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V-

THE WESTERN AVERNUS: TOIL
AND TRAVEL IN FURTHER
NORTH AMERICA: BY MORLEY
ROBERTS

WITH" SOME ILLUSTRATIONS BY
A. D. MSCORMLCK

',3



• /1 mUNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY

VolumeTHE WESTERN AVERNUS. \\*' *'THE

WESTERN AVERNUS

OR TOIL AND TRAVEL IN
FURTHER NORTH AMERICA
BY MORLEY ROBERTS

New Edition
Illustrated by A. D. McCORMICK
and from Photographs

Q30£0ftntnefe*

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO.
1896

All rights reserved*>\1

1\ N\) "V w

Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her MajestyTO MY FRIENDS

GEORGE GISSING
AND
W. H. HUDSON

192875PREFACE

On re-issuing this book, which was originally pub-
lished in 1887, I may perhaps be excused for making
some remarks as to its character and reception. In the
first place, I would have it understood that what was
true, let us say, of Winnipeg in 1884, needs now to be
mentally revised by the reader. For things Transatlantic
change marvellously even in a few short months, and
since the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad,
on which I myself worked when it was still unfinished,
the cities within its influence have altered beyond
recognition. But this is only true of inhabited places,
for not. even a railroad can harm the infinite beauty of
the mountains in British Columbia.

Though this volume is usually spoken of as a book of
travel, I myself prefer to regard it as autobiography,
seeing that it contains few references to spots not now
well within the range of the mere tourist. It is primarily
the story of peculiar personal experience, which many
have endured but few recorded; and if it have any value

viiPreface

it is that of the experience rather than that of any
impression of any place.

Since my return, having been led to wander in the
Avernus of literature, where I was received by the
Shades not without courtesy, certain, who occupy the
position of censors, have, in season and out of season,
suggested that my later work by no means reached the
level of this. In some ways I cannot but agree with
them, for it is the record of actual striving which in its
essence has a positive value denied to the impersonal
narrative or to a work of the imagination. I lived and
did some necessary work in the world's rougher service.
The rest is no more than a by-product; I do not plume
myself on it, nor do I greatly regret the lack of keener
appreciation.

But I have been urged again and again to repeat
the experiment of going berserk in some far-off and
savage country; it has been suggested, openly and by
implication, that misery, hardship, and starvation were
needed before I brought forth the best fruits ; and
many have endeavoured to persuade me to leave the
difficult, if by no means giddy, height to which I have
climbed with so much labour, for the purpose of
affording them sport in the arena. I am reminded of
Tertullian, who, in his treatise De Spectaculis, promised

viiiPreface

the elect a rarer joy than the earth affords when,
looking from the golden bar of heaven, they watch
their enemies frying in the pit. But now, as a man no
longer altogether young, and with youthful endurance
passed from me, I object to be butchered to make a
critic's holiday. It is sufficient for me if this volume
renews its youth for a season, and more than sufficient
if its record warn the unwary who are solicitous of
adventure, but ignorant of the calls that will be made
upon them. It may discourage some, but those whom it
renders fearful are not of the brotherhood of wanderers,
nor truly of the race which should inherit the earth.

MORLEY ROBERTS.

b

5xCONTENTS

CHAP.	PAGE

i. In Texas.........i

ii. Bull-Punching........17

hi. Iowa and Minnesota......24

iv.	In St. Paul....... .	34

v.	To Manitoba and the Rockies ....	47

vi.	The Kicking Horse Pass......57

vii.	The Railroad Camps . '	67
viii. The Columbia Crossing......86

ix.	The Trail across the Selkirks	93

x.	The Golden Range and the Shushwap Lakes .	113

xi.	Round Kamloops.......125

xii.	Through the Fraser Ca$on.....138

xiii.	Down Stream to the Coast.....154

xiv.	New Westminster . ......161

xv.	Back Tracks to Eagle Pass . . . . .180
xvi. To Vancouver Island and Victoria . . .	203

xvii.	Mount Tacoma Overhead.....209

xviii.	Oregon Underfoot.......223

xix.	Across the Coast Range.....235

xx.	In San Francisco . . . . . . .	256LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait of the Author, by A. D. McCormick .	. Frontispiece
Mexicans Gambling......	at page 12
Bull-Punching......	„ 20
On the Canadian Pacific.....	45
A Trestle Bridge on the C.P.R.	49
The Chancellor, Leanchoil ....	57
Mount Burgess, Emerald Lake	,, 62
The Kicking-Horse River.....	>, 67
The Easiest Way Down.....	72
Mount Lefroy.......	86
A Glacier in the Selkirks ....	>> 93
Wreck from a Snow-Slide ....	107
A British Columbian Lake ....	115
Mountains at Canmore.....	125
Ross Peak........	138
The Three Sisters, Canmore ....	„ 161
In the Snow........	„ 172
A Ferry on the Eagle River ....	„ 196
Stowing Lumber.......	,, 218
Mount Hood, Oregon......	„ 223
A Mountain River......	»> 235
Mount Shasta, California.....	„ 256
Shooting Hogs . ......	» 275THE WESTERN AVERNUS

CHAPTER I

in texas

The wide prairie of North-west Texas, with Nature's
sweet breath bearing faint odours of spring flowers,
was around me ; a plain of few scant trees or smaller
brush, with here and there a rounded hill that em-
phasised the breadth of level land, and again the
general surface broken, by quiet creeks and winter rain,
into hollow canons beneath me, and beyond them once
more the gentle roll of grassy prairie, and hills again.
I looked around me and I was alone; and yet not
wholly solitary, for about me strayed a band of sheep,
grazing the sweet grasses that were so green when near,
and showed a faint tinge of purple or delicate blue
afar off. I was a Texas sheep-herder. A month before
I had walked the crowded desolation of unnatural
London.

My life had been one of many changes. From the
North of England to the wide brown plains of sunburnt
Australia; from her again to the furrows of the ocean
for many months of seaman's toil and danger; then
England's greatest city and life, irksome and delightful
by turns in her maze and prison ; then ill-health, with
A	IThe Western Avernus

all its melancholy train, and sudden feverish resolution
to shake from myself the chains I began to loathe.

And it was thus I came to Texas, the land of
revolution and rude romance, and pistol arbitration,
whither my brother had long preceded me—a land of
horses, cattle, and sheep, of cotton and corn, a land
of refuge for many crimes, and for those tired and
weary even as I was. So outward civilisation was gone,
and it was with strange feelings of delight that I entered
a new country to commence a new career, although I
was aware that there would inevitably be much labour
and perhaps much suffering for me.

I came into a Texas town by no means greatly
different from other American towns that I had seen
and passed through in my swift flight south and west
from the Atlantic seaboard, save that all around it was
open unfenced prairie, with no fertile farms or houses to
indicate that a town was near at hand. But I found,
to my surprise, that Colorado City was cold on that
spring morning of 1884, and I was unprepared for it,
for I thought myself far enough south to demand as
my right perpetual warmth and sunshine; and it was
only when I learnt that I stood on a plateau two
thousand feet above the sea-level that the cold did not
seem unnatural. My impressions of the town and its
people were favourable. There were many men walking
round the streets dressed in wide-brimmed hats, leather
leggings with fringe adornments, and long boots with
large spurs rattling as they went. They were mostly
tall and strong, and I noticed with interest the look
of calm assurance about many of them, as if they had

2IN TEXAS

said to themselves: ' I am a man, distinctly a man,
nobody dares insult me ; if any one does, there will be a
funeral—-and not mine.'

Then the ordinary citizens of the place seemed
ordinary citizens, in nowise remarkable, and, as far as I
could see, neither they nor the others, who were, as I
soon discovered, the much-talked-of cow-boys, wore
knives or revolvers.

In fact my impressions were exactly what they
should not have been, according to Bret Harte. From
him I had taken my notions of Western America,
and I had constructed an ideal in the air, in which
red-shirted miners, pistolling cow-boys, reckless stage-
drivers, gentlemanly gamblers, and self-sacrificing
women figured in a kind of kaleidoscopic harlequinade,
ending up in a snow-storm or the smoke of a gun-
powder massacre. And I was disappointed; but I
must not be unjust to a favourite author of mine, for
I owed it to my own imagination.

My brother was living in this town, and it was with
very little difficulty that I discovered him. We shook
hands and sat down, running through our different
experiences. I detailed my disgust of London and the
life I had led there. He gave discouraging accounts of
Texas, averring that the water was vile, that ' fever and
ague' were common, that it was too hot in summer and
too cold in winter. I learnt from him that almost
everybody in town carried revolvers concealed under
his coat-tails or inside his waistcoat, and that people
were occasionally shot in spite of the peaceful look of
the place. Nevertheless, there was little danger for a

3The Western Avernus

man who was in the habit of minding his own business,
who was not a drinker and quarrelsome, and did not
frequent gambling-houses and saloons. I vowed I
would go into none of them, and promptly broke it
when I went down town with my brother to get clothes
such as Texans wear, for he himself took me into one
and introduced me to a gentlemanly gambler, who
might have stepped bodily out of the story of' Poker
Flat —a Georgian dark and slim, with long hair, dressed
in black, amiable-looking, and a quiet desperado if need
were.

I changed my apparel under Cecil's advice and
appeared in the streets in a very wide-brimmed grey
felt hat and long boots reaching to my knees, and then,
when I was ' civilised/ as he declared, we went to his
boarding-house, and he introduced me to a circle of
Texan working men. I made myself at home, and sat
quietly listening to the talk about the war—a subject
the Southerner is never weary of—of desperadoes, of
cattle, and of sheep. Cecil and I held a council of two
as to what was to be done. I wanted to work on a
sheep or cattle ranche, as I had learnt the ways of these
in Australia, and, although he had not ever followed
that business himself, he agreed to go with me if we
could obtain such work. A few days afterwards we left
the city in the waggon of a sheep owner, hired to do
the work of herders for 25 dols., or about £5, a month.

So I once more dwelt under canvas, living a pastoral
life, cooking rude meals in the open air on the open
prairies, forty long miles to the northward of the town.
And we went to work, building sheep 'corrals' or pens

4T EX AS

of heaped, thorny mesquite brush, bringing in firewood,
cutting it, putting up tents—for my part glad to be so
far from men in that sweet fresh air, for I began to feel
alive, volitional, not dead and most basely mechanical
as at home in England.

We were in camp on the border of the creek that ran
by us with sluggish flow, as if it lacked the energy to go
straight forward. In front of us, to the south, was a
semicircle of bluffs, up which one had to climb to gain
the open prairie, that stretched out green and grey as
far as eye could reach. Beneath the bluffs was a level
with thin mesquite trees, and on the banks of the creek
a few cotton woods, and beyond it another level with
thicker brush, and then a mass of broken, watercut
land, formed into small fantastic canons that bit deep
into the red earth, and clay, and gravel, that lay
beneath.

I led a busy life—up before sunrise, in after sundown.
Then we sat round the camp-fire, smoking and talking.
Our boss was an Englishman, one Jones, fair and
pleasant; with him another fatter, ruddier Englishman,
young, bumptious, and green withal, but no bad com-
panion. Beside them a Mexican, long-haired, with
glittering dark eyes under the shade of his big sombrero,
small and active, taciturn for want of English. I could
have warranted him a talker had we known his own
sweet tongue. But my Spanish was limited to a few,
oaths — Caramba !—with some others terrible to be
translated, and Don Quixote in the original has yet to
be mastered. Then another herder, myself, and Cecil.
Decidedly, England was in the ascendant, and our

5The Western Avernus

Spaniard looked on dumbly in contemplation, as his
lithe fingers rolled cigarettes one after another in the
yellow Mexican paper, dipping into his little linen bag
for the dry tobacco.

At daylight breakfast, after a wash in the creek.
Bacon and bread and coffee, morning, noon, and night,
with rare mutton and beans, red and white, cooked
with grease and greasy. Then I went to the corrals
and let out my sheep and their lambs, the oldest
skipping merrily and the little new-born ones tottering
weakly and baaing piteously, while the anxious mothers
watched their offspring, turning round to lick them,
looking at me suspiciously the while.

With them I spent day after day on the prairie in
almost utter solitude, save for the gentle animals I held
in charge. These would scatter out and fleck the
green prairie with white of wool, browsing on brush
and sweet grass, while the lambs played round them,
taking tentative doubtful bites at the grass, as if not
yet assured that anything but milk was good for them,
or stood sucking or lay asleep; sometimes waking
suddenly with a loud baa of surprise to find themselves
in such a strange wide world, and then rushing mother-
wards for milk, butting with persistence the patient
ewes, who moved along gently after other uncropped
grasses. And at ten o'clock, when the sun grew fierce,
they wolild take their noon-time's siesta, lying down
under the scant shade of mesquites or the few rocks
at the end of the bluffs that ran down to the creek.
They slept and woke, got up one at a time, walking
round, and then lay down again. And I picked a

6In Texas

shady tree myself, taking all the shade, not through
selfishness, but they yielded it to me for fear. I ate
my little lunch, and drank water from the round tin
flask encased in canvas that I bore over my shoulder,
and smoked a peaceful pipe, and read a book I had
brought out with me, or dreamed of things that had
been, and of things not yet to be. And birds came
round, perching on the woolly backs of sheep—birds of
blue and birds of red, some with sweet songs. And
from the shelter of low thick brush or tufts of heavier
grass peeped a silvery-skinned snake with beady eyes,
drawing back on seeing me. Or a little soft-furred
cotton-tail rabbit whisked from one bush to another,
throwing up his tuft of a tail and showing the white
patch of under-fur that gives him his name, gleaming
like cotton from the bursting pod, And that yonder ?
It was a jack-rabbit, a hare, long-legged, quick-running;
but then he went slowly, and sat up and looked at me
as if he were a prairie dog of yonder town of quaint,
brown, sleek-furred marmots, whose cry is like that of
chattering angry birds. But Mr. Jack Rabbit swerved
aside suddenly. The sheep would not frighten him,
and I was as quiet as the windless tree I sat under. It
was a snake, not silver, but brown and diamonded that
scared him. But he saw me, and slipped under the
rock, and lay there, making a strange noise, new to me
but unmistakable. He was a rattlesnake. Then maybe
I would go a little way from my herd and see an
antelope on the distant prairie, and between me and
the deer, a sly, slinking coyote, swift-footed and cunning,
a howler at nights, making a whole chorus by himself;

7The Western Avernus

by quick change of key persuading the awakened shep-
herd that there was a band of them on the bluff in the
moonlight looking down hungrily on the corralled and
guarded sheep.

Day by day this pastoral life went on, not all as sweet
as an idyll, yet with some content. But my brother
fell ill, and went back to town, and I was left to my
own experience, which grew by contact with my Texan
neighbours, with whom I got along pleasantly, as I was
fast relapsing into primitive barbarism. I read little,
and the noon I spent in contemplation, or observation
of the denizens of the prairie, and at night the hour
before sleep was spent in smoking and chatter, and
grumbling at the sameness of the cookery.

I herded through all April, but in the beginning of
May I began to grow very weary of the work, and
begged Jones to give me something else to do, no
matter what, so that I was not compelled to act dog to
his sheep any more. I was evidently unfit for a herder,
for the task grew harder instead of easier. At last my
'boss' went into town and brought out another man,
and released me. I went to corral-building, and wood-
chopping, and to preparations for shearing, which would
soon be; and as I then had Sunday free, I used to go
fishing for cat-fish in the creek, and caught more often
demoniacal mud turtles, which I unhooked with much
fear of their snappish jaws. And one Sunday I slew a
great rattlesnake nearly five feet long, as thick as my
fore-arm. At the end of his tail, as he lay half coiled
up, was a cloud—strange, undiscernible—the loud rattles
in fierce, quick vibration. I went into a state of in-

8in texas

stinctive animal fury, and killed him with a branch
wrenched from a mesquite, regardless of the sharp
thorns that made my hands bleed.

Our days and nights now grew warmer with ad-
vancing summer, which passed across the prairie and
left it barer and brown, and doubtless made the dull
sheep remember, if remember they can, past shearings
of other years' fleeces and quick coolness. And shearing-
time came on apace, for there were no more sudden
4 northers' that came from the frozen north, that knows
no early spring, to make us shiver in our sleep and
awake in early morning cursing the climate.

So, when our preparations were complete, the wool-
table set up in the corral, the wool-boxes for tying the
soft fleeces ready, the posts and cross pieces erected for
the canvas shelter to keep the glaring noon sun from
the backs and bared necks of the stooping shearers,
Jones went round and summoned the 'boys' to start
to work. And our camp took a livelier aspect with its
Texan youngsters. The English element was in the
minority. Then the 'boss' went to town for more
shearers, and came back with a band of Mexicans, who
looked at the white men sulkily, thinking, no doubt,
that there would not be so much money to be made,
as they were not to have ' las boregas' to themselves.
Among them was an Indian, a dark-skinned Chickasaw,
who spoke a little English, and confided to me that he
thought very little of the Mexicans. These were finer
men, though, than my little wizened Indian—tall, some
of them, with easy motion, dark eyes, dark hair, over
which the inevitable sombrero of wide shade, with vast

9The Western Avernus

complications of plaited adornments around it, making
it look heavy and cumbersome.

Next day shearing began. The sheep huddled to-
gether in the corral bleating for their lambs, or ran to
and fro for, those left outside. Under the rude festoons
and curves of canvas, the wooden platform, with a few
sheep in front, and on the board itself seven Mexicans,
and the Chickasaw, and four Texan boys bending over
the sheep. The sharp click-click of the moving,
devouring shears of sharp steel, and the fair fleece,
white and pure, falling back over the outer unclean
wool yet unshorn. The last cut, and the loosed fleece-
bdarer, uncloaked and naked, runs shaking itself into
the crowding others, wondering 4 if it be 1/ and another
is dragged unwillingly by the hind leg from its com-
panions, while the parted fleece goes in a bundle of
softness to the table, to be tied and tossed to the man
who treads down the wool in the suspended woolsack,
for we are primitive here and have no press. The clean
new boards underneath us grow black, and every splinter
has its lock of wool. There is wool everywhere, and
the taste and smell of it; we are greasy with the grease
of it, and hurt fingers smart with it, some little revenge
for the pain the sheep have for careless cuts, that run
red blood on the divided fleece.

And night-time came, and the sheep stood in the
corral hungry, wishing the vile yearly business [was
over. And when we got up next morning there was
not a Mexican to be seen. They had disappeared in
the night, doubtless angry that there were white men to
divide the profits with them. Jones 4 cavorted' round

ioIn T ex as

somewhat, abusing Mexicans generally, swore he would
have no more to do with them, and went for more white
men. I sheared among these in order to learn this
noble pastoral art, as I wished to learn everything else,
for no man knows when his knowledge may be useful
and even necessary to him. So we had none of ' los
Mexicanos,' with their fearful oaths, among us, and no
Chickasaws or Choctaws. And for two days the
shearing went well; then came a cold day, congealing
the grease in the wool until it clogged the shears. One
man, the boaster of the crowd, left, as he said, because
the sheep were too hard to shear; as we said, because
he was irritated that a boy sheared eighty while he got
through no more than fifty. Then, as Jones was away,
my fat ruddy young countryman had charge, and, being
unaccustomed to authority and lacking tact, quarrelled
with one, which led to all the rest leaving. So the
patient sheep were not yet shorn. Jones came back to
find things at a standstill, and being a good-tempered
man, only swore a little at white men. But the shearing
had to be done, and the vow about Mexicans had
to be recanted. The wagon went into town, and in
two days eleven more Mexicans came out, better men
and better shearers than our first band. The captain—
el capitan—was a broad-shouldered, lithe-waisted man,
quick/keen, black, and comely ; with him a one-armed
shearer, a great surprise to me, whose first movements
on the board I watched with interest. He and the
captain sheared in company, and between them made
more money than any other two—made it shearing and
gambling as well, for the maimed man was an adept at

iiThe Western Avernus

the cards, handling them with a rapidity and dexterity-
many of his two-handed companions envied and suffered
from. I still sheared with them, but not regularly, for
sometimes I tied wool, and sometimes pressed it, and
even occasionally herded again. I found them friendly,
and at night they sang melancholy Mexican love-songs
or gambled with the light of a solitary candle, crowding
together in one small tent, while I sat amongst them,
rolling up cigarettes, as they did, catching a few words
of their talk; or I left them and sat by the fire with
Jones and the other herders, and perhaps a stray cow-
boy who came to sleep at our camp, or some of the
young sons of our near neighbours; and in their
conversation I got the relish of a new dish that tickled
my civilised palate strangely. The flash of humour,
the ready rough repartee that permitted no answer,
tumbling one to the ground like a sudden tightening
lasso dropped over head and shoulders, were like
single-stick play after rapier and dagger, hard but
harmless.

And at last shearing was over, and my Mexican
friends took their money, doubtless resolving to get
drunk and gamble in town, and make up for the labour
through which they had gone; and I began to think of
going too, for I had heard from my brother in far
northern Minnesota, and he asked me to come if it were
possible. I was ready enough to go, for it did not seem
to me that I was as well as I should be. Perhaps the
alkali water was doing me no good, and I should feel
better doubtless in the more bracing northern air,
drinking the purer streams that ran from Minnesota's

12MEXICANS GAMBLING.

[to face p. 12.IN TEXAS

lakes and sweet-scented pine-woods. I would leave
Texas behind me, and the open prairie and its sheep
and bands of long-horned cattle, its chattering prairie
dogs and howling coyotes, and prowling cougars, and
try another country.

But before I could get away there were many things
to do, and some things to suffer—notably a storm one
night, a surprise to me, for it seemed that the wind blew
calmly on the high plateau, using its energy in ceaseless
breezes, not in sudden destructive cyclonic convulsion.
But one day the breeze failed. The clouds came up
from all quarters, opening and shutting, closing in the
blue, dark and thunderous with pallid leaden edges.
We sat in our camp, not thinking greatly about the
matter, for so many threatened storms had blown over.
But presently Jones got up, and went across the creek
to the house, remarking that he thought we should have
rain. The young Englishman soon followed, leaving
me with Alexander, a Californian herder, and Bill,
a Missourian.

Presently we heard thunder, and a few heavy drops
of rain fell. We left the fire, and went into the big tent
and sat down. Then there was a low roar of wind, and
the rush of rain came with the wind and struck the
tent, that bellied in and strained like a sail at sea. One
moment of suspense, and, before we could move, the
tent was flat on top of us, and the howl of the gale
and the pattering of rain so tremendous that we could
not hear ourselves shouting. One by one we crawled
out, and in a moment were drenched to the skin. Our
oilskins were under the tent; it was utterly impossible

13The Western Avernus

to get them. The force of the wind was so great that I
could not stand upright, and the rain, coming level on
it, blinded me if I tried to look to windward. The
lightning, too, was fearful, and the thunder seemed
right over and round me. In the dark I got separated
from my companions, and crawled on my hands and
knees to a small mesquite and held on to it, while
every blast bent it down right over me. . After a while
I grew tired of staying there, and in a little lull I made
a bolt for the end of the corral, which was a stone wall.
Here I got some shelter, though I was afraid that the
whole wall might blow over on me. As it was, some of
the top stones were dislodged. So I stood up and
leaned on it, with my face towards the wind and my
broad-brimmed hat over my eyes to keep the sharp
sting of the rain off. In front of me were the sheep,
and leaning over the wall I could touch them ; yet such
was the darkness that I could see nothing till the
lightning came, and then they stood out before me a
mass of white wool, with the lightning glistening on
their eyeballs for a momentary space. Then darkness.
In one flash I could see Alexander under one mesquite,
and, twenty yards from him, Bill under another. I
shouted to them, but the wind carried my voice away.
Here I stayed for two hours. Then the wind began
to lull and the lightning to grow more distant; so,
plucking up courage, and waiting for lightning to give
me my direction, I walked over to Alexander, and then
all three got together again. I wanted them to come
over to the house, for we could go round by the road
without crossing the creek, which here ran in a horse-

14In Texas

shoe. Alexander said he would come, for he did not
want to be wet all night without any sleep, but we
could not persuade Bill. No, he wasn't going to get
lost on the prairie such a night as that; he knew where
he was, and that was something. So we left him. It
took us more than an hour to go less than a mile, for
it was still blowing and raining hard, and the lightning
was even yet vivid enough to blind us. Once we got
off the road, but I managed to find it again, and about
one o'clock we came to the house, where Jones and
Harris laughed at the wretched figures we cut. How-
ever, we got out blankets, and, throwing off our wet
clothes, we soon forgot the storm. Next morning the
creek was full to its banks, and rising yet. We found
Bill at the camp, still wet through, though he had
managed to find some dry matches and light a fire.
Both tents were down. The provisions in the smaller
one were all wet and much damage done. Still it was
well nothing worse happened. I do not think I shall
ever forget that night in Texas.

Three days afterwards, when Jones began to haul his
wool to town, I went in with him and Colonel Taylor,
his next neighbour, who was hauling for him. It took
a day and a half to get to Colorado, and during the first
day I killed seven rattlesnakes and two others.

On getting near to town we began to see signs of the
damage done by the storm. We were on the banks of
the Lone Wolf Creek, that runs into the Colorado
River. The waters had run out on the prairie on both
sides and swept the grass flat. Against every tree was
a bunch of drifted bush and grasses, while here and

15The Western Avernus

there I saw a poor little prairie owl or prairie dog, or a
snake, strangled by the water or struck by blown
branches. In town, houses had been washed away
bodily, going down the creek, and others had been
turned round on the wooden blocks beneath them. The
whole place wore a dishevelled, disarranged look, as if
some mischievous giant had been through it, making
sport for himself. It was the severest gale ever known
in North-west Texas.

16CHAPTER II

BULL-PUNCHING

I WAS in Colorado City again, with resources only
forty-five dollars, or about nine pounds English, and
had to go north to Minnesota, find my brother and
support myself, until I got employment again, on
that small sum. It was quite evident that I should
be unable to pay my fare to St. Paul, Minnesota, and
I had to decide now what was to be done. Problem :
twelve or thirteen hundred miles to be overpassed with-
out paying one's fare over the rails. This would have
been an easy task to many, and some months later it
would have scarcely caused me so much anxious
thought, but I was then inexperienced and somewhat
green in the matter of passes, which are often to be
obtained by a plausible man of good address, and in
the methods of 'beating the road/ or, more literally,
cheating the company.

