Canadian Jack

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Rare Book Library i

Paks oO \ M a eat ye ‘e i Dy Lg a0

BY JOHN MACKIE AUTHOR OF ‘* THE HEART OF THE PRAIRIE” ‘‘ HIDDEN IN CANADIAN WILDS” ‘*BLACK MAN’S ROCK” ‘IN SEARCH OF SMITH” ‘' THE TREASURE HUNTERS” ‘‘A BUSH MYSTERY” ‘‘ THE RISING OF THE RED MAN” BYCwHTC:

Contents

CHAP. PAGE I. CANADIAN BORN F : ; ; ‘ 9 II REEELLION: _; : . - A “ 28

III. OFF TO THE NORTH-WEST . ; 2 » 44 IV. JACK VOLUNTEERS FOR DANGEROUS DUTY. . 56 Vv. A LONELY CAMP ‘ ; ‘ : OG VI. A GRIM SIEGE : . . . ress

VII. A BUGLER OF PARTS : . ; reo

Chapter I Canadian Born

Wuy John Irwin was usually known as Canadian Jack in Manitoba and out West, where the great bulk of the settlers were, at that time, Canadians born and bred, was surely something that savoured of the trite and the unnecessary. Most of them indeed had come from Ontario, where their fathers and grandfathers before them had hewn, burnt, and made fertile farms and orchards out of virgin forest. How could Jack, whose great-great-grandfather had come out to Canada with Wolfe; whose son—Jack’s great-grandfather --had grown corn on the site of the Place Viger Hotel in Montreal; whose grandfather later still had been one of Wolseley’s volunteers when that hard-working soldier made his memorable trip overland to the Red 9

River in order to square accounts with Louis Riel ;—how, I ask, could Jack have been other than Canadian Jack to distinguish him from the thousands of others, who, although perhaps Canadian so far as one generation or even two went, were yet not like Jack—a Canuck to the back-bone in speech, thought, and that instinctive love, amounting indeed to a quite understandable passion, for pine-clad hillside, swiftly rushing river, and wide, far-stretching prairie ? It is indeed all very well for lovers of wild nature to write and talk about such picturesque things, but to understand all they mean one must have the spell of them in the blood. One must be able instinctively to recognise that faint aroma—the reek of the kinakinink—the willow bark—that hangs round the buckskin that has been cured in the smoke of the teepee. One must have that, at times, irresistible longing to launch one’s bark canoe on the pine-fringed river or lake and to keep on paddling indefinitely, or to shoulder a gun and disappear into the beckoning depths of the forest. And this love of the Primeval Wilderness can only come to a man through fore-folk who have done and loved the doing of such things. It is born in one, and will come out some time or another, even

CANADIAN BORN u although the thin veneer of civilisation makes it look impossible. For instance, from what does the love of sport and hunting which characterises the average Briton spring but the one-time necessity of the individual to feed and clothe himself by the spoils of the chase long before the days when he had learned to delve and spin, and the plethora of game had disappeared before a growing and hungry human race? Instincts die hard, if indeed they ever wholly die. Who, for instance, cares to spill salt wantonly, and why does the domestic dog turn round two or three times before lying down ?

Jack’s father had settled in the Pembina Valley just after the first rebellion in ’70, and one of Jack’s first recollections was being taken on a wiry cayuse, or prairie-bred horse, on a great buffalo hunt into the Sourisford country that lay to the west. They had camped on the spot where the little town of Melita now stands, and next day they had fallen in with the buffalo.

What a nondescript company that was that hunted them! There were picturesque old settlers and trappers with home-made head-gear of beaver and skunk and the more familiar broad-brimmed felt. They wore heavy chaperegos or leggings of undressed skins, and their great rowelled spurs of Spanish and Mexican origin were of the type that the riders of the great prairies and pampas still affect. Many of them wore their hair long, and all were armed to the teeth. They spoke a quaint patois composed of various foreign tongues. Some of them had white skins, some yellow, some were full-blooded Indians, either Assiniboine, Cree, or Sioux, and it would have puzzled a student of the different races of mankind to have determined to what branch of the human family some of them belonged. But they were all buffalo hunters, and a picturesque looking lot withal, so what else mattered ?

