The sky pilot : a tale of the foothills

Preface

The measure of a man’s power to help his brother is the measure of the love in the heart of him and of the faith he has that at last the good will win. With this love that seeks not its own and this faith that grips the heart of things, he goes out to meet many fortunes, but not that of defeat.

This story is of the people of the Foothill Country; of those men of adventurous spirit, who left homes of comfort, often of luxury, because of the stirring in them to be and to do some worthy thing; and of those others who, outcast from their kind, sought to find in these valleys, remote and lonely, a spot where they could forget and be forgotten.

The waving skyline of the Foothills was the boundary of their lookout upon life. Here they dwelt safe from the scanning of the world, freed from all restraints of social law, denied the gentler influences of home and the sweet uplift of a good woman’s face. What wonder if, with the

Preface new freedom beating in their hearts and ears, some rode fierce and hard the wild trail to the cut-bank of destruction!

The story is, too, of how a man with vision beyond the waving skyline came to them with firm purpose to play the brother’s part, and by sheer love of them and by faith in them, win them to believe that life is priceless, and that it is good to be a man.

CHAPTER

Contents

The Company of the Noble Seven

The Coming of the Pilot The Pilot’s Measure First Blood

His Second Wind 4 The Last of the Permit sundae The Pilot’s Grip .

Chapter I

Beyond the great prairies and in the shadow of the Rockies lie the Foothills. For nine hundred miles the prairies spread themselves out in vast level reaches, and then begin to climb over softly rounded mounds that ever grow higher and sharper till, here and there, they break into jagged points and at last rest upon the. great. bases-of the mighty mountains. These rounded hills that join the prairies to the mountains form the Foothill Country. They extend for about a hundred miles only, but no other hundred miles of the great West are so full of interest and romance. The natural features of the country combine the beauties of prairie and of mountain scenery.

There are valleys so wide that the farther side SUES F melts into the horizon, and uplands so vast as to suggest the unbroken prairie. Nearer the mountains the valleys dip deep and ever deeper till they narrow into canyons through which mountain torrents pour. their blue-gray waters from glaciers that lie glistening between the white peaks far away. Here are the great ranges on which feed herds of cattle and horses. Here are the homes of the ranchmen, in whose wild, free, lonely existence there mingles much of the tragedy and comedy, the humor and pathos, that go to make up the romance of life. Among them are to be found the most enterprising, the most daring, of the peoples of the old lands. The broken, the outcast, the disappointed, these too have found their way to the ranches among the Foothills. A country it is whose sunlit hills and shaded valleys reflect themselves in the lives of its people; for nowhere are the contrasts of light and shade more vividly seen than in the homes of the ranchmen of the Albertas.

The experiences of my life have confirmed in me the orthodox conviction that Providence sends his rain upon the evil as upon the good; else I should never have set my eyes upon the Foothill country, nor touched its strangely fascinating life, nor come to know and love the most striking man of all that group of striking men of the Foothill country—the dear old Pilot, as we came to call him long afterwards. My first year in college tlosed in gloom. My guardian was in despair. From this distance of years I pity him. Then I considered him unnecessarily concerned about a?