My brother had told me that it was frequently
possible to go long distances with men who had charge
of cattle for the great meat-markets of St. Louis and
Chicago, and had, with an eye to the future, introduced
me to a rough-looking young fellow, who was an
Englishman, but whose greatest pleasure consisted in
being mistaken for a native Texan. He followed the
B	*7The Western Avernus

profession of a * bull-puncher,' that is, he went in charge
of the cattle destined for slaughter and canning in the
distant North, and made money at it, being steady and
trustworthy and no drinker.

Jones and I had come to town on Saturday, and on
Sunday morning I went to the stockyards to look about
me, to watch them putting the cattle in the cars, and to
see if I might find my friend. I found him too quickly,
for no sooner did I come to the yard than I met him.
He asked me if I wanted to go to Chicago, and offered
to take me at once, as the train was ready to * pull out.'
I was in a dilemma. My clothes and blankets were at
the boarding-house, my money was in the bank. I told
him this, and he settled it quickly.

* Leave word for my brother Fred to bring along
your things ; I will cash your order on the bank/

I went with him to the office, signed my name on the
drover's pass after his, and in five minutes was running
at twenty miles an hour over the wide prairie, leaving
Colorado City behind in the sand dunes in the hollow
by the river that gives it a name.

We had seven cars of cattle to look after. The poor
wretches had a weary journey before them, and their
release would be a sudden death. It was a cruel change
from the grassy plains with a limitless extent of sweet
grass, to be shut in cars and jolted for more than a
thousand miles with but short intervals of rest and
release, for they remain in the cars twenty-four hours
at a time.

I found this bull-punching a very wearisome and
dangerous business. It is too frequently the custom

18Bull-Punching

with cattle-men to crowd the poor beasts, and put
perhaps twenty-two where there is only comfortable
room for eighteen or twenty. When a steer lies down
he often gets rolled over, and is stretched out flat with-
out power to move, as the others stand upon him. It
is the duty of the ' bull-puncher' to see that this does
not occur, or to make him get up. For this purpose he
carries a pole, ten or twelve feet long, usually of
hickory, and in the end of this a nail is driven, the head
of which is filed off in order to get a sharp point of half
or three-quarters of an inch long, which is used for
' jobbing' the unfortunate animal to rouse him to exert
himself, and to make those who are standing on him
crowd themselves together to give their comrade a
chance. If this point does not effect the desired object,
the 4 twisters ' are used. These are small tacks driven
into the pole at and round the end, but not on the flat
top, where the sharp point is. By means of these tacks
the pole catches in the hair of the steer's tail, and it can
be twisted to any desired extent. This method is
effectual but very cruel, for I have seen the tail twisted
until it was broken and limp; but, as a general rule, as
soon as the twisting begins the steer gives a bellow and
makes a gigantic effort to rise, which, if the other
animals can be kept away, is mostly successful. If other
means fail the train is run alongside the first cattle-
yards, the car emptied, the steer then having no trouble
in getting up, unless seriously injured. But I have
found them with nearly all their ribs broken on the
upper side, and occasionally they die in the car. If the
man in charge is conscientious, he will be all over the

19The Western Avernus

train whenever it stops, day or night, but very frequently
he sleeps all night and pays no attention to them. The
man I was with did most of the work at night, leaving
me the day. If he needed help he called me, and I
served him the same in the day. He was perfectly
reckless in what he did, and would do what many will
not attempt. He would foolishly risk his life by
entering the cars if he found it impossible to make a
bullock rouse himself, and as I stood outside holding
the lantern for him I was sick with apprehension, seeing
him hanging to the iron rails above the sharp long
horns that might have run him through like a bayonet.
Their eyes glittered in the light I held, and they
bellowed with fear and anger. Had he fallen the
chances were a thousand to one against his life; he
would have been crushed to death between them or
trodden out of the shape of humanity under their hoofs.
Sometimes he succeeded, but sometimes all this danger
was encountered in vain, and the steer he tried to save
would be dead at last.

It was dangerous work clambering round the cars and
walking over them when the train was in motion.
Dangerous enough at any time, but in the night, when
I carried a long pole and a lantern with me, I often
thought I should come to a sudden end beneath the
wheels. I had to jump on the train, too, when in motion,
or be left behind, and, at junctions such as Denison,
was forced to walk among shunting cars and trains
and loose engines, whose strong head-lights blinded me,
hindering sight of some dark, stealthy, unlighted cars
running silently on the next rails.

20BULL-PUNCHING.

\to face p. 20.Bul l-P u n c h i n g

We fed the cattle at Fort Worth, a bustling busy-
town, the western capital of Texas, the scene of great
railroad riots since then, and at Muskogee, a quiet dull
place in the Indian Territory, reserved for Indians—
Chickasaws, Choctaws, Cherokees, and others with less
familiar names. I saw but few of these, and the men
who loafed and idled round the stations through which
we passed on the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas railroad
were for the most part whites, armed with six-shooters,
for it is not forbidden to carry them. It seemed strange
to see little boys, eleven or twelve years old, strutting
round with revolvers hung in their belts. Little des-
peradoes in training, I thought.

This country was sweet and green, and very pleasant,
with great stretches of wood and then open pastures,
and good streams and pools of bright water.

We ran through the Territory, through part of Kansas
and into Missouri, staying a few hours in Sedalia.

I began now to weary of this endless journey, to
weary of the prairie that would never cease, and to long
for busy Chicago and well-farmed Illinois. It was time,
indeed, for me to reach somewhere, for I had never
taken off my clothes since leaving Colorado City, and
I slept in snatches, rarely slumbering more than three
hours at a time.

We crossed the rapid Missouri at Franklin, and came
to Hannibal, on the famous Mississippi. We stayed
some hours outside the town to feed the cattle, and
then'ran through a tunnel hewn out of solid rock on
to the long slender bridge across the mighty river. I
sat on the top of the cars, watching the immense flood

21The Western Avernus

of waters that had come from Montana and had yet
to go through m&ny a State to New Orleans and the
Gulf of Mexico. Here and there were beautiful islands
with plentiful trees, green and peaceful, separated from
the busier banks on either hand The town was almost
hidden behind thd hill under which we had come,
and only its smoke, curling overhead, pointed out the
the spot of many habitations; and some way down
stream on the right was, aided by the thin haze and
hill shadows, an old picturesque building that I fanci-
fully converted into an ancient ruined castle. It gave
the touch of golden romance and age that one so misses
in that new land.

We ran through Illinois and came to the great city of
Chicago early on Sunday morning, and we gave up
charge of the cattle, which would be almost instantly
slaughtered. Then I had to make up my mind as to
what I was to do. I went to the post-office and found
no letters from my brother, although I had asked him
to give me directions there how to find him. Perhaps
he had written to Colorado City, and I had just missed
his letter; perhaps he had left St. Paul, and had missed
mine. I was in a dilemma. I knew not whether to go
to Minnesota or not. I asked my friend, and he advised
me to return to Texas, promising to obtain me work with
cattle there, and 'at any rate,' said he,/you can come
up with me again when you want to.' This determined
me, and I returned to Colorado City once more.

I spent an idle, careless, novel-reading time for some
weeks, for I could find no one prepared to give me
cattle to take North, as trade was slack and prices low.

22Bull-Punching

I got a note from my brother at last, saying now he
was near St. Paul still, and would wait for me. But I
could not get away again, and perforce went to amusing
myself, making acquaintances in town, mostly people
my brother had known. I read and smoked, and went
into the gambling saloons, though, fortunately, I have
no taste for gambling. Then I met one of my Mexican
friends, and he shook hands with me warmly, explaining
in broken English that all the others were in the
'calabosa,' or jail, for being drunk and disorderly.
And soon afterwards I met them going to work on the
road in charge of a warder armed with a long six-
shooter. They shouted to me and waved their hands,
looking not unhappy, and doubtless thinking it was
destiny, and not to be made matter of too much thought.
I waved my hat to them and saw them no more.

At last I determined to leave the town. I was sick
of it, and not well besides, for the water affected me
very injuriously. I began to make energetic inquiries,
and at last found a man who took me with him. It
was time for me to get away; my money was fairly
exhausted, and I did not want to go to work in Texas
any more. I left town on July 7th and arrived in
Chicago on the 16th; and but one thing of all the
journey remains in my mind, and that is the figure
of Ray Kern, who had once been a cow-boy in Texas,
but was leaving it on account of ill-health, for he was
to be a companion to me afterwards in some of my
other trials and journeys yet to come.

When I bade farewell to my friends, Ray among
them, I had but five dollars left, or £1 English.

23CHAPTER III

IOWA AND MINNESOTA

I WONDER if it be possible of any one who has never
been away from his own country and his friends, who
has always been in comfort and reasonable prosperity,
to imagine my feelings when I suddenly found myself
alone and almost penniless in Chicago? I think it
impossible. My desolation was in a way unbounded,
for every person I saw of the thousands in that great
city, wherein I knew not a soul, save those I had left
never to see again, made me feel even more and more
lonely. I walked the crowded streets for hours, hardly
knowing in what direction I was going nor in what
direction I should go. My thoughts turned first
towards my brother, who was, in the state of my
finances, impossibly far away, and from him to my
friends at home. To these I was now a shadow, for
they were busy, and one from the many of a life-circle
is but little. To me they were the only realities, and
I was walking among shadows who were nothing, and
could be nothing, to me, whose habits and thoughts and
modes of life had become, after four years in London,
intensely, even morbidly subjective. I had lived those
years in a state of intellectual progress, which had
culminated in a form of pessimism only permitting me

24Iowa and Minnesota

to see beauty in art—in pictures of Turner, in music
of Beethoven, in the poetry of the modern; and now I
was thrown on the sharpest rocks of realism, and the
awakening was strange and bitter.

On the second day in the city I was even more
melancholy, and it was an almost impossible task for
me to seek work. But the necessity of so doing became
more and more urgent as my resources became less
and less, and I made some efforts to obtain employment
on the schooners of Lake Michigan. For I had in the
days of my more careless boyhood made a voyage at
sea, and along with the memory of storm and calm, of
channel and open ocean, retained some of the rough
practical knowledge of a sailor's work. But I had lost
the calm buoyant confidence and energy of those days,
and with the decay of health had come a degree of
diffidence which then made it difficult for me to push
myself among a crowd of rude and ignorant men, even
though I had enough plasticity of outward character
to make me, to their careless glance, one of their own
class. And the dulness of trade in Chicago that
summer added to my troubles, and made me un-
successful.

That night I thought I should try to save money
by sleeping somewhere without paying for a lodging.
I had heard in London of boys and men sleeping in
Covent Garden Market, and under the arches of the
bridges. And now I was about to add this to my
own experiences. I had been told that in the large
cities of America it was very commonly the custom
for the homeless.to sleep in 'box-cars,' which I believe

25The Western Avernus

would be called 'goods trucks' in England, and I
found at last, late in the evening, a spot where many
were standing on the rails in a dark corner not far
from Randolph Street. After some little search I
discovered an open one, and after entering it and
closing the sliding door, I lay down on the bare wooden
floor, and with my head on my arms fell asleep. I
must have slept about two hours when I was awakened
by finding my habitation in motion. I was very little
concerned as to where it was going, as I was in no
place likely to be worse off than in Chicago, and I
might very easily have been better. I left the matter
in the hands of destiny, and turning over fell asleep
again. But I was again awakened in a few minutes by
the car stopping, apparently in some building from the
difference of sound. The door was opened, and a man
entering the car saw me and said,1 Hallo, partner, have
you had a good sleep?' 'Pretty fair/ I said, 4but I
guess it's over now.' And I got up to go. The
intruder was a kind-hearted fellow, however, and as I
went out he told me there were plenty of cars outside
that would not be disturbed that night, and directed me
where to find them. I thanked him, but soon found
myself regarded suspiciously by a man who was the
night watchman, who finally ordered me to get out of
the yard, which I was obliged to do, as under the
circumstances I had no alternative, although I confess
to feeling very much inclined to resent his doing his
duty. I went out into the streets once more. It was
now after midnight, and I had little desire to walk
about all night. So after all my trouble I had a

26Iowa and Minnesota

night's lodging, for which I paid 25 cents, and was
accommodated in a room villainous enough looking to
be the scene of one of Poe's midnight murder tales.

Next morning I was still despondent, and walked
about aimlessly enough until I came to the Chicago,
Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad station. I went in
and sat down to rest and to think. My thinking
discovered me no hope, but my prolonged stay there
Was the cause of my again meeting with my travelling
companion, Ray Kern. He came in looking miserable
enough and pale ancf ill, but when he saw me he
brightened up as I had done, and we, who were but
of a day or two's acquaintance, grasped each other's
hands as if we had been brothers. Poor Ray was in
the same condition as myself, though he had a dollar
or two more to balance his being worse in health
than I was. We had a long talk of ways and means
and aims, and his experience helped us out of Chicago.
In all American cities there are employment offices,
which, on payment of a fee, furnish work, if any is to
be obtained, to suitable applicants. They frequently
send labourers long distances on the cars for very
trifling sums to work for the railroads, which furnish
passes for the number they need. Ray and I went
across the road to one of these offices, and found that
men were wanted to go to a little town near Bancroft,
in North-west Iowa, Kosciusko County, to work on
the railroad. The fee required by the office was 2 dols.,
but all I had now was 1 dol. 50 cents, and I was
rather hopeless of getting away, when Ray offered
the manager 3 dollars 25 cents to send us both out.

27The Western Avernus

After some chaffering this was agreed to, and we
were furnished with office tickets, which would be
changed at the station for passes. I was now without
any money at all—not even a cent. But Ray, whose
kindness to me I shall never forget, helped me through
the day, and in the evening we started with about
twenty others for our destination, 600 miles away.
This system of sending labourers to distant points on
free passes is naturally taken advantage of by persons
who wish to go in the direction of the place where
the help is needed or beyond it, and very frequently
it happens that on reaching the end of the journey
there is scarcely one left of those who started. And
it was so in this instance. Of the twenty who left
Chicago, Ray and I were the only ones who got out
at Bancroft, for the others had quietly disappeared at
various stations on the way. We had been about
thirty-six hours on the journey, and during this time
we had passed through a farming country, which was
for the most part uninteresting, and, in the northern
part of Iowa, to my eye positively ugly. It there
consisted of level plains with no colour or trees to
relieve their dead monotony, save an occasional grove
of planted trees near a farm, placed to the north of
the buildings to make some shelter from the howling
4 blizzards,' or winter storms, that rage for days on
the bleak and open prairie. And the natural melan-
choly of the scene was magnified for me by the
hunger, which increased as we travelled, for we were
both without money save a solitary half-dollar, which
Ray was preserving for emergencies.

28Iowa and Minnesota

When we at last reached our objective point we
were not encouraged by what we saw. On a side
track, a little way from town, stood three cars, one
fitted up as an eating-room with rough tables and
benches, and the others as sleeping-rooms with bunks
in them. We put our blankets down and went in
to get dinner, which consisted of huge chunks of
tough, badly cooked beef with bread, and potatoes
boiled in their skins. The plates were tin, the cups
of the same material, the knives rusty and dirty and
blunt. Our companions were of all nationalities, they
ate like hogs, and their combined odour was distinctly
simian. It was with difficulty Ray and I ate our
dinners, hungry as we were, for one had to be energetic
to obtain anything at all, and the noise and smell and
close quarters made both of us, who were by no means
in rude health, feel sick and miserable.

After dinner, if I can call it such, we went out and
walked in silence up the line. Presently I burst out,
in unconscious imitation of the famous Edinburgh
Reviewer,' This will never do.'

Ray looked up and said shortly, ' Charlie, I agree
with you/

We continued walking, and presently came to a
little ' section house.' These are built at intervals
along all the lines in America. In them live a ' section
boss' and a small gang of men, who look after a certain
section of the line, seeing that it is kept in repair.
They raise the * ties' or sleepers if they settle down,
renews them when they rot, see that the joints are
perfect and the rails in line. Outside the house we

29The Western Avernus

met the 4 section boss,' who asked us if we had cotfie
up to work with the 4 gravel-train gang.' We said yes,
we had come there with that intention, but didn't much
like the look of things, and would prefer not doing it if
anything else were possible. He seemed to be in no
way surprised at that, and said if we cared to come to
him we could go to work in the morning, promising
us good accommodation and board, the wages being,
however, only $1.25 a day—twenty-five cents less than
that of the other job. The cost of board, however, was
to be somewhat less. We engaged at once with him,
and went back for our blankets, paying our last half-
dollar for our miserable mid-day meal.

Our 4boss' was named Breeze, and we found him
and his wife very pleasant and intelligent and kind.
The others in the gang were Swedes, who could not
talk much English, and Ray and i had very little to do
with them during the short time we stayed there. For
Ray seemed too weak to work, and using the pick and
shovel was so new to me that i made twice the labour
of it that the others did ; and, moreover, my foot got so
sore that i found some difficulty in working with any
degree of complacency. After three days we determined
to leave and go north to St. Paul, if it could be managed.
But we had great difficulty in getting any money, as
the men on sections are only paid once a month, when
the travelling car of the R.R. Paymaster comes round.
But we signed orders for Breeze to receive our money,
and got seventy-five cents apiece, one dollar and a half
in all, which constituted our sole resources. Mrs. Breeze
made us up a parcel of food, and i gave her a little

30IowA AND MINNESOTA

volume of Emerson's Essays, which I had brought from
England with me. And thus we started north again.

Of all the melancholy days' walks I ever had, that
was the most doleful. Around us lay a miserable, flat,
most dreary prairie; ahead of us stretched the long line
of endless rails, fading in the distance to nothing, and
overhead the July sun glared piteously on two dis-
heartened tramps, who were most decidedly out of
place, wishing themselves anywhere—anywhere out of
that world. Had Ray been well and cheerful, I should
have been more dispirited than I was, for in his state of
health and mind I had to keep him up by cracking
jokes and singing songs when I felt more like making
lamentations or taking to sulky silence. But he was so
weak that we had to rest, and if I had not kept him
going we should have been there now. At noon we
camped by a waterhole, or small swamp, and ate a little
and had a smoke, and/ feeling hot and dust-grimed and
wayworn, I stripped off and had a bathe, while Ray
looked on in silence. By dint of hard and painful
walking we reached a farm in the evening. We went
up and asked for work. The superintendent was a
Swede, a nice enough fellow. He gave us supper, and
next morning set me shocking barley after a reaping
and binding machine, while Ray went out hay-making.
Our wages were to be a dollar a day and board. On
the evening of the second day the owner of the farm,
a Congressman named Cooke, came home, and, in
American parlance, 'fairly made things hum.' In fact,
we had to work too hard altogether, considering that
we began at sunrise and worked till it was dark. Ray

31The Western Avernus

by no means improved in health, and on that evening
we agreed to leave the next day and make another
stage to St Paul. I do not think Cooke minded our
going much, as he thought we were unaccustomed to
hard work. He came in to give us the three dollars
each as I was rolling up my blankets, and noticing that
I had a book he asked to see it. It was Sartor
Resartus. Turning it over and over, he looked at it
and then at me, and finally said, 'Doyou read it?' I
answered by another question,(Do you suppose I carry
it just for the sake of carrying it ?' 4 Well/ said he,' I
am surprised at a man, who can read a book such as
this seems to be, tramping in Iowa.' 'So am I, Mr.
Cooke/ I replied, and, bidding him good-day, Ray and
I marched off, a little better in spirits, as we now had
seven dollars and a half between us.

That night we crossed the northern boundary of Iowa
and came into Minnesota at Elmore. We had supper at
the hotel, and found out that there was a train going to
St. Paul soon after midnight. After supper we went out,
and finding an empty box-car we lay down to get some
sleep. But the cold and mosquitoes combined made it
almost impossible. On no other occasion have I ever
found mosquitoes so active in such a low temperature.

At midnight Ray got up, and went over to the con-
ductor of the train and made a bargain with him to
take us to Kasota (which was as far as he went with
the train) for I dol. 50 cents each, which was much
under the regular fare. This is very commonly done in
the States by the conductors, who put the money in
their own pockets. Next day we were in Kasota, a

32Iowa and Minnesota

very pretty little place with lots of timber; indeed,
Southern and Central Minnesota seem generally well
wooded. We found there was a freight train leaving
this town at one o'clock, and I went over to find the
conductor. I asked him what he would take two of us
to St. Paul for. He said,4 Two dollars each.' Now we
had by this time only three dollars and three-quarters
left, so I told him that wouldn't do, stating how our
finances were, and offering him three and a half dollars.
After refusing several times, finally he said, 4 Very well,
you can come along, though I expect you will shake a
fifty dollar bill at me when you get to St. Paul.' How
devoutly I wished it had been in my power! We
jumped into the caboose, and at eleven o'clock that
night we arrived in St Paul. We had then 25 cents
between us, which was very encouraging to think of.
Five cents of this we gave to the brakeman of our train
to show us a car to sleep in. We found one half filled
with sawed lumber, crawled into it, spread our blankets,
and lay down while our friend held the lantern. His
last words were: 4 Mind you get out before four o'clock,
or you will go down south again.' After about three
hours' sleep we were wakened by the yardmen switching
or shunting the car, and making up our bundles we
dropped them out and followed them when the car
next stopped. Near at hand we found a little platform
about eight feet square, by a house right in the middle
of the railroad yard. On this we spread our blankets,
and only woke to find it broad daylight, seven o'clock,
and men working all round us. We rolled up again,
and in silence went up into the town.
C	33CHAPTER IV

in st. paul

We placed our blankets and valises in a small restaurant
and walked to the post-office. I asked four men the
way to this building, and of these only the last could
speak intelligible English, such are the numbers of Ger-
mans and Scandinavians in some parts of the States. I
found two post-cards from my brother; one of which
stated he was working near the town, giving me an
address, and the other, dated two weeks later, gave me
to understand that he had been unable to remain in St.
Paul owing to scarcity of work, and that he had left the
city for New Orleans by the river steamboats. This
was not very satisfactory for me, for I had cherished
some little hope that he might have been either in a
position to help me to work or to repay me some
money which I lent him at Ennis Creek. Now I and
my partner were truly on our 4 beam-ends/ and twenty
cents alone stood between us and absolute bankruptcy.
We walked from the post-office round the corner and
sat down on a seat in the public park. As considera-
tion, however, was in no way likely to appease our
hunger, which was now beginning to be inconveniently
perceptible, I left Ray and went to see what could be
got for our cash remainder in the shape of breakfast.

34In St. Paul

After tramping a while I bought a loaf for ten cents
and butter for the rest, and we were now ' dead broke.'
Ray was sitting in the same position as I had left
him in, having no energy to move, poor fellow, and it
was with difficulty I got him out of the seat to come and
look for a quiet place in which to consume the luxuries
with which I was laden. A neighbouring lumber-yard
seemed suitable, and we found a convenient plank on
which I put the paper of salty butter, while I divided
the loaf with my knife.

This was a nice meal for two hungry men, but we
were glad enough to get it under the circumstances,
and since then a loaf would at times have been a very
godsend even without the butter. I was sorrier for Ray
than for myself, for a cup of coffee or tea with his meal
would have done him good, and it was as unattainable
as champagne or oysters and chablis. When we had
finished the bread I wrapped up the remains of the
butter and hid it between two planks in a dark corner
of the lumber pile, for I thought it possible that we
might want it, though there seemed little likelihood of
our having bread with it. As we still had tobacco, we
lighted our pipes and walked slowly along the street,
wondering where the next meal was to come from.
Perhaps, if I were placed in the same situation again, I
should not, in the light of far bitterer experience, regard
it as so dismal, and my increased knowledge and savoir
faire in things American would show me ways out
where I then saw, as it were,' No thoroughfare' plainly
written.

Ray was really too ill to * rush round,' and he was

35The Western Avernus

quite a deadweight on me, for he was hopeless. In
ordinary circumstances his knowledge would have
helped me, but all it did now was to recall pessimistic-
ally the blackest side of his former experience. He
thought it almost worse than useless to go to an em-
ployment office without money, and so it seemed to
me. But when I left him on the park-seat, and began
to look around without the dear fellow's most dismal
croaking to dishearten me, I plucked up courage, after
making vain inquiries in various quarters, to try an
Employment Agency whose chalked board outside
gave evidence of labour needed in many different lines
of business. There were fifty men wanted to work on
the streets. This I considered was very probable, con-
sidering the state they were in. There were more
wanted for the waterworks. This, too, would be no
work of supererogation. There were teamsters, dairy-
men, and various others whose services were desired.
I walked in and spoke to the manager, who, finding I
professed not to be a teamster, though I could drive
reasonably well, nor a milkman, for lack of practice,
offered me the less lucrative and probably more toilsome
job of labourer at the waterworks for the moderate fee
of one dollar. Never had the great American dollar
assumed such a gigantic size to me. Never had it
seemed so far away. Liberty in her cap was fairly
invisible, and the imagined scream of the bold eagle on
the reverse was ■ faint and far/

4 Well, mister,' said I,' I have not got a dollar/

< What have you got ?' was his answer, thinking, I
suppose, that I might have 99 cents. I surprised him.

36In ST.

Paul

41 've got a partner.'

4 Has he any money !'

I might have answered in the language of Artemus
Ward—4 nary cent/ but it did not occur to me.

4 He 's got as much as I have, and that's nix' (corrupt
German for * nichts').

My friend looked at me, having no further remarks to
make. I felt a crisis had come.

4 Suppose you send us both out and ask the boss to
stop two dollars from our wages on your account.
Won't this do ! You see we want work ; we've got to
have it. That's a fact.'

The manager walked to his big desk, wrote a note,
sealed it, gave it to me, and said, ' Come here at two
o'clock, and you can go out to the works with the
provision wagon.' I thanked him very quietly and
walked out.

Ray was as I left him. I composed my countenance
to sombre dolorousness, and sat down beside him,
grunting out 'Got any tobacco?' No, the last was
gone. He seemed so miserable that I thought it cruel
to deceive him by my looks any longer, and laughed
till I woke him fairly up, and he saw by the twinkle
in my eyes that I had been in luck. 4 So you've got
work?' 'Yes,' said I, 'and you too; we go out this
afternoon to the waterworks.'

