter night, when I lost my way, broke my word, and spoiled a happy gathering. If it were a sermon, my text would be, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."
The Christmas festivities in the Yukon long ago usually continued for about a month. The weather was so frosty that work on the windlass was both disagreeable and risky, so it became customary for the mid-winter weeks to be occupied in visiting or entertaining neighbours and friends. Small "parties" were held in a sort of rotation at the larger cabins up and down the valleys. Everybody was merrymaking. Hospitality knew no artificial bonds, for in those golden days, there was neither prince nor peasant, rich nor poor. Don't think from this that we had no right social standards. I know that much of the fiction about the North is built on the theory that the men in the Klondike diggings practically adopted the moral code of the brothel. That assumption may make a novel "spicy" and increase its sale, but nevertheless it is quite untrue. We, of the creeks, had worthy moral standards, simple but definite, and rigidly enforced. Our social grading, however, was not based on the length and value of a man's "poke," nor on his grandfather's record. If he lived an honest, decent life among us, he was barred from nothing.
In addition to the many smaller affairs, each gulch, where there were miners, would have one big evening for all, church or roadhouse being requisitioned for the occasion. These were called Christmas Tree Entertainments, or simply "Trees" for short. It was one of my duties to name the members of committees to have charge of all arrangements, and I was also expected to be chairman at all the "Trees." To meet this last requirement each creek had to choose a different date so that I could make the rounds.
In the winter of 1905 we had carried through our entertainments at Last Chance, Gold Bottom, and Gold Run. Sulphur Creek was the last, and they had been working to make it the best of all. It was to be held on Dec. 28th. One of the Sulphur men, Robertson, had come over to Gold Bottom to "size up" the programme there and report to his committee. He told me that Sulphur's Tree would easily eclipse the others, and that I must on no account miss it. "You can depend on me, Robertson," I said, "and I'll see whether you Sulphurites can make good your boast. I'll have to 'mush' across from Gold Run that afternoon, but I won't disappoint you."
At noon Dec. 28th a very happy party of six old "tillicums" were gathered in Jordan's cabin on Gold Run. His partner Jim Prophet was there, Coldrick the Londoner, Macgregor the Australian, Bousfield and myself. Prophet had been lucky enough to get a moose that had strayed into the valley within rifle-shot and it lay partly cut up on some poles by the "cache." So he had invited his friends in to help eat some of the choicest parts, moose-steak in ordinary being, of course, too common for a special feast. I shall forbear entering into details of that meal, but our meat-dish was young moose-heart stuffed, roasted, with fresh Klondike river grayling as an entree. Grayling are caught in the fall when slush ice is running in the river. They are sluggishly heading for deep water. You fish for them with rod and line baiting with raw meat. When you pull one out he freezes stiff almost before you can get him off the hook. You catch what you need, take them home, and stack them up like firewood in the cache where they will remain frozen. There you have your winter's supply of absolutely fresh fish.
We were sitting at the table when there came a knock on the door, and in response to Jordan's hearty "Come in," it was opened and the form of our good friend Corp. Haddock, of the North West Mounted Police, emerged through the mist. He sat down a minute or two but wouldn't stay. He was calling at all the cabins giving orders that no one was to attempt to leave the valley until the weather moderated. The barracks thermometer registered 65° below zero, and a dense fog had formed. Under these conditions it was perilous to attempt any journey away from human habitations. No one spoke of my intended trip, (although I found out later that Haddock knew my plans), until he had gone, when Coldrick said, "That puts the finish on your mush to Sulphur, Pringle." "No," I replied, "I gave my word I'd be there and they will be looking for me. I have crossed that divide fifty times. I know every flake of snow on it. Unless the corporal catches me and puts me in the 'cage,' I'll be chairman at the Sulphur Church this evening."
This sounds boastful and foolhardy, but as a fact it was neither. I realized perfectly what I was facing, and knew that, barring accidents, I could keep my promise. I had fifteen miles in all to go, and only one mile of it difficult travelling through deep snow on the low summit, and for that I had my snowshoes. True, it was extremely cold, but I was suitably clothed and knew how to take care of myself, surely, after six years constantly on the trail.
So Jordan went out to get my snowshoes. He came in with the unexpected news that my snowshoes, and likewise their two pair, had disappeared from their pegs. It was plain that Haddock was "wise," and had taken them along with him down creek in a well-meant effort to make me stay indoors. I would have to go six miles down the trail and back to get another pair, and they also might not be there. That was out of the question. I hesitated only long enough to picture the trail. There was only that one mile on which I used the shoes, and though the snow there was deep I could wade through without them. It would mean perhaps an hour longer, but it wasn't two o'clock yet and I had a full six hours to travel fifteen miles. I decided to go.
I set out and made fast time until I struck the drifts on the summit. The short spell of gloom we called day had ended, and it was rapidly growing dark. Before I got over that mile there would be no light, and this unpleasant white fog would be blindfolding my eyes as well. With it all I didn't worry. This was a difficult job that faced me, but I was in my own workshop, had my own tools, and was working at my own trade. Fate, however, had decreed that I should botch things this time.