And then the sight of that seemingly limitless ocean of prairie that one could hardly see for the shaggy black bodies of the buffalo that covered it. Not hundreds of buffalo, or even thousands, but literally tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. One could indeed only see a far-stretching billowy expanse of shaggy black manes and bobbing horns as the immense herd, scenting its natural enemy, Man, made off while the very earth shook with the thunder of myriad hoofs. And then the crescent-shaped and broken line of the skilled but reckless riders, as they gave their eager horses a loose rein and hung on to the rear and flanks of the swiftly moving masses of fleeing bison. No wonder that men learned to shoot in those days, riding as they did right into the herd itself and singling out the finest of those glorious creatures. But not always was it that the hunter came off best. Perhaps infuriated bulls would charge from both sides at once, and before the incautious rider could bring down one of them and escape over its body, the other, with lowered head and a tremulous bellow of rage, would be on to him and bring both man and horse to earth, perhaps never to rise again. ‘“‘ Here’s How!” ‘“* Here’s a Ho!’’—the old-time toast of the buffalo hunter, which literally means ‘‘ Here’s a horn !”’ still lingers in the West, though many doubtless use it who do not realise its meaning.

It was in the lovely Pembina Valley, and, to be more specific, some fifteen or twenty miles to the north of Cartwright in Southern Manitoba, that Jack was born. And what an ideal place it was in which to live! There was the flat-bottomed valley with its wooded sides and clumps of saskatoon bushes, and which at one time had doubtless been the bed of a great river—just as the Valley of Qu’- Appelle had also been, and through which the knee-deep creek meandered a feeble apology for its one-time great sire, the rich meadows where the grass grew girth high, and one had only to scratch the soil and throw in the seed to see prodigious crops fairly spring up before one’s eyes. But there were dams or lakes in that long, wandering valley which frequently that most competent civil engineer, the beaver, had constructed for its own well-being and delectation, lakes that teemed with fish, and the wooded shores of which were haunted by many kinds of deer. And, of course, there were bears whose mission in life seemed to be to upset the deer, and take an unwarranted interest in things outside their own business. Indeed those bears occasionally gave Jack’s father and mother considerable concern by allowing their inquisitiveness to get the upper hand of them. On these occasions they would emerge from some neighbouring thicket and stroll ever to the farm buildings when perhaps Jack’s father was away making hay in some neighbouring slough— marshy spot growing excellent grass—and his mother was busy with the never-ending chores —the usual domestic duties pertaining to a settler’s home.

Jack was not more than fourteen years of age when the most noteworthy of these visits from the prowling marauders occurred. It was an adventure that was to stand out in his memory when equally perilous ones had almost been forgotten. It was indicative of that resource and prompt action which was to characterise him later on, so one need not apologise for setting it down here.

It was a hot day in early spring, and the late thaw was causing the earth to steam and nature to break out visibly in tender green. The. season, indeed, seemed in a hurry to make up for lost time, and the twitter of birds and the hum of insect life were eloquent of the awakening in progress. ‘Two of Jack’s younger brothers and his little sister were playing on a grassy spot a little to the right of the long, low, slab-built dwelling-house, and he himself was watching them from the doorway, when suddenly to his horror he caught sight of a couple of black bears slouching from a clump of saskatoon bushes, then walk warily towards the unsuspecting little ones. It was all so sudden and horrible that for the moment Jack appeared to be in the throes of some particularly vivid and poignant nightmare. He tried to cry out to those dear little ones, but he had lost his voice. His feet were glued to the earth.