How hard must be one's lot when the news that it
is possible to earn a dollar and three-quarters a day,
by ten hours of hard manual labour, acts like a very
tonic and braces up the whole man ! Ray was for the
rest of the day quite a new being, in spite of his hunger,

37The Western Avernus

which half a small loaf in the morning had not gone
far to appease. As for myself, I laughed and joked,
and, thinking I should be quite happy if I had some
tobacco, I managed to get into conversation with a
man near us, borrowed a pipeful, and smoked in calm
content.

At two o'clock we found the wagon at the office,
put our blankets in it, and set out on our walk, which
was seven miles, to the works. After a while, finding
the wagon move but slowly and the road plain before
us, we walked on ahead, and when we had made about
two-thirds of the way we came on three teamsters who
were having dinner. They gave us a friendly hail, and,
whether they fancied we looked hungry or not, kindly
asked us to sit down with them and 'pile in/ which
being interpreted signifies,' Pitch in and eat/ Under
the circumstances such an invitation was by no means
to be despised, and accordingly we consumed all there
was, yea, even unto the last crust, taking an occasional
drink at a very convenient spring, our companions
chatting merrily the while and laughing at my semi-
tragical, semi-comic account of our adventures since
leaving Chicago. These were three good fellows.

After another mile or two's walk we came in sight
of the camp, which consisted of two huge tents on the
flat and two more on the side of the hill. We could
see a great trench or sewer cut in the ground with
derricks swinging up large iron buckets of dirt, and
men busily employed digging lower down, breaking the
ground on the line laid out for excavation, while some
were laying beams in the cut to prevent the sides from

38In St. Paul

caving in. So down we went and presented our letter.
The boss asked if we had had dinner, and as we said
4 No/—thinking it still possible to eat more—he told the
cook to give us some, which we had little trouble in
getting rid of. And then we went to work with a gang
whose boss was called Weed, one of the nicest and most
kindly men I ever worked under.

However, what he first set me to do very nearly
finished me. I had to take a big unwieldy maul, or
mallet, and drive down boards into the mud and ooze
at one side of the ditch, as they were then cutting
through a kind of quicksand. The last week had not
made me very much stronger, as may be imagined, and
it was only sheer necessity which made me stick to it
But I had to do something, and this was all that
seemed to offer itself. Next day was even worse, for I
had a big Irishman with me, and as we had to strike
one after the other, he made it as hard as he could by
working too fast. I had some difficulty in refraining
from making a mistake and striking him. However,
that evening I made a friend of Weed by offering to
splice the rope into the big bucket. This had been
done so execrably by another man that, when I turned
out a neat and creditable job, he made things as
pleasant as he could for me.

We were working with as rough and as mixed a
crowd as it has ever been my lot to come in contact
with. There were Americans from most of the various
States and Territories, there were some Englishmen,
and a promiscuous crew of Canadian and European
French, Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Finns,

39The Western Avernus

Polanders, Austrians, Italians, and one or two
Mexicans. I didn't see a Turk, but I wouldn't like to
say there was none.

We slept in a big tent with about fifty men in it.
There were upper and lower bunks, each holding two
men. Ray and I secured a top one, and had for our
left-hand companions two Swedes, while on our right
was an Irishman and an American named Jack Dunn.
I do not know what State he was from. This man
was feared by every one in the tent. He was to all
appearance exceedingly powerful, and, when in a bad
temper, ferocious and ready to quarrel 4 at the drop of
a hat,' as the American saying goes. At first he
seemed to dislike me, and made some remarks about
Englishmen in general which I declined in such
company to make any cause for a disturbance. In a
day or two, however, he distinguished me by honour-
ing me with his friendship, and we would talk for
hours while lying in our bunks, none of the rest
caring to object, even if they wanted to sleep.

He had not been two weeks out of jail when I saw
him, and he gave me accounts of how he got in and
how he got out. And both showed him to be a des-
perate man, and most uncommonly courageous.

It appeared he had been firing in a Mississippi steam-
boat, and while he was in the stokehold one of the
negroes came past him with a box and struck him on

the elbow. 'I cussed the black-,' said Jack, 'and

he answered me back. I never could stand sass from
a nigger, and I picked up a lump of coal and threw it
at him. He didn't give me any more talk. He died

40In St. Paul

by the time we made the next landing, and you bet I
just lighted out in the dark. They were after me, but
it was more than a month before they took me. So I
got eighteen months' hard labour for manslaughter.
I thought of escaping, but couldn't see a chance, and
had been there nine months when another chap escaped.
I was just mad to think that one man had the grit in
him to skip, while I lay in the thundering hole still, but
when it came out how he tried, I didn't care for that
way. You see his partner four days after told how it
was. He had crawled down a drain. The warder got to
hear of it and of course off he goes to the governor. The
governor just said, " If he went that way, he's in there
yet." For you see there was a grating or bars across
the drain 120 feet down it. Down they goes to see it,
and sure enough there was a mighty bad smell came
out there. 'T would pretty nigh knock you down. The
governor he gets us all out and tells us this: "Now,
boys," sez he, " I want No. 20 out of there, and if I
break down to him it will take days and days, for it's all
solid stone and concrete over where he is ; and, besides,
it will cost a pile o' money. Now, if there's anybody
here with a sentence of less than two years, I '11 see that
he shall get half of the full term remitted, if he '11 go
down that pipe and fetch him out."

4 Well, we all just looked at each other ; some seemed
as if they'd speak, some turned red and pale. I thought
my heart was a-bursting, I heard it go thump, thump.
At first I couldn't speak too, but I thought if another
chap speaks afore me I'd just kill him as I did the
nigger. I holds up my hand, and when the governor

41The Western Avernus

looked at me I says in a kind of queer voice, as seemed
to belong to somebody else, " I'll do it, sir." The other
chaps looked at me. Mebbe they thought I was as
good as dead too. Some looked glad, as if I'd kind o'
took the 'sponsibility off 'em. And how did I feel ? I
guess I felt all right in less than a minute. You see I
was tired of the stone walls, and I seemed to see the
river outside, and feel the wind coming right through
the solid jail, so I kind of freshened up.

' Well, the boss he dismissed the other men, and him
and me and two or three of the warders goes down to
the pipe. I can't tell you just what size it was. It was
just big enough for me to squeeze into. There was a
coil of rope, about as thick as my thumb, and after
taking off all my clothes but a flannel shirt and drawers
and socks, I coils a yard or two round my shoulders,
catches hold with my hand, and got in, with the rope
tied round my heels so they could drag me and him out

4 They told me I wasn't in more than twenty minutes.
Dunno. Seems to me I served nine months in there;
the stink was just terrible, and the farther I got in the
worse it was. And breathing! Jehosaphat! I panted
like a tired dog, and I thought I would burst. Some-
times I seemed to kind o' swell up, and I couldn't move.
And then dark as it was, I seemed to see fire and
sparks, and my eyes were hot, and I thought they was
a-dropping out. One time I think I got insensible, but
I suppose I kept on crawlin', for the warder that paid
out the rope sez I never stopped till I got him. Oh yes,
I got him, after crawlin' through all the narrow drains
in America, drawin miles of rope that got so heavy and

42In St. Paul

hard to drag that every inch seemed the last I could go.
Christ, I wouldn't do it for the world again ! Before I
knew it I touched something cold and clammy with my
burning hands, and I shrunk up as if I'd touched a
jelly-fish swimming in muddy water. I got a hitch
over his heels, and they tightened up the rope; as I
told 'em to do if I stopped and gave it a pull. And
I don't remember anything more till I found myself
outside in the air, with something lying near me covered
with a tarpaulin. The doctor was bending over me,
washing the blood off my face, for draggin' me out
insensible I got scratched in the face on the pipe-joints,
you see. I lay in the hospital two days, and every time
I went to sleep I dreamt I was in therewith No. 20.
Then they let me out, and I came here. Good-night,
partner.'

There was also in the same tent a man named Gunn,
a very fine-looking young fellow, from Maine, who had
been three years in British Columbia, where, according
to his own account, he had earned a great deal of money
by making ' ties' or sleepers for the Canadian Pacific
Railroad. This he had spent in seeing his friends.
And he was now trying to make a 'stake,' or a sum
sufficient to take him back there. We had a great deal
of conversation about that country, and I was infected
with the desire of seeing it. It used to seem to me in
England that it was almost the farthest place from
anywhere in the world, and this had some effect in
forming my plans, as I was too adventurous to remain
satisfied in such a well-known, near-at-hand spot as
Minnesota.

43The Western Avernus

I stayed at the works twelve days, during which time
I worked with the pick and shovel, rigged derricks,
spliced ropes, and mixed mortar for the bricklayers,
as the water was to run through a brick tunnel instead
of iron pipes, where the quicksand was. On one
occasion the man I was working with irritated me, and
I went over to Weed and asked him to give me my
'time'—i.e. to make up what time I had worked there
in order that I might get my money. He said,' Oh,
nonsense; what's the matter with you ? I think you 're
a little bad-tempered this morning. I don't want you
to go away, so go back to work.' I went back and
stayed four more days, but so anxious was I to get
away from such detestable work and companions that I
made all the overtime that I could. At last I worked
one day ten hours in the ditch, went to supper at six,
at seven came back, and with a little German for
partner, pumped all night till six in the morning, then
had breakfast, slept two and a half hours, worked from
9.30 till six in the evening, and after supper again went
out pumping till midnight. At a quarter to twelve I
lay down on a pile of loose bricks, as we were pumping
turn and turn about, and fell asleep. At midnight two
others came to relieve us, and it was with difficulty
they woke me up.

Next morning I got what money was coming to
me and went into town. Ray would not come, so
I shook hands with him, bidding him farewell. I
now had a new partner, who was not so much to my
mind as Ray, and of entirely different character. Pat
M'Cormick was an American Irishman who had lived

44V *'*!



ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC.

[tofitcep. 45.In St. Paul

mostly in Michigan and Wisconsin, working in the
pine-woods and 4 driving' on the rivers. This driving
is taking the logs, which are sledded to the rivers from
where they are cut, down into the lakes, and is a
hazardous and laborious employment. The drivers
are wet for weeks together, and mostly up to their
middles in icy water; they stand on the logs going
down rapids which would destroy a boat, they ease
them over the shoals, and break 4jams' that occur
when some logs get caught and those floating behind
them are stopped by them. Pat was a great drinker,
which unfortunately I did not find out till too late,
and besides, utterly reckless, though good-tempered to
an extreme when sober.

We walked into town, creating some little amuse-
ment in the more respectable streets by our appearance.
I had still my big-brimmed Texas hat on me, which
at the camp had earned me the title of 'Texas,' under
which sobriquet I went for many months, as it was
passed on from one acquaintance of mine to another.
Our boots were long knee-boots, and of course un-
cleaned, and our blankets looked as if we had just come
off the tramp.

We walked round a little, and presently came to an
employment office. Outside was a large notice :

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD
In British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains

iooo Labourers wanted at good wages.

100 Tie-makers wanted by the day, or by the piece.

Steady work guaranteed for two years.

45The Western Avernus

Perhaps, if I had not spoken with Gunn at the
camp, I might have passed this by, but his eulogistic
account of British Columbia had made me rather
anxious to go there. Besides, the natural tendency
of every one seems to be to go west in America. In
Australia I had found it impossible to avoid getting
farther and farther into the heart of the country, and
it is possible that, if I had not made at last a deter-
mined effort to get back to Melbourne, I should in
time have come out at the Gulf of Carpentaria. Here
I had to go west, under the direction of destiny,
epitomised in Horace Greely's ' Go west, young man,
and grow up with the country.'

We went in, and found that the fee required was
8 J dols., or about 35 s., for which we were to be carried
1600 miles through Canada to the Rocky Mountains.
As M'Cormick had insufficient money, I did for him
what Ray Kern had done for me in Chicago—paid the
extra amount, and, having bought provisions with the
balance of our money, we went off to spend the day
as best we could, for we were not to start till the
following morning. That night we crossed the river,
and finding a pile of hay in front of an unfinished
house we crawled into it and slept very well there.
Next morning we found ourselves on our way with
about one hundred companions, some of whom were in
various stages of intoxication, while others were in the
deepest dumps consequent on such a state.

46CHAPTER V

to manitoba and the rockies

It was the morning of August 7th that I left St. Paul.
With our last money, as I said, we had bought pro-
visions, which consisted of a couple of loaves, some
cheese, and a long sausage, with a few onions and two
or three green peppers. After buying this I had twenty-
five cents left.

All the 7th was consumed in running north from
St. Paul to the Canadian line, which from the Lake
of the Woods to the Gulf of Georgia follows the forty-
ninth parallel of latitude. After getting clear of the
Minnesota forests we ran into the Red River Valley,
which to the eye seems a perfectly level plain, green
and grassy, but absolutely treeless. At nightfall we
were at Glyndon, a few miles from the Dakota line
and Fargo. At midnight we passed the Dominion
line at St. Vincent and were in Manitoba, through
the whole extent of which the same character of the
country prevails as in Northern Minnesota. We
reached Winnipeg that morning, and I devoted an
hour to seeing what I could of the town, which seemed
to me to be an entirely execrable, flourishing and
detestable business town, flat and ugly and new.
The climate is said to be two months black flies, two

47The Western Avernus

months dust, and the remainder of the year mud and
snow. The temperature in winter goes down some-
times to sixty degrees below zero, which the inhabi-
tants will often tell you is not disagreeable; 4 if you
are well wrapped up, as the Polar bear said when he
practised his skating,' I thought.

My partner, M'Cormick, came to me a few minutes
before the train started and asked if I had any money.

4 What for?' said I.

Pat was ready with his answer. s If you have, it
won't be any good after leaving here, and I want some
whisky.'

' Well, Mac, if I give it you, you '11 get drunk.'

' Drunk! I never was drunk in my life. Come,
Texas, you may as well. What's the good of money
if you don't spend it ?'

4 If I do,' I answered, 4 you '11 repent it before long,
you bet your life; and as to your never being drunk,
why, you're drunk now.' And so he was, for some
of the others had been passing the bottle round freely.
But it wasn't any use trying to put him off, so, for
the sake of peace and quietness, I let him have the
last twenty-five cents I had, and he got a small flask
of whisky.

As I refused to drink any he drank most of it himself,
with the result that he began quarrelling with one of a
bridge-gang who boarded the train at Winnipeg. The
altercation would have been amusing if Mac hadn't
kept on appealing to me, trying to drag me into his
troubles. He called the bridgeman a very opprobrious
name, and for a moment there was great danger of a

48Eg

fesis*

A TRESTLE BRIDGE ON THE C. P. R

[to face p. 49.To Manitoba and the Rockies

4 rough house' out* of-hand. Mac wanted him to get
off the train when it stopped to have it out, but the
other man, though not very peaceable by any means,
was not so drunk as my partner, and had sense enough
not to get left on the prairie for the sake of a fight. So
they sat opposite each other wrangling for hours, while
I expected their coming to blows every moment.
Presently Mac came over to me.

' Texas, give me your six-shooter/

41 haven't got one.'

'Oh yes, you have ; I know it's in your blankets. I
want it.'

'Well, Mac,' I said, getting a little mad, 'in the
blankets or not, you won't get it.'

Mac went off, muttering that I was a pretty partner
not to help him. Presently the bridgeman came over
and sat down by my side. He began with drunken
courtesy:

'Sir, I thank you for not giving *him your gun.
Perhaps you saved my life.' Then getting ferocious :
'Not that I'm scared of him.' Then a short silence,
and glaring fiercely at me: 'Nor of you either. I've
seen cow-boys, bigger men than you, and with bigger
hats too, but they didn't tire me. No, they didn't tire
me any.'

' That's good, pard,' said I; ' don't get tired on my
account. I'm a quiet man, and don't often kill any-
body.'

He looked at me for a while, muttering, and got up
to go, saying, 'Oh no, he can't scare this chicken, bet
your life.'

D	49The Western Avernus

A great many kept taking me for a regular cow-boy
who had got out of his latitude, especially as Mac
would always call me Texas. And to illustrate the
absurd ideas so prevalent about the cow-boy, I may
mention that when we were about to approach Moose
Jaw, in the North-west Provinces, which are Prohibition
Territories where whisky is forbidden, I went into the
next car to ours for a drink of water. There was a
little boy, about ten years old, there with his father and
mother, and it is evident he had heard them speaking
about it being forbidden to introduce spirits into
Assiniboia and Alberta. So after he had taken a
furtive and somewhat awe-stricken look at my hat,
which, I am bound to say, was of extremely formidable
brim, with the leather gear on it so much affected by
Southern cow-boys, he turned to his father, saying, ' Pa,
if the police knew a cow-boy had whisky, do you think
they would search him V Of course the little fellow
thought the hat a sure sign of a desperate character,
whose belt was certainly full of six-shooters and bowie-
knives, and whose mind ran on murder and scalping.

At Moose Jaw, where we remained for some few
minutes, there were a number of Cree Indians, bucks
and squaws, some of whom came begging to us. These
were the reddest, most bronzy Indians I ever saw.
They used, I believe, to be constantly at war with the
Blackfeet, who live nearer the Rockies.

I paid but very little attention to the scenery as we
passed through the North-west Provinces, though it is
not so wearisome as the Manitoban dead-levels, on
account of the prairie being somewhat rolling, with

50To Manitoba and the Rockies

numerous lakes upon it, the haunt of flocks of wild-
fowl. But the country is uninhabited. It seems to me
that we passed over nearly 600 miles of plain without
seeing a town or any habitation save a few small
houses of the section gangs. Of the millions of buffaloes
that used to be on these prairies there are no signs save
bones to be seen. In the United States they have
about 300 head in the Yellowstone Park, and it is said
there are a few on the Llano Estacado, or Staked
Plain, in Texas and New Mexico. Some exist, too, in
Northern Montana and Southern British Columbia, in
the most inaccessible ranges, for the process of hunting
selection has destroyed all on the prairie and given rise
to a mountain variety. I confess, for my own part,
that I have never seen one wild in all my wanderings.

At Gleichen we were told we could see the Rockies,
and I was so eager to get beyond the vile monotony of
the prairie that I had my head out of the window all
the while for hours before we got there. And I and
Mac were now rather in straits. Our food-supply gave
out after two days, and this was the middle of the
third. I had foolishly given a meal to a man who had
nothing with him at all, and we were now suffering
ourselves, staying our increasing appetites with tobacco.
It does not, I imagine, predispose one to revel in heroic
scenery for one's baser mechanism to go in pain and
hollowness; but perhaps I had arrived at a stage of
ascetic ecstasy, for I hardly thought of such needs the
whole of that day, and was content in hunger until
night blinded my vision and brought my soaring spirit
back to its more material casing.

5iThe Western Avernus

At Gleichen I could just discern the first faint line
of the far Rocky Mountains, hung like a bodiless cloud
in the air over the level plain. As we ran farther west
it grew by slow gradations more and more distinct,
until at last the sharp, fine, jagged outline stood out
clear against the blue. Yet underneath that line was
nothing, not even the ghost of the huge solidity of
mountain walls. It was still thin, impalpable as faint
motionless smoke, yet by the steadfastness of peak and
pinnacle a recognised awful and threatening barrier.

We came to Calgary, a flourishing and well-known
town. Here numerous Blackfeet had their teepees, or
wigwams. I shook hands with two of this tribe, the
most noble of the Indians. Two tall old men they
were, one with smooth, tight skin and glittering eyes,
calm, steadfast, and majestic ; the other cut and carved
by a million wrinkles, but strong and upright, with a
kindly smile. Ye two of the Indians who pass away, I
salute you ! Vos morituros saluto!

Before Calgary we had crossed the Bow River, swift
and blue, and heavenly and crystal, born of the moun-
tains and fresh from snowfield and glacier. As we left
the town we ran on the right bank, and being now
among the first of the lower hills which buttress up the
mountains from the plain, we went more slowly up
grade, looking down into the stream far below. The
sun was shining, the air clear and warm, the flowers
blooming on every earthy spot, and the grass yet green.

In a few hours we ran up to the real entrance of the
Bow Pass. Tired of straining my neck out of window,
I left the passenger-car and climbed upon one of the

52To Manitoba and the Rockies

freight-cars in front, and, spite of choking smoke, cinder
and ash, I kept my place till we ran into the heart of
the mountains and night as well, for I wished to be
alone with the hills.

It was the first time in my life that I had seen
mountains. I had been in Cumberland, it is true, and
seen Skiddaw; I had climbed Cader Idris, and had
lain there for hours, watching the vast stretch of sea
and river and mountain; I had been on the Devon hills
and on Derbyshire's peak. But these are not mountains
of snow and fire perpetual. They are, it may be,
haunted with ancient legend, but their newer garments
of story and fable have clothed their primaeval naked-
ness. We love them, but have no awe of them. They
have no divinity. But the untouched virgin peaks of
snow, the rocky pinnacles where eagles sun themselves
in swift and icy air, the dim and scented pine-woods,
the haunt of bears, the gorges of glaciers, and the
birthplace of rivers, these are sacred.

We are thousands of feet above the plain. Look
back, and look your last on the vast and hazy prairie
beneath you! In a moment you shall have passed the
barrier and be among the hills, you shall be within the
labyrinth and maze. Here is a vast gorge, now broad
with sloping bastions of opposing fortresses on either
hand, now narrow with steepest walls and impending
rocks threatening the calm lakes that catch their
shadows and receive their reflections. Even as you
look do they not nod with possible thunderous ava-
lanche, or is it the play only of shadow from opposite
peak and pinnacle? How these are cut and scarped to

53The Western Avernus

all conceivable fantasy of art and inconceivable majesty
of nature, how they are castled and upheld with arch
and bridge and flying buttress! This is the aisle of
the Great Cathedral of the Gods ; this is the cave of
/Eolus, the home of the hurricane; this is the lofty spot
most beloved by the sunlight, for here come the first of
the day beams, and here they linger last on rosy snow
covering the rock whose massy base lies in the under
shadow.

I was in a land of phantasm, and the memory remains
with me as a broken dream of wonder. As I write I
catch from that past day shifting pictures, and, half seen,
one dissolves into the next, to give way in turn in the
kaleidoscope to some other symbol of the seen. For
memories of such a pageant as a man sees only once in
a lifetime are but as conventional signs and symbols
for the painting of the unpaintable, of the foam and
thunder of the stormy seas, of the golden sunset, of the
fleece of floating cloud. So we ran on into the night
and I slept, with eyes and imagination jaded, at the end
of our journey on the western slope of the Great Divide
of the Continent, where the waters flow towards the set
of sun.

It is almost as painful to me as I write to come back
again to the more solid facts of my journey as it was to
be hungry. The troubles we pass through vanish from
our memories and the pleasures remain, as the gold is
caught in the sluice-box while the earth and mud run
out in turbid rush of water. Now I love to think only of
the beauty I saw, and the pain drops away from me as I
dream my toils over again. But the pain was real then.

54To Manitoba and the Rockies

On the morning when we woke in the Rockies we
found ourselves at the end of the track. We had come
nearly as far as the rails were laid, and quite as far as
the passenger-cars were allowed to run. Round me I
saw the primaeval forest torn down, cut and hewed and
hacked, pine and cedar and hemlock. Here and there
lay piles of ties, and near them, closely stacked, thousands
of rails. The brute power of man's organised civilisation
had fought with Nature and had for the time vanquished
her. Here lay the trophies of the battle.

The morning was clear and glorious, the air chill and
keen, and through it one could see with marvellous
distinctness the farthest peaks and the slender pines
cresting the shoulders of the hills 3000 feet above us.
Before us stood the visible iron symbol of Power
Triumphant—the American locomotive. She was ready
to run a train of cars with stores of all kinds ten
miles farther on, and now her whistle screamed. Echo
after echo rang from the hills as the sound was thrown
from one to the other, from side to side in the close
valley, until it died like the horns of Elfland. We were
to go with her, and all clambered in. Some sat on the
top, some got in empty cars, with the side doors open.
I was in one with about twenty others. I sat down by
the door, opened my blankets and put them round me,
for the cold grew more intense as we moved through
the air, and watched the panorama.

By this time I was absolutely starving, as it was now
the third day since I had had a really satisfactory meal,
and from Calgary to the Summit Mac and I had eaten
nothing. So we were glad when our train stopped and

55The Western Avernus

let us alight. We were received by a man who acted
as a sort of agent for the company. He got us in group
and read over the list of names furnished him by the
conductor of the train, to which about a hundred
answered. He then told us we were to go much farther
down the pass, that we should have to walk about
forty miles, and that we could get breakfast where we
then were for twenty-five cents. It was about time to
speak, and, as nobody else did, although I well knew
there were dozens with no money in the crowd, I
stepped up and wanted to know what those were to do
who had no money, adding that I and my partner were
4 dead broke.' And after this open confession of mine
the rest opened their mouths too, until at last it appeared
that the moneyed members of the gang were in a
very small minority. Our friend agreed that we
couldn't be expected to go without food, and we had
our meals on the understanding that the cost was to
be deducted from our first pay. We had breakfast and
set out on our forty miles tramp down the Kicking
Horse Pass.

56THE CHANCELLOR, LEANCHOIL.

[to face p. 57.CHAPTER VI

THE KICKING HORSE PASS

I HAVE said there were about a hundred of us, and soon
we were all strung out in a long line, each man carrying
blankets and a valise, and some of us both. I had
had in earlier days much experience in travelling, and
took care not to overburden myself, as so many of the
others did, who were on their first tramp; for the
ease with which it was made possible to leave the
crowded cities of the East, combined with the hard
times, had brought a miscellaneous throng of men to
British Columbia, many of whom had never worked in
the open air, but only in stores and shops, whilst there
were many who had never worked at all. It was quite
pitiful to see some little fellow, hardly more than a boy,
who had hitherto had his lines cast in pleasant places,
bearing the burden of two valises or portmanteaus,
doubtless filled with good store of clothes made by his
mother and sisters, while the sweat rolled off him as
he tramped along bent nearly double. Perhaps next to
him there would be some huge, raw-boned labourer
whose belongings were tied up in a red handkerchief
and suspended to a stick. I had a light pair of blankets
and a small valise, which Mac carried for me, as he had
nothing of his own. My blankets I made up into a loop

57The Western Avernus

through which I put my head, letting the upper part
rest on my left shoulder, the lower part fitting just
above my hips on the right side. This is by far the
most comfortable and easy way of carrying them, save
in very hot weather.