Somehow, unwittingly, I turned a gradual quarter circle to the right in the drifts, and was then travelling along the low, undulating divide instead of across it. Laboriously but confidently I kept on through the darkness and the fog, unconscious of my error, until, after three hours, I found myself at the foot of a grade that I had thought was the slope down into the Sulphur valley. I soon found my mistake. It must have been some large cup-shaped depression on the divide, its bottom strewn with a fearsome tangle of fallen trees carried down by a snow or landslide. For two testing hours I fought my way through that piled up brush and snow. When I got clear I felt myself on an up-grade.
It was a long climb out of that hateful valley and I knew now that I was lost. To try to retrace my steps would have been suicide. I had given up all hope of reaching Sulphur in time for the Tree and was growing a trifle anxious. It was terribly cold and dark. I had been working extremely hard for hours and I was getting hungry. I didn't dare to stand still or rest. My moccasin thong had come undone and I had to take off my mitts to fix it. So sharp was the frost that my fingers grew almost too stiff to do the work and I nearly failed to tie the lace. They were white and numb when I thrust them into my fur gauntlets, beating them against my chest as I went on. My whole body sensed the chill and threat of that momentary stop. It told me that if I were forced to take my last chance for life and try to build a fire, I would almost surely fail; to find dry wood, to prepare it, to light it, and wait nursing it into a flame sufficient to warm me would be a succession of almost hopeless chances, too desperate to take now unless there were no other way.
My climb brought me at last out above the frost-fog, and I thanked God I could see His stars and get my bearings. Far away to right and left in the darkness I knew the valleys of Gold Run and Sulphur lay, but between me and them stretched impossible miles of rough country. Puzzled a moment my anxious eyes caught the flicker of a light, low down in the north, hardly to be distinguished from the stars on the sky-line. This was indeed my "star of hope." It meant warmth, and warmth was life to me. I fixed its location and with new heart headed for it.
For six hours I travelled straight away like a hunted moose. I was young, lean and fit as a wolf. I was tired but not at all exhausted. In wind and limb I was good for miles yet. But I was becoming exceedingly hungry, and felt the clutching, icy fingers of the frost getting through my clothes, and I knew there was no time to waste. Hunger and ninety-five degrees of frost on the trail combining against you with darkness as their ally, will soon club you into unconsciousness.
However the game isn't lost or won until the referee blows his whistle. I was determined to fight it right out to the finish. The light was my goal and I forgot all else. I must get to it even though I might have to crawl at last with frozen hands and feet. In the hollows I lost sight of it, picking it up again on higher ground, until, when I knew I hadn't much time left me, it glimmered clear, down hill, not a hundred yards away. I'll tell you the lights in Paradise will not look so beautiful to me as did the Jo-Jo Roadhouse bonfire that night, for they had a big fire outside under an iron tank melting snow for water and it was the flame of this I had seen.
My fumbling at the latch roused Swanson, the owner, from his sleep. He opened the door and pulled me in and I was safe. I had been beaten in my endeavour to get to Sulphur in time for the Tree, but I was victor in a more serious contest. I had won a game against heavy odds in which the stakes were life, or death, or maiming.
They told me later at Sulphur, that at half-past eight the crowd at the Tree got uneasy, and by nine o'clock the concert was declared off and a well-equipped search-party set out with dog-teams. They went the round-about but well-trodden trail down to the mouth of Gold Run, and up that creek, until they found my solitary tracks turning off to the divide. They sent their dogs back to the Gold Run cabin with one of the party, and followed my trail all night on snowshoes, making the Jo-Jo late next morning an hour after I had left on Swanson's shoes for Sulphur.
I arrived at that camp by an easy route early in the afternoon. I had made their Tree a failure, I had broken my word, I had disobeyed Police orders, but I didn't get a scolding even, from anybody.
The German High Command had a big surprise to spring on the British Army in France early in 1918. Their preparations culminated in the smashing attack they made in March on the Fifth Army commanded by General Gough. The Canadians lay facing Mericourt beyond Vimy at that time. To our right, covering Arras and beyond, the Third Army, under General Byng was holding, on their right lay the Fifth Army. Before and during their great effort the Germans refused to be "drawn" at Mericourt into any serious retaliation, no matter how often we raided them. We knew why later when General Gough's line went to pieces. The Huns were going to "get us," they believed, in another and more thorough way than by counter-raids.
It looked for some weeks as if they might realize their hopes. The Fifth Army's formation was broken, and in confusion, they were driven back and back for miles, until with reinforcements they managed to hold only a short distance in front of Amiens. In a few days the British lost, in prisoners alone, 200,000 men. To save themselves from being outflanked the Third Army had to withdraw from a portion of their former line and swing their right wing back facing out. They completed the difficult movement with brilliant success, and presented to the enemy an unbroken front of fighting men, well-munitioned, and supported by an effective artillery fire. This move saved the British forces from what looked like imminent disaster.
Byng's men used Arras as their pivotal sector. It was only a few miles from us, and it was with anxious hearts we heard, those days and nights, the ceaseless thunder of the guns on our right, as the terrific struggle continued. It was dismal news too, that came from Belgium. There Mt. Kimmel had fallen, and the British had been strategically forced to evacuate all the ground we had won at such enormous cost around Passchendaele; and this, remember, was the fourth year of the war.