me—‘‘a fussy old hen,’’ as one of the boys suggested. The invitation from Jack Dale, a distant cousin, to spend a summer with him on his ranch in South Alberta came in the nick of time. I was wild to go. My guardian hesitated long; but ho other solution of the problem of my disposal offering, he finally agreed that I could not well get into more trouble by going than by staying. Hence it was that, in the early summer of one of the eighties, I found myself attached to a Hudson’s Bay Company freight train, making our way from a little railway town in Montana towards the Canadian boundary. Our train consisted of six wagons and fourteen yoke of oxen, with three cayuses, in charge of a French half-breed and his son, a lad of about sixteen. We made slow enough progress, but every hour of the long day, from the dim, gray, misty light of dawn to the soft glow of shadowy evening, was full of t4 The Sky Pilot new delights to me. On the evening of the third day we reached the Line Stopping Place, where Jack Dale met us. I remember well how my heart beat with admiration of the easy grace with which he sailed down upon us in the loose-jointed cowboy style, swinging his own bronco and the little cayuse he was leading for me into the circle of the wagons, careless of ropes and freight and other impedimenta. He flung himself off before his bronco had come to a stop, and gave me a grip that made me sure of my welcome. It was years since he had seen a man from home, and the eager joy in his eyes told of long days and nights of lonely yearning for the old days and the old faces. I came to understand this better after my two years’ stay among these hills that have a strange power on some days to waken in a man longings that make his heart grow sick. When supper was over we gathered about the little fire, while Jack and the half-breed smoked and talked. I lay on my back looking up at the pale, steady stars in the deep blue of the cloudless sky, and listened ih fullness of contented delight to the chat between Jack and the driver. Now and then I asked a question, but not too often. It is a listening silence that draws tales from a western man, not vexing questions. This much I had learned already from my three days’ travel. So I lay and listened, and the tales of that night are mingled with the warm evening lights and the pale stars and the thoughts of home that Jack’s coming seemed to bring. :

Next morning before sun-up we had broken camp and were ready for our fifty-mile ride. There was a slight drizzle of rain and, though rain and shine were alike to him, Jack insisted that I should wear my mackintosh. This garment was quite new and had a loose cape which rustled as I moved toward my cayuse. He was an ugly-looking little animal, with more white in his eye than I cared.to see. Altogether, I did not draw toward him. Nor did he to me, appar: Bouya HOt ass. took him by-the bridie.-he snorted and sidled about with great swiftness, and stood facing me with his feet planted firmly in front of him asif prepared to reject overtures of any kind soever, I tried to approach him with soothing words, but he persistently backed away until we stood looking at each other at the utmost distance of his outstretched neck and my ontstretched arm. At this point Jack came to my assistance, got the pony by the other side of the bridle, and held him fast till I got into position to mount. Taking a firm grip of the horn of the Mexican saddle, I threw my leg over his back. The next instant I was flying over his head. My only emotion was one of surprise, the thing was so unexpected. I had fancied myself a fair rider, having had experience of farmers’ colts of divers kinds, but this was something quite new. The half-breed stood looking on, mildly interested; Jack was smiling, but the boy was grinning with delight.

‘I'll take the little .beast,’’ said Jack. But the grinning boy braced me up and I replied as carelessly as my shaking voice would allow:

‘‘Oh, I guess I’ll manage him,’’ and once more got into position. But no sooner had I got into the saddle than the pony sprang straight up into the air and lit with his back curved into a bow, his four legs gathered together and so absolutely rigid that the shock made my teeth rattle. It was my first experience of ‘‘bucking.’’ Then the little brute went seriously to work to get rid of the rustling, flapping thing on his back. He would back steadily for some seconds, then, with two or three forward plunges, he would stop as if shot and spring straight into the upper air, lighting with back curved and legs rigid as iron. Then he would walk on his hind legs for a few steps, then throw himself with amazing rapidity to one side and again proceed to buck with vicious diligence.

“Stick to him!’’ yelled Jack, through his shouts oflaughter. ‘‘You’ll make him sick before long.”’

I remember thinking that unless his insides were somewhat more delicately organized than his external appearance would lead one to suppose the chances were that the little brute would be the last to succumb to sickness. To make matters worse, a wilder jump than ordinary threw my cape up over my head, so that I was in complete darkness. And now he had me at his mercy, and he knew no pity. He kicked and plunged and reared and bucked, now on his front legs, now on his hind legs, often on his knees, whileI, in the darkness, could only cling to the horn of the saddle. At last, in one of the gleams of light that penetrated the folds of my enveloping cape, I found that the horn had slipped to his side, so the next time he came to his knees I threw myself off. I am anxious to make this point clear, for, from the expression of triumph on the face of the grinning boy, and his encomiums of the pony, I gathered that he scored a win for the cayuse. Without pause that little brute continued for some seconds to buck and plunge even after my dismounting, as if he were some piece of mechanism that must run down before it could stop.