We tramped along, Mac and I, cheerfully enough,
very nearly at the tail of the whole gang, as we were in
no hurry, and were yet somewhat weak. Presently
Mac picked up with another companion, leaving me
free to look about me without answering his irresponsible
chatter or applauding his adventures in Wisconsin,
where it appears he had very nearly killed some one
for nothing at all while he was drunk, as usual when
not working.

I am fain to confess that my memories of the next
two days are so confused that, whether Tunnel Moun-
tains came before the Kicking Horse Lake or whether
it didn't, whether we crossed one, two, or three rivers
before we got to Porcupine Creek, whether it was one
mountain fire we saw, or two or more, I can hardly say
with any certainty. All was so new and wonderful
to me that one thing drove the other out of my head,
and when I think it was so while I was walking slowly,
I am lost in astonishment to see so many fluently
describe mountain passes they have traversed in the
train. I am afraid the guide-books must be a great aid
to them.

Tunnel Mountain was more like a gigantic cliff than
a mountain. One could see the vast rock run up
perpendicularly till it passed above the lower clouds.
High from where I stood, perhaps 3000 feet above me,

58The Kicking Horse Pass

was a thin white line, which I was told was a glacier
300 feet thick. A thousand feet above us, small and
hard to be distinguished against the grey-brown rock,
were men working with ropes round them at a vein of
silver ore. How they had gained such a position I
cannot think, and how they maintained it, working with
chisel and mallet in the keen air and frost of that
elevation, is a greater puzzle. They must have looked
down and seen us crawling on the ground like ants.
The roar of the river, though at places it almost deafened
us, must have been like a bee's murmur, and when the
crash of a big blast hurled the rocks into the stream
the report would come to them as a distant smothered
roar.

The short tunnel ran through the outside of this cliff,
and, just beyond, a roaring tributary of the Kicking
Horse River made a bridge necessary. This was not
finished then, but it had to be crossed, for there was no
other way. It was sufficiently perilous. Along the
cross-pieces of the bridge lay the stringers, pieces of
timber 8 inches by 12 inches by 16 feet; these were set
on their 8-inch side, two together on each side of the
bridge, each couple at varying distances, sometimes
close together and sometimes running so far apart one
could scarcely straddle them. And these were not
bolted down, but were loose and trembling. This was
the path across! Had one fallen, nothing could save
him, especially if heavily burdened, for there were but
the large lower timbers to catch hold of, and underneath,
fifty feet below, sharp rocks and a roaring stream of
water.

59The Western Avernus

At one place we came to a river or large creek
running over a flat with a very swift current, but still
not boisterously or with any huge rocks in it. As the
road ran into it on one side and emerged on the other,
we could see it was fordable. But still no one seemed
to like the prospect of wading through a stream whose
current might be strong enough to carry a man off
his legs and the water of which was icy cold. One
by one the stragglers came up, until nearly our full
crowd was congregated on the river bank. We looked
for some wagons to come by, but could see none. At
last, after trying in vain to persuade some of the others
to venture in, I took off my trousers, boots, and socks,
and with these hung round my neck I waded into the
water. It was bitterly cold, especially as it was now a
warm day with pleasant air and sun, and the stream
washed against me so that I had to lean up against the
current. The others stood watching me, giving me an
occasional word of encouragement or a yell of delight
at my strange appearance. After a considerable struggle
I emerged on the farther bank in a red glow. But my
luck in another way was bad. Just as I got out a wagon
came round the corner to meet me, and in it was a
woman—about the only one we had seen since we had
left the summit or the end of the track. She burst into
laughter at the ridiculous cranelike figure I cut, standing
with my garments and long boots hung about me. I
turned and sat down in the grass and made myself
decent as soon as possible. In the meantime, much to
my disgust, some wagons came up and carried the other
men across. I had all my trouble for nothing, and my

60The Kicking Horse Pass

glorious example was lost on the crowd. After going
another couple of hundred yards we came again to a
wide stream, and this time I was myself carried over.
And then we had a long tramp along the verge of a big
mountain fire, which was crackling and smouldering
from the banks of the river to the mountain tops.

At nightfall, or rather just before it, we came to the
Porcupine Creek, another furious tributary of the main
river, and here we had supper at one of the railroad
camps. Afterwards we set about lighting fires for our
camping-ground, for we had but the shelter of the pines
that night. We dragged brush and sticks together, and
borrowing some axes from the camp we cut up some
of the trees that had been thrown down by the wind
in the winter or felled by the men who made ties.
Four fires soon lighted up our forest, and blue and
purple flames shot up, singeing the pines and sending
up sparks into the blackness overhead, where their
branches touched each other a hundred feet above. I
think those fires of mountain wood upon the mountain
always burn with far more beautiful colours than those
on plains and lowlands, for here only, in the heart of the
fire, can one see the fiery red, and over are blue and
purple interlacings and shootings of purest colour stand-
ing out against the dark background of balsam and
hemlock, while the curling smoke runs from violet to
grey and shadow.

For an hour some of us flitted about in the darkness
gathering in the firewood, and the rest lay down and
smoked, or propped themselves quietly against the tree
trunks, dreaming over the fire. It promised to be a

6lThe Western Aver n us

chilly night. The crescent moon hung over a peak
of snow, faint and new ; but the stars were jubilant and
strong, like glittering sword-points in the deep trans-
parent sky. Already behind the trees, where the
shadows from the fires threw umbra and penumbra on
the grass, were varying degrees of silvery frost, glittering
brightly on the darkest umbral cone in the moonglow,
and in the lighter shadow only chilling and stiffening
the slender, infrequent grasses and the matted bundles
of sharp pine needles. Close at hand, on the border of
the pines, the creek ran over a bed of rounded boulders,
here and there broken by a higher rock that threw a jet
of foam in air. It ran rapidly and hurriedly by, with
its shriller song all but overpowered in the deep strong
bass of the distant river of roaring cataract. Beyond
the creek, in its own shadow, for the moon's peak of
silver snow showed above the barrier, was the sombre
forest, at first a wall of solid blackness but breaking
gradually with prolonged sight into lighter brush and
black trunks below, with grey shadows and hollows
over them, and above again lighter and lighter shades
which ran to slender twigs against the blue, with here
and there one star glittering through an oriel window
of branches.

I woke at midnight and found it sharp frost The
fires had burnt to embers. Round about me in every
direction lay my companions sleeping, save one or two
unfortunates without blankets, who kept their backs
against the trunks of the pines and their heads and arms
upon their knees, crouching in a heap to retain what
heat they could in them, as they looked into the fires

62MOUNT BURGESS, EMERALD LAKE.

[to face p. 62.The Kicking Horse Pass

and wished for day, I walked out of the shadows of the
forest to the banks of the creek. The moon was sunk
deep below the sloping shoulders of her peak, and her
pale fires had died from the snow and ice. The stars
glittered more radiantly in a darker blue, and pine-wood
and mountain shadow melted into one upon the distant
slopes. Looking down the valley was vague darkness,
and when I walked a few yards from the rushing creek
I could hear plainly the wavering roar of the river
palpitating musically through the calm cold air. Save
that, there was no sound ; everything was sleeping ; and
when I turned away from the look of the red eyes of
fire that gleamed through the brush from our camping-
ground, I might fancy myself alone, with the voiceless
spirit of the mountains brooding over me, one with
the night.

But the romance of the time fell from me as I felt
the air more and more chilly, and I went to sleep again
with my commonplace partner Mac, whose ideal was, I
doubt not, a whisky bottle and nothing to do.

Next day another twenty miles through the great gap
torn in the forests for the right of way of the railroad.
The trees were hewed down, sawed and hacked in
pieces, and piled on either side, dragged by horses or
cattle. Cedar, white and red, fragrant balsam, dark
hemlock, the sheltering spruce—all the, pride of the
forest—went down before axe and saw for man's triumph.
Grey and red squirrels came peeping to see what was
being done to their troubled homes, and the striped
chipmunks ran and darted here and there quicker than
birds. We left the broad track and took the road,

63The Western Avernus

narrow and dark. Here one wagon could travel, but
another could not pass it. It was a way hewn out of
the primaeval forest; it was full of stumps and holes,
with pools of water here and there, and sloughs of mud
enough to engulf a horse. Ruts were a foot or two
deep. When a wagon met me I would climb on a log
or squeeze into the brush while it went plunging by,
threatening to drop to pieces with every shock, creaking
and complaining as for want of oil. Yet the loads were
not heavy, and the horses, for the most part, good and
well cared for. On this ' toat' or freight-road the
wagons went east during one part of the day and west
during the other.

At noon on this second day we came to the 4 Island,'
a kind of flat just above the river, and far below where
the track ran. The work here was of a severe character,
as they made a ' fill' or embankment eighty feet high, I
should think, or possibly much more. We scrambled
down the end of this and went to get dinner at the
camp on the Island. Up to this time they had always
given us our meals in the tents with knives and forks
and plates, but here the cooks brought out a huge can
of soup, some potatoes, great lumps of boijed beef,
and a pile of plates and a bucket of knives and forks.
A chorus of growls rose up on all sides. A cry was
raised for our friend the agent, who came out to view
the scene. Some of us pointed out that, if we were
to pay for our meals, we expected to be treated in a
reasonable manner, and not like hogs. Some of the
'boys' said it was a regular 'hand out,' and that we
looked like a crowd of old ' bummers.'

64The Kicking Horse Pass

4 Bummers ' is American for beggars, and a ' hand out'
is a portion of food handed out to a bummer or a tramp
at the door when he is not asked inside. The agent
looked as if he would like to say it was good enough
for us, but the crowd was too big, and too ugly in
temper, to play tricks with, and he temporised, calming
us down ; and finally, finding that we were not to be
appeased, said we need not pay for it, if we ate it or not.
We were hungry, however, and, finding it impossible to
get a spread, we had to make the best of it; and soon
all of us were fighting for knives and plates and spoons
and soup. We sat round in groups, growling and eating
like a lot of bears.

After dinner we started out again, passing a railroad
camp every half-mile or so ; and now we began to leave
at each place some of our number, whenever any of the
contractors were in need of more men. Mac and I
were told with some others to stay at Ross and
M'Dermott's camps ; but When we got there, for some
reason or another we did not like the look of the place,
and concluded that we would take things into our own
hands and go farther on. After leaving this camp we
came to Robinson and Early's, and next to the large
camp at Corey's, where they were making a tunnel
through blue clay. This was called the Mud Tunnel.
We passed on a little farther, and came to a sub-
contractor's. At this point we met the agent, who had
gone ahead of us on horseback. He reined up and said :
' Didn't I tell you fellows to stay at Ross and
M'Dermott's ?'

i Yes,' answered Mac.

e	65The Western Avernus

' Well, why didn't you ?'

4 Oh, we didn't care about that place.'

4 What do you want then ? If you go on any farther
I can't give you any more meals.'

I myself did not care about going any farther, and
said so.

4 Then you can work at Corey's if you like.'

I turned to Mac and said,' Come, Mac, what's the
good of fooling ; come with me.'

i No back tracks, Texas. I '11 stay here.'

It was settled finally that he should stay and work
with the sub-contractor, and I went back to Corey's
with the agent. When I got there it was dark, and
supper was over. I had a little to eat, and slept that
night in one of the dining-tents, under the table, while
above me slept a New Brunswicker named Scott, who
was to be my greatest friend hereafter both in British
Columbia and California. He has often told me since
that my last words that night were: ' I go to sleep
to-night lulled to slumber by the music of the Kicking
Horse.'

66THE KICKING HORSE RIVER.

[to face p. 67.CHAPTER VII

THE RAILROAD CAMPS

OUR camp was right on the banks of the river, which
ran in a sharp curve round the base of the hill through
which the tunnel was being cut. The Kicking Horse
was furious as usual there, rushing at the rocks which
impeded its course and breaking about them in foam,
or leaping with a swing and a dive over the lower and
more rounded boulders. Beyond it, on the other bank,
was a thick wall of pine and fir, and overhead the vast
slope of mountain. Our side was decorated with a
medley of various-shaped tents, round and square and
oblong, so that it was difficult at night for a stranger to
avoid tripping himself up with the pegs and ropes, or
half strangling himself with the stays carried from the
ridge-poles to the trees growing about all the encamp-
ment. Besides the tents there were two large log-huts
or shanties, built out of half-squared timbers with the
bark only partly removed, and up a little slope, on the
other side of the road which ran through the camp,
stood a little log-house and kitchen for the accommo-
dation of some of the ' bosses' and the head contractors.
Beyond this the hill ran up gradually into a maze of
fallen timber, with one little melancholy cleared space,
where a simple and rude grave held the body of an

67The Western Avernus

unknown and friendless man who had been killed some
short time before i came. And still farther on was the
summit of the low hill under which the tunnel was to
be, and above again mountain piled on mountain.

There must have been a hundred or more men
employed at this work, which was of a hazardous and
dangerous character. The hill was being attacked on
both sides at once, and at the west end, down stream,
the tunnel was advanced to some distance, but at the
east end, though there, too, the hole had been run into
the hill, the work was to do over again, owing to the
tunnel having 4 caved' in, in spite of the huge timbers.
The hill was composed of gravel on the top, then a
thick stratum of extremely tenacious blue clay, and
beneath that a bed of solid concrete which required
blasting. My new friend Scott and i went to work at
the east end with a large number of others. We had
to remove the immense mass of clay and gravel which
had come down when the ' cave' had occurred, and to
cut back into the hill some distance until it appeared
solid enough for the new tunnel to be commenced. As
the cut into the hill was now very deep, we worked on
three 'benches.' The lowest and farthest out from the
crest of the hill attacked the clay at the bottom; the
next, twenty or thirty feet above us, cut into the loose
gravel, taking it in barrows to ^ach side; and the
highest gang above that again wheeled away the sand
at the top and cleared out the stumps as they came to
them. The highest gang worked in comparative safety ;
the next in some peril, as they had to look out for the
rocks that might fall in their own bench and for those

68The Railroad Camps

from the upper bench as well; but the lowest gang
were in danger of their lives all the time, as from
both benches above them came continually what rocks
escaped the vigilance of those working over their heads.
I worked here myself, and without any exaggeration
I can say I never felt safe, for every minute or so would
come the cry, 4 Look out below!' or 4 Stand from
under!' and a heavy stone or rock would come
thundering down the slope right among us. When I
had been working three days, a rock about a foot
through, weighing perhaps 80 lb., rolled over without
any one crying out till very late. It came down and
seemed to be about to drop right where I stood, so I
made a prodigious jump on the instant, without having
time to see where I was going, and struck my right
knee under the cap on the end of a wheelbarrow handle
just as the stone buried itself in the ground where I
had been standing. The pain was so intense that I
had to sit down for ten minutes or more, and when I
got up I found I could scarcely walk, as the swelling
was so great. It was with difficulty I got to the
camp, and for five days I was unable to work. There
was a doctor, paid I suppose by the company, who
came along on horseback at intervals, and he gave me
some liniment and told me to rest. During these days
I used to eat and sleep and read what I could get,
which was very little, so I was thrown back on my old
friend Sartor Resartus. Sometimes another man who
was too ill to work would come and talk with me, and at
times I would go to the banks of the river and watch
the stream as it ran past in such a fury and haste to

69The Western Avernus

get to the Columbia. I was not now lodged in the
tent, but in a curious kind of gipsy arrangement which
had been built by another man before I came. It was
made of hooped sticks set in the ground, and over these
were spread pieces of old canvas and a big uncured
bullock hide, which indeed served admirably to keep
out the rain, but stank most abominably when it was
hot. Here I used to lie, as it did not permit one to
stand or indeed to do much more than crawl into it,
and look out, having good vantage-ground to view both
the river and the road. At night I would make a fire,
and six or a dozen men would come round and spin
yarns, dry their clothes, and rake out embers for their
pipes. After a few days I felt well enough to make
an attempt at work, but was really unfit for it, and so
worked but a part of a day at a time till I felt all right.
We were paid two dollars and a quarter for ten hours,
and had to pay five dollars a week for board. They
did not make us pay for the lodging, as may be
imagined.

On the Sunday after I felt quite well, I and a young
Englishman, Tom, who shared my hide tent, went for a
climb. We walked a mile up the river, and turned off
the road up a creek which ran directly from between
two lofty peaks, both of which were above the line of
perpetual snow. We walked for a while on the side of
the creek, stumbling among fallen timber and brush,
until at last it was such a thicket on both sides that it
became impossible to advance a step, and we took to
the water, stumbling on the slippery stones, sometimes
getting into holes up to our knees. It was a steep

70The Railroad Camps

climb. After making our way up about a thousand
feet we came to an impossible-looking place. The
creek had cut deeply into a slatey bed, and the sides
were so steep and slippery that our first attempts were
unsuccessful. We tried to go round, but the tangle of
brush was so dense that it would have taken an hour's
work with the axe. Back we went to the foot of the
little fall, and by scrambling like cats we got up,
wondering how we were ever to get down. We still
went on, finding it grow steeper and steeper, until at
last it was almost like climbing up a cascade. I was in
a profuse perspiration, and was kept damp by the spray.
At last we came near to the top of the timber-line,
where the creek branched into three. On our left hand,
seen through the few trees, rose the loftiest peak, cut into
pinnacles and deep gorges, and in these lay the glaciers,
and on the rocky slopes was a thin covering of new
snow that had been rain in the valley beneath us.
Right from the highest peak to our feet ran a tre-
mendous slope of crumbling fragments of the mountain,
a 4 rock slide' 2000 feet high, while on each side was a
fringe of lessening pines and scrub that failed *at last
from the bare rock, which left no foothold. In front
was another peak, and on the left another, both bare
save for glaciers, and glittering in the sun.

We turned and went back. My companion ran
much faster than I, for I was afraid of hurting my knee,
and found it more tender descending than ascending.
So in a few moments I was left alone, as he would not
wait. When I got to the difficult place I was puzzled.
Had I been quite well I could have managed it, but to

71The Western Avernus

make anything of a jump was impossible, and I could
not get down without jumping. 1 should have been in
a nice position if I had sprained my knee. I might
have been eaten by bears before Tom would have
thought of getting any one to look for me. So I sat
down and considered. There was lying in the middle
of the verge of the fall a pine, from which branch and
bark had long been stripped. Its lower extremity was
about sixty feet away beyond the rocky pool where the
water fell. The whole trunk was slimy and slippery
with green water moss, as the spray kept it always wet.
At first I did not think it possible to go down it, but
the more I looked at the way I had come up the more
feasible the tree seemed, until at last I concluded I must
try it, hit or miss. I waded into the water, straddled
my tree, and backed over the edge of the fall. The
spray flew up and nearly blinded me, and my slide was
such a slippery one that it took all the grip in my legs
to keep me from going down at breakneck speed. I
put the brakes on with my hands too, and gradually
crossed the boiling pool, until finally the trunk got too
big for me to hold on to, and I slid the last ten or
twenty feet with a rush that landed me on my back in
the shallow water. I had cleaned off the weed on the
tree, but I had to get a stick to scrape myself down
with. The rest of the walk home was easy after that.

Scott, whom I mentioned at the end of the last
chapter, had meantime been discharged by one of the
foremen, who considered he did 'riot do enough work.
He went to work for Robinson and Early, who were
near at hand. It was now nearly time for me to go.

72THE EASIEST WAY DOWN.

[to face p. 72.The Railroad Camps

On this my last day at Corey's I was working on the
top bench with five or six others, who were some of the
laziest men I ever saw. The foreman was not with us
all the time, having to look after the men below, and
when he turned his back, down would go a wheelbarrow
and one would sit on it, while another would lie in the
gravel. So, perhaps, only two or three would be doing
anything. This day, however, as we were working
right at the top of the slope, grubbing out stumps, it
was impossible for all of them to hide at once. So
they made up for this by doing as little as they could
while pretending to do a great deal. I am not praising
myself when I assert that I vi^as really doing more work
at that time than any one of the others, yet I was the
one picked out for censure by the same foreman who
discharged Scott. I was angry at this, of course, and
left work at 9.30, having worked a quarter of the day.

This camp was not a very nice one to work at. For
one thing, there were too many men, and it was so
broken up with day and night shifts that one never
knew where any one else was working, and scarcely
where he himself would work next day. Then the
accommodation was so bad* and the cooks so pressed
that they found it impossible to give the men their
4 pie.' This piece of daily pastry is a source of wonderful
content to many working men. Without it, let the
other food be ever so good, he feels he is being de-
frauded, and with it, though it be only of dried apple
and sodden paste, he will put up with no potatoes and
bad beef, or even none at times. However, just before
I left, the camp was split in two and two sets of

73The Western Avernus

cooks appointed, with the result that ours fairly gorged
his men with pie. Instead of the usual solitary quarter,
which one had to eye jealously or transfer at once to
his own custody from the rusty tin plate, to keep some
greedy man from getting two shares, whole pies were
at the disposal of every one, and there was great
gorging and contentment.

On the whole, I was not sorry to leave; and that
afternoon I walked to Robinson and Early's, where
Scott was, and was told by Early I could come up
at once and go to work in the morning. So I packed
my blankets, and walked up that evening in the dark.
This camp was divided into two parts by the ' grade'
or embankment where the rails would be laid. On
one side were the dinner and cook's tents, the store
tent, where one could get clothes and tobacco, the
bosses' tent, and a big composite log and canvas
building with bunks in it. On the other side were four
neat little log-huts. I walked along the ' dump' or
grade till I came to a fire where four or five men were
sitting, and went down and joined them. Scott was
not there. I did not know any of these men, but, of
course, in a country such as this was, that would be no
obstacle to my joining in the conversation. I soon
found out that I should have to sleep in the big tent
with a crowd of Finns and Italians. They told me
that the 4grub' was good, that the bosses were not
bad, though they made their men work hard. The
wages were the same as I had been getting at Corey's.

I took my blankets and camped on a pile of balsam
boughs in the lower bunks of the big tent. ' Bunk' is

74The Railroad Camps

here but a euphemism for the ground, as bunk was
divided from bunk by a six-inch log, with the bark and
some of the smaller branches on, being nailed or tied
against the uprights which supported the top tier. I
made my bed in the dark and slept, covering my face
over to keep the dust and dirt off that dropped through
from the top bunk when the men in it gave a roll in
their sleep.

Next morning I went to work ' picking on a slope/
that is, smoothing off the sides of the hill above the
grade, as one sees it done in England when going
through a railroad cutting. Scott was working near
the camp among the rocks, where blasting was going
on.

Surely the life I led for the next month was a strange
one. I was working in the same glorious mountain
scenery that had roused in me a fervour of artistic
appreciation that had resulted in a curious state of
forgetful ecstasy, blind and deaf to the actual around
me. But now, while working, I became mechanical
and base, the mountain opposite was painful, and I
longed for a change of scene, an hour with the plain
and prairie. Partly, no doubt, this change resulted from
the strain put upon my imagination by the perpetual
contemplation of the most magnificent scenery — a
state of mind of which Ruskin speaks in the Modern
Painters when writing of the psychological effects of
the various aspects of Nature—and partly from the
manual labour, in its physiological effect of robbing the
brain of the blood that ran to the active and strained
muscles of perpetual effort Perhaps it was also partly

75The Western Avernus

owing to the mental analysis and introspection which
irksome toil forced me to, when I chanced to work
alone or in circumstances which compelled my com-
panions to silence. Long suffering from bodily ail-
ments in London had induced, as it were, a morbid
melancholy of mind, which remained even when the
troubles of indigestion and bile were partially removed
by the keen mountain air, and the sense of unfitness for
my surroundings threw me back, when alone, into the
morbid introspective lines of thought that had been my
pain and solace in the solitary times of indifferent
companionship at home. I would repeat to myself as
I worked snatches of our melancholy modern poetry
that I knew so well. The indictment of life in the
Lotus Eaters came before the Grand Jury of my
passions and desires, and I found it a true bill. I smiled
bitterly to myself to think of the gods, * where they
smile in secret/ and as I laboured I sang softly:

4 Hateful is the dark blue sky, Vaulted o'er the dark blue sea ;

Death is the end of life. Ah, why Should life all labour be ?'

Yet, with the strange contradictions of man's nature,
when I was with the others I was the merriest of all.
There were some six or seven of us, English or American,
who came together in one of the little log-huts, and we
sang our songs and chatted and joked round the pine-
wood fire that roared up the rude chimney, as if labour
were but a dream, or, if real, a delight. There was
Scott, little, with keen grey eyes, a reddish beard and
moustache, light brown hair over a broad forehead that
betokened untrained intellect, and a mouth which

76The Railroad Camps

showed much possibility of emotion. He was not, in
the ordinary sense of the term, educated, and was
indeed ignorant in many ways, but he had that desire
for knowledge which in so many goes further than
compulsory culture towards the attainment of mental
height. After him in my mind comes Davidson, a
Canadian also, a bricklayer by trade, but by no means
to be judged by the standard of an English artisan of
that grade. He had read a great deal in a desultory
way, and was a man of kindliness and keenness of
thought, though without possibility of culture such as
Scott possessed. Then comes Hank, a rude, rough
block of a man, uneducated, powerful, with sensual lips
and mouth and rough shock of hair. He played an
execrable fiddle most execrably, but his love for it and
tolerance and gentleness forced forgiveness from me,
even when the tortured strings drove me outside.

Another of our evening company was a pleasant
Canadian, who also played on the violin, not so badly
as Hank. He was somewhat melancholy, and I
thought at times that some woman was at the bottom
of his troubles. His name has slipped my memory,
but I think it was Mitchell. There was also a German,
Fritz, whom I shall speak of in the next chapter, as
he was my companion in the journey towards the coast.

We were a strange gathering at night-time, and not
without elements of the picturesque, I fancy, in our
strange interior of log-hut and its confused forms on
blocks of wood before the fire, which burnt brightly and
threw a glare on the darkness through the entrance,
that did not boast a door, but only a rude portiere of

77The Western Aver n us

sewed sacks. We sang at times strange melancholy-
unknown ditties of love in the forests, songs of Michigan
or Wisconsin, redolent of pine odour and sassafras, or
German Liede, for we were more cosmopolitan than a
crowd of Englishmen would be at home, and did not
insist only on what we could understand. I myself
often sang to them both English and German and
Italian songs, and it seems strange to me now to think
that those forests heard from me the strains of Mozart's
4 L'Addio/ sung doubtless out of time, as it was also out
of place perhaps, and the vigorous tune of 4 La donna e
mobile.' But even songs like these were appreciated,
and often called for, with 4 Tom Bowling' or some other
English sea-songs. Then we would tell each other
stories or yarns, and I would repeat some of my travels
in Australia for them, or explain how large London
was, or tell those who had never seen the ocean stories
of my own and my brother's voyages, or those of the
great English sea-captains.