Those were fateful days for the Canadians. Our front was quiet, but we were nevertheless in an extremely perilous location. Vimy Ridge was behind us, and behind it again was lower ground which would be hard to hold in a flanking attack by our enemy. Many additional batteries had been crowded in on the Ridge with their silent guns trained on Arras lest the Third Army, which still occupied that town, should be broken and the Germans get through. In that event the Canadian Corps would probably have been cut off by the enemy's advance through the valleys behind us, and our career, as a Corps, would have ended. Certainly we would have sold our lives and freedom dearly, but with lines of communication cut our position would have soon been untenable, and successful retreat probably very nearly impossible. Don't dream that the front-line men were panicky. We knew that millions of brave men were still facing our common enemy and that back of them and us was the indomitable will of our Empire and our Allies. In this connection I recall a conversation between our Col. Urquhart (a thorough Scot), and a visiting officer, in which they referred to the situation at Arras. "It is very serious indeed," said our guest, "for if the British break there, we Canadians are in for our biggest tussle with the Hun." "Do you know," asked Urquhart, "what troops of ours are engaged there?" "Yes," was the reply, "the 15th Division." "Well," said the Colonel, "that is a Scottish Division, and I can assure you, sir, there will be no break at Arras." Nor was there. Those Scottish lads stood firm. Repeated and determined attacks by the finest German troops could not break their front, nor drive them from their ground. The critical days passed, the enemy's progress was everywhere effectually and permanently stopped. Then when we were thoroughly prepared we took the initiative, and in August, the same year, commenced that grand victorious advance which ended the war.
Those days we often keenly discussed the situation from many angles. I was in "A" Company's dug-out one time when we were giving our opinions as to the relative merits of some of the different units of the British Army. We got away from the present war into history, and were recalling other famous campaigns and the exploits of the troops engaged in them. Someone said that while Canada, since she became a Dominion, had not had much chance until now to become illustrious in war, yet for forty years she had maintained the finest force of military police in the world, the Royal North-West Mounted. I was proud to mention that my brother had served in that crack organization for thirty years, and from that remark I was eventually entangled in the yarn which I here unravel.
* * * * *
I am the youngest of ten. My two brothers, John and James, were grown up and away from home before I had got beyond infancy. John visited us frequently after I had reached boyhood. James enlisted with father's consent in the North-West Mounted Police, went west and never returned. That force was organized in 1873 and my brother joined them in 1878. When I was a young lad there was no doubt in my mind which was my favorite brother. John was a minister, and ministers were an unknown quantity to a youngster of my age, and so I wasn't much taken with my preacher brother.
But it was different with James. He was a soldier and a specially interesting sort of soldier. His business was chiefly, so I thought anyway, to go galloping on horseback across the prairies of our wild west, chasing bad Indians and horse-thieves, and having all kinds of real adventures. How I longed for him to come home! I pictured him, in fancy, riding down our main street in Police uniform, with pistols in his belt and perhaps a knife too, his carbine slung by his saddle, and handling easily a spirited horse! I would then point him out with pride to the other boys as my brother, and maybe, when he saw me, he would come riding over to the sidewalk and speak to me in front of all the other fellows. My boyish heart used to glow as I imagined what might possibly soon come true.
The prairies were undoubtedly a very long distance off in those days. There were no rail-ways on them, none indeed to carry you to their outer-boundaries in Canada. Parties of police recruits went down through the United States to Fort Benton or other suitable points, and then came north, mostly by trail, to the Canadian plains. It was a long journey, I knew, but on the other hand mother used to get letters from him, and he would say in them that he might be home for Christmas, a treasured hope. Nearing Christmas mother would be busier than ever in the kitchen, making the cakes and other good things we always had in abundance at that festive season. I liked to be on hand then for there were bowls, in which tasty confections had been mixed, that required scraping out and it was my delight to attend to them. She would often talk to me then about her soldier boy, and I was an eager listener. "Maybe your brother James will be home this Christmas," she would say with a glad note in her voice. Then there would come the letter containing the unwelcome news that he couldn't get a furlough this year, they were so short of men and had such a vast territory to patrol, but we would surely see him next year. Mother would go into her room for a while with the letter, and when she came out she would take me on her knee, hug me up to her and kiss me, then would go about her work strangely silent. Her soldier boy never came home. He went farther west and north, and my story is of the first meeting I had with my brother, the first anyway I had any memory of. It occurred in the Yukon in a roadhouse on Eureka creek.
I visited that creek regularly about once a month. To reach it I had to "mush" down the Indian River valley, ten miles from the mouth of Gold Run, and then cross the river to Eureka which flowed in from the opposite side. Five miles up Eureka was the first cabin. Above that on both forks of the stream there were miners. In summer I could cross Indian by a shallow ford and in winter on the ice, but for a trip or two in the Spring it was a tumultuous flood which I had to navigate on a make-shift raft.
It was in the Spring of 1902 when making this trip I found the river, as I expected, in spate. I was prepared with axe, rope, and a few spikes, and in an hour or two had a small, rough float constructed. I made and launched it a hundred yards above the point I sought to reach on the other bank, for I knew the rapid current would carry me down that distance at least before I could effect a landing. On this side of the river there was no one nearer than ten miles, for this was the "back-entrance" to Eureka, (Bonanza and Dawson lying off in another direction), so I always wrote out a note stating what I was attempting to do, dated it, and put it up on a tree by the trail. Thus if anything unexpected happened, some "musher," coming by within a week or two, would know the circumstances.