But it was only for a minute, it might not even have been that—for thought is the swiftest thing on earth—for, in less time than it takes to tell it, he remembered the spare snider rifle his father kept handy in the cupboard with the bag of ball-cartridges alongside!

To rush indoors and seize and load the rifle was the work of a minute or so. When he rushed outside again the bears were standing with their heads turned away from him, but facing the children. The latter, on seeing the great shaggy creatures they had doubtless been cautioned against, so as to check any desire they might have for straying into the woods, promptly ran together and clung to one another, as one may see children do in time of either real or imaginary danger. With fearful, wide-open eyes they gazed at the two bears; their little mouths were open, but they could not even articulate a cry for help. Perhaps the bears could not exactly make the young humans out, or perhaps they were only wondering which of them would be best to take; but, in any case, it was a lucky thing for Jack’s young brothers and sister that these bears did pause, for in that brief space Jack seized his opportunity. 3

There was a pile of cord-wood—firewood as the English people call it—near at hand, and that gave Jack his necessary cover. The wonder was that the really clever bears did not hear and turn their attention to him sooner than they did. As it was, one of them, with lowered head, was just preparing to make a rush in upon the children, when Jack put the rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.

The bullet must have glanced off the sloping skull somewhere between the ears, for the great brute dropped on its knees as if it had suddenly lost all control over its limbs, and doubtless it had for the moment been paralysed. But a bear is about the hardest thing in wild nature to kill or disable, and in another minute it was up again, and this time its attentions were turned to Jack. But the lad had already jerked out the disused cartridge and slipped in a fresh one.

Just at that moment it seemed to the boy that the situation took on still more the form of a horrible nightmare. Jack saw his mother come rushing from an outhouse and making towards the children. The bears were directly between her and them. To distract the attention of the doubtless hungry brutes to himself was obviously the only way out of the dilemma,

- and Jack lost no time in doing it. - )

He fired point-blank at one, the nearest bear, that seemed about to rush at his mother. It dropped with a bullet in its shoulder, and wriggled about on the ground, biting and snapping as if at an imaginary enemy. The boy had no time toreload. Picking up a handy billet of hard-wood, some ten or fifteen pounds in weight, he advanced on bear number two, which promptly started to meet him.

That bear must have seen more stars than ever it had noted in the firmament, for the oak billet struck it fair on the forehead. The brute’s head being lowered, the skull just then offered a splendid target. It was a blow that ought to have killed anything else in Nature save a bear. For the moment it stood with outstretched legs looking decidedly sick and tottery, then it recovered itself and made a dash at Jack.

This was exactly what the boy wanted. He shouted to his mother to take the children into the house, and then he started on the liveliest ten minutes he had ever experienced in his life, not even taking into account that memorable buffalo hunt.

Jack was fleet of foot in a way that townbred boys can hardly hope to understand. He had been chasing various kinds of wild animals all his life, and the active and healthy outdoor exercise had developed his lungs and muscles to a degree that would certainly have aroused the wonder and envy of other boys not brought up under similar conditions.

Jack started to run round the high and irregular wood-pile, something far from easy to any one unacquainted with its peculiar construction. But he knew its peculiarities well, for he had helped to cut and stack it. Moreover, one could not run uninterruptedly round it, for in point of fact it was composed of two or three irregular piles, one of which contained a cul-de-sac, and it was into this that Jack conceived the brilliant idea of leading the bear. Of course he took good care not to go into it himself just then ; he only pretended to do so, and passed out of sight round the entrance tate

Only that Jack was an adept at jumping and dodging, and knew every foot of the ground, that bear would most assuredly have succeeded in catching him.. As it was, it very nearly did, and more than once. The awkward part of the whole situation was that the boy realised the necessity of sticking to his rifle, but, of course, he could not spare a moment to reload. That would have been the bear’s opportunity.