Such evenings came to be a recognised institution,
and if I felt melancholy or savage one or another of
these men would come to the little tent I now had all
to myself, and say they wanted me to settle for them
some point in dispute. For now, by virtue of my
education, which was apparent to them, they made me
' Arbiter elegantiarum/ umpire and referee as to pro-
nunciation, and encyclopaedia, so that I was often hard
put to it by a dozen different questions, which only a
visit to a library could settle. I wrote for them a song
which was very much admired as the culmination of
genius. It was a song of the C. P. R., or Canadian

78The Railroad Camps

Pacific Railroad, and all I remember is the chorus,
which was—

For some of us are bums, for whom work has no charms,
And some of us are farmers, a-working for our farms,

But all are jolly fellows, who come from near and far,

To work up in the Rockies on the C. P. R.

From which specimen the reader will not estimate
my poetical powers so highly as the simple railroad
men.

Perhaps the most surprising incident to me during
the month I worked at this camp was the unlooked-for
appreciation of some lines which few ordinary educated
people at home really like, through lack of finer insight
It happened one Sunday afternoon that Scott, David-
son, Hank, Mitchell, and I were in one of the
4 shacks,' or huts, and they were idly listening to me
while I was inveighing against the injustice in life, its
vanity and uselessness. Nobody but Scott was paying
much attention, as I thought, and turning to him I
repeated Rossetti's last sonnet in the House of Life,
the * One Hope.' To my surprise Mitchell asked me to
say it again, and then made me copy out the first
quatrain:

f When vain desire at last and vain regret
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,

What shall assuage the unforgotten pain,

And teach the unforgetful to forget ?'

Surely it was a strange enough thing for Rossetti to
come to my memory in this beautiful desolation, but it
was stranger still that his sorrow should find an echo in
the heart of a poor labourer, to whom we so usually

79The Western Avernus

deny the power of real suffering, or the spirit of apprecia-
tion of subtle rhythms and obscurer imagery.

Often after that I spoke to this man, feeling that to
him had been given great power of suffering, or he
could never have understood. I believe if the poets
learn in suffering what they teach in song, that we also
must suffer greatly before we can learn of them.

Meanwhile, in the daytime there was the usual labour,
such as drilling holes in the rock to blast it with
powder, whose explosion sometimes threw the heavy
stones a hundred yards into the torrent of the foaming
river. We would dodge behind trees and get into
all sheltered places till the shot was fired, then come
out again and take away the debris, hammering the
larger blocks to pieces and shovelling up the smaller
into the carts. Then there were slopes to make smooth
and round rocks and stones to be picked up from
the borders of the Kicking Horse, to make a ' rip-
rap' or stone wall at the bottom of the embankment,
where the river would chafe it when swollen with melted
snow. It was often laborious and wearisome, and I
never looked at the scenery except, perhaps, when
clouds gathered overhead, and rain-mist crawled along
the ramparts of the hills, filling the valley, until a shower
would come upon us suddenly and as suddenly depart;
for then, when the mountain wind rolled up cloud and
mist, the sun shone bright upon the hills above, dazzling
our eyes with a sheet of new snow that had fallen on us
below as rain. Or sometimes at evening, especially on
Sunday, which in our camp was an idle day, I would
walk up the grade to the turn of the river, and see,

80The Railroad Camps

perhaps, the most exquisite picture that remains in my
memory. At my feet ran the tumultuous current of the
river, swinging quickly with a loud murmur to my left,
covered with short crisp waves, with here and there a
hurrying swirl and breaking foam that declared a
hidden rock. It came towards me for three hundred
yards, it may be, showing a swift declivity from the
mass of argent foam as it turned the bend where stood
a knoll of noble pines. Across the stream from where
I sat were larch and pine on a spur shouldering rapidly
from the river to the mass of the main mountain. Its
side was cut away steeply by the wash of water, and
showed bands of coloured clay, and here and there was
a solitary tree marking its lofty line against the mass
of the hill, emphasising by its sombre foliage the red and
yellow ground against which it rose and from which it
sprang. And in front was the mountain itself rising
from a shadowy base, where the thick forest of green
marked its foot against the foam of the rapid, to loftier
height on height, whence the trees showed less and less,
until they were at last but a faint fringe and sparse
adornment of the line sharp against the sky, and higher
still a peak of solitary snow, rosy in the sunlight that
had left me in shadow for an hour.

If I walked but half a mile up the road I came upon
another beautiful sight, for there the valley pass was
broader, and had a long, almost level space, beyond
which was one of the queen peaks of the Rockies, whose
presence dominated many miles of the valley.

It was after one of these evenings spent alone with
the mountains that I had a long talk with my com-
f	81The Western Avernus

panions as to what they proposed to do. Some intended
staying on the railroad work until it was finished, and
some thought of leaving it soon, and making their way
into lower British Columbia over the intervening ranges
of mountains. This had been my intention since leaving
Corey's. It was quite impossible for me to stay at such
irksome labour much longer, and I had tried to obtain
what information I could as to the route, This was
very sparse. There were vague reports as to the
immense difficulties and dangers awaiting any one rash
enough to attempt it, and had I been very timid I
should have been scared into staying in the Rockies
for the winter. This I hated to think of, as the snow-
fall would be tremendous and the cold very severe at
that elevation and latitude. There were four possible
ways out. One was to go back through the North-west
Provinces and Manitoba. This could not be thought
of. For one thing, I hate going back at any time, and
in America ' Forward' was always my motto. Another
objection was that one would have in all probability
to walk great part of a thousand miles to Winnipeg, as
it was reported that the train men had very strict orders
to let no one ' beat' his way on the trains, and of course
I had insufficient money to pay my fare, even if I had
desired to do it. There was another exit from the
mountains which commended itself to my imagination
if not to my prudence. That was to make a raft and
go down the Columbia to Portland, Oregon, or rather
to Kalama, W.T., first, and then up the Willammette
to Portland. A German at Corey's had told me that
this was feasible. He swore that the Columbia was

82The Railroad Camps

' smooth wie a looking-glass,' and that there was no
danger at all. Others, however, told me of the great
falls of the Columbia and the rapids, and asserted there
were so many terrible gorges and canons and whirl-
pools to be passed through that the river took a
Dantean and Infernal colour in my mind. And, worst
of all, it was utterly impossible to get a good map. So
this was laid aside as impracticable. The next way
was to go down to the Columbia and take the < trail'
to Sand Point, on the Northern Pacific Railroad in
Montana, a journey of 300 miles, which would take
from fifteen to twenty days and require one to. pack a
large quantity of food on his back to provide for all
possible accidents and delays. The remaining route
was to follow the railroad line. This would lead me
to the Columbia, then over the Selkirk Range by
Roger's Pass, and over the Columbia again. As far as
I could gather we should then be in some kind of
civilisation. But this, as will be seen, was far from the
truth. The fact of the matter is that I could find no
one who had been the journey, and the reports about it
were so contradictory that in the Kicking Horse Pass
it was impossible to find out how far it was across the
Selkirk Range, whether it was 60 or 120 miles or
even more. There was a halo of romance thrown over
the whole place west of us, and when we passed in
imagination the Columbia for the second time all
beyond was as truly conjectural as El Dorado or
Lyonesse. But this was the route I determined to
take at the end of September, when I proposed leaving
the camp. But my departure was hastened by the

83The Western Avernus

following circumstance. I and some Finns and another
Englishman had been set to work in a very wet and
nasty place, from which we had to run the dirt in
wheelbarrows over planks, and as the nature of the
place necessitated our getting wet none of us liked it.
About ten in the morning Robinson, one of the con-
tractors, came down to take a look at us, and while
standing on the bank spoke sharply to my English
companion, who answered him back with no less sharp-
ness. Next time he ran the barrow out it capsized.
He laughed, which infuriated Robinson, who ordered
him peremptorily to take his barrow out of the way.
The young fellow said, * I don't have to, Mr. Robinson.'
This made Robinson worse. He jumped down, grabbed
hold of him, and, being a very powerful man, shook
him to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat, at the same
time threatening to strike him. This, however, he
refrained from doing, and finally he ordered him to go
to the camp and get his money. Of course this had
nothing to do with me, but still I did not care to work
for a man who had so little control over himself as the
contractor showed, fearing that I might myself have a
disturbance with him, which would end either in him
or me being disabled; so when noon came I went and
got my time made up, and sold the order, which would
not be cashed for nearly a month, to Davidson, the
bricklayer. I went then to Fritz, the German, and
persuaded him to come with me. I should much have
preferred Scott or any of the others, but none would
leave the work for a while, though some of them had
it in their minds to go farther west before the snow

84The Railroad Camps

blockaded them in. So I rolled up my blankets and
found a nice tin-pot with a handle, which we should
call a 'billy' in Australia, and stole a cup and knife
and fork. The cook made us up some food in a
parcel, and with our blankets on our backs we set off
down the road. As I passed the men sang out:
' Good-bye, Texas, take care of yourself/ I shook
hands with my particular friends as I met them at
intervals on the mile of work taken by Robinson and
Early, and set off into the unknown country with 18
dols., or a little over £4. I saw my friend Scott the
last of all as we turned the corner. But we were to
meet again.

85CHAPTER VIII

THE COLUMBIA CROSSING

FRITZ and I passed through Corey's camp, as it lay in
our westward journey, and I was greeted, of course, by
some of my old companions, who asked me where I
was bound for. When I told them we were going
across the Selkirks, many of them really seemed to
think I might as well jump into the Kicking Horse.
One said, 'Well, old man, if you really mean going
you must have lots of grit, but I '11 bet you a dollar you
will soon turn back/ I assured him that I was not
going to come back, and that I would die on the trail
first. We shook hands and parted.

From Corey's tunnel we had about fourteen miles to
traverse before coming to the Columbia Valley and
Golden City, which was at the mouth of the Kicking
Horse Pass. Our way lay along the main and only
road, first on the left and then on the right side of the
river going down. Beautiful as the upper part of the
pass is, I think that this last fourteen miles is in some
ways even more delightful. We went for some miles
by the side of the river, which foamed and thundered
over huge rocks, and rushed through narrow openings
to broaden out into foaming rapids. Then we began
to ascend, as it had been impossible to take the roadMOUNT LEFROY.

[to face p. 86.The Columbia Crossing

on a level without encountering the engineering diffi-
culties of tunnel and rock cut, which made the rail-
road in this lower pass so costly. We went up and up
the side of the hills, until at last we were probably a
thousand feet above the river and the railroad track.
Below us the stream was at times calm and blue and
then instantly torn and fretted into foam. The road
we were walking on was sufficiently wide for one
wagon, and there was scarcely at any one place more
than a foot or two to spare, and sometimes there was
so little room that I had to scramble up the hill out of
the way, or stand on the lower slope of crumbling stone,
while a vehicle passed. Sometimes I saw that a horse-
man had to turn back for a hundred yards or more
before he could make his way beyond the wagon;
and the declivities were of such a steep character
that, had the brakes given way at many places, horses,
driver and wagon would have rolled a thousand feet
below.

At last we began to go down, and came finally in
sight of the valley of the Columbia. We could see the
Kicking Horse quietly making its way across the long
flat to the main river, and some miles away, under the
heights of the Selkirk Range, we could catch a glimpse
of the blue broad waters into which it ran. We turned
from the road, taking a footpath which led us steeply
dowrl to Golden City. It was now evening.

Golden City is a beautiful and alluring name, but I
scarcely think that its most ardent supporter would
allow that it really deserved such an adjective* It con-
sisted, when I saw it, of some log-huts and a few tents.

87The Western Avernus

There were two or three stores, where goods of all kinds
were sold ; there were also several places in which
spirits could be obtained, I should imagine, if one could
judge by the amount of noise issuing from some of
the habitations. There was also a blacksmith's shop,
and a blacksmith who was fairly busy. It was at this
town we proposed to buy our provisions for the journey,
and here we made more inquiries in order to find out
how far it really was across the Selkirks. At the black-
smith's we found the very man to make them of, as he
was in the habit of going across the range sometimes,
and was now getting ready for another trip. He tried
to scare us into going with him, offering to take us for
10 dols. apiece, but finding that we meant going by
ourselves he gave us what advice he could, and told us
that the journey from Columbia to Columbia across the
Big Bend was not more than seventy-five miles, and
that we had yet to go eighteen miles to the north of
where we were then before we came to the first crossing
of the Columbia.

We went into a store and bought our provisions. Here
is the list:—-

Flour,

Bacon,

Tea,.

Hard biscuit,

.	10 lb.

•	6 „

•	ii „

•	10 „

Boston biscuit, .
Baking soda,
Prunes, .
Butter,

■ 5 lb-

2 OZ.
. 2 lb.
. I „

Of course we paid extraordinary prices, but I have
lost my note of them. I think the bacon was twenty
pence a pound, and, in such a place, of course it was not
of very fine quality. For reasonably good tea we paid
3s. gd. a pound.The Columbia Crossing

We walked three miles north, and camped a few
yards above the road in a pine wood. Fritz, who was
the more active member of the two, did the cooking,
though I made and attended to the fire. I have
often noticed when travelling how one's companion
alters one's-self. In Iowa and Minnesota, when with
Ray Kern, I did everything and was most active. Now,
with Fritz, I was the lazy member of the firm. We,
however, did hot do much cooking that night, beyond
making tea, for we had cooked provisions with us from
the camp. After supper I lay back against a pine,
smoking dreamily and looking out across the valley at
the great barrier of the Selkirks, which rose like g. wall
beyond the river. In the advancing shadow of the
evening the lower hills were dark, for the sun was
setting behind them. In this darkness the black solidity
seemed perpendicular, but above, the indentations of
the valleys could be seen, and over these were the snow-
capped summits piled one on another. As far as one
could see on either hand this wall extended, and just
half-way from sunwhite crest to shadowy base hung long
white cloud-wreaths, motionless and sullen, just catching
on their upper sides a faint glow from the sunlight that
yet remained on the peaks. And as I lay the light
faded, the hills took deep violet and purple hues, and
they were deep and transparent as the darkest amethyst.

I think that hour I spent watching the changes of
light and shadow on those unchanging hills was the
most peaceful of all my life. There seemed then in
life nothing more of sorrow than gentle melancholy,
nothing more of passion than lives in kindliest memory,

89The

Western

Avernus

and no more pain at all. Then, if ever for one hour in
my restless life, I was at rest.

I slept that night the sleep of the righteous, on a spot
where the turf seemed soft and dry, from which I re-
moved the little sticks and branches of decaying wood
that dropped from the trees above me. The scent of
the pine-smoke of our dying fire mingled with the sweet
native odours of the place, making a pleasant incense
smell. In the morning I woke when the first grey dawn
was on the opposite hills, and as I rolled over and put
my head out of the blankets I saw a little red squirrel
sitting with his brush over his head gnawing a crust of
bread. It was, may be, his first taste of that civilisation
whose last word to such is shooting and skinning, or
a cage after blithe woodland freedom. Here and there
a bird or two chattered overhead or in the lower brush,
preparing for flight, and down the valley came sounds
of other life awakening—the neigh of a pack-pony or
the bray of a mule from the corrals of the Golden City.
From the river light wreaths of mist arose and gathered
with advancing day upon the hills, from whose crests the
rapid sunbeams ran to their bases, discovering the huge
gaps and gorges hidden from sight the evening before.
For it was day now, and time for breakfast.

Our simple meal over, and the embers of our relighted
fire extinguished or but smouldering, we made up our
burdens. It was decided that I should carry both sets
of blankets, which would weigh about 16 lb., and the
10 lb. of flour, and Fritz took the remaining provisions.
We were then almost equally burdened, each carrying
about 26 lb., which was no small handicap, considering

90The Columbia Crossing

the country we had to travel over. We both had plenty
of matches, and I, for additional precaution, took a
small medicine-bottle with me filled with lucifers and
tightly corked. I had experienced in Australia the
misery of camping out without a fire, and I had no
desire to make perhaps a week or ten days' journey on
raw bacon and flour if an accidental swim in a river
oi a heavy fall of continuous rain should deprive us of
the power of making one.

Our way now ran north, still following the line of
railroad work, to where it was to cross the Columbia,
eighteen miles from the Golden City. The grading was
here of an easy character, as it was a low embankment
that could be made of the recent sands and clays of the
valley alluvium ; consequently it was let out in great
measure by contract to small parties of working men,
or 4 station men,' as they are called, who were paid by
the piece and not by the day. The only difficulty here
was the number of little bridges that would have to be
built, owing to the swamps and back-washes from the
Columbia, for this part of the valley was absolutely flat.
For part of the time we walked along the road, and then
along the grade if it seemed easier and more direct.
About half-way to the Columbia, however, we found
ourselves in rather an awkward place. The grade
ceased abruptly on the edge of a deep sheet of water
that had previously run alongside of it, on our right
hand, between us and the road for a mile or more. It
was necessary either to get across or go back. We
searched for some time before we found a place that
seemed fordable, and that was rather doubtful. How-

91The Western Avernus

ever, anything seemed preferable to going back, and I
stripped myself nearly to a state of nature and waded
in, holding clothes and blankets and flour above my
head. At the deepest it was only brqast high, so I
arrived without mishap at the other bank, and was
presently joined by Fritz.

Early in the afternoon we came to the Columbia
Crossing, where there was a rather lively canvas town,
consisting of numerous stores and saloons and gambling-
houses. We passed through it and went down to the
river, which was here of no great breadth, though strong
and deep. We were ferried over for twenty-five cents
apiece, and in a few minutes stood on the rude road in
the thick forest. We were at the foot of the Selkirks.

92Qi vwt

,1V \)*A GLACIER IN THE SELKIRKS.

\tofacep. 93.CHAPTER IX

the trail across the selkirks

We were still on the wagon road, if road it can be
called, which was all stumps and rocks and hollows,
svvampy and thick with mud. It ran steeply enough up
the mountain, through pine, balsam, hemlock and birch,
past a few railroad camps, for the first work on this side
of the river had been commenced some time. As we
walked we could hear below us the thunder of the
blasting, and could catch now and then sight of a
wreath of powder-smoke among the trees as it eddied
upwards. We came out at last, after a hard climb, to a
spot whence it was possible to get a view of the river
and Death Rapids. We were almost above it, and as
we looked down we could see the high walls of rock on
either side and the dark blue water before it broke.
This canon has some dangerous whirlpools in it, and I
was told of many accidents which occurred to men at-
tempting to raft it. Two young fellows on a raft were
drawn into a whirlpool, both were sucked under, one
never to reappear, while the other was thrown up
before he became insensible, and, grasping a floating
pine trunk, he was saved. Once the railroad men
were going to raft some dump cars down the
rapids; the raft broke away from them and ran the

93The Western Avernus

gauntlet of the rocks, and was brought to shore eleven
miles below.

It was now getting towards nightfall, and it behoved
us to seek out a camping-ground. About three miles
from the river crossing we came to a sharp bend in the
road and a little gorge or canon, down which leapt a
creek that ran across the road and plunged into the
valley. We saw a little clear space of velvet lawn ten
yards from the road, and scrambling across a pool upon
a fallen tree, we laid our packs down and built a fire.
We were in absolute darkness in a few minutes, for
lofty rocks were round us and thick growth of pine and
brush above. The spray from the fall leapt almost to
where we made our beds, and the damp air and seclu-
sion gave good growth to the ferns about us. It was
with some trouble that we made a fire, as we had no
axe with us. We cooked some bacon, boiled some tea,
and with biscuit made a comfortable meal. Fritz's last
words to me that night were : 4 If you wake early call
me ; I must steal an axe in the morning, for this is
our last chance of getting one, as far as I can see.'

I called him at early dawn : 4 Fritz, how about that
axe?' And I turned over and went to sleep again.
When I awoke once more Fritz was making tea. I
asked if he had got the axe. He pointed to my side,
where it lay in the grass. He said : ' I went down this
creek till I came to the camp, but I couldn't see one, so
I walked right through to where they were working
and picked this one up. It is a good one, but wants
grinding. Now we must look for a grindstone.'

Of course I know the morality of this axe business

94The Trail across the Selkirks

seems rather questionable, but I lay all the responsi-
bility on Fritz. He suggested it, and he stole it It
is true I had the benefit of it, but I couldn't help that.

We rolled up the blankets and set off as soon as
possible. This day we passed the last contractors and
entered on the loneliest part of the road. At a surveyor's
camp we ground the axe and made it a useful weapon
—in fact, improved it so much that we considered now
that we had at least a part title to it. This day was
the last day of comfort for me. The inevitable hard-
ships of the journey I thought little of; but, un-
fortunately, my boots began to chafe me, and gradually
I wore a raw place on both heels, so that I walked
more than 130 miles, every moment in positive pain
and anguish. I have at times in England considered a
blister a thing intolerable, but when the blister gives
way to a raw bleeding place about the size of a florin I
think there is not much doubt that the former is prefer-
able. In the evening we came to the Beaver Creek
and crossed it, and following the road about a mile,
after having had a talk with the hunter who had his
camp at the crossing, we made ours under a thick
balsam tree, cutting down another small one to make
our bed of the branches. We were in tolerable loneli-
ness. While Fritz made the supper, I, still being lazy
partner, went to the banks of the creek and bathed my
sore and aching feet in the cool running water, watching
the sun set on the peaks by which the Beaver ran. We
had a fine supper that night. We had bought fifty
cents' worth from the cook of the last surveyor's camp
we had passed, and for our money we got biscuits,

95The Western Avernus

cakes, deermeat, bread, and some fruit pie. So we
made merry, and smoked the pipe of peace and content-
ment ; while I put away from me the thoughts of the
misery I should endure in the morning when I put my
boots on again.

But the morning came, and the misery had to be
endured, although I put it off as long as possible,
walking round barefoot till we were nearly ready to
start. This is a bad plan, however, and in future I
washed my feet, dried them, warmed the boots at the
fire, and put them on the first thing. In this way they
get supple, and are not so harsh and hard when one
has to make a move. We started again, and walked
through the thick forest on a reasonably level road that
did not entail much climbing, until we came at last to
the road-maker's camp. Here we saw a party of
hunters, with black and grizzly bears' skins hung up,
and I began to think there were other dangers, perhaps,
to be encountered than those we had reckoned on. Our
chief fear had been lest we should run out of provisions,
not lest we ourselves should make provisions for a
hungry grizzly; and we were badly armed, having
nothing but the axe and my bowie-knife. However, it
could not be helped ; it was to be done.

After walking a mile we came finally to the end of
the road, such as it was, and entered on the trail.

There were now three of us, for on this day at noon
we came upon a man camped in a little bark ' lean-to'
all by himself. He was suffering from an access of
bile and blues, brought on by drinking heavily in
Columbia City, and had dragged himself so far with

96The Trail across the Selkirks

the greatest difficulty. When we came by he had been
there two days, and as it was time to make dinner, we
stayed with him and used his fire. We had a talk with
him, and finding him to all appearance a good possible
partner, we asked him to come with us. This he was
glad enough to do, as it was not by any means a nice
walk for a man by himself. His name was Bill.

The trail upon which we were now walking was a
narrow foot or bridle path cut years before through the
forest. It had received very little attention since it
was first made, and was blocked every now and again
by trees that had fallen either by natural decay or by
force of wind. At times it was full of large stones,
requiring some circumspection in walking to avoid
spraining one's ankle, or of masses of mud in which one
sank a foot deep. The brush, heavy with rain and dew,
dropped its moisture on us as we passed, and the
prickly devils' clubs made things unpleasant for us as
well.

At noon, or a little later, we passed through some
hundreds of yards of swamp, in which I had to walk
quickly and carefully to avoid getting * bogged down/
and, in spite of all my care, when half across it I fell
on my face and hands in the sticky mud, through my
foot getting caught in a slender branch of willow
trodden into it. I was a most melancholy-looking
object, and Bill and Fritz exploded with laughter at
my appearance, which was remarkable, no doubt, as on
arriving on firm ground I had to scrape myself down
with a knife and wash the mud out of my nose, ears,
and eyes at the first creek.

G	97The Western Ave rn us

Towards evening we were overtaken by a bright,
smart-looking young fellow, who was well dressed,
carrying an overcoat and no blankets. He was walking
rapidly, and would have passed us had it not been near
camping-time. After going a mile or two more, we
found a splendid place among a few trees in a fork of
the creek, along the banks of which the trail ran, and
right under a magnificent peak or crowd of peaks,
which crowned an almost perpendicular wall of rock
three or four thousand feet high. Under the trees we
found a few sheets of bark, leaning against a horizontal
supported by two sticks, which would serve us as a
shelter from any rain or dew. It was now getting a
little dusk. Fritz set to work making a fire, Bill and
our new friend sat talking, and I went down to the
creek with the flour and baking powder to make some
bread. It was necessary to get a mixing and kneading
place. I suppose a civilised cook would find some
trouble in bread-making under such circumstances, but
I was equal to the emergency, and mixed my dough in
the hollowed top of a rock, and kneaded it on another
flat stone. By this time the fire was roaring, and I
soon found enough ashes to bake it in. In Australia,
under similar circumstances, we used to cut a square
piece of bark out of a tree and mix the bread on that.

We cooked some bacon, making neat frying-pans of
our tin plates, having cut sticks that were slightly bent
at one end, which we split to insert the edges of the
plates ; and we boiled the tea as usual. Fritz and I at
Golden City had had an argument as to whether it was
best to take tea or coffee. He wanted coffee and I tea.

98The Trail across the Selkirks

He had not travelled so much as I had, and I knew
from my life in the Australian bush that tea was the
best drink in the world when one was roughing it, It
was not long before Fritz acknowledged I was right,
and he was as eager as I to light the fire and * boil the
billy' whenever we stopped during the day.

