Chapter 2

Elizabeth had ample time during the ensuing sixteen hours for inquiry as to the nature of sink-holes.

When she emerged, dressed, into the saloon--she found Yerkes looking out of the window in a brown study. He was armed with a dusting brush and a white apron, but it did not seem to her that he had been making much use of them.

"Whatever is the matter, Yerkes? What is a sink-hole?"

Yerkes looked round.

"A sink-hole, my lady?" he said slowly--"A sink-hole, well, it's as you may say--a muskeg."

"A _what?_"

"A place where you can't find no bottom, my lady. This one's a vixen, she is! What she's cost the C.P.R.!"--he threw up his hands. "And there's no contenting her--the more you give her the more she wants. They give her ten trainloads of stuff a couple of months ago. No good! A bit of moist weather and there she is at it again. Let an engine and two carriages through last night--ten o'clock!"

"Gracious! Was anybody hurt? What--a kind of bog?--a quicksand?"

"Well," said Yerkes, resuming his dusting, and speaking with polite obstinacy, "muskegs is what they call 'em in these parts. They'll have to divert the line. I tell 'em so, scores of times. She was at this game last year. Held me up twenty-one hours last fall."

When Yerkes was travelling he spoke in a representative capacity. He _was_ the line.

"How many trains ahead of us are there? Yerkes?"

"Two as I know on--may be more."

"And behind?"

"Three or four, my lady."

"And how long are we likely to be kept?"

"Can't say. They've been at her ten hours. She don't generally let anyone over her under a good twenty--or twenty-four."

"Yerkes!--what will Mr. Gaddesden say? And it's so damp and horrid."

Elizabeth looked at the outside prospect in dismay. The rain was drizzling down. The passengers walking up and down the line were in heavy overcoats with their collars turned up. To the left of the line there was a misty glimpse of water over a foreground of charred stumps. On the other side rose a bank of scrubby wood, broken by a patch of clearing, which held a rude log-cabin. What was she to do with Philip all day?

Suddenly a cow appeared on the patch of grass round the log hut. With a sound of jubilation, Yerkes threw down his dusting brush and rushed out of the car. Elizabeth watched him pursue the cow, and disappear round a corner. What on earth was he about?

Philip had apparently not yet been called. He was asleep, and Yerkes had let well alone. But he must soon awake to the situation, and the problem of his entertainment would begin. Elizabeth took up the guide-book and with difficulty made out that they were about a hundred miles from Winnipeg. Somewhere near Rainy Lake apparently. What a foolishly appropriate name!

"Hi!--hi!--"

The shout startled her. Looking out she saw a group of passengers grinning, and Yerkes running hard for the car, holding something in his hand, and pursued by a man in a slouch hat, who seemed to be swearing. Yerkes dashed into the car, deposited his booty in the kitchen, and standing in the doorway faced the enemy. A terrific babel arose.

Elizabeth appeared in the passage and demanded to know what had happened.

"All right, my lady," said Yerkes, mopping his forehead. "I've only been and milked his cow. No saying where I'd have got any milk this side of Winnipeg if I hadn't."

"But, Yerkes, he doesn't seem to like it."

"Oh, that's all right, my lady."

But the settler was now on the steps of the car gesticulating and scolding, in what Elizabeth guessed to be a Scandinavian tongue. He was indeed a gigantic Swede, furiously angry, and Elizabeth had thoughts of bearding him herself and restoring the milk, when some mysterious transaction involving coin passed suddenly between the two men. The Swede stopped short in the midst of a sentence, pocketed something, and made off sulkily for the log hut. Yerkes, with a smile, and a wink to the bystanders, retired triumphant on his prey.

Elizabeth, standing at the door of the kitchen, inquired if supplies were likely to run short.

"Not in this car," said Yerkes, with emphasis. "What _they'll_ do"--a jerk of his thumb towards the rest of the train in front--"can't say."