Round and round and in and out of that puzzle of a pile went Jack, and only that the bear lost time when the boy took an unexpected turn the end would have come quickly. Jack, of * course, knew better than to get into the cul-desac, and though he tried again and again to make his pursuer believe he had turned in there, Bruin was not to be fooled. It indeed takes a remarkably clever man to fool a bear, which is perhaps one of the most knowing creatures under the sun.

In the meantime Jack’s mother had managed to get the frightened children into the house, and, this effected, she promptly turned her attention to her first-born, who by this time was conscious of the fact that his pursuer, by its persistent and relentless tactics, must soon play him out. At one time he had half a mind to throw his rifle away and try to climb the stack of logs, but he knew he would not be quick enough for the enemy. His breath came quickly in short agonised gasps. He felt. the: end’ was. closé- at hand. Unless something happened the bear would have him.

It was the sight of his mother running quickly towards them with a tomahawk in one hand that spurred the hard-pressed boy to supreme effort.

STRUCK AT HIM WITH A GIANT PAW.

; Page 21

‘““Keep back, mother—keep back!” he managed to shout, and, in order to distract the attention of the bear, he turned boldly into the cul-de-sac. It was, indeed, a brave thing for the boy to do; but then the life of his mother was at stake. |

He threw his rifle on to the pile and made a spring for a projecting log. His hands closed fairly round it, and in another moment he had swung himself on to it. Without pause he rose to his feet and took another leap. This time he managed to scramble to the top, and not an instant too soon. The bear had shot past the mouth of the cul-de-sac, but had quickly corrected its error and followed the lad in. When it had raised itself on its hind-legs, and struck at him with a giant paw like an experienced boxer, the blow just grazed a disappearing boot.

‘**Go back, mother! Go back; I’m all right now !”’ Jack managed to cry.

The Western mother looked and knew that what her son said was indeed the case. Still reluctantly she withdrew. There were the little ones in the house to see to, and, doubtless, she knew from what she had seen and heard of bears, that in the meantime, at least, her boy could be trusted to keep himself out of harm’s way. }

‘* Now,” exclaimed Jack, as he looked down upon his enemy whose ugly snout, as it stood erect, just reached to the level of the boy’s feet, “‘I’m going to teach you manners, Mr. Bear. You made me get a bigger rustle on than was good for my general Sele te so now I’m going to get even with you.’

But first Jack picked up the rifle, and saw to it that there was a good ball-cartridge in the breech. This done, he laid it on one side, where it would be handy in the event of unforeseen developments. Then he looked around for a serviceable sapling. He speedily found one. It was a stout, well-seasoned stick some six feet in length, which, when wielded with both hands, was really a very formidable weapon. He approached to the edge of the pile and had a good look at the enemy. Bruin gazed up at him with wicked, twinkling eyes. With that almost human cunning which the bear possesses to a very marked degree, it drew back and seemed to shrink in size. It looked around undecidedly and half-heartedly, as if realising there was nothing more to be done. This was to induce Jack to come a little nearer. But the boy had heard of such clever tricks, and was not to be drawn within reach of those swift, terrible claws.

‘“You’ve been looking for trouble pretty badly,” he said, addressing it. “‘ Guess I'll just give you some to go on with.”

It was exactly at the same moment that Bruin made his meditated spring upwards, and tried to gain a footing on the pile, that Jack raised his stout stave with both hands over his head, and put his whole heart into the business in hand. Within the next minute or two it appeared as if the bear were going to prevail by reason of his purposeful endeavour, for more than head and shoulders succeeded in reaching above the level, and he made frantic efforts to throw himself on top. He would doubtless have succeeded in scrambling up but for one disconcerting factor— Jack’s stick. Down came the business end of it with all the force that the well-grown lad’s arms could exert, and from snout to sloping forehead there was a concussion that must have savoured of the end of all things.