That night was the last of pleasant times, and it was
the best. On the morrow my sufferings were to com-
mence in earnest. But here everything was delightful
—the well-situated camp, the shelter, the trees, water
brawling on either side; on the left the enormous wall
of mountain with old glaciers here and there, and drifts
of ancient snow, and snow bridges, under which ran the
decreasing waters of approaching winter; on the right
three sister peaks of lofty snow, and beneath them and
all around the quiet yet murmuring forest. So we sat
about the roaring camp fire, on which we piled all
available logs, smoking and chatting and joking until
the blaze shone its brightest in the full darkness of
night, and threw faint shadows and glows across the
creeks into the forest on one side and the mountain on
the other. Our new friend was a curious individual,
who told us a number of stories calculated to make us
respect his personal courage if they were true, and his
powers of invention if they were false. For my part, I
preserved my usual attitude in such cases—I believed
as much as I could, rejecting the rest. In this way I
obtain much more enjoyment from yarns than the cold,
incredulous critic. My own opinion is that he was now
in a hurry to get to a place where he was unknown. I
fancied that the police on the railroad line might have

99The Western Avernus

a fancy to interview him. If I am wrong, I beg his
pardon, for he afforded me much entertainment by one
story, the point of which consisted in his luck in stealing
ten horses in succession, at each fresh capture leaving
the horse he had wearied out as an exchange, without
being captured until in the act of taking the tenth,
when he was compelled to surrender to a loaded gun
held by a man who turned out to be his brother-in-law!
This story and another one about his throwing a British
Columbia sheriff into the Fraser River, how he was
captured, sentenced, imprisoned, and how he escaped,
kept us well amused until it was time to turn in.

In the morning, after breakfast, he left us, as he
could walk much faster than we, owing to his being
unencumbered with blankets and much food. So we
bade him farewell. This day we came across a splendid
patch of huckleberries and blueberries, and putting our
blankets down, we all three ate solidly for about an
hour. These huckleberries are, in my opinion, the
nicest wild fruit I have ever tasted, and bears are of
the same opinion, being extremely fond of them.

My feet were now in a horrible condition, and the
pain every step caused me was exquisite. I picked up
a pair of boots that had been thrown away, and tried to
wear them, but found them even worse than my own.
It was impossible to walk barefoot in such a country,
or I would have tried it It was simply a case for
endurance, and I had to support myself with the know-
ledge that it could not last for ever. This day we
passed the summit or highest point in the pass, which
was a meadow of natural grass, and rather swampy.

IOOThe Trail across the Selkirks

Just after passing it, and coming to the streams that
ran west, we found a poor pack-pony lying in a swamp
unable to get up. He had been left behind as useless,
I suppose; but it seemed a cruelty to let him die of
starvation, so we pulled him out and put him on his
feet, hoping he would manage to pick up a living. It
was no infrequent thing now for us to find these ponies
dead alongside the trail; and if what we heard was true,
one at least had been the means of saving the lives
of some men who had attempted to cross the trail
with insufficient provisions, for they had eaten part
of it.

As I stumbled painfully along the trail, now the last
of the three who was wont to be first, I overtook an old
blear-eyed individual carrying an enormous pack nearly
as big as himself. He was short and thick, with boots
up to his hips, and a cap down to his eyes. In his boot
he carried a knife, and in his belt an old muzzle-loading
revolver. His weather-beaten and hairy countenance
was devoid of joy or sorrow, and it seemed to me that
his mind was a trifle weak. He camped with us that
night.

It had been raining since the early morning, and we
were sufficiently wet and miserable. If my feet had
been sound, such a trifle as rain would never have
disturbed me; but when one is in positive anguish, a
little additional discomfort is sometimes the last straw.
If it had been dry, it would have been of no consequence
where we camped, provided only that there were wood
and water, and there are few places where there is not
enough of one and too much of the other in this

IOIT HE W E S T E R N 1 'A V E R N U S

mountain range; But as it was raining, it was positively
necessary to find some shelter, and we walked for an
hour after dark, stumbling and cursing, looking for a
good tree. At last, just when we were about to give
up and camp anywhere, rain or no rain, we came on a
delightfully thick spruce * fir close to the trail. This
tree is perhaps the best shelter-tree in the world. In
appearance it is something like a lofty pagoda, and the
thick needles arid downward slope of the 'branches
throw off all rain, even if it be wet for weeks. We
put our blankets underneath, cut off some of the lower
branches of it, and were in a dry circular tent, with
a big pole in the middle to be sure, but a 'plentiful'soft
bed of generations of soft shed needles* Outside we
soon had a roaring fire, throwing a red light into the
murky air, and diffusing a pleasant warmth on all
around, though the heavy rain quenchecf the: outer
embers and caught the floating sparks before they
could rise a yard from the blaze.

I slept magnificently that night, ' forgetting my
miseries, and remembering my sorrows no more.' Biit
in the morning we had an unpleasant surprise. It
seemed very bright when I opened my eyes, although
I knew it must be still early by my sleepy sensations,
and when I looked round I found it had t>een snowing
heavily during the night, with the result that there were
six inches of snow on the ground. The trail was
covered by it, and it seemed as if we were in for a
detention. However, it thawed rapidly, and most
quickly on the bare trail, so that we were able to find
our way with but little difficulty.

IQ2The Trail \across the Selkirks

We were, as I have said, now well on the western
slope, but instead of there being less climbing, there
was more. The path ran up one side of a mountain
and plunged down again on the other, and this was
the way with it: all that day.; The rain again com-
menced to fall, and the snow dropped from the trees
on my head and down my neck, so that I was wet
through in half an hour, and yet perspiring, toiling up
the steep slopes. And while going up my heels were
torture to me, and when going down my boots, being
now thoroughly wet, gave me blisters on the toes. The
trail, too, was at times almost impassable for wind-
fallen trees, as it is no light thing, when one is wet,
weary, and heavily burdened, to climb over a dozen
trees, three feet through, every hundred yards. And
now, to add to our troubles, we came to a river which
had to be crossed—the Illecilliwet. If we had come
there a day or two before, it might have been possible
to wade it; but now, swollen with two days' rain and
melted snow, on the side nearest to us it was five or
six feet deep, and the current running eight or ten
miles an hour made it impossible to attempt it. The
only thing to be done was to fell a lofty tree and to
trust to its lodging in the shallow water on the other
side, so that we could go over it as a bridge. We put
our burdens down, and selecting a tree, felled it in
about three-quarters of an hour. It fell with a tre-
mendous splash into the river, and we raised a shout
of joy, seeing that it reached well across. But, alas!
our joy was shqrt-lived. Before we could get on to it,
the rapid current took hold of it, and slowly first, and

103The Western Avernus

then more quickly, it swung right down stream and lay
along the bank on which we stood. There was nothing
to do but to fell another. This time we selected a
loftier red pine, and in another hour it crashed into the
water, with its slender top lying on the dry stones of
the farther side. I seized my blankets and the axe and
ran out on the tree, and after me came Bill and Fritz.
I scrambled through the branches half-way across, with
them close behind me, and then slowly, but surely, the
tree began to move and swing. I scrambled a yard or
two more on the trunk, that was here in the water, and
then made a jump into the stream on the upper side,
the water coming over my long boots. It was icy cold,
and it ran so strongly that it was impossible to go
straight across, so I was forced to go down stream, with
difficulty preserving my balance on the boulders of the
river bed. As I got ashore, with Bill and Fritz a
moment later, the stream took possession of our bridge
and swung it alongside the first tree. We had got
over, and that was all.

We had left the old man behind, and I don't know
how he got across, although I know he managed it, as
I heard of him afterwards in Lower British Columbia.
I met some time after this a man who, recognising him
from my description, told me that he was known as
4 the man-eater,' through his having eaten part of his
companion, who, having been caught in the snow with
him on the eastern slope of the Selkirks, had died from
starvation and exposure.

We camped, soon after crossing this river, in a
gloomy cedar forest. This is the worst shelter-tree in

104The Trail across the Selkirks

existence, I believe. Its scanty foliage and infrequent
boughs make it little better than nothing at all, and
indeed sometimes worse, as one may select uncon-
sciously a spot to camp in where the branches deliver
a concentrated stream of water and allow the rain to
come in as well. But we found here another little
bark lean-to, and of course stayed there, as we were all
tired out, although we had scarcely done ten miles the
whole of the day. We soon had a good fire lighted,
and began our cooking. Bill and I suggested pancakes,
so I mixed up a lot of batter in the cups, and, having
cut handles for our frying-pans, we began cooking.
Now, my notion of a pancake was, and is, that it
should be large and thick and puffy, but Bill thought
they should be small, thin, and brown. Consequently,
when I had my first one well under way, Bill said,
'What do you call that?9 This was very contemptu-
ously. I was nettled. 'Why, a pancake. What do
you call it?' 'Oh, I call it a pudding. You wait till
I get my pan fixed, I'll show you what a pancake is/
When he had his first one nearly done, I said, * Bill,
what's that you're cooking?' 'Why, a pancake.
D—n it, can't you see ?' ' That's not a pancake, that's
a miserable little hotcake. It's only a wafer. These
are pancakes, Bill; see them, something to eat.' Bill
nearly dropped his in the fire. 'Don't you think I
know what a pancake is? I've made 'em all over
America ; and you—why, you 're only an Englishman ;
what do you know, anyhow?1 'That's your ignor-
ance,' said I; ' I've cooked them in England, in
Australia, in the States, and now I'm cooking them on

105The Western Avernus

the Selkirk Trail. You 're only an American. Why
don't you travel and learn something?' Bill got per-
fectly furious, and if I had chaffed him any more, it
would have ended in a fight over those miserable cakes.
' Well, well, Bill, call yours pancakes. They are pan-
cakes, Bill; mine are only flapjacks.' Then there was
peace in the camp, and the mollified Bill condescended
to eat a flapjack and say it was good, while I took one
of his, saying it was the best hotcake—no! pancake—
I had ever eaten.

So we smoked the pipe of peace and lay down, while
the rain came through the cracks above us, and the
melancholy wind howled among the dark and gloomy
cedars. ;

During the night the snow again fell, covering the
ground to the depth of four or five inches, and making
us as uncomfortable as three poor tramps could be.
Still even so, I was able, in spite of the pain and incon-
venience I suffered, to observe, in the bright sunshine
that happily broke through and mastered the clouds,
the beautiful effects of the snow on the near and far
landscape. On the long arms of the cedars lay bright
patches of snow, and bush and fallen trunks, and jagged
stumps, whence the wind had smitten the top of branch
and foliage, had their adornment. And in the distance,
on the slopes and shoulders of the hills, the snow on
the gre<en forest showed thicker and more and more
yet as the eye passed upward, until the green gave
way in the overpowering mass of white on the laden
limbs, frozen fast in the lofty height, and then the snow
of the forest joined the snow on the untimbfcred slopes,

io 6WRECK FROM A SNOW-SLIDE.

\tofacep. 107.The Trail across the Selkirks

running at last into the never-failing frost of the peaks
of the range.

It was well I could look at so much, for, indeed,
underfoot things were not so pleasant, and rock and
mud and morass made it almost impossible walking;
and when, on one occasion, we came to a roaring creek
which had to be crossed on a fallen tree, I nearly put
a sudden end to my adventures by slipping on the
round wet truilk, although I was fortunate enough to
recover my balance. That night we camped again in
a cedar forest in a sharp rain, which had come upon us
suddenly in the late afternoon.

In the morning, when we came out of our damp
shelter into the wet grass arid brush, we found that it
had ceased raining, though the water still dropped
from the heavy branches as they swayed in the wind,
and there was some blue sky to be seen among the
white clouds above the mountain-tops. This day was
a repetition of the yesterday, tramping and climbing,
getting wet in the brush and drying again in the open,
when we came to a clear space below some mountain
peak which had been cleared of brush and timber,
from summit to base, by a gigantic avalanche or snow
slide, Below us at times we could see a confused
and hideous pile of jagged tree-trunks-—fir, pine, cedar,
balsam, spruce, and hemlock-—piled one above the
other, and mixed with rocks and earth, in utter and
violent confusion; while, looking up, we could see the
ice and snow above the way cleared through the
standing forest.

My own condition was, of course, no better, for
107The Western Avernus

nothing but rest could do my feet any good, and under
the circumstances rest was impossible, so I had to plod
along, trying to be as Mark Tapleyish as might be,
though I confess I doubt even his serenity in such a
state of things. But my burden was now growing
lighter, for the food was rapidly diminishing, and we
knew we could not be very far from the second cross-
ing of the Columbia.

Since we had crossed the Illecilliwet river we had
been on its left bank going down; that is, we had been
somewhere to the left of it, though how far we did not
know. I fancy we were close to it on one occasion, for
this day we came to a narrow gorge or canon, and on
crawling to the edge and looking down I saw a furious
stream at the bottom hundreds of feet beneath- me.
But we knew that we had to cross this river again
before we reached the Columbia, and we speculated
anxiously as to how it was to be crossed, whether by
raft or swimming, for there was very little likelihood of
its being fordable at the second crossing if we could
riot ford it at the first. But our doubts were solved
about noon, when, turning sharply round a turn in the
trail, we came upon a broad and rapid stream. We did
not know whether this was our river or not, but follow-
ing the trail for a while, we heard the ring of an axe at
some distance. There was evidently a man there-
abouts, and we should be able to make some inquiries.
A little farther along the trail we came to a small
clearing, and the first logs of a log-cabin. Under a
tree was a rude table, made of a slab of split pine on
stakes driven into the ground. There was a log-bench

108The Trail across the Selkirks

permanently fixed, so that one could sit down. Under
another tree was a smouldering fire with a camp oven
or skillet, a kettle, and some dirty pans lying in the
mud and ashes. Near at hand was a little tent with
blankets and a small pile of provisions, flour and
biscuit, with some bacon lying on the flour sack. On
a big tree close to the trail was this notice:—

4 ILLECILLIWET RESTAURANT.

Meals at all hours.'

This was then the Second Crossing, and looking
round, we could see where the trail ended abruptly in
the river.

Presently the sound of the axe ceased, and a man
dressed in long boots, blue trousers of dungaree, with a
broad-brimmed hat, came out of the forest. He was
brown and bearded and unkempt. His hands were
brown, hard, and exceedingly dirty, his face the same.
We saluted him in a friendly manner, and he gave us
separately a ' Morning, pard ; on the trail, eh ?' Then
he asked us whether we wanted meals, stating that his
prices were 75 cents a meal; that is, in English money,
$s. I \d. Fritz and I declined to eat at such terms ; but
Bill, who had more money than the two of us put
together, thought he would have something to eat with-
out cooking it himself, and our new acquaintance
prepared him some bacon, boiled some villainous coffee,
and heated him up a mass of greasy-looking beans. The
bread was certainly solid and satisfying, judging solely
from appearances. While the process of preparation was
being gone through with deliberation, we asked him how

109The Western Avernus

we were to get over the river, and were told that he had
a boat and would take us across for fifty cents each. In
order that we might not attempt to raft it, he gave us
an account of how three or four men had fared before
he came there. They had, it appears, made a raft on
which they put their blankets and saddles, previously
making their ponies swim across, and when it was in
mid stream the raft capsized. With difficulty they
escaped with their lives, and their money, to the amount
of about 600 dols., which they had carelessly left in
their baggage, was lost.

After Bill had finished eating, we went down to view
the boat. This was an extraordinary structure, made
of unpainted fir boards an inch thick. It was shaped
like a punt, flat-bowed and flat-sterned, and looked as
crazy and cranky a craft as could well be imagined for
crossing a rapid and turbulent mountain river. How-
ever, there was nothing else for it, and we determined
to venture it, bargaining that we were not to pay if we
were upset and had to swim for our lives. It was only
possible for two at a time to cross, so Fritz and the
ferryman went over first. I watched them with a great
deal of interest as the river swept them down while
they both paddled furiously. But there was no accident.
The ferryman hauled his boat up stream along the
bank until he got well above where we were on the
opposite side, and came across again. Then Bill wrent
over, leaving me till the last. When it came to my
turn, I could not help thinking of the proverb about the
pitcher going often to the well and getting broken at
last, considering that the third time might be unlucky.

110The Trail across the Selkirks

So I took some extra precautions, throwing my coat
and long boots off. However, things went very well,
and I, too, joined the others, and, having paid my fifty
cents, we started off on the last portion of the trail, as
we were that evening to come to the Columbia.

Bad as the trail had been before, I think that last
piece of eight or ten miles was really, in many ways,
the worst. There was, perhaps, not such hard climbing;
it was not so muddy ; there were not so many rocks and
stones; but the fallen trees lay upon it in numbers
innumerable. There would sometimes be two or three
close together, and twenty or thirty in a hundred yards.
We were crawling over them nearly the whole day,
until we were fairly wearied out, and cursed the trees
and the whole trail from the bottom of our hearts.
But the end of the trail was now nearly at hand. We
came at last to where it forked, and on the tree was
a notice of some one's ferry over the Columbia, which
was declared undeniably the best; on the other hand,
there were other notices equally commending another
ferry. We took the right-hand fork and went down
and down through the forest, on a trail which was now
infinitely better and clearer, with ways chopped through
the fallen trees. We were in high spirits—that is, the
other two were. For my part, nothing but rest could
make me' feel good,' and there was no prospect of that
as far as I could see; and, speaking from experience, I
defy any one to be happy when there is a goodly
portion of skin wanting from his feet, and he has never-
theless to walk, and to walk hard, and to carry a bundle
weighing ten or twenty pounds.

i iiThe Western Avernus

But still it was getting towards evening, and a stage
in our journey of unknown length was nearly completed,
and there would be the respite of camping-time. And
presently we saw the forest thinning as the trail
descended; in front, above the tree-tops, were other
mountains, and soon below we saw the gleam of blue
waters and a stretch of sand beyond. We were at the
ferry, we paid our money, and in a few moments stood
on the other side of the Columbia. Standing silently,
I looked back, and between two snow-clad mountains
I saw the great gap through which we had toiled. The
Columbia was behind us, and the Selkirk Range and
the Selkirk Trail.

112CHAPTER X

THE GOLDEN RANGE AND THE SHUSHWAP LAKES

I HAVE seen some rivers in my life in England, in
Australia, and in America. There are many most
beautiful streams in our own country—the upper Thames
with its gentle scenery and placid quietude ; the brawl-
ing Dove ; the splendid Mawddach in Merioneth,
between the mountains of Cader Idris and Diphwys ;
the rapid Eden at Carlisle ; and the turbid Severn. In
Australia I have seen the bright Murray when it comes
from the hills, the sluggish Murrumbidgee, and the
Lachlan; in America I have been across the Missouri,
the Mississippi, the Brazos, the Colorado, the Ohio, and
the Alleghany; but never have I seen a more beautiful
and magnificent stream than the Columbia River, at the
spot where we had just crossed it. It was bright, blue,
deep and calm and strong ; not a speck of foam was on
its bosom, not a break or a wave marred its mirror, save
where a breath of wind touched it lightly as a swallow's
wing. Yet it was so strong and earnest, and so bent
on doing its work in silence. In the late spring and
early summer it is, doubtless, turbid and swollen with
the rush of melting snow, but now beauty, majesty, and
strength were equally joined—the beauty of the lake
with its colour, the majesty of a stream hurrying to the
H	113The Western Avernus

verge of a cataract, the strength of a power that the
beaten-down barriers of the mountains had proved.

And before me lay a scene that I felt was worth the
toil and pain and endurance that had brought me there
to see it. There was no sunlight in the air, for the sky
was veiled with a sullen stretch of unbroken cloud, and
the wind was calm and quiet. Before me was a stretch
of white sand and shingle, over which the waters had
been running in the spring, and beyond it, on the flat, a
few pines and firs lifted their heads above the lower
brush, from which rose the blue smoke of some hidden
habitations; and, far above this the mountains again,
opening into three great and gloomy passes, south and
west and north. On the loftiest peaks, the sentinels
guarding the ways, lay the snow, and low down the
bosoms of the hills were fair garlands of mist and cloud.
From the northern pass the river ran, sweeping round
the bend to be lost to sight in the southern ways that
brought it at last to the Pacific. Through the western
pass, a grand and narrow canon, lay our road over the
Golden Range.

We had been speculating all this day as to whether
we should be able to get a somewhat civilised meal, for
the constant repetition of bacon and bread was begin-
ning to pall upon us. But if we had really hoped for
anything, we were doomed to disappointment, and all
inquiries after a place to get a meal only obtained us
the information that we could buy flour and bacon at
such and such a canvas tent, which was a store.

In making these inquiries, I spoke to a pleasant-looking
little man, who turned out to be the contractor who had

114A BRITISH COLUMBIAN LAKE.

[to face p. 115.Golden Range and Shushwap Lakes

constructed the wagon road through the Eagle Pass,
upon which we were to make our way west. He asked
me where I was going, and offered me work, which I
declined, as I wanted to get to the coast. His name
was Gus Wright, a man who is very well known in
British Columbia. Him I met again in many different
places.

As we could not get any one to feed us for love or
money, we bought some more bacon and set off down
the road in the dark, for it was now late evening, hoping
to find a good camping-ground. To make things plea-
sant for us, it began to rain, so that by the time we came
to an extremely well-ventilated bark-shelter we were
nearly wet through, and before we had a fire alight we
were soaking.

We were camped in a swamp, with a few dead trees
around us and a rocky bluff overhead. The wind rose
in the night, we heard a tree fall in the gale now and
then, and the driving rain came in upon us as we lay,
dropping through the miserable roof, and making the
ground soft and muddy, and our blankets of little avail.
In the morning we crawled out before it was dawn, and
kindled the fire afresh to boil the tea, sitting mean-
while on a log in front of it with our blankets round us,
smoking the first pipe.

At noon we came to a camp at a river, and got a good
meal for fifty cents, and by four o'clock in the afternoon
we crossed the Divide after passing three lakes, the
last of which was the Summit. At the camp here we
had another meal, and walking four miles farther, came
at dark to the best camping-place we had found yet, as

USThe Western Avernus

it was absolutely rainproof on the three sides and the
roof. Fritz and I were alone by this time, as Bill had
insisted on camping at the last lake. Having had
dinner so late, or supper so early, we thought it un-
necessary to eat again, and devoted our energies to
building a glorious fire to dry ourselves and our
blankets. We made it of cedar bark, which burns
furiously and throws out tremendous heat We were
soon comfortable, and slept magnificently. As we made
a late start, Bill caught us up, and we tramped along as
usual. Our objective point was now the Shushwap
Lakes, which lay at the end of the road. On these we
were told we should find steamers, by which we could
get down to the inhabited parts of British Columbia and
comparative civilisation. In the Rocky Mountains
these steamers had given rise to much discussion, and at
first we thought they ran somewhere down the Columbia
to the Arrow Lake, and it was only at the * Illecilliwet
Restaurant' that we heard positively in what direction
we had to go. On leaving Columbia City, or the Second
Crossing, we were told the day on which the next
steamer was to leave, and now we found we had to
make the Lakes this evening, or we should have to wait
for the next one. So we pushed on, and it was a
terrible day for me. Of course, the road was much
better than the trail had been, but we made up for
that by walking faster, and my feet were getting worse
all the while, being so bad at times that I thought I
should really be laid up, and perhaps entirely incapaci-
tated. We hardly stayed at noon to make tea, and
walked along doggedly, without any means of knowing

II6Golden Range and Shushwap Lakes

how far we had come, hoping that we should find the
distance shorter than we had been told. But it came to
night-time and a renewal of rain, and still there was no
end. We camped at last, for a while, close to the road
by a pool of water, and ate some supper, and then
started out wearily in the dark, without saying anything
to each other. It was a case of walking against time,
and I felt sure that he would get the best of us. I
began to get tired in addition to the pain, though I said
nothing. I could see Fritz on ahead of me, plodding
along, and behind me I heard Bill splash, splash through
the water on the roads, with an occasional curse as he
stumbled against a stone. We were now in a thick
dark forest, and began to be a little alarmed, as
occasionally we heard noises in the brush which might
be caused by bears. Afterwards I found out that they
were quite numerous along here. I had no wish to
stumble up against one in the dark without any weapon
save a knife, so I called to Fritz and asked him if he
would camp. No, he was going to the Steamboat
Landing. Bill wanted to go on too, so I gave in, and
we walked another mile. Then Bill called me, and I
called Fritz. Bill was going to camp anyhow, so he
said, but still Fritz was inexorable; and as I thought
that we really could not be far, I determined to walk on
as well. But after the next hundred yards I began to
feel as if it was more than I could do to lift my legs up.
My boots seemed as heavy as lead, and my head began
to swim, and I almost fell asleep while walking. At
last I stopped: ' Fritz, I'm going to camp right here/
4 Very well, Fm going on/ So he left me. But presently

117The Western Avernus

I heard him call, and thinking something might have
happened, I got up, and walking a hundred yards, I came
to my valiant Teuton, who had ' caved in ' at last. He
could go no farther, so we cut down a balsam, made a
bed, and slept as if we were never going to wake. The
bears might have eaten one of us without waking the
other, I believe, and it is fortunate they did not try.

In the morning we made breakfast and set out on our
last stage, which was about four miles. As we knew we
had missed the steamer, we did not hurry, and only got
to the Landing about two o'clock in the afternoon. We
found Bill there, for he had passed us as we slept in the
brush without noticing where we lay. By this time he
was nearly drunk, as it was possible to get spirits to
drink here.

On making inquiries, we found that the ' Peerless1
steamer would come up next day and leave soon after
for the towns of Kamloops and Savona's Ferry, so I
had time to look after my miserable feet, which were
now in a condition to entitle me to go into a hospital.
However, by bathing them and doing nothing, they
began to feel a little more comfortable, and the sores
dried up, and the new skin began to form.

We were not now in a town, or anything resembling
one; it was merely a store and whisky saloon, kept by
two partners, Murdoch and Hill. Opposite the house,
which then consisted of a big bar-room with shelves in
it for liquors and dry goods, and a room for eating, was
the stable with some hay in it. Besides this there was
a log-hut some distance away. This constituted the
whole settlement, at that time, of Eagle Pass Landing.