Then I pushed out into the water with my rough paddle. I had a light pack on my back holding my shoes, a dry pair of socks, and other trail accessories. That time I had made my raft rather too small. I had to stand in the centre or it would tip me off, and it wasn't easy to keep my poise in rough water with the logs mostly out of sight under my feet. When within a few yards of the other side, my frail craft caught for a moment on a hidden snag which tore some of the lashings loose, and the two outside logs showed signs of getting adrift. If that occurred I would shortly be swimming for my life in the surging, ice-cold water. The raft was only about seven feet across and to save it from breaking up I "spread-eagled" on it, catching the rope ends with each hand and thus holding it together. I had to lie almost flat to do this, and for the next five minutes was giving a life-like imitation of a submarine about to submerge. Luckily my raft struck the bank, I caught the limb of a tree and swung myself ashore. I made the five miles to Macmillan's cabin in double-quick time and stayed the day there in the bunk, with my clothes drying out around the stove.
During the next two days I went around the cabins visiting, and "ringing the church bell" for a meeting in the roadhouse. There we gathered in the evening, not a man absent that could come. The roadhouse became a church, with the bar-counter my lectern. On it I had a lighted candle which I had to hold in my right hand, the book in my left, when I read or we sang, so that I could see the words distinctly. The business of the place was practically suspended except the cooking at the kitchen end, and at odd times when a traveller came in for a drink or a meal he would be served quietly, and then go on his way or stay as he was minded. The stools and benches were filled and some men were sitting on the floor around the walls.
In the middle of my sermon two "mounties" entered at the door behind me. They closed the door and stood near it listening. I turned my head for a casual glance at the newcomers, stammered, stuck, and couldn't go on. I turned from my congregation, and, taking the candle in my hand, stepped nearer. There before me was the man whose face I had so often gazed at, with silent admiration, as I saw it in the photograph in my mother's room. It was indeed my brother James, the hero of my boyhood days! Our hands clasped as I spoke his name. I turned to the crowd, told them what had happened, and that I couldn't go on with the address. They understood. We sang a hymn and ended the service forthwith.
The talk I had with my new-found brother can be better imagined than described. He had been sent from the upper country, the Tagish Post, to the Eureka detachment, had arrived that evening and had heard that a "George Pringle" was having a meeting on the creek. He had come over confident that it was his "little" brother, for he knew I was in the Klondike.
We spent a day together, one of the never-to-be-forgotten days of my life. Then the next morning I started back on my circuit. He came with me to Indian. We built a good raft together, and he watched me safely over and until I was out of sight in the trees. Then I took down my "notice" and hit the trail for Gold Run. George Earsman, living in the first cabin I came to on that creek, was a sympathetic listener while I told of the strange meeting. But he could not forbear humorously remarking that I had in a sense, "turned the tables" on my brother. Back in Gait, he said, no doubt James had often put me to sleep, and when next we met I was trying to put him to sleep!
I saw my brother only once more. Ed. Blanchfield brought me a letter from Dawson some weeks after marked "urgent." It was from Jim, stating that orders had been received requiring him to leave the Yukon for Police headquarters at Regina, Saskatchewan. He had to take the first up-river boat, theCasca, which sailed the next day. I made record time over the twenty miles from Gold Bottom next morning. John came in nine miles from Bonanza, and I spent a happy afternoon with my two "big" brothers before the steamboat pulled away for the south.
After those many strenuous years serving Canada in wild and dangerous days on the prairies, and among the forests and mountains of the northland, he now takes his rest. His is a lonely grave near one of the outposts of settlement on the northern reaches of our prairies.
One of the pluckiest deeds I have ever seen done by any airman I witnessed in 1918 on the Mericourt front. On a line two or three miles behind us, and stretching roughly from Arras along Vimy Ridge to the Souchez valley, we had our usual complement of observation balloons. These were held by long wire cables and contained two observers each.
One fine clear day five of these balloons were up, high in the air, watching movements behind the German lines. Macpherson and I were tramping along through one of our deep communication trenches on some errand, when the sound of distant, anti-aircraft shells bursting in the air, reached our ears. We climbed out at the Beehive dug-out to see what was up. Far above the balloon nearest Arras there was appearing, against the blue sky, many little white clouds of smoke caused by exploding shrapnel, while near the ground we saw two open parachutes descending, the observers had "jumped for it." From the smoke above there emerged an aeroplane darting straight down on the balloon. Almost quicker than I can tell it, a volley of incendiary bullets from the plane had ignited the big bag, and it fell to the earth like a twisted torch in smoke and flame.
The German never swerved, but headed away for the next balloon. The observers from that one by this time were nearing the ground under their parachutes, and in a few minutes the observers of all five were either on the ground, or floating gracefully to the earth beneath their big "umbrellas," seeking safety from this nervy Hun. By this time everything along the Ridge that could reach him was turned loose. There was a perfect storm of shrapnel, machine-gun and rifle-fire. Hundreds of shells exploded around him and thousands of bullets sped towards him, and it seemed impossible that he could continue. But he didn't even try to escape. He went right on through that deadly fusilade, courting death every second, until he had reached the Souchez and had burned every one of our five balloons. Then and not till then, did he turn towards Hun-land.