"Of course we shall have to give them food!" cried Lady Merton, delighted at the thought of getting rid of some of their superfluities.

Yerkes showed a stolid face.

"The C.P.R.'ll have to feed 'em--must. That's the regulation. Accident--free meals. That hasn't nothing to do with me. They don't come poaching on my ground. I say, look out! Do yer call that bacon, or buffaler steaks?"

And Yerkes rushed upon his subordinate, Bettany, who was cutting the breakfast bacon with undue thickness, and took the thing in hand himself. The crushed Bettany, who was never allowed to finish anything, disappeared hastily in order to answer the electric bell which was ringing madly from Philip Gaddesden's berth.

"Conductor!" cried a voice from the inner platform outside the dining-room and next the train.

"And what might you be wanting, sir?" said Bettany jauntily, opening the door to the visitor. Bettany was a small man, with thin harrassed features and a fragment of beard, glib of speech towards everybody but Yerkes.

"Your conductor got some milk, I think, from that cabin."

"He did--but only enough for ourselves. Sorry we can't oblige you."

"All the same, I am going to beg some of it. May I speak to the gentleman?"

"Mr. Gaddesden, sir, is dressing. The steward will attend to you."

And Bettany retired ceremoniously in favour of Yerkes, who hearing voices had come out of his den.

"I have come to ask for some fresh milk for a baby in the emigrant car," said the stranger. "Looks sick, and the mother's been crying. They've only got tinned milk in the restaurant and the child won't touch it."

"Sorry it's that particular, sir. But I've got only what I want."

"Yerkes!" cried Elizabeth Merton, in the background. "Of course the baby must have it. Give it to the gentleman, please, at once."

The stranger removed his hat and stepped into the tiny dining-room where Elizabeth was standing. He was tall and fair-skinned, with a blonde moustache, and very blue eyes. He spoke--for an English ear--with the slight accent which on the Canadian side of the border still proclaims the neighbourhood of the States.

"I am sorry to trouble you, madam," he said, with deference. "But the child seems very weakly, and the mother herself has nothing to give it. It was the conductor of the restaurant car who sent me here."

"We shall be delighted," said Lady Merton, eagerly. "May I come with you, if you are going to take it? Perhaps I could do something for the mother."

The stranger hesitated a moment.

"An emigrant car full of Galicians is rather a rough sort of place--especially at this early hour in the morning. But if you don't mind--"

"I don't mind anything. Yerkes, is that _all_ the milk?".

"All to speak of, my lady," said Yerkes, nimbly retreating to his den.

Elizabeth shook her head as she looked at the milk. But her visitor laughed.

"The baby won't get through that to-day. It's a regular little scarecrow. I shouldn't think the mother'll rear it."

They stepped out on to the line. The drizzle descended on Lady Merton's bare head and grey travelling dress.

"You ought to have an umbrella," said the Canadian, looking at her in some embarrassment. And he ran back to the car for one. Then, while she carried the milk carefully in both hands, he held the umbrella over her, and they passed through the groups of passengers who were strolling disconsolately up and down the line in spite of the wet, or exchanging lamentations with others from two more stranded trains, one drawn up alongside, the other behind.

Many glances were levelled at the slight Englishwoman, with the delicately pale face, and at the man escorting her. Elizabeth meanwhile was putting questions. How long would they be detained? Her brother with whom she was travelling was not at all strong. Unconsciously, perhaps, her voice took a note of complaint.

"Well, we can't any of us cross--can we?--till they come to some bottom in the sink-hole," said the Canadian, interrupting her a trifle bluntly.

Elizabeth laughed. "We may be here then till night."

"Possibly. But you'll be the first over."

"How? There are some trains in front."

"That doesn't matter. They'll move you up. They're very vexed it should have happened to you."