Crash! One such blow was enough. The powerful limbs twitched violently as if a shock from an electric battery had been applied to them ; the grip of the steel-like claws momentarily relaxed. Bruin fell backwards limply and all of a heap. What a magnificently thick skull the brute must have possessed, and on what strictly scientific lines Mother Nature must have fashioned it in order to resist an onslaught such as that. But Bruin rose to his legs again with surprising promptitude, and made another attempt to scale the wood-pile. Jack was quite ready for him, and whacked: him soundly over head and ears. It was more than Bruin had bargained for.

It was the sickest looking specimen of a bear imaginable that gazed up at Jack. There was quite an injured expression on Bruin’s face, which seemed to imply much disgust and indignation at the employment of tactics outside the rules of the game—Bruin’s particular game, of course.

‘“'You don’t mean to say you’re goin’ to take that lying down ?”’ cried Jack. ‘‘ You’re a mighty poor sort of bear anyhow! Come on and let’s have another set to.”

Now that Jack was on top of the wood-pile, with a good stout stick in his hands and a loaded rifle lying hard by, he felt very brave indeed. He seemed to have already quite forgotten the fact that only a very few minutes before he had been tearing round that cord-wood, drawing his breath in agonised gasps, with

Death in the shape of an angry bear very close to his heels indeed. The end of all things had seemed very near to him then. But that is the way with most humans, and perhaps after all it is just as well that it is so.

Bruin retired a few paces as if to study the strategical features of the situation, and Jack was about to pick up the rifle in case it might meditate flight, when he noticed that its companion, which he had previously wounded, had risen shakily to its feet and was about to make off towards the thicket again. This could not be allowed. Jack picked up the rifle, took careful aim, and fired. The bear dropped like a stone. Jack had shot it right through the head.

One would have thought that the sight of what had happened should have struck fear into the heart of bear number two, but such was not the case. Almost before the boy could jerk out the disused cartridge, slip in a fresh one, and secure the breech-block, the cunning and infuriated brute had made a bold dash for him. With a discernment that spoke volumes for its sagacity, it jumped on to a large wooden block, hitherto overlooked, alongside the wood-pile, and from there it sprang on to the platform on which Jack stood. It had no intention of being beaten off by a stick this time. It was do or die. The situation was desperate.

Jack had no time to regret that he had not shot the bear when he had a chance. The time had passed for thinking. Bruin had gained the rough platform, and was in the act of rushing on him when the lad put the rifle to his shoulder. He knew very well, young as he was, that one might put a dozen bullets into a bear without killing it, unless one managed to penetrate to a vital spot. Quick as thought Jack aimed right between the eyes. Being so close to Bruin he could hardly miss. Bang! and the bullet crashed home. The bear fell dead where it stood, and at the same moment Jack lost his balance on the awkward platform and fell backwards from his point of vantage. It was rather unfortunate that he should have made such an ungraceful descent just in his moment of victory, but he had every reason to be thankful that he had not broken his neck. He had not even hurt himself particularly. But he had triumphed over the bears, and, what was of infinitely greater importance, he had undoubtedly saved his younger brothers and sister from being carried away by them.

It was a proud moment for Jack when he surveyed the carcasses of the two great creatures he had shot, and his mother became more demonstrative than Jack deemed consistent with his dignity as a shooter of bears. It was not only one bear he had shot, but two. And they were not the placid-tempered bears one meets with in the Fall of the year, when the absorption of much game and wild fruit has obviated the necessity of an attack upon everything they come across. They were bears that had awakened from their long winter’s sleep with ravenous appetites, and were prepared to take big risks in the satisfying of the same.

‘* But it was a mistake, mother, not to shoot that big fellow right away when I had the chance,”’ admitted Jack thoughtfully. “* They won’t stand much foolin’ ’round, will bears, and I guess they know how to get a rustle on.”’