In spite of our irritation at his complete success, we could not deny the pilot's great bravery. The recognition of his courage was heartier because he really put none of our men in actual jeopardy, although he offered himself and his machine-gunner as an absurdly easy target to our guns throughout the whole affair. No doubt his mate, he himself, and the plane were hit a good many times but not enough to bring them down or stop their work. In all probability the plane would have to go to the repair sheds and the men into hospital after they landed.
The whole show, which we had seen clearly from start to finish, was over in ten minutes, and we went down to tell the fellows in the dug-out what we had just seen. The description called up memories of other deeds of bravery, and some stirring stories were told. I offered one about my dog Ben who, I claimed, had a place by right in the world's list of heroes.
* * * * *
It is hard to believe that dogs do not think along much the same lines as we do in the simpler relations of life. I find it impossible to disbelieve in affection existing between dogs and men, and in a marvellous readiness on the part of the dog to go the whole way in laying down its life for the man it loves. I do not know how to interpret their actions otherwise.
One winter, among my dogs I had a half-mastiff, half-wolf, that I had raised from a pup. He was my favorite, a big, awkward, good-natured fellow who wanted to follow me everywhere, and when I left him at home would cry, in his own way, with vexation. He would go wild with joy when I returned. He also seemed to take upon himself the guarding of the cabin. Strangers might come and go for all the others cared, but Ben would always stop every man he didn't know at the cabin door, not in an ugly or noisy way, but as a matter of duty, until I opened the door and welcomed the stranger in. He never interfered with those who had been once admitted to the cabin should they come again, noticing them only to give a friendly whine and wag of the tail. I suppose you can all match my story thus far, but let me go on.
One hard winter in the Yukon, when the snow was very deep on the hills, and there had been a prolonged spell of unusually extreme frost, the wolves commenced to come down at night into the valleys close to the cabins to hunt and devour stray dogs, or anything else they could get. One night I was roused from sleep by the very unpleasant noise of a howling, snarling, wolf-pack fighting over something not far from my cabin. I wrapped my fur robe hastily about me, and opening the door peered out. They were gathered in a circle round what was apparently a crippled wolf, doing it to death. I shut the door and hurried into my clothes. I wanted to have a shot at them, for there was a bounty on wolves, and their furs were worth something.
As I slipped out of the door after dressing, it occurred to me to see if my dogs were secure under cover. They were whining and uneasy, but I found them wisely keeping safe in their stout log kennels, all but one of them. Ben's kennel was empty.
Instantly I knew what the brave young dog had done. Here was a band of strangers, suspicious looking characters, coming towards the cabin. He went out to meet them alone. He must have known by instinct, as the others did, that savage death would meet him in those dim, gray, howling forms. Maybe he trembled with fear, but he went out for my protection to engage in a hopeless fight against a pack of ravenous timber-wolves.
Immediately I grasped the situation I fired at the edge of the pack. They commenced to run, disappearing like ghosts in the moonlight on the white mountain-side, but not before I got two of them. Poor Ben was badly torn. I carried him in my arms into the cabin, lit the fire, and in the candle-light dressed the great, tearing gashes. A few minutes more and they would have had him killed and eaten.
For two days I worked as best I knew to save his life. But he was suffering agony, and at last I decided it would be more merciful to put an end to his pain by having him shot. I went up to the N.W.M.P. Post and got Corp. "Paddy" Ryan to come and do it for me. We carried him a little distance from the cabin, and laid him at the side of the trail. I confess I turned my head away while Ryan shot. Ben rolled down the hill a few yards through the snow, until he stopped against a bush. We watched to see if there was any move. "He is dead," we said, but to be sure I gave my whistle. For a minute nothing happened, and then I saw his faithful, battered head moving up very slowly out of the snow, and swaying to and fro. Ryan shot again. Ben's head dropped and he died.
I think I did what was best in the circumstances, and maybe I'm imagining motives that weren't there, but all the same there comes an ache in my heart whenever I remember that last shot. In his death-throes, blind and broken, his controlling impulse was to come to me when I whistled. Perhaps he thought I needed him. I believe there are dogs in heaven. Because the Bible says there are dogs kept out, it is not accurate exegesis to assume that there are none let in. And if I meet Ben I feel as if I'll have to try to explain it all and ask forgiveness. But I don't think he will bear any grudge. He was too big-hearted for that. I gave him a good grave on the hillside near my cabin door. It was all I could do for him then.
In October, 1917, orders came to join in the big push on the Flanders front in what proved a vain attempt to cut the enemy lines of communication with the Belgian coast held by the Germans and used as a resort for submarines. The Canadians were asked to take Passchendaele Ridge which rose abruptly about 300 feet above the miles of mud flats its guns dominated. These muddy fields had been captured by Australians and New Zealanders after desperate fighting, but it was almost impossible to hold them without terrible punishment from the concentrated German artillery fire, bombing, and machine-gunning because of the enemy's position on the Ridge. No trenches could be made in the mud for the sides would slip back in, and there was practically no protection for our men outside the few small concrete blockhouses or "pill boxes" the Huns had built. So we had either to withdraw or go on and chase the enemy off the Ridge.