118Golden Range and Shushwap Lakes

It was on the borders of the Great Shushwap (pro-
nounced Su-swop) Lake, which was here nine or ten
miles across, and surrounded by mountains, which are
high enough certainly, but to me they looked mere
hillocks after the giants of the Rockies and the Selkirks.
The Eagle River, which came down the pass we had
followed, ran into the lake about a mile from the house,
and behind the hill which bounded our view of the lake
in front was the Salmon Arm, into which ran the Sal-
mon River. At the junction of the Eagle with the lake
waters was another river, of which I knew nothing at
this time. It was called the Spallumcheen or Spullama-
cheen, and came down past an agricultural valley, as I
was told, though it was hard to believe that there was
any land in British Columbia level enough for farming,
if I could judge from what I had seen. Behind the
house were steep mountains covered with pine, fir, and
birch, but there was no snow on them.

It was a curious enough sight to sit in Murdoch's and
see the little gathering of men there. Murdoch himself
was a short, strong-looking man with a good-natured
face and agreeable manners, though rather rough, and
getting a little grizzled in the beard. Hill, his partner,
was a small, boyish-looking fellow, who looked slightly
out of place in these wild regions, in a decent suit of
black and a good felt hat. Then there was a man
named Fair weather, I believe, who talked in a loud and
boisterous, bullying tone, as if anxious to make men
believe he was a dangerous person, who must be treated
with consideration. One or two others, who were
waiting, like ourselves, for the boat, completed the

119The Western Avernus

company. At times the door would be pushed stealth-
ily open, and an Indian with a soft felt hat over long
greasy hair would slide in and show us a pair of well-
worn moccasins on flat feet, and ragged trousers and
coat to match. He would bring a skin or two—a
marten or a beaver, or perhaps a fox—and would argue
with Murdoch or Hill about the price in a language of
which I then knew nothing, and supposed to be Indian,
but which I afterwards discovered to be Chinook, a
barbarous trading jargon made of English, Indian, and
French. Then, perhaps, a squaw with her papoose, both
a little dirtier than the man, would enter and stare round.
They would consult in their own tongue, and then make
a bargain, or go out without trading, to give way in turn
to some other Indians with fish or deer-meat.

Altogether I found plenty to amuse me without
walking or falling back on my solitary book, Sartor
Resartus, and when I got bored, or too lazy even to
smoke, I retired into a corner and put my head on my
blankets and slept for a while.

In the evening, after supper was over, we gathered
round the stove and talked about the railroad, and we
who had come from the other side had to give accounts
of the progress made there. And then some one from
Kamloops or lower down would tell us in return how
the road was progressing under Onderdonk, the con-
tractor who had the main British Columbia portion
of the C. P. R. under contract. Then followed yarns
and jests, and presently we pulled out the blankets,
spread them on the floor where there was least tobacco-
juice, and soon all were sleeping and snoring.

120Golden Range and Shushwap Lakes

On the evening of the second day the steamer came
round the point and blew her whistle, which echoed
again and again among the mountains, and presently
she ran gently on the gravelly beach and let half-a-
dozen passengers ashore, who came straight up to
Murdoch's. One young fellow rushed in, insisted on
standing drinks to the whole crowd, and, seizing a box
of cigars, went round inviting every one to take a smoke.
Meantime I inquired as to when the steamer was to go,
and, finding it would not be before morning, I came
back to get my share of the fun, if there was to be any.
However, there was little, save a few glasses of whisky
and a loud gabbling of voices, though some of us
amused ourselves by trying to set beaver-traps. These
are made of steel, with immensely strong springs, and
it is quite a trick to set one. Few can do it without
treading on both sides, and it was delightful to see a
very light man trying in vain. I could manage it after
a few trials. There was only one among us who could
set it by hand simply, without treading it, and he was an
old trapper. Bear-traps, which are, of course, much more
powerful than these, can only be set by using a lever.

In the morning we paid up what we owed, and I got
a dollar's worth of bread and deer-meat from Murdoch,
for my cash was now necessarily getting very low. In
fact, when I went on board and paid my seven dollars
to go to Savona's Ferry^ which was as far as the
steamer went, I was again penniless, which seemed
then my normal condition. So it was impossible for
me to pay fifty cents a meal on the boat and the same
for a bed.

121The Western Avernus

The boat was of the usual American shape, with
lower and hurricane decks, and was a stern-wheeler,
such as, I believe, have lately been introduced in the
Nile navigation. She was capable of doing twelve
knots or more an hour, and it was certainly necessary
that she should be able to make good headway, as the
current in the rivers between the lakes is at times
tremendous.

We had reckoned on being in Savona's Ferry, about a
hundred miles away, the next day, but we were doomed to
disappointment; for, instead of going direct to Kamloops
and then on to Savona, the boat turned to the right
instead of the left, and picked up a big 4 boom of logs/
which she was to tow down to the saw-mill at Kamloops.
These were logs cut and thrown into the lake, and
then collected into the boom, which consists of logs
connected with a chain, making a ' pen/ as it were, to
keep them together. So, instead of going down flying,
we had to crawl along, doing about three miles an hour.
The scenery was pleasant enough, and at times grand,
sometimes heavily timbered, and sometimes bare, with
the hills terraced as it were. The lake water was deep
and dark, and cold to those who were not used to
mountain water, but to me it seemed absolutely warm.

When we left the Great Shushwap Lake, and ran
through the connecting river, which was part of the
south fork of the Thompson, I had my first view of the
Pacific salmon. Standing on the bows, and looking
down into the clear, transparent water, I could see
hundreds of large fish, from ten to thirty pounds,
darting about in every direction. There were fairly

122Golden Range and Shushwap Lakes

tens of thousands of them. At intervals along the
banks there were camps of the Shushwap Indians,
living in little bark shanties, along the front of which
were hung hundreds of split salmon drying in the sun.
The little brown children, some of them naked as they
were born, came out and stared at us, and their dogs
yelped and dashed a little way into the water. Out in
the stream there were a few canoes with a squaw
paddling in the stern, while the ' buck' stood up forward
with a long spear watching for the passing fish.

My life on board those three days was commonplace
and quiet. I slept and smoked and ate my bread and
deer-meat, and at times talked with some of the deck
hands, who were full Indians or half-breeds. Some
of the latter were fairly good-looking, and one was
positively handsome, while the former were for the
most part as ugly as possible.

I read a little, too, in Carlyle, and fancied myself
Teufelsdroch on his travels, though mine were certainly
of a different character from those celebrated wanderings.
And perhaps I borrowed a scrap of a newspaper, which
would set me speculating on what the country was like
down stream. And sometimes I wondered whether I
should get work, and if so what work, and if not what I
should do, and so on. Consequently I had no sense of
ennui on me, and if Fritz or anybody bored me I could
easily take refuge in sleep or in the scenery.

So we slowly got down the river, coming more and
more into land which looked possible at least for
grazing stock, and in places fit for farming, and soon
we began to pass stock-farms. We could see bands of

123The Western Avernus

cattle and horses, and here and there a house on the
river-banks, back from which the country had now all
along the curious terraced appearance I had noticed
occasionally higher up. The timber got less and less,
and the appearance of the country was drier. I was
told that we had now passed out of the up-country Wet
Belt, and were in the Dry Belt, where rain did not fall
all the year round.

At last, after a journey which would not have seemed
long if I had not known how much faster we might
have travelled had it not been for the logs behind us,
we began to come near to Kamloops. I had deter-
mined to go no farther than this on the boat; and on
representing the matter in the proper light to the
captain, he returned me the extra fare I had paid to
Savona's Ferry. This two dollars was now all my
capital.

Late in the evening of the third day, on coming
round a bend in the river, we saw the lights of a town,
and a quarter of an hour after the steamship had blown
her whistle we were moored alongside the wharf at the
Flour Mill, and taking my blankets on my back, I went
ashore after bidding Fritz farewell. I was in Kamloops
at last.

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MOUNTAINS AT CANMORE.	\tofacef. 125.CHAPTER XI

round kamloops

After asking where I could find a hotel, I walked
from the wharf across a bed of sawdust which was
wheeled from the sawmill adjoining, and came to the
street of which Kamloops consists. In a few minutes
my blankets were lying on a pile of rugs and valises,
and I sat down by the stove to get warm in the bar-room
of Ned Cannell, the best known and most popular
hotel-keeper in the town. There were fifteen or twenty
men in the room, most of us smoking or chewing; a
few were in the boisterous stage of incipient intoxica-
tion, and some two or three were lying helplessly on
the floor. I could hear snatches of conversation.
'Come, step us, boys, what's your liquor?' 4Take a
smile;' 4 Oh now, don't give us taffy;' 'What's this
you're telling me?' or, 'Say, Jack, got a chew o'
terbacker? hand us your plug.' Then there was talk
of the railroad, which, of course, was the all-absorbing
topic, some prophesying prosperity, and some universal
ruin and desolation as its result. 'See now, pard,
Montana was a good country before the Northern
Pacific was put through, and what is it now? Why,
a few years ago cow-boys were getting 45 and 50 dols.
a month, and now wages is down to 25 or 30.' Every-

125The Western Avernus

body judged solely from his own experience, as men
mostly do in matters which affect the pocket.

I found there was no work to be done except
railroad work, and of that I had had a sickener; and
when I found that white men's wages here were only
175 dol. for such work, and that there were hordes of
Chinamen introduced into the country to compete with
our race, I began to think I had come to a curious
country. But I lay back taking it as easy as possible,
and, under the narcotic influence of much nicotine, sank
into a lethargic state of indifference ; in fact, I chewed
myself into a state of coma, like Dickens's Elijah
Pogram. About a quarter to twelve some of the
company began to go, and, as all the beds in the house
were full, about a dozen of us slept in our blankets all
about the bar-room, and in an alcove where stood
a diminutive billiard-table.

In the morning I was out early and took a look at
the town. It consisted then of a long straight street of
wooden houses, some of them quite handsome structures,
especially when I compared them with the log-shacks I
had been living in. This street, on both sides of which
were houses, runs at some little elevation above the
river, which is here the Thompson with its full waters,
as the South Fork, down which I had come the day
before, is joined by the North Fork, the junction taking
place right in front of the town. Across the river, in
the corner of land washed by the two rivers, was the
Reservation for the Kamloops Indians, with their dirty
little town of miserable huts, and behind this a steep,
barren, and treeless mountain, which had the peculiarity

126Round Kamloops

to me of always looking as if it was partly in shade and
partly in light, owing to differences in colours of the
mass. In fact, it gave me somewhat the same impres-
sion in that respect as St. Paul's in London does when
one sees the clean and discoloured portions of the
stones in contrast.

On the opposite side of the South Fork was a stretch
of flat country running gradually up in the background
to hill and mountains and a confusion of peaks. These
mountains are but sparsely wooded in comparison with
the ranges in the upper country.

My object was now to get work if I could, so I went
to the saw-mill and the flour-mill, but was unsuccessful
there, and I found nothing in the rest of the town.
When I was thoroughly satisfied that it was useless to
trouble myself any more in this place, I met Bill,
who was in an advanced state of intoxication. He
rushed out of Edward's hotel, clawed hold of me to keep
himself up, saying, 'Come and have a drink, Texas.' I
would much rather have left it and him alone, but there
was no denying him, and I had to take something.
Then it was, 4 Take another/ but I refused firmly.

i Well, anyhow, you'll come and have dinner with me,
Texas; I know you can't have much money.' Now
this was very kind, and I did have dinner with him,
though he worried me all the time by behaving as if he
was in camp under a cedar, glaring round wildly,
clawing at things unsteadily, and capsizing his tea
on the table. Still, it is nothing uncommon in that
country for a few men at table to be drunk, and nobody
marks them if they are not quarrelsome.

127The Western Avernus

After dinner I thought it was time to get out of town.
It was no use staying there with I dol., which was now
all I had, and I thought there might be a chance of
getting work in the country, as I was told that there were
many cattle-ranches in this part of British Columbia.
So I slung my blankets on my back and set off, consol-
ing myself with the thought that, if I was unsuccessful,
at any rate I was going west, and might reckon on
reaching the Pacific in time if 1 did not starve on the
way. I set off on the road which led to Savona Ferry,
and walked steadily in spite of my feet, which soon
began to hurt me again, although they had been better
during the last few days of comparative rest. For three
miles or so my way lay uphill through a dry, barren-
looking country, with here and there the efflorescence of
alkali showing among the coarse grass and whitening
the baked mud at the bottom of the dried water-holes.
The trees were bull-pines with red scaly trunks of a
foot or two in diameter for the most part, with now
and again a fir, or occasionally a tree that looked like a
dwarf cotton-wood. Here and there were a few horses,
that lifted their heads to look at me, and then went on
grazing assiduously. Then I would come upon a band
of cattle. These would start a little, then run into a
cluster, and stand staring with the boldest in front,
perhaps pawing the dusty ground or bellowing. They
would stand so until I got out of sight, and then some
would come to the next rise to have another look at
my departing figure. Four miles from town I came
to a woodcutters' camp, and stayed a while to talk with
the one man there, who was from Missouri, but had not

128Round Kamloops

been home for twenty years. From him I learnt there
was a ranche about seven or eight miles farther on, and
I bade him farewell and tramped along, making nearly
four miles an hour. As I came round a curve in the
road, past a dried alkali lake which was white as snow,
I saw a little house on a rise with farm buildings near
at hand, and on the side nearest to me a man was
working with two horses, driving them round and round
in a ring, while he stood in the middle holding the
reins, or lines, as they call them in America. There
was a woman with him who was using a hay fork. On
coming closer I found they were thrashing out grain in
this primitive manner, something in the way they must
have done in the ancient days spoken of in the Old
Testament, when it was forbidden to muzzle the oxen
that tread out the corn. I climbed over the fence and
went down towards them. As I came up the man
stopped his horses. He was a hard, wiry-looking
individual, with keen eyes, scanty beard and moustache,
weather-beaten skin, and a good mouth. He wore
long boots, into which an ancient pair of blue trousers
were tucked, a waistcoat unbuttoned showing a white
shirt, and no coat. His hands were hard and muscular,
with the glazed appearance on the backs one so often
sees in old seamen. In spite of this rig-out, I saw at
once he was not an ordinary British Columbian, but
was probably an educated man, and possibly an
Englishman. I was more puzzled by the woman, who
was an Indian I could see, short and strong-looking,
with strongly-marked features, and such a look of
intelligence and such a smile on her face, that I almost
i	129The Western Avernus

doubted my first impression as to her race. I spoke to
him, ' Good-afternoon, sir: are you the boss here ?'
He smiled : 4 Well, I guess I am, unless she is,' he said,
pointing to the woman, who smiled, and then laughed
genially, but said nothing. 'You're an Englishman?'
I confessed to my nationality, and he said,' So am I.
Are you travelling ?' I explained that I was looking
for work, and asked if he could help me to get any.
' I'm too poor to hire any one just now, and I must get
on as I can by myself/ said he, 'but you can go up to the
house if you would like a cup of tea; my wife will give
you some.' I thanked him and went up to the house,
and sat down in the kitchen, where I was soon drinking
tea and eating corned beef. Presently my host came up
and sat down to talk. He told me that his name was
Hughes, that he was an Englishman, that he had been
a sailor in the East India trade, had left the company,
and taken to running opium into China. After this he
came to California soon after the days of '49, and ftiined
for fourteen years in that State without much success,
and since that time he had been in British Columbia
working for Gus Wright, the man I had met up at the
second crossing of the Columbia, and mining on his
own account, and that now he was in the cattle-raising
business. In return for this confidence, I told him my
history, how I had been in Australia and at sea, speaking
of my life in London and my adventures since then.
Finally, it grew so late while we were talking, that he
asked me to stay there all night and make a fresh start
in the morning.

That evening, after supper, we had a long talk about
130Round Kamloops

things in general—about emigration, about English
politics, in which he still took an interest, being an
ardent Conservative. This is, I find, very often the case
with Englishmen living abroad, though I found their
adherence to Conservatism was, for the most part, based
on the belief that that party is the most consistent in
foreign politics and pledged to an Imperial policy. On
the other hand, the Liberalism which would allow the
Colonies to go their own way is thought contemptible
and narrow-minded and selfish. I may take this oppor-
tunity of saying that I have found the Colonies generally
more devoted to the mother country than she is to
them, although the affection of the human parent for
the child is, as a rule, greater than that of child for
parent.

From politics we ran into philosophy and religion,
and we chatted for hours on agnosticism and atheism,
on religion as it is and as it should be, and diverged
into literature. I found him a very well-informed man,
considering everything, and by no means bigoted.

He told me, however, in confidence that he was not
beloved by his neighbours, and I found this to be true;
but, considering their general ignorance, that was a
compliment to him.

Before going to bed, he told me that I might possibly
find work at the next ranche, belonging to a Mr. Roper,
who was a good boss, he said. If I was unsuccessful
there I could go over to the Lake, about three miles
from Roper's, where the railroad was being made, and
try there. Finally, if I was unsuccessful at both places,
I might come back to him, and he would give me a

131The Western Avernus

week or two's work at a dollar a day. So I thanked
him, and went to sleep on a pile of rugs in the corner of
the room.

In the morning I had breakfast, shook hands with
him, in case I should not come back, and set off down
the road. I saw Mr. Roper, but could get no work
there, so I went over to Ferguson's on the Lake, where
two tunnels were being made.

I found Mr. Ferguson, but he, too, had no work for
me unless I could drill. As I was unable to tackle this
job on account of inexperience, I walked down the
grade, finding large gangs of Chinamen at work at
different places, in charge of a white man, who was
called the 4 herder.' This job is not always a happy one,
although it is well paid, for the Chinamen who work on
railroads are the very scum of China,' wharf rats ' from
Hong Kong, and are often evil and desperate. Conse-
quently it is no uncommon thing for a 4 herder' to get
killed or badly beaten by them if anything goes wrong,
and sometimes in protecting himself he will have to
shoot several of them when they run at him with picks
and shovels.

After walking some distance, I came to the boss of
part of the work, who gave me directions how to get
back to Hughes's Ranche without retracing my steps.
I had to climb up a terribly steep hill, and then walk
two or three miles through open timber, finally coming
out just at the spot I had aimed at. I went down to
the ranche and shook hands with Hughes. That even-
ing I bathed my feet, which had broken out again in
sores and blisters, and Mrs. Hughes gave me a pair of

132Round Kamloops

buckskin moccasins, in which it was a perfect delight to
walk after going about in my big boots. I stayed at
this ranche two weeks, and was kindly treated in every
way. We had good food and plenty of it, and did not
work long hours. I gathered rocks for a stone wall, and
drove a scraper team to fill up holes round the near
farm buildings. Sometimes I dug potatoes or gathered
beans, and at night we had long conversations about all
possible things, or I read the English illustrated papers
or wrote letters. My health here was better than it had
been at any time since I had left home, for the air was
magnificent. The scenery was not grand, but beautiful
and quiet. Below the house was a stretch of flat
meadow, beyond it birch and cottonwood, over these
ranges of grass with a few bull pines, and above and
beyond these the spurs of the range which divided us
from the Nicola Valley.

At last one night Hughes told me that he had no
more need of help, and that we must part on the morrow.
I was more than sorry to go, but at any rate this
comparative rest had done me much good. My feet
were thoroughly healed, and I had fifteen dollars in my
pocket. In the morning I set out alone, this time
determined not to stop or stay until I reached the
coast. I promised to write to Hughes, and he promised
to answer.

That evening I reached Savona's Ferry at the west
end of Kamloops Lake, and stayed in a hotel kept by
Adam Ferguson, one of the handsomest men I ever saw
in British Columbia.

I was now in the Alkali Dry Belt, where the rain is
133The Western Avernus

very scanty, and the ground brown and the grass parched
and burnt. The water is often very bad and unfit for
drinking. My next day's solitary walk was over a high,
almost level plain on a good road, with a few climbs
when it plunged into a canon and cafne up again on the
other side. The scenery was desolate but beautiful, the
hills were rounded but in the distance lofty, and here
and there the country was cut up into mounds or buttes
and bluffs, with now and again terrace rising'above
terrace. The hillsides were cut sometimes like irregular
channelling in an Ionic column, and the few trees gave
the place a more solitary look than if it had been bare.
As I had crossed the Thompson River at Savona it was
now on my left hand, and it ran turbulently over rock
and rapid far below me, in its calmer intervals bright
and blue, while the noise of the rapids was like the roar
of the breakers when one hears them from a long
distance. At times the winding road took me far from
the river back towards the hills, and sometimes I was in
the middle of a plain, the only sign of life on it. I had
dinner at the Eight Mile House, so called on the lucus
a non lucendo principle, for it was thirteen miles from
Savona and twelve from Cache Creek. Here I found
three teamsters at dinner, who were bound the same
way as myself, with empty wagons. I remember one
went by the extraordinary nickname of * Hog Hollow
Bill/ which I found out afterwards was given him be-
cause he came from a place of that name in Missouri.
I started to walk before they had their teams hitched
up. While I was getting ready to go, the woman who
kept the house went outside to see one of the men tie

134Round Kamloops

a kettle to the tail of an unfortunate cur who had made
his home there. Her child began to cry aloud about
something, and she ran in, caught it up, saying : ' There,
duckie, don't cry ; come and see Jim tie a kettle to the
doggie's tail/ I was happy to see that the instrument
of torture parted company with the dog after the first
hundred yards, while this mother was giving her child
a first lesson in cruelty to animals. After walking a
mile the wagons caught me up, and I was invited to
take a ride on one of them, and by this means I got
into Cache Creek before dark. This place consists of
two or three houses, a hotel, a store, and an express
office. The Buonaparte Creek comes down this way,
and it is here that the wagon-road turns off to Cariboo,
the great mining-place in British Columbia, I got vile
food and viler accommodation, and all the bar-room
talk was about the extortionate charges on tht rail-
road. They told me about a horse, which was worth
40 dols., for which the owner was asked 75 dols. for
transportation. He told the railroad men to keep
the horse.

In the morning I continued the journey on the wagon
with my friendly teamster, and after going through
much the same country, came at noon to * Oregon
Jack's/ Oregon Jack had been in British Columbia
more than twenty years, and had never been sober since
he entered the country. It is not known how many
years he had been drunk in Oregon, but testimony from
all sides averred that his intoxication had been constant
on the north side of the 49th parallel. He was a little
bald-headed man, with red face and leering, satyr-

135The

W estern

Avernus

like eyes, and he certainly was drunk when I saw him,
though able to talk fluently about being perfectly
sober, ' though I was drunk when you were last here,
Bill.'

We afterwards passed Cornwall's, the hotel kept by
the Governor of British Columbia. This was the quietest,
most comfortable hotel on the road, with lots of English
papers lying round the rooms. In the evening we
came to Eighty-nine—that is, eighty-nine miles from
Yale, and stayed at French Pete's. There were a
dozen wagons here, going up and down, and the team-
sters made things so lively that soon after supper,
which was cooked by French Pete's Indian wife, I took
my blankets outside and got into my teamster's wagon,
and slept there comfortably, although it was a rather
frosty night. The hills on both sides of the river were
now drawing closer together, and the character of the
country was changing, as if we were approaching moun-
tains again. I asked the teamster about this, and he said
we were coming now to the Cascade Range, and that we
should enter the canon at Cook's Ferry. Accordingly
a little afterwards I began to see larger hills and
mountains, while the river ran more rapidly over rocks,
breaking in foam down long rapids, and when unbroken
running round the bends with a quiet velocity even
more impressive than the noisy rush of the broken
waters.

Soon after noon we crossed the bridge at the ferry
and passed to the left side of the stream. This was
the end of the track in this direction.

Since leaving the summit of the Rocky Mountains,

136Round Kamloops

where i had last heard the whistle of the eastern loco-
motives, i had traversed mountains, lakes, and plains
on foot, by steamer, and by wagon, and had come 360
miles to hear them again. And i had yet 180 miles to
pass before i should reach the coast.

137CHAPTER XII

through the fraser canon

Up to the moment of my leaving Cook's Ferry, I had
deluded myself with the thought that I was coming at
last to some beautiful evidences of civilisation. After
passing each comfortable ranche, and seeing the pros-
perity of fat cattle and plentiful horses, I said to myself,
' I shall soon be in El Dorado, where, perhaps, there is
a library with books to be read ; perhaps there may be
men who are civilised and educated, even so far the
delightful victims of our pleasures as to be acquainted
with chess. Then, instead of playing draughts on a
tree stump, rudely marked out with a burnt stick, in the
primaeval forest, I may sit by a fire, with a cup of
coffee near at hand and a pipe of good tobacco, and
astonish my opponent with a crafty Muzio or a well-
played Evans. Or I may play mild bumblepuppy, or
even whist, instead of fierce poker, or insidious euchre,
or assassinating cut-throat.' But now it seemed that
my airy visions and dream-castles were to be shocked
and shaken down. My library of books eager to be
read, my chess-table with opponent waiting, my smoking
cup of coffee, vanished from my imagination when once
more a tremendous barrier of rock and mountain, thrust
high into the black clouds above, came before me and

138ROSS PEAK.

\toface p. 138.Through the Fraser Canon

shut me for a time, immeasurable until passed through,
from level land, if such there were, and from coast and
Pacific, whose imagined roar was driven from my ears
by sound of wind and river.

For the Cascades were in front of me, frowning, and
the Thompson ran mockingly past, while I toiled
slowly up the road into the labyrinth of hills.

And yet I was light-hearted, for my feet were whole
and sound, and I heard again in my pocket the jingle
of pleasant silver. The road, if steep at times, was at
any rate well made, and the change from the cloudless
blue of the Dry Belt to the broken harmony of cloud
and clear sky, mist and rain, and.green of tree or grass,
was sweet. So as I climbed I watched the fretting
river that had worn its way through these hills for
thousands of years—for a geologic age perchance, and
when I rested I sat on a fallen tree, under which, when
in its first youth and glory, perhaps the pioneer Indian
who found the pass had come, and upon whose fallen
trunk had rested, it might also be, the most adventurous
of the white trappers when the Hudson Bay Company
were sovereign in these solitudes. And when I wandered
from the road and sat down by the river, or lay by a
little brawling creek to rest, I was, as it were, the first
myself in this realm of nature. The white trapper was
yet unborn in the home of his fathers, and the Indian a
little deeper still in the unknown, while his tribe are on
the plains of the east or among the timber of the coast.
Or the abode of his fathers is more distant yet, even
beyond Alaska—yea, even beyond Behring's Straits, in
the mystic land of Asia, mother of nations, fertile and

i39The Western Avernus

not yet past childbearing, though a Sarah among the
younger lands.