Elizabeth felt a trifle uncomfortable. Was the dear young man tilting at the idle rich--and the corrupt Old World? She stole a glance at him, but perceived only that in his own tanned and sunburnt way he was a remarkably handsome well-made fellow, built on a rather larger scale than the Canadians she had so far seen. A farmer? His manners were not countrified. But a farmer in Canada or the States may be of all social grades.

By this time they had reached the emigrant car, the conductor of which was standing on the steps. He was loth to allow Lady Merton to enter, but Elizabeth persisted. Her companion led the way, pushing through a smoking group of dark-faced men hanging round the entrance.

Inside, the car was thick, indeed, with smoke and the heavy exhalations of the night. Men and women were sitting on the wooden benches; some women were cooking in the tiny stove-room attached to the car; children, half naked and unwashed, were playing on the floor; here and there a man was still asleep; while one old man was painfully conning a paper of "Homestead Regulations" which had been given him at Montreal, a lad of eighteen helping him; and close by another lad was writing a letter, his eyes passing dreamily from the paper to the Canadian landscape outside, of which he was clearly not conscious. In a corner, surrounded by three or four other women, was the mother they had come to seek. She held a wailing baby of about a year old in her arms. At the sight of Elizabeth, the child stopped its wailing, and lay breathing fast and feebly, its large bright eyes fixed on the new-comer. The mother turned away abruptly. It was not unusual for persons from the parlour-cars to ask leave to walk through the emigrants'.

But Elizabeth's companion said a few words to her, apparently in Russian, and Elizabeth, stooping over her, held out the milk. Then a dark face reluctantly showed itself, and great black eyes, in deep, lined sockets; eyes rather of a race than a person, hardly conscious, hardly individualised, yet most poignant, expressing some feeling, remote and inarticulate, that roused Elizabeth's. She called to the conductor for a cup and a spoon; she made her way into the malodorous kitchen, and got some warm water and sugar; then kneeling by the child, she put a spoonful of the diluted and sweetened milk into the mother's hand.

* * * * *

"Was it foolish of me to offer her that money?" said Elizabeth with flushed cheeks as they walked back through the rain. "They looked so terribly poor."

The Canadian smiled.

"I daresay it didn't do any harm," he said indulgently. "But they are probably not poor at all. The Galicians generally bring in quite a fair sum. And after a year or two they begin to be rich. They never spend a farthing they can help. It costs money--or time--to be clean, so they remain dirty. Perhaps we shall teach them--after a bit."

His companion looked at him with a shy but friendly curiosity.

"How did you come to know Russian?"

"When I was a child there were some Russian Poles on the next farm to us. I used to play with the boys, and learnt a little. The conductor called me in this morning to interpret. These people come from the Russian side of the Carpathians."

"Then you are a Canadian yourself?--from the West?"

"I was born in Manitoba."

"I am quite in love with your country!"

Elizabeth paused beside the steps leading to their car. As she spoke, her brown eyes lit up, and all her small features ran over, suddenly, with life and charm.

"Yes, it's a good country," said the Canadian, rather drily. "It's going to be a great country. Is this your first visit?"

But the conversation was interrupted by a reproachful appeal from Yerkes.

"Breakfast, my lady, has been hotted twice."

The Canadian looked at Elizabeth curiously, lifted his hat, and went away.

"Well, if this doesn't take the cake!" said Philip Gaddesden, throwing himself disconsolately into an armchair. "I bet you, Elizabeth, we shall be here forty-eight hours. And this damp goes through one."

The young man shivered, as he looked petulantly out through the open doorway of the car to the wet woods beyond. Elizabeth surveyed him with some anxiety. Like herself he was small, and lightly built. But his features were much less regular than hers; the chin and nose were childishly tilted, the eyes too prominent. His bright colour, however--(mother and sister could well have dispensed with that touch of vivid red on the cheeks!)--his curly hair, and his boyish ways made him personally attractive; while in his moments of physical weakness, his evident resentment of Nature's treatment of him, and angry determination to get the best of her, had a touch of something that was pathetic--that appealed.