The 9th brigade of the famous Third Canadian division was chosen for the post of honour. This was the task of capturing the almost unassailable German positions on Bellevue Spur which was a part of the Passchendaele heights lying immediately in front of us. Of the brigade, the 43rd battalion (the "Camerons" of Winnipeg) and 58th were to make the attack, with the 52nd in close support. The 116th, junior battalion of the brigade, was employed as a labour battalion, and a dirty, dangerous job they had, "packing" ammunition and "duck-walks" at night through the mud up to the attack area, doing pick-and-shovel work, and afterwards carrying back wounded men under shell-fire.
Friday, October 26th, was the fateful day. Someone suggested that Friday was unlucky and 26 was twice 13, but this was countered by the seven letters in October and the lucky number at the end of 1917! It wasn't luck in sevens or thirteens that won the battle, but simply that we had men and officers with an unyielding determination to carry on in spite of all obstacles, unless wounded or killed, until their objective was gained. Contributing causes there were in training, equipment, and leadership that helped our men to do the impossible, but the deciding factor, the real cause of victory, lay in the brave hearts of the soldiers who faced the Spur that chill October morning.
The ground had been reconnoitred by Lt.-Col. Grassie, our O.C., who had to leave for Canada before the attack took place. Our operations were carried out under the skilful direction of Major Chandler.
In one of my old note-books I find a description of the affair scribbled Oct. 27th during a leisure moment in Waterloo pill-box. "From Banks Farm we moved up to within striking distance of Bellevue Spur taking over from a battalion of Wellington New Zealanders. Headquarters occupied the concrete blockhouse near the foot of the spur and about 400 yards away from the enemy lines. We were under direct machine-gun fire and sniping from their posts on the crest of the hill we had to capture. Our blockhouse was continually shelled. The enemy guns had its location to a nicety and kept it under almost constant fire. Twelve men in all were killed at the door at different times during the few days we stayed there.
"In the attack yesterday morning, fifty of our men in the centre were able to make and hold their objective, but the battalion on our right was forced to fall back to the edge of the hill after being exposed to a fire which cut it down to ineffective strength. One of our companies on the left ran into a murderous fire from a group of German posts opposed to them. We withdrew to the brow of the hill and sent word back for re-inforcements. Our centre still held but their position was precarious and before nightfall would have become untenable if these Germans to their left were not dislodged. The 52nd were ordered to reinforce our left wing and renew the attack. This time we were successful, 150 prisoners were captured in half-an-hour and the whole front cleared. The 58th were enabled to advance and we had no further trouble in consolidating our position."
Two V.C's were won that day. Bobby Shankland, a subaltern in the 43rd, under enemy observation with its consequent machine-gun and rifle fire, made the trip from one of our advanced platoons back to battalion headquarters and out to his men again. He brought accurate information at a critical time when prompt action properly directed meant victory; the lack of it meant defeat. The renewed attack on the left wing with the definite objective he advised saved the day for us. He was recommended for the highest award and it was duly awarded him. Lt. O'Kelly of the 52nd won the coveted honor by the gallant and effective way in which, regardless of personal risk, he led a company of the 52nd against a group of pill-boxes filled with machine-gunners.
Many other gallant deeds were done on the hill that day of which there was no one left to tell.
During this time a stream of wounded had been coming back past Waterloo Pill-box where our battalion Medical Aid Post was at work. The floor of the blockhouse was a foot deep in mud and water. The stretchers were almost submerged and the back of the man was almost always in the water. At times the stretcher-cases were lying in three rows outside in the cold, the rain, and the mud. There they were constantly in danger of death from shelling. Twice shells burst among them, killing and wounding again a dozen men on each occasion. Half the cases never got into the dressing station. They were given a look-over, fixed up as well as we could, and sent hobbling off over the "duck-walks" to safer areas farther back. Only the most severe cases were held for the attention of the overworked M.O. The long stretcher journeys to the rear were terrible experiences for both bearers and wounded. They had to pass through shelling, gas, and bombing. The carrying parties often became stretcher cases themselves on the way back, and the wounded in that rough journey must have suffered tortures of both mind and body.
The outstanding memory of it all is that of the mud. It would seem impossible for a sensible man to develop a bitter hatred towards an inanimate and apparently harmless thing like mud. But it was "the very devil" to our minds. We walked in it for endless miles. It held our feet and wore us out. If you fell sideways you would probably break or sprain your ankle. We sat down in the mud, slept in it, fought in it. It clogged our rifles and machine-guns. We cursed it with intensity. We ate rations that tasted of mud, wore clothes that were loaded with it, carried with aching muscles stretchers and wounded that were made heavy with mud. Many wounded were lost in it, and many of our dead, that we never found, were swallowed by it. Hindenburg in his memoirs considers Passchendaele the most terrible affair his armies had anywhere engaged in. It was bad for them but it was worse for us attacking, and the thing that made conditions almost unbearable for both sides was that omnipresent vampire of those rain-soaked Flanders' fields.
On the 28th we were relieved and moved back and, in a day or two, found ourselves in tents in the mud of a ploughed field near Nine Elms back of Poperinghe. We had done nobly, so they told us, added fresh laurels to our fine record, fought a fight and won a victory, the praises of which would resound throughout the Empire. Needless to say we were glad we had not failed but for all that there was much unspoken sorrow in the men's hearts. So many of our comrades had been killed. What a remnant our 100 men looked when the battalion paraded to hear some fine words of heartsome praise from our brigade commander, Gen. Hill.