By this time I was sick enough and badly shaken in my nerve, but the triumphant shouts and laughter of the boy and the complacent smiles on the faces of Jack and the half-breed stirred my wrath. I tore off the cape and, having got the saddle put right, seized Jack’s riding whip and, disregarding his remonstrances, sprang on my steed once more, and before he could make © up his mind as to his line of action plied him so vigorously with the rawhide that he set off over the prairie at full gallop, and in a few minutes came round to the camp quite subdued, to the boy’s great disappointment and to my own great surprise. Jack was highly pleased, and even the stolid face of the half-breed showed satisfaction.

“Don’t think I put this up on you,’’ Jack said. “Tt was that cape. He ain’t used to such frills. But it was a circus,’’ he added, going off into a fit of laughter, ‘‘worth five dollars any day.”

“You bet!’’ said the half-breed. ‘*Dat’s make pretty beeg fun, eh?’’

S35 oes “eee

It seemed to me that it depended somewhat upon the point of view, but I merely agreed with him, only too glad to be so well out of the fight.

All day we followed the trail that wound along the shoulders of the round-topped hills or down their long slopes into the wide, grassy valleys. Here and there the valleys were cut through by coulées through which ran swift, blue-gray rivers, clear and icy cold, while from the hilltops we caught glimpses of little lakes covered with wild-fowl that shrieked and squawked and splashed, careless of danger. Now and then we saw what made a black spot against the green of the prairie, and Jack told me it was a rancher’s shack. How remote -from the great world, and how lonely it seemed!—this little black shack among these multitudinous hills.

I shall never forget the summer evening when Jack and I rode intoSwan Creek. I say into— but the village was almost entirely one of imagination, in that it consisted of the Stopping Place, a long log building, a story anda half high, with stables behind, and the store in which the postoffice was xept and over which the owner dwelt. But the situation was one of great beauty. On one side the prairie rambled down from the hills

20 her Sky Pilot and then stretched away in tawny levels into the misty purple at the horizon; on the other it clambered over the round, sunny tops to the dim blue of the mountains beyond.

In this world, where it is impossible to reach absolute values, we are forced to hold things relatively, and in contrast with the long, lonely miles of our ride during the day these two houses, with their outbuildings, seemed a center of life. Some horses were tied to the rail that ran along in front of the Stopping Place.

‘Hello!’ said Jack, ‘‘I guess the Noble Seven are in town.’’

‘And who are they?”’ I asked.

‘‘Oh,’’ he replied, with a shrug, ‘“‘they are the élite of Swan Creek; and by Jove,’ he added, ‘this must be a Permit Night.”’ |

‘‘What does that mean?’’ I asked, as we rode up towards the tie rail.

‘*Well,’’ said Jack, in a low tone, for some men were standing about the door, “‘you see, this is a prohibition country, but when one of the boys feels as if he were going to have a spell of sickness he gets a permit to bring in a few gallons for medicinal purposes; and of course, the other boys being similarly exposed, he invites them to ‘ assist him in taking preventive measures. And,’’ added Jack, with a solemn wink, “‘it is remarkable, in a healthy country like this, how many epidemics come near ketching us.’’

And with this mystifying explanation we joined the mysterious company of the Noble Seven.

Chapter II The Company Of The Noble Seven

As we were dismounting, the cries, “Hello, Jack!’’ ‘‘How do, Dale?’’ “‘Hello, old Smoke!’’ in the heartiest of tones, made me see that my cousin was a favorite with the men grouped about the docr. Jack simply nodded in reply and then presented me in due form. ‘‘My tenderfoot cousin from the effete,’’ he said, with a flourish. I was surprised at the grace of the bows made me by these roughly-dressed, wild-looking fellows. I might have been in a London drawing-room. I was put at my ease at once by the kindliness of their greeting, for, upon Jack’s introduction, I was admitted at once into their circle, which, to a tenderfoot, was usually closed.