CHAPTFER Il REBELLION

THE Pembina Valley in Southern Manitoba, like the Qu’Appelle and other western valleys, is and always has been very beautiful and delightful. About the time of which I write— only a matter of a score or so of years ago—the settlers were comparatively few on its picturesque wooded banks and rich alluvial flats. Here and there were little colonies of Half- Breeds with occasional renegade Indians living amongst them, and a happy-go-lucky, unprogressive and irresponsible lot they were. Amongst those nondescripts perhaps those of British origin were of most importance. They adapted themselves to their surroundings and conditions most readily. Those of French extraction were the easiest going, and seemingly the least inclined to take things seriously and improve their positions. Still they were a warm-hearted and entertaining lot, and pulled well with their neighbours, save when they came temporarily under the influence of the malcontent, Louis Riel. In those days there were lots of game and good prices going for furs and pelts, so why should they trouble about that far-off but at the same time inevitable’ future when the buffalo and deer would practically disappear, and every block of land would be taken up and occupied by far-seeing people from down East, from across the lines, and even from that far-away Old Country itself ?

There was no doubt that those early settlers had the very pick of the land, and very fine sites indeed some of those log and sod-roofed dwellings occupied. An Englishman coming to the country could quite imagine some manygabled mansion peeping from those wooded knolls on the slope of a valley, where stretched out beneath it a crystal lake suggested finny sport. The sides of the buttes* and coulées? were eloquent of caribou, blacktail deer, antelope, and bear, not to mention innumerable prairie-chicken, quails, and _ pigeons, and other kinds of game. It was an ideal land, and if the winters were long and cold at times, and blizzards blew their worst some-.

1 Hills, 2 Valleys, times for two or three days at a stretch, it was a dry cold, which is a very different thing indeed from the damp cold of the Old Country, and certainly not half so unpleasant.

The neighbourhood that Jack’s parents had settled in possessed good arable land which was unequalled for wheat-growing, not to mention rich pastures in the valley itself, now contained quite a fair number of inhabitants if older communities perhaps would have described it as sparsely settled. Already the settlers had begun to exercise a system of district administration, not to speak of having a member to represent them in Parliament.

It was Jack’s father and mother, both fairly well-educated people, who had agitated, and been the means of having a schoolhouse built in the neighbourhood, and to this the children came for miles around. Some came on foot, and some on ponies, while in the winter the little sleigh or cutter on runners brought them well protected from the cold by the splendid buffalo robes, in those days common enough and in general use. The possessor of a buffalo robe to-day is quite entitled to give himself or herself airs.

Perhaps Jack was no cleverer or more perverse and careless than the generality of boys. He, however, realised that his parents having a fairly large family to provide for and educate, could not afford to keep him at school longer than was absolutely necessary in order to get a fairly sound, if plain, education. He knew it would be very foolish of him not to make the mostof his time. Todo Jack justice, he did so. Still he never was so fond of his lessons that | he was not glad when the time came round for the various holidays. Various, because they were always chosen with due regard to the demand for juvenile labour at certain busy times of the year. For instance, the principal holidays always occurred when the children were required on the harvest field. The fruit gathering or berrying season was undoubtedly the most popular function, for on such occasions the children, as well as their elders, made up large parties, which, indeed, were veritable picnics on those wooded hillsides, where raspberries, blueberries, and saskatoons grew in richest profusion. Then there was seeding-time, and threshing-time, and herdingtime, when to keep a boy at school was considered either wanton extravagance and ostentation, or a sign of quite unusual prosperity.

Upon the whole, the young people did not want for change, and Jack and his brothers and sisters were no exception to the normal state of affairs. But perhaps Jack did not suffer from the various duty calls in a scholastic sense quite so much as some of the other boys and girls, for his parents took good care to supplement and overlook his studies at home. Moreover, as the young people, doubtless in order to make up for the somewhat irregular conditions already mentioned, were kept at school in country districts longer than in towns, such breaks were more than made up for. Indeed the practicality, self-reliance, and general usefulness that is inculeated in both boys and girls in Canadian country districts is likely to be of much greater use and credit to them in after life than many of the questionable and tawdry so-called accomplishments which the children are tricked out with elsewhere.