On the Sunday morning we had a parade service. It lasted altogether only fifteen minutes. It was a prayer for the mourners at home, a hymn of thanksgiving, and a word of cheer to ourselves. Towards evening Sergt-Major Lowe told me that some of the men wanted me to come over and talk to them. In one of the tents, I found thirty or so crowded in to hear a story of the Yukon, and in the tents close around others were listening as I talked. We were all in a serious mood, and somehow the consciousness of this influenced me, that night, to weave my stories into a message in which there would be comfort and cheer for men who had been hard hit, and had faced in roughest form the stern realities of life, and death, and suffering. There was help in it, I know, because I spoke of Jesus of Nazareth. When you want to minister to men in such times, don't your thoughts just naturally turn to the Man of Nazareth? So I spoke of Him and clothed my message in Klondike phrases and imagery. Here it is very much as I gave it that evening at Nine Elms.
* * * * *
We are all feeling a little bit down these days. The savagery of war and our heavy losses in men we knew and loved has stirred deep thoughts in us, grave inner questionings why these things should be, perplexing difficulties about the meaning of life and the power of death, the reason of suffering and the goodness of a God who permits it, criticisms of a social order, nominally Christian, which produces the barbarities we have witnessed and taken part in. We are groping for light like the blind, and wishing we could find a sure guide in our thinking on these tangled problems, in whose solution we might find satisfaction and assurance.
There is one song of all our soldier-songs that I think will live and that is the one where we sing of "a long, long trail a-winding into the land of our dreams." There's something true to experience about the thought of the long road of life. It takes me back to old trail days in the North, and I picture the long, long, trail of life winding its way from out of the mists of the past, through pleasant valleys and over windswept mountain summits, on and on into the unexplored land of the future. My message is simple enough. It is an appeal straight from your padre's heart that in your sorrow and uncertainty you decide to take Jesus of Nazareth as your guide down the trail of life for all the days that are to come. I ask you to follow Him because He is the very guide you need to find the right trail and keep it under your feet to the end. Life is all we've got and it is therefore too precious to risk in any unnecessary way. It is so important that we find and keep the right trail and save our lives from spiritual death, we cannot afford to accept any guide who has not the very finest credentials. What are the credentials of Christ when He offers himself as our Guide? They may be spoken of in many ways, but I am going reverently to put him to the three tests any guide in the Yukon would have to face before he could qualify to lead anyone on a mid-winter trip into new country over an unknown trail beset with dangers.
But before I can get to this examination of His credentials I know many of you are mentally stumbling over difficulties you have with or about the Bible. It has been said with much truth that "the Bible has kept many an earnest man from Christ." It is not going to do it with you if I can prevent it. I have heard you wondering about the truth of the Garden of Eden story, about a God who hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he could slay the first-born of all the Egyptians, the story of Jonah and the fish, the difficulties of accepting Biblical science and history, the miracles, and such like things, and when you all have given your special stumbling-blocks I could probably add some of mine that you hadn't thought of. I am not going to attempt just now to deny or remove any of these particular difficulties but show you a way round them, a right way of approach to the Bible, so that instead of keeping you from Christ it can fulfill its divine mission of revealing Him.
I had a partner with me for one winter in my log-cabin at Gold Bottom, way in the Klondike hills. His name was Jack Crowe, a Nova Scotian, who had come out from Dawson to teach the little school we had started for the dozen children on the creek. We took turns at cooking. One winter morning, the mercury clear out of sight in the bulb of our thermometer, it was my turn to get out and light the fire and make breakfast. This consisted principally of oatmeal porridge, bacon, bread of our own make, and coffee. There were two big bowls of porridge with nothing left in the pot. We sat down, asked a blessing, and commenced our breakfast. The first spoonful I took my teeth struck on something hard. It wasn't porridge and I took it out of my mouth. It was a button. What did I do? Throw my bowlful of porridge away and do without half a breakfast on account of that button which I couldn't swallow? No, I did just what you or any other ordinary man would have done. I placed the button beside my plate and ate the porridge with relish, and I think if there had been twenty-five buttons in that porridge I'd have done the same, an odd button or two out of place wasn't going to deprive me of my needed breakfast. Fifty below zero makes you too hungry to be fastidious. Further, let me take you into my confidence, I found the place where that button belonged before the day was over, sewed it on, and it did good service.
Of course you see my point. I don't blink the difficulties in our thinking about the Bible. They exist. Most of them can be explained when we study the subject a bit, some few are still half-solved puzzles to me which I enjoy working at when I have leisure, and some I suppose I shall never quite see through; but just let us lay them all aside for the time being and go straight to bed-rock and see if there is gold in the claim of Christ himself. You know, by the way, it is strange how what at one time we thought useless material in the Bible finds its place as we gain more experience of life. When I was very young the psalms seemed almost meaningless. Now some of them voice the deepest longings of my soul for I have learned the bitterness of life as well as its sweetness. The minor prophets at the end of the Old Testament seemed to be "cumberers of the ground" until I learned something of the crookedness of present day politics, the prevalence of the cancer of sanctimonious hypocrisy, and the power of Mammon-worship to obstruct social reforms long overdue. Then it seemed that a book like Amos was not only up-to-date, but far ahead of us. There are passages in the fifth chapter that should be painted in giant letters on the walls of legislatures, in halls of justice, in the market-place, and above the pulpits of Christendom.