What a hardy-looking tot they were! Brown, spare, sinewy and hard as nails, they appeared like soldiers back from a hard campaign. They moved and spoke with an easy, careless air of almost lazy indifference, but their eyes had a trick of looking straight out at you, cool and fearless, and you felt they were fit and ready.

That night I was initiated into the Company of the Noble Seven—but of the ceremony I regret to say I retain but an indistinct memory; for they drank as they rode, hard and long, and it was only Jack’s care that got me safely home that night.

The Company of the Noble’Seven was the dominant social force in the Swan Creek country. Indeed, it was the only social force Swan Creek knew. Originally consisting of seven young fellows of the best blood of Britain, ‘‘banded together for purposes of mutual improvement and social enjoyment,’’ it had changed its character during the years, but notits name. First, its membership was extended to include ‘‘approved colo- | nials,’’ such as Jack Dale and ‘‘others of kindred spirit,’’ under which head, I suppose, the two cowboys from the Ashley Ranch, Hi Kendal and ‘‘Bronco’’ Bill—no one knew and no one asked his other name—were admitted. Then its purposes gradually limited themselves to those of a social nature, chiefly in the line of poker-playing and whisky-drinking. Well born and delicately bred in that atmosphere of culture mingled with

The Company of the Noble Seven 27 a sturdy commonsense and a certain high chivalry which surrounds the stately homes of Britain, these young. lads, freed from the restraints of custom and surrounding, soon shed all that was superficial in their make-up and stood forth in the naked simplicity of their native manhood. The West discovered and revealed the man in them, sometimes to their honor, often to their shame. ‘The Chief of the Company was the Hon. Fred Ashley, of the Ashley Ranch, sometime of Ashley Court, England—a big, good-natured man with a magnificent physique, a good income from home, and a beautiful wife, the Lady Charlotte, daughter of a noble English family. At the Ashiey Ranch the traditions of Ashley Court were preserved as far as, possible. The Hon. Fred appeared at the wolf-hunts in riding-breeches and top boots, with hunting crop and English saddle, while in all the appointments of the house the customs of the English home were observed. It was characteristic, however, of western life that his two cowboys, Hi Kendal and Bronco Bill, felt themselves quite his social equals, though in the presence of his beautiful, stately wife they confessed that they “‘rather -_weakened.’’ Ashley was a thoroughly good fel-

Zien The Sky Pilot low, well up to his work as a cattle-man, and too much of a gentleman to feel, much less assert, any superiority of station. He had the largest ranch in the country and was one of the few men making money.

Ashley’s chief friend, or, at least, most frequent companion, was a man whom they called ‘“The Duke.’’ No one knew his name, but every one said he was ‘‘the son of a lord,’’ and certainly from his style and bearing he might be the son of almost anything that was high enough in rank. He drew ‘‘a remittance,’’ but, as that was paid through Ashley, no one knew whence it came nor how much it was. He was a perfect picture of a man, and in all western virtues was easily first. He could rope a steer, bunch cattle, play poker or drink whisky to the admiration of his friends and the confusion of his foes, of whom he had 4 few; while as to ‘“‘bronco busting,’’ the virtue par excellence of western cattle-men, ever Bronco Bill was heard to acknowledge that ‘‘he wasn’t in it with the Dook, for it was his opinion that he could ride anythin’ that had legs in under it, even if it was a blanked centipede.”’ And this, coming from one who made a profession of