Elizabeth brought a rug and wrapped it round him. But she did not try to console him; she looked round for something or someone to amuse him.

On the line, just beyond the railed platform of the car, a group of men were lounging and smoking. One of them was her acquaintance of the morning. Elizabeth, standing on the platform waited till he turned in her direction--caught his eye, and beckoned. He came with alacrity. She stooped over the rail to speak to him.

"I'm afraid you'll think it very absurd"--her shy smile broke again--"but do you think there's anyone in this train who plays bridge?"

He laughed.

"Certainly. There is a game going on at this moment in the car behind you."

"Is it--is it anybody--we could ask to luncheon?--who'd come, I mean," she added, hurriedly.

"I should think they'd come--I should think they'd be glad. Your cook, Yerkes, is famous on the line. I know two of the people playing. They are Members of Parliament."

"Oh! then perhaps I know them too," cried Elizabeth, brightening.

He laughed again.

"The Dominion Parliament, I mean." He named two towns in Manitoba, while Lady Merton's pink flush showed her conscious of having betrayed her English insularity. "Shall I introduce you?"

"Please!--if you find an opportunity. It's for my brother. He's recovering from an illness."

"And you want to cheer him up. Of course. Well, he'll want it to-day." The young man looked round him, at the line strewn with unsightly débris, the ugly cutting which blocked the view, and the mists up-curling from the woods; then at the slight figure beside him. The corners of his mouth tried not to laugh. "I am afraid you are not going to like Canada, if it treats you like this."

"I've liked every minute of it up till now," said Elizabeth warmly. "Can you tell me--I should like to know--who all these people are?" She waved her hand towards the groups walking up and down.

"Well, you see," said the Canadian after a moment's hesitation, "Canada's a big place!"

He looked round on her with a smile so broad and sudden that Elizabeth felt a heat rising in her cheeks. Her question had no doubt been a little naïve.

But the young man hurried on, composing his face quickly.

"Some of them, of course, are tourists like yourselves. But I do know a few of them. That man in the clerical coat, and the round collar, is Father Henty--a Jesuit well known in Winnipeg--a great man among the Catholics here."

"But a disappointed one," said Lady Merton.

The Canadian looked surprised. Elizabeth, proud of her knowledge, went on:

"Isn't it true the Catholics hoped to conquer the Northwest--and so--with Quebec--to govern you all? And now the English and American immigration has spoilt all their chances--poor things!"

"That's about it. Did they tell you that in Toronto?"

Elizabeth stiffened. The slight persistent tone of mockery in the young man's voice was beginning to offend her.

"And the others?" she said, without noticing his question.

It was the Canadian's turn to redden. He changed his tone.

"--The man next him is a professor at the Manitoba University. The gentleman in the brown suit is going to Vancouver to look after some big lumber leases he took out last year. And that little man in the Panama hat has been keeping us all alive. He's been prospecting for silver in New Ontario--thinks he's going to make his fortune in a week."

"Oh, but that will do exactly for my brother!" cried Elizabeth, delighted. "Please introduce us."

And hurrying back into the car she burst upon the discontented gentleman within. Philip, who was just about to sally forth into the damp, against the entreaties of his servant, and take his turn at shying stones at a bottle on the line, was appeased by her report, and was soon seated, talking toy speculation, with a bronzed and brawny person, who watched the young Englishman, as they chatted, out of a pair of humorous eyes. Philip believed himself a great financier, but was not in truth either very shrewd or very daring, and his various coups or losses generally left his exchequer at the end of the year pretty much what it had been the year before. But the stranger, who seemed to have staked out claims at one time or another, across the whole face of the continent, from Klondyke to Nova Scotia, kept up a mining talk that held him enthralled; and Elizabeth breathed freely.

She returned to the platform. The scene was _triste_, but the rain had for the moment stopped. She hailed an official passing by, and asked if there was any chance of their soon going on. The man smiled and shook his head.