But leave your lesser problems unsolved for the time and get the first, biggest question settled as to the validity of Christ's claim to be able to guide us safely through life.
In the old stampede days up there, and it's the same still, the first qualification demanded in a guide was that he should know the trail. It was impossible to talk business on any other basis. Every other virtue your would-be guide possessed would be useless without that essential one. Christ is prepared to stand that test, make it as "acid" as you like. How can we test Him when we do not ourselves know the way? We all have a God-given intuition by which we can tell that the direction the guide would have us go is right or wrong. Even a Canadian who had never been in Scotland and wanted to go there would have "horse-sense" enough not to follow a man who offered to take him to Edinburgh by going five thousand miles due West from Halifax.
So with Christ. He asks no blind faith or sanctified superstition. What direction would He lead us? What is the great burden of His message accepted by all Christian Churches down underneath the load of dogma, form and ceremony? Where would He lead us if we followed Him? The road is marked by two parallel lines, the eternal boundaries of the Christ trail, on the one side it is heart-righteousness and on the other brotherly kindness; and to show us what He meant, He walked that trail Himself His life through. It's a great thing to have a guide who knows the trail not only "on the map" but has been over every bit of it and knows it perfectly. He shows by His own life just what He means, the heart right as His was right, and a brotherly-kindness that gladly lays down its life to help others. Doesn't it seem to you to be the right direction, the right trail, the right guide?
This seems to me like trying to prove an axiom. You can't prove it by process of logic. To state it is to prove it. We know by intuition it is right and it is the only trail. Take the fundamental need of heart-rightness. It is the heart of man in which evil dwells. The cruel ambition that permitted this war originated in the hearts of a group of men. The greed for money that refuses to permit social iniquities to be removed has its habitation in men'shearts. The whole horrid brood whose mother is selfishness exists only in men'shearts. "Out of the heart" Christ said, evil comes. Cleanse the heart and you clean the world. But you can't have your heart right the way Christ teaches unless you have a place in it for your brother. A Christian must be and will be deeply interested in Social Reform. You can't follow Christ and forget your brother, for the trail of Christ is the trail of self-sacrifice for others. Christ then knows the right trail which would lead you and me and the whole world unto a happier, sweeter day. I know no other way that so completely satisfies my sense of what is right and true as the way of Christ.
The second test of the worth of a guide, after I was satisfied that he knew the way, was whether he was able and willing to help me when I got into difficulties in hard places. The trail leads dizzily round the mountain side with a precipice below. I'm a tenderfoot. I have neither the nerve nor skill to take my dogs and my sleigh safely past. I'd fall to my death surely if I attempt it. He tells me it's the only way through, and he is right. I say I can't make it. He replies that all he offered to do was to lead along the right trail. It is up to me to follow. Or the mountain climb is so steep and the snow so deep that I haven't strength for it. Again I appeal to this imaginary guide. He says it is not his business to do anything more than walk ahead and show me the way. But I can't follow him and I know to camp on the mountain-side means death. No matter what perfect knowledge such a guide would have it would mean tragedy for me unless he had more than knowledge. But there is no guide, white, Eskimo, or Siwash, that I have ever met would act that way. He would take his own dogs round the mountain then come back and, with expert strength, take me safely past the danger. He would help me somehow to make the steep grade.
So on the trail of life there are the towering mountains of sin. They lie across the right trail in every man's life. We are all sinners. You remember how Christ once dispersed a mob. He said, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone," and while He wrote on the ground they all took the chance, as we would have done, to sneak away self-condemned. Well, no man can cleanse his own heart of sin and yet no true man can rest content in sin. It must be done and no human power can do it. If we are to get past the mountains of our sins, and we must get past them or die, then our guide must be able to get us over. That's why we need a Saviour. It meant Gethsemane and Calvary to him. It is the Atonement, and whatever varying interpretations it may have, it must ever mean that the Guide is also a Saviour. He is getting us safe across to the God-ward side of our sins. They are no longer in our way if we will but give ourselves to Him to take us over. No longer are they a barrier between ourselves and God as we journey on. Before we reach the land of gold which we pilgrims are seeking, we also come to the dark valley and mystery of death. Can He find a safe way for our feet in the darkness? Will He leave us to follow when we cannot see him? Not He. He found His own way safely through—that's the meaning of His empty tomb—and He guarantees to hold us securely in that strange experience at the end of the trail till, going on, we make through the fog into the land beyond, and see the golden city of God. Our guide is stronger than sin and death.
There is another test. My guide must not only know the trail and be able to get me through safely but he must be one with whom I can talk. Men used to go crazy in the North through sheer loneliness. Days alone on the trail with your dogs amid the deep silences of the sub-arctics makes you hungry for conversation with some other human being. I have turned ten miles out of my way on a heavy trail simply to get to some trapper or prospector where I might hear "the sweet music of speech." I remember having as a guide on a three weeks trip to the Lightning Creek Camp an Indian who was of the conventional silent type. He knew the trail and his duties perfectly. I had only one fault to find with him. He wouldn't or couldn't chat with me in either English or Chinook. I paid him off at Lightning. I couldn't stand it any longer. I hired another man for the return trip, not such a capable guide, but one with whom I could have a little chat around the camp fire in the evenings.