The Company of the Noble Seven 29 praise. The Duke lived alone, except when he deigned to pay a visit to some lonely rancher who, for the-marvellous charm of his talk, was delighted to have him as guest, even at the expense of the loss of a few games at poker. He made a friend of no one, though some men could tell of times when he stood between them and their last dollar, exacting only the promise that no mention should be made of his deed. He had an easy, lazy manner and a slow cynical smile that rarely left his face, and the only sign of deepening passion in him was a little broadening of his smile. Old Latour, who kept the Stopping Place, told me how once The Duke had broken into a gentle laugh. ‘A French half-breed freighter on his way north had entered into a game of poker with The Duke, with the result that his six months’ pay stood in a little heap at his enemy’s left hand. The enraged freighter accused his smiling opponent of being a cheat, and was proceeding to demolish him with one mighty blow. But The Duke, still smiling, and without moving from his chair, caught the descending fist, slowly crushed the fingers open, and steadily drew the Frenchman to his knees, gripping him so cruelly in the meantime that he was forced to cry aloud in agony for mercy. Then it was that The Duke broke into a light laugh and, touching the kneeling Frenchman on his cheek with his finger-tips, said: ‘‘Look here, my man, you shouldn’t play the game till you know how to do it and with whom you play.’’ Then, handing him back the money, he added: “‘I want money, but not yours.”’ Then, as he sat looking at the unfortunate wretch dividing his attention between his money and his bleeding fingers, he once more broke into a gentle laugh that was not good to hear.

The Duke was by all odds the most striking figure in the Company of the Noble Seven, and his word went farther than that of any other. His shadow was Bruce, an Edinburgh University man, metaphysical, argumentative, persistent, devoted to The Duke. Indeed, his chief ambition was to attain to The Duke’s high and lordly manner; but, inasmuch as he was rather squat in figure and had an open, good-natured face and a Scotch voice of the hard and rasping kind, his attempts at imitation were not conspicuously successful. Every mail that reached Swan Creek brought him a letter from home. At first, after I had got to know him, he would give me now and then a letter to read, but as the tone became

The Company of the Noble Seven 31 more and more anxious he ceased to let me read them, and I was glad enough of this. How he could read those letters and go the pace of the Noble Seven I could not see. Poor Bruce! He had good impulses, a generous heart, but the ‘*Permit’’ nights and the hunts and the ‘‘round-ups’’ and the poker and all the wild excesses of the Company were more than he could stand.

Then there were the two Hill brothers, the younger, Bertie, a fair-haired, bright-faced youngster, none too able to look after himself, but much inclined to follies of all degrees and sorts. But he was warm-hearted and devoted to his big brother, Humphrey, called ‘‘Hump,’’ who had taken to ranching mainly with the idea of looking after his younger brother. And no easy matter that was, for every one liked the lad and in consequence helped him down.

In addition to these there were two others of the original seven, but by force of circumstances they were prevented from any more than a nominal connection with the Company. Blake, a typical wild Irishman, had joined the police at the Fort,-and Gifford had got married and, as Bill said, ‘‘was roped tighter’n a steer.’’

The Noble Company, with the cowboys that helped on the range and two or three farmers that lived nearer the Fort, composed the settlers of the Swan Creek country. A strange medley of people of all ranks and nations, but while among them there were the evil-hearted and evilliving, still, for the Noble Company I will say that never have I fallen in with men braver, truer, or of warmer heart. Vices they had, all too apparent and deadly, but they were due rather to the circumstances of their lives than to the native tendencies of their hearts. Throughout that summer and the winter following I lived among them, camping on the range with them and sleeping in their shacks, bunching cattle in summer and hunting wolves in winter, nor did I, for I was no wiser than they, refuse my part on “Permit” nights; but through all not a man of them ever failed to be true to his standard of honor in the duties of comradeship and brotherhood.

The Coming of the Pilot

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Chapter III The Coming Of The Pilot

He was the first missionary ever seen in the country, and it was the Old Timer who named him. The Old Timer’s advent to the Foothill country was prehistoric, and his influence was, in consequence, immense. No one ventured to disagree with him, for to disagree with the Old Timer was to write yourself down a tenderfoot, which no one, of course, cared to do. It wasa misfortune which only time could repair to bea new-comer, and it was every new-comer’s aim to assume with all possible speed the style and customs of the aristocratic Old Timers, and to forget as soon as possible the date of his own arrival. So it was as ‘‘The Sky Pilot,’’ familiarly “‘The Pilot,’’ that the missionary went for many a day in the Swan Creek country.