Her Canadian acquaintance, who was standing near, came up to the car as he heard her question.

"I have just seen a divisional superintendent. We may get on about nine o'clock to-night."

"And it is now eleven o'clock in the morning," sighed Lady Merton. "Well!--I think a little exercise would be a good thing."

And she descended the steps of the car. The Canadian hesitated.

"Would you allow me to walk with you?" he said, with formality. "I might perhaps be able to tell you a few things. I belong to the railway."

"I shall be greatly obliged," said Elizabeth, cordially. "Do you mean that you are an official?"

"I am an engineer--in charge of some construction work in the Rockies."

Lady Merton's face brightened.

"Indeed! I think that must be one of the most interesting things in the world to be."

The Canadian's eyebrows lifted a little.

"I don't know that I ever thought of it like that," he said, half smiling. "It's good work--but I've done things a good deal livelier in my time."

"You've not always been an engineer?"

"Very few people are always 'anything' in Canada," he said, laughing. "It's like the States. One tries a lot of things. Oh, I was trained as an engineer--at Montreal. But directly I had finished with that I went off to Klondyke. I made a bit of money--came back--and lost it all, in a milling business--over there"--he pointed eastwards--"on the Lake of the Woods. My partner cheated me. Then I went exploring to the north, and took a Government job at the same time--paying treaty money to the Indians. Then, five years ago, I got work for the C.P.R. But I shall cut it before long. I've saved some money again. I shall take up land, and go into politics."

"Politics?" repeated Elizabeth, wishing she might some day know what politics meant in Canada. "You're not married?" she added pleasantly.

"I am not married."

"And may I ask your name?"

His name, it seemed, was George Anderson, and presently as they walked up and down he became somewhat communicative about himself, though always within the limits, as it seemed to her, of a natural dignity, which developed indeed as their acquaintance progressed. He told her tales, especially, of his Indian journeys through the wilds about the Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers, in search of remote Indian settlements--that the word of England to the red man might be kept; and his graphic talk called up before her the vision of a northern wilderness, even wilder and remoter than that she had just passed through, where yet the earth teemed with lakes and timber and trout-bearing streams, and where--"we shall grow corn some day," as he presently informed her. "In twenty years they will have developed seed that will ripen three weeks earlier than wheat does now in Manitoba. Then we shall settle that country--right away!--to the far north." His tone stirred and deepened. A little while before, it had seemed to her that her tourist enthusiasm amused him. Yet by flashes, she began to feel in him something, beside which her own raptures fell silent. Had she, after all, hit upon a man--a practical man--who was yet conscious of the romance of Canada?

Presently she asked him if there was no one dependent on him--no mother?--or sisters?

"I have two brothers--in the Government service at Ottawa. I had four sisters."

"Are they married?"

"They are dead," he said, slowly. "They and my mother were burnt to death."

She exclaimed. Her brown eyes turned upon him--all sudden horror and compassion.

"It was a farmhouse where we were living--and it took fire. Mother and sisters had no time to escape. It was early morning. I was a boy of eighteen, and was out on the farm doing my chores. When I saw smoke and came back, the house was a burning mass, and--it was all over."

"Where was your father?"

"My father is dead."

"But he was there--at the time of the fire?"

"Yes. He was there."

He had suddenly ceased to be communicative, and she instinctively asked no more questions, except as to the cause of the conflagration.

"Probably an explosion of coal-oil. It was sometimes used to light the fire with in the morning."

"How very, very terrible!" she said gently, after a moment, as though she felt it. "Did you stay on at the farm?"

"I brought up my two brothers. They were on a visit to some neighbours at the time of the fire. We stayed on three years."

"With your father?"

"No; we three alone."

She felt vaguely puzzled; but before she could turn to another subject, he had added--

"There was nothing else for us to do. We had no money and no relations--nothing but the land. So we had to work it--and we managed. But after three years we'd saved a little money, and we wanted to get a bit more education. So we sold the land and moved up to Montreal."

"How old were the brothers when you took on the farm?"

"Thirteen--and fifteen."

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "You must be proud."

He laughed out.

"Why, that kind of thing's done every day in this country! You can't idle in Canada."

They had turned back towards the train. In the doorway of the car sat Philip Gaddesden lounging and smoking, enveloped in a fur coat, his knees covered with a magnificent fur rug. A whisky and soda had just been placed at his right hand. Elizabeth thought--"He said that because he had seen Philip." But when she looked at him, she withdrew her supposition. His eyes were not on the car, and he was evidently thinking of something else.

"I hope your brother will take no harm," he said to her, as they approached the car. "Can I be of any service to you in Winnipeg?"

"Oh, thank you. We have some introductions--"

"Of course. But if I can--let me know."

An official came along the line, with a packet in his hand. At sight of Elizabeth he stopped and raised his hat.

"Am I speaking to Lady Merton? I have some letters here, that have been waiting for you at Winnipeg, and they've sent them out to you."

He placed the packet in her hand. The Canadian moved away, but not before Elizabeth had seen again the veiled amusement in his eyes. It seemed to him comic, no doubt, that the idlers of the world should be so royally treated. But after all--she drew herself up--her father had been no idler.

She hastened to her brother; and they fell upon their letters.

"Oh, Philip!"--she said presently, looking up--"Philip! Arthur Delaine meets us at Winnipeg."

"Does he? _Does he_?" repeated the young man, laughing. "I say, Lisa!--"

Elizabeth took no notice of her brother's teasing tone. Nor did her voice, as she proceeded to read him the letter she held in her hand, throw any light upon her own feelings with regard to it.

The weary day passed. The emigrants were consoled by free meals; and the delicate baby throve on the Swede's ravished milk. For the rest, the people in the various trains made rapid acquaintance with each other; bridge went merrily in more than one car, and the general inconvenience was borne with much philosophy, even by Gaddesden. At last, when darkness had long fallen, the train to which the private car was attached moved slowly forward amid cheers of the bystanders.

Elizabeth and her brother were on the observation platform, with the Canadian, whom with some difficulty they had persuaded to share their dinner.

"I told you"--said Anderson--"that you would be passed over first." He pointed to two other trains in front that had been shunted to make room for them.

Elizabeth turned to him a little proudly.

"But I should like to say--it's not for our own sakes--not in the least!--it is for my father, that they are so polite to us."

"I know--of course I know!" was the quick response. "I have been talking to some of our staff," he went on, smiling. "They would do anything for you. Perhaps you don't understand. You are the guests of the railway. And I too belong to the railway. I am a very humble person, but--"

"You also would do anything for us?" asked Elizabeth, with her soft laugh. "How kind you all are!"

She looked charming as she said it--her face and head lit up by the line of flaring lights through which they were slowly passing. The line was crowded with dark-faced navvies, watching the passage of the train as it crept forward.

One of the officials in command leapt up on the platform of the car, and introduced himself. He was worn out with the day's labour, but triumphant. "It's all right now--but, my word! the stuff we've thrown in!--"

He and Anderson began some rapid technical talk. Slowly, they passed over the quicksand which in the morning had engulfed half a train; amid the flare of torches, and the murmur of strange speech, from the Galician and Italian labourers, who rested on their picks and stared and laughed, as they went safely by.

"How I love adventures!" cried Elizabeth, clasping her hands.

"Even little ones?" said the Canadian, smiling. But this time she was not conscious of any note of irony in his manner, rather of a kind protectingness--more pronounced, perhaps, than it would have been in an Englishman, at the same stage of acquaintance. But Elizabeth liked it; she liked, too, the fine bare head that the torchlight revealed; and the general impression of varied life that the man's personality produced upon her. Her sympathies, her imagination were all trembling towards the Canadians, no less than towards their country.