I had become schoolmaster of Swan Creek. For in the spring a kind Providence sent in the Muirs andthe Bremans with housefuls of children, to the ranchers’ disgust, for they foresaw ploughed fields and barbed-wire fences cramping their unlimited ranges. A school became necessary. A little log building was erected and 1 was appointed schoolmaster. It was as schoolmaster that I first came to touch The Pilot, for the letter which the Hudson Bay freighters brought me eatly one summer evening bore the inscription:

The Schoolmaster, Public School, Swan Creek, Alberta.

There was altogether a fine air about the letter; the writing was in fine, small hand, the tone was fine, and there was something fine in the signature—‘‘Arthur Wellington Moore.’’ He was glad to know that there was a school anda teacher in Swan Creek, for a school meant children, in whom his soul delighted; and in the teacher he would find a friend, and without a friend he could not live. He took me into his confidence, telling me that though he had volunteered for this far-away mission field he was not much of a preacher and he was not at all

The Coming of the Pilot a7, sure that he would succeed. But he meant to try, and he was charmed at the prospect of having one sympathizer at least. Would I be kind enough to put up in some conspicuous place the enclosed notice, filling in the blanks as I thought best?

** Divine service will be held at Swan Creek ie ie BIOL:

All are cordially invited.

Arthur Wellington Moore.”

On the whole I liked his letter. I liked its modest self-depreciation and I liked its cool assumption of my sympathy and co-operation. But I was perplexed. I remembered that Sunday was the day fixed for the great basebali match, when those from ‘‘Home,’’ as they fondly called the land across the sea from, which they had come, were to “‘wipe the earth’’ with all comers. Besides, ‘*Divine service’? was an innovation in Swan Creek and I felt sure that, like all innovations that suggested the approach of the East, it would be by no means welcome. However, immediately under the notice of the ‘‘Grand Baseball Match for ‘The Pain Killer’ a week from Sunday, at 2:30, Home vs. the

World,’’ I pinned on the door of the Stopping Place the announcement:

“Divine service will be held at Swan Creek, in the Stopping Place Parlor, a week from Sunday, immediately upon the conclusion of the baseball match.

‘Arthur Wellington Moore.”

“There was a strange incongruity in the two, and an unconscious challenge as well.

All next day, which was Saturday, and, indeed, during the following week, I stood guard over my notice, enjoying the excitement it produced and the comments it called forth. It was the advance wave of the great ocean of civilization which many of them had been glad to leave behind—some could have wished forever.

To Robert Muir, one of the farmers newly arrived, the notice was a harbinger of good. It stood for progress, markets and a higher price for land; albeit he wondered ‘‘hoo he wad be keepit up.’’ But his hard-wrought, quick-spoken little wife at his elbow “‘hooted’’ his scruples and, thinking of her growing lads, welcomed with unmixed satisfaction the coming of ‘‘the meenister.’’ Her satisfaction was shared by all

The Coming of the Pilot 39 the mothers and most of the fathers in the settlement; but by the others, and especially by that rollicking, roistering crew, the Company of the Noble Seven, the missionary’s coming was viewed with varying degrees of animosity. It meant a limitation of freedom in their wildly reckless living. The ‘‘Permit’’ nights would now, to say the least, be subject to criticism; the Sunday wolf-hunts and _horse-races, with their attendant delights, would now be pursued under the eye of the Church, and this would not add to the enjoyment of them. One great charm of the country, which Bruce, himself the son of an Edinburgh minister, and now Secretary of the Noble Seven, described as ‘‘letting a fellow do as he blanked pleased,’’ would be gone. None resented more bitterly than he the missionary’s intrusion, which he declared to be an attempt ‘‘to reimpose upon their freedom the trammels of an antiquated and bigoted conventionality.’ But the rest of the Company, while not taking so decided a stand, were agreed that the establishment of a church institution was an objectionable and impertinent as well as unnecessary proceeding.