But no ! am I dreaming or awake? For there is my
Indian coming down the pass; verily an Indian, and a
dirty one, with his long greasy locks and the moccasins.
This is no pioneer. No; but here is the white man's
pioneer. I hear a shriek and a rush and a roar, and as
I look up, staring across the foam to yon shelf of rock,
on it there sweeps, like an embodied hurricane, the
Engine and the Train, the Power and the Deed. And
my pioneer of Indians looks not up; his thoughts are
far away, perhaps to the times before the white man
was ; or, perhaps, they are but dreams stomachic as to
where the next dinner may be begged. For so has the
Indian fallen !

Have the elder races halted ?

Do they droop and end their lesson . . .

We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers ! O Pioneers !

So went that day's walk in the canon or valley of the
Thompson, so soon to lose its name and be mingled
with the waters of the greater and longer river, the
Fraser. And as the evening came on the sky got
sullen and drooped wearily, until it rested on the moun-
tains, and a chill, sharp wind came from the gorges,
keen and hard and piercing, like the ranked spear-
points of an invisible host or the close flight of unseen
magic arrows. And I walked quicker and quicker, for
I was but thinly clad—nay, almost unclad, against such
ice breezes from the north—and still in solitude. But
I came round a corner and saw four Indians—two

140Through the Fraser

Canon

women, one old and one young, and two children, a
boy and a girl. The older woman was of any age, but
surely nearly ready for her rest in those quaint, fantastic
graveyards in which the Indians put their dead, adorning
the guardian railing with globes, spikes, and strange
painted figures of carven cocks, and figure dummies on
the graves under tents to keep off the snow and hail
and biting wind. Yet she was heavily burdened with
a large roll of blankets or rugs, in the middle of which
was perhaps a package of evilly smelling salmon,
supported by a broad pack-strap on her forehead.
And the poor little children were bearing packs bigger
than themselves. It was happy that the wind was
behind them, or how else could they toil up that slope,
although so much better a road than their old ancient
trail, which at times came in sight as the white man's
broad way crossed and supplanted it, leaving the briers
and brush and weeds to encumber and choke it up?
The old woman greeted me : c Clahya.' ' Clahya,' said
I, and passed on, melancholy for myself, but sadder yet
for them.

And but another step, and I see the earliest lights of
Lytton stretched along a little flat; I see the Fraser,
turbid and swollen, bursting from its northern hills;
and I see the Thompson's blue beauty overpowered
in the whitened stream, like a bluebell smitten down
by discoloured snow. But still it shows, as might
a petal, along the nearer shore a thin diminishing
band of light amethyst against the broad colour of
grey jade.

And now I come down to men's habitations, where

141The Western Avernus

Indians and whites dwell together. I walked into the
bar-room of Bailey's Hotel, and found my white host as
drunk as an Indian might be, yet good-tempered and
smiling and amorous of his fiddle, which he embraced
lovingly. It was there I stayed that night, amid some
noise and disorder, while outside the rain and sleet
drove down from the hills.

In the early morning, after breakfast, I set out again
on another solitary stage; and now the Jackass Moun-
tain was to be climbed. I know not why Jackass,
unless it be that none but a jackass could or would
climb it. Be that as it may, it was a long and steady
pull against that height, and I was tired and nigh
breathless when I paused on the summit, where a
bridge hung against the wall of rock above, and I
could look down eleven hundred feet of almost sheer
depth to the Fraser that was silent beneath me. The
rain had ceased in the morning, but the air was damp
and chill. The clouds capped the pine-clad heights
and drooped in long streamers down the slopes,
touching bold rock and precipice into faint mystery,
and leaving dew or unshed rain on fir and pine. The
swift river crawled slowly below, like a train that seems
to fly when we are in it, and to lag dismally when we
behold it in the far background, and its roar was hidden
in the faint murmur of the wind or the startling chirp
of bird or squirrel. And even now, as I write, from
that bridge could one see the river, for it crawls by as
it has crawled for ages that are an eternity to us. And
I saw it for an unspeakable moment, and passed down
the steep and precipitous road, above whose verge

142Through the Fraser CaSon

trees, that sprang from roots clutched round rocks two
hundred feet below, showed their slender waving crowns
and spire of branches.

From my mind now all trace of the picturing vision
of the day or two ago had passed, and books, or chess,
or men of converse were far removed from my mind ;
and yet the vision had been no deceitful one, nor had
a lying spirit lied to me. I was nearer to civilisation,
to a pioneer camp of civilisation, than I knew, and the
next house was the spot I should have dreamed - of.
I came to it. It had all the semblance of a hotel—
verandah and benches outside, big front door to let the
weary or thirsty traveller in, or to drag the intoxicated
one out for refreshment and sobering. I went up, took
hold of the handle, muttering to myself, 4 It is surely
dinner-time. I smell something.' Had I been he who
said, 4 Fee-fo-fum/ I should have smelt the blood of an
Englishman.

The handle turned, but the door was locked. It
was strange but explicable. Perhaps every one inside
was asleep—and drunk. Perhaps they had stayed up
till morning playing poker, and were tired. So round
I went to the back-door. Yes, there was somebody
there; for dinners don't cook themselves, except as
in Lamb's story of Roast Pig, and this savour in the
air was not porcine. Another step brought me to
the door. I peeped in, and fell back more than
surprised. I was surely dreaming. I looked again.
I saw an individual in a cassock—long and black !
He turned and saw me. What he saw I know not
exactly—a tall ruffian, with red curly beard, long

143The Western Avernus

moustache, brown hair, long and nearly to his shoulders,
brown eyes, and a big broad-brimmed hat, my dear old
Texas hat, now much ventilated with holes, and blue
trousers tucked, of course, into long and muddy boots.
I saw a pleasant, bright, youthful and intelligent
English face, and when he spoke I heard my mother
tongue spoken as it should be spoken, in a manner
which it seemed to me I must have forgotten, for it
sounded so strange.

4Good-morning, sir. Can I get dinner here?' said

I. i Come in,' said he, 1 and I will ask Mr. S-I

went in, and he led me to what had been the bar-room
in this old hotel, for such it had been. Heavens ! what
an alteration from the days when men lounged and
drank and spat here! For whisky and liquor shelves,
books and a bookcase ; for hacked benches, comfortable
lounging-chairs; for floor adornment of saliva and
discarded chews and old cigar stumps, neat carpets ;
and instead of smoke reek and brandy fume, odour of
calf and morocco and vellum! I sat down stunned
and astonished, not able yet to realise what I looked
like in such a place, else should I have disappeared
through the window, or put my bull head through the
panel of the door, and gone off, like Samson bearing
the gates of Gaza, a giant through fright. The opposite
door opened and another cassock appeared—another
mage. But he spoke in a pleasant voice, and held out
his hand, and, when he learnt what I wanted, which at
first I had forgotten, having to fish round for my stray
intention in my surprised, dislocated mind, asked me
cordially to join them at dinner if I would excuse the

144Through the Fraser Canon

rough fare, which, he said, could not be much in such a
desolate place.

Fare! why, what was fare to me if I was to dine with
two magicians, two wizards, with, by the by, a third in
training? For there was a bright young boy face to
be seen too, and another gentle voice. Would not a
Barmecide feast satisfy ? for then I could talk the
freelier, and interchange mind with mind, and be, per-
haps, witty or humorous or pathetic, though, Heaven
knows, I was a pathetic figure enough to those with
eyes to see and hearts to know.

So we sat down to dinner—salmon, bread, potatoes,
with pie to follow.

We talked.

'Have you come down from the upper country or
are you going up towards Kamloops ?1 asked the elder
magician, clean shaven and healthy and bright-eyed.

41'm just tramping down from near Kamloops,
where I was working/ said I, ' and I'm bound for the
coast, to see what can be done down there.'

4 How did you like Kamloops ?'

4 Not much. Too much drunkenness and fighting.
I am rough myself, as you see, but I like quietness and
order.' This was a little hypocrisy.

'You are an Englishman, are you not?' said the
younger clergyman.

' I am ; everybody finds that out. So are you, both
of you. Is it not so ?'

'Yes, we are both from the old country.'

'Well, it is an extraordinary place to find two
clergymen in. I must own I was so surprised that I
K	145T HE WES T e R N AVERN US

felt as if I was dreaming. I thought I was coming to
an ordinary hotel, and then to see you here!'

'That is nothing; very often men come along and
insist this is a hotel. Of course it used to be one.
Won't you take some pie?'

' Thank you/ and a piece of very suspicious-look-
ing paste was put on my plate.

The younger man, whose name I found was Edwards,
looked very doubtfully at it as he gave it to me, and
said,' I made that.'

' Indeed ; then it must be good/ said I, courteously.

' Oh no; I never made one before in my life, and
the paste seems so hard, and unlike pies that other
people make.'

I tasted it, and it was like a board, solid, unbendable,
durable, and waterproof.

' Pray, sir, how did you make it ?' I asked.

' Just of flour and water.'

4 What, no grease or baking soda ?'

'Not a bit.'

I broke into a peal of laughter. They were so kind
and sociable, that I was now at my ease.

' Then it is certainly a new kind of pie.'

Mr. Edwards looked very rueful.

'Well, I'm sure I never thought it was so hard to
cook. There's some flour and water mixed up now in
the kitchen, and it won't stick together, but lies in
flakes, however much I knead it.'

I burst out again into a very broad smile.

'Put more water in, sir, and see if that will do any good.'

' Well/ said he, ' I wish you had come along a little
146Through the Fraser

C a& on

earlier, and your advice and assistance would have
given us a better dinner.'

'A better dinner I don't want. It is far more
pleasure to me to talk to two of my countrymen, who are
educated, than to eat a dinner that would suit a gourmet.

/Well, then, let us go into the book-room and have
a smoke.'

In the library they gave me some good English
cigarettes, and we all sat down. But it was impossible
for me to be there and not examine the shelves.

' Pray, sir,' said I,' may I look at your books ?' and
without waiting for permission, so eager was I, went to
the opposite shelves. They were rather disappointing,
however, there, being mostly theological. I ran my
fingers along the shelf: Eusebius, Mosheim, Milman,
Paley, Butler—familiar enough names, but not in my line
at all. When I came to Eusebius I read the name out

'Do you know him?' asked Mr. Small, smiling,
thinking, doubtless, he was a name only.

i Why, no, I don't know him, but I've seen him quoted
in Gibbon's Decline and Fall!

' Oh, indeed, have you read that ?'

'Yes, sir, I read it first before I was twelve, and once
since then.'

Then to another shelf. Poets here: Shakespeare,
Keats, but no Shelley—too much of an atheist, may be,
I thought—and various others. And then the classics
—Horace, Virgil, and a huge Corpus Latinprum, and
another of the Greek poets and tragedians. I came
to Catullus. 41 think Catullus is my favourite, sir,
among the Romans. What do you think ? *

147The Western Avernus

i Well, I am rather surprised. Can you read Latin ?'

4 A little. I learnt some, and I have managed not
to forget it wholly, like most when they leave school or
college.'

4 Then were you at college ?'

' Not at Oxford or Cambridge ; though I know both
well. You are of one of these universities ?'

' Cambridge,' said Mr. Small.

4 And you, sir ?' said I, turning to the other.

' Only from Durham.'

Then I sat down again, and we had a long and
delightful conversation. Mr. Small showed me a
beautiful edition of Horace published by Bell and
Daldy, illustrated with cuts from coins and medals.
He read an ode or two, the 'Fons Bandusise, splen-
didior vitro,' and ' Persicos odi apparatus,' and I read
Catullus's 'Lugete, Veneres Cupidinesque,' the most
wholly delightful piece of poetry in the whole range of
Latin literature ; and finally, getting more enthusiastic,
we came to Greek, and Mr. Small read from some of
the plays of the dramatists, kindly keeping to those I
knew, for my knowledge of Greek was always small,
and confined to the dramatists and a little Homer. In
fact, I ground my way through Sophocles, ^Eschylus,
and some of Euripides with aid of translations, solely
for the sake of the poetry.

Then we ran on into English, and for hours talked of
the poets, until it began to grow dark and the wind
howled, and a little rain fell, and it was time for me to
go, before the fiercer rain began. So I shook hands
with both my friends and the younger boy and set out,

148Through the Fraser CaSon

as they wished me ' God-speed' and turned back into
the lighted room. And I was in mud and water and
forest and mountain, and the shades of Greek and
Roman flew before the blast like dried leaves from the
tree of knowledge.

These two gentlemen were High Church English
clergymen, who had come out there as missionaries for
the Indians. What a terrible sacrifice to make! It
seems to me waste of such lives; but yet what good-
ness of heart and strength of conviction must have
led these to leave a land of culture and expatriate
themselves among these mountains, and men ruder
than the mountains!

So I thought as I walked along, splashing in the
pools made by the rain that had fallen as we had been
talking. And as it grew dark I came to some houses.
I knocked at the door of one, and was answered in
Chinook by a slattern of an Indian woman whom
I could see through a crack in the door. I insisted on
English, and finally got out of her that there was a
hotel farther on. Another mile of tramping and
another house. I tried again and found this full of
Indians and half-breeds, who told me to go farther yet.
Finally, I came to the hotel, after two more miles of
tramp in bright moonlight, for the clouds had passed
away. And the moon above me threw such strong
shadows of blackness under brush and tree, and such
silver floods on the open ground, that the alternation of
light and shade gave the appearance of snow.

I stamped at last into the usual bar-room, greeted
the owner of the hotel and store, nodded to a man by

149The Western Avernus

the stove, said 'Clahya' to an Indian woman with a
baby, and sat down to smoke and dry myself.

And in the morning, clear and fresh, but threatening
rain, the road lay before me again. Again miles of
solitary walking towards the Elysium that lies beyond
the rainbow. At noon I came to Boston Bar, the
commencement of the wildest and most terrible part of
the Fraser Cafion, where the mountain bases lie close
and closer together, and the fierce flood of water boils
and surges through its deep and narrow chasm, until
it breaks its bonds and frees itself at Yale. This
Boston Bar is named from the bar of sand and shingle
in the river, which was m early days a great mining
place, and is even yet worked at times by Chinamen.
Just below the Bar is the sullen-looking gorge, fringed
with clouds, into which road and river run. And this
was my way.

This canon is other than the canons, passes, and
gorges in the Rockies and Selkirks. All are narrow
and mountainous, heavily clad with timber, but there
is something about this that makes it stranger and
wilder and sterner. It may perhaps seem so in my
mind, because the days I passed in it were cloudy and
sullen, with every now, and then a gust of wind and
an hour of rain, for it was then nearing winter, and
though the snow lay not yet upon the mountains, the
air was shrewd and bitter. But the main feature which
influenced my mind was the steepness of the lofty
precipices, from whose heights fall after fall, cascade
after cascade, leapt to the valley a thousand feet at a
bound, swayed by the: wind like silver ribbons, or

ISOT HUOUGH THE pRASER CaSON

dissipated into foam and spray. And here I noticed
how strangely slow the water of a lofty fall appears
to come down. There is no swift plunge of mighty
waters such as Niagara's, but the slow dropping of
the light thin line of the mountain stream, running
through a fringe of misty cloud that hangs upon the
breast of the hills.

And all along the road were evidences of the Indians.
In the trees were boxes built to keep dried salmon in,
secure from thieves and prowling beasts, and here and
there were slender stages built out over the terrible
stream, on which the Indians stand when the salmon
come up the river, holding a net like a magnified
racquet-bat, in which they catch the fish as they pass.
Graveyards too there were at intervals, each stranger
than the last. And I came at evening with a new
companion, the man who was at the hotel with me the
night before, to another little wayside inn, kept by a
Portuguese from the Azores, who gave us the best meal
that I had eaten for many a long day. It was necessary,
for that fatal pie had given me a terrible attack of
indigestion, which lasted three days.

I spent a pleasant evening in that little house in the
lonely cafion, while outside the river chafed and roared,
and the river of wind over it swept down between the
hills, eddying and swirling over the trees. And the rain
pattered ceaselessly on the roof, gathering in pools
on the road, and running down to add to the turbid
volume of the Fraser.

v It was nearly noon next day before we started, and
then our start was made in desperation of its clearing

IS!The Western Avernus

up. But, as if to cheer us for our courage, the clouds
drifted away before a cold north wind, and the rain
ceased. So we came to Hell Gate dry, and could stand
with some patience for a while to see the river roar
through the pass of ill-omened name.

Here the river ran at its narrowest, and here it must
have been the deepest. The huge rocks jutted out on
each side into the boiling current, and were bare and
black and jagged. The river looked strange and dan-
gerous, alive and struggling like a python in the toils,
and at times ran backwards on the surface, while below
it was fiercer still, finding its destined way down through
cavern and bar, and leaping at last to the surface to
roar above the level of the main stream, curling and
coiling and eddying in confusion worse confounded.
Here at flood-time, after snow melting in the distant
northern home of that river and in the Golden Range,
source of the Eagle, and the lakes whence come the
Thompson, its tributary, the waters rise in revolt and
despair, and storm this Bastille Gate of Rocks, climbing
higher and higher, roaring louder and louder still,
whirling pine and fir trunks down like straws, to suck
them under in a maelstrom that makes the quick eye
giddy, finally lifting its foaming crest above the barrier,
to scream like a freed eagle and leap rejoicing down
the wider ways. And when it passes and the floods
are over, where is the road ? Washed into the stream,
and the bare rock is left. See, as we stand here on the
road, many feet above our heads, is a red line painted
on the rocks. So high can this river rise, and it may
be higher yet.

152Through the Fraser CaSon

After watching the Gate for an hour, we passed on
and found a bridge below, and crossed thereon to the
right bank. Surely we were nearly to Yale. But it
seemed impossible. How could a town be put into
this canon ? The shelf of rock on which the trains ran
in such seeming peril above the terrible waters, had
been cut and carved out by huge labour of years.
Was it possible a town could be near? It was possible
truly, and we were close to it when we turned and saw
a vast pool of quiet water, with a long eddy that took
a floating log round and round for an hour as we sat
smoking in quiet, never letting it approach the verge
of the lower rapid. About this pool were tremendous
mountains, steep and sheer, but across the water, on
a little flat, was a house right under the hills, and on
the sand an Indian canoe. On the highest crests of
the hills the hand of winter had been laid, for on them
there was a gleam of scanty snow, and, save that house
which sent up no smoke as sign of habitation, making
the scene thus even more desolate than snow and
sullen mountain could by themselves, there was no
appearance of life.

So we rose and took up our blankets, and a hundred
yards farther on we came round a corner, and Yale
was before us, snugly settled down on a little flat space
at the foot of the hills, smoking from many chimneys,
while on the beach under the town lay a steamer. We
were then on navigable waters. We and the Fraser
were free of the hills. I turned, looked up the canon,
frowning and stupendous, and walked into the town.

153CHAPTER XIII

down stream to the coast

That night I and my partner, who was a little in-
significant chap,4 a man of no account/ slept and ate
at the nearest hotel, a very refuge for tramps, unde-
Hghtful, dirty, with bad cooking and worse beds. Kept
by a semi-intoxicated, wholly disreputable landlord,
who kept on giving me good advice with regard to my
morality, which he feared would be undermined by the
licence and drunkenness among whites and Indian
' klootchmen,' or Women, on the coast, it was the haunt
and rendezvous for undetectable characters from the
other parts of the town. We were first amused by two
or three of the Yale demi-monde, who came to Taylor's
to get more drink, being at that time rather more
merry than wise, and the last drink resulted in a quaint
fandango^ or semi-cancan, danced first on the floor
and then on the counter by a bright little dark-eyed
Mexican girl, with brilliant teeth and coils of hair, and
a strange dress of purple and reddish colours inter-
woven, who, as she danced, sang snatches of Spanish
songs and English too, every now and again cursing
volubly in both. And late at night there was a
ferocious encounter of tongues between our host and
his housekeeper, a voluble, vicious, snap-eyed woman,

154Down Stream to the Coast

who stuck out her chin and placed her arms akimbo,
the cause of dispute being Taylor's half-bred Indian
child, which this virtuous woman, 4 far above rubies/
declined to wash or otherwise tend, on account of the
luckless "infant's illegitimacy. Result, a furious war of
tongues, and at times I feared a personal encounter.
Both appealed to me. ' Should I wash a dirty little
Indian bastard, sir?' said she. 'Don't you think she
should, sir?' asked Taylor plaintively, but getting
fierce again when talking to her. The end of it was
banging of doors and screaming inside, while Taylor
himself and an old white-haired Mexican took charge
of the little girl, who had been seated on the floor by
the stove all this time playing with a rag doll, paying
no attention to the raised voices.

In the morning we started off again to walk to New
Westminster, which I here learnt was the largest town
on the mainland of British Columbia. We followed
the line of railroad, walking along the track, and
passing on numberless bridges across streams and
sloughs through a flat timbered country. That day
we made thirty-six miles, camping at last in a fence-
makers' camp, where two white men were superin-
tending a large gang of Chinamen engaged in fencing
off the line. It was bitterly cold, and very late when
we got to the camp, but the two white men gave us
some coffee and sat talking with us for some time,
though their conversation's tendency was not en-
couraging, as they ran down New Westminster,
averring that it was unlikely any one would get work
in: such a dead-looking town. Finally, they went to

155The Western Avernus

their little tent, while I raked up some more wood for
the fire and lay down beside it, to wake at intervals
through the long night shivering with the cold. My
partner made a little shelter of a pile of ties near
at hand, shivering there by himself till early dawn,
when he came out to me, and seated himself over the
fire like an Indian, with the water running out of
his rather weak eyes, and making clean channels down
his unwashed face. For he did not, I imagine, very
often wash.

This day another long walk over flats, and we came
out to the river Fraser, now broad and placid, with
islands and bars in it piled with driftwood and brush,
and long back-washes half as broad as the river, but
shallow and weedy. Then to Harrison River, bright
and clear and blue, a Fraser tributary, and dinner at
a Chinaman's restaurant, where we had a plentiful and
well-cooked meal served by the owner himself, who
spoke good English to us, Chinese to his pig-tailed
compatriots, and fluent Chinook to his Indian wife,
who held in her arms a curious child with the
characteristics of Indian and Chinaman stamped un-
mistakably upon it. The father admired it immensely,
and was, it seemed, very fond of his wife, who, for her
part, was stolid and undemonstrative, as most pure-bred
Indians are, except when under the influence of liquor.

Then away again over the long bridge, and that
night we stayed with an oldish French farmer, who
lived on a swamp in a new wooden house all by him-
self, and he served us well, and talked queer French to
me and strange English, and made me very comfort-

156Down Stream to the Coast

able, charging next to nothing for it, making our
thanks for our night's entertainment hearty, and not
merely perfunctory. And at noon we were at the
Mission, eighteen miles from New Westminster, and
there we determined to wait for the steamer, having
had enough walking. So we stayed at a boarding-
house for our meals, and slept in an old disused mill,
where the wind had free entrance through cracks and
joints and warped seams, and the ceilings and ties and
joints were covered with long cobwebs, and an in-
frequent rat came out squeaking for the flour and grain
that were wont to be, but were there no more. And I
slept, eking out my thin blankets with dirty old sacks.
Next afternoon the 'Gem' steamer came down stream.
Poor little wretched steamer to be so miscalled : 4 Coal-
scuttle ' or 4 Hog-pen' would have made good names
for her. The captain and one more made up the crew
—two all told. The captain usually steered, and the
other man engineered and fired up, and one or the other
would rush out when making a landing to hitch a rope
round a stump; and when wood ran low they would
run her ashore near a pile, the noble skipper getting
out to throw half a cord on deck. Then they had to
take it aft before they could back her off. So we made
slow progress, even with the current of the noble river
under us, especially as every little while we stopped to
take a few squealing pigs on board, or some sacks of
potatoes.

We had a few fellow-passengers, one of whom, a Mr.
Turnbull, kept a temperance hotel in New Westminster.
I had a talk with him, and finding that he was, to all

157The Western Aver n u s

appearance, a really good-hearted man, I determined to
stay at his place and bestow my last dollar or two on
him, for my cash was now nearly run out.

The scenery on the river was placid but beautiful
The hills were not high as a general rule, but still two
or three ranges were in sight that were mountains.
And, far above all, in the distance glittered the silver,
snowy, truncated, volcanic cone of Mount Baker, solitary
and alone, in, Washington Territory, for we were now
near the southern border of British Columbia. This
peak rose above the clouds, to weiring 10,000 feet and
even more. And there were long bright reaches of
waters before us, with willows trailing on the banks, and
every now and again we saw a stretch of back-water,
silent and still, windless, with reflections in its depths,
while before and around us the dancing waters of our
flowing river threw back the sunlight. And we were
now in tidal waters. On the right were the frowning
Pitt River Mountains and the entrance to the Pitt
River. In front we saw a white building—a cannery for
salmon—and, round the bend, the town built on the
river front, and running up towards the crest of a hill
that showed a gaunt fringe of pines and firs, robbed of
their foliage and branches by a forest fire. And beneath
them fields of stumps and clearings.

And we came to the solitary dark wharves, which
made one imagine that this had been once a busy town,
and was now living on the memory of the past and the
hope of the future, like a bear in its; winter cavern,
supported by its accumulations of summer fatness, arid
dreaming of the berries of the later year.

158Down Stream to the

Coast

And so to the Farmer's Home. Saturday night, and
November 2. I was but sixteen miles from the sea, the
Gulf of Georgia. In a little over seven months I had
come from New York, having journeyed nearly 8000
miles in train, on steamer, and on foot; over prairie,
mountain, river, and lake; in pain and misery, in joy
and delight, with Fear and Hope my companions; and
now I could in imagination hear the roar of the breakers
of the ancient ocean of the Pacific, and smell the sweet
brine odour of its illimitable waters that rolled to
Australia and Japan, and between these, as through
wide-opened gates, against the dark African continent
half a world away.

I left the wharves and passed up dark Front Street
to Main Street, bustling and well lighted, and I was in
the Farmers' Home, looking a strange wild man of the
woods amongst the well-dressed citizens of the place,
who sat round the fire in the smoking-room, discussing
with eagerness a murder at the jail, for that day one
jailer had shot another. And my first comment would
have been a strange one to a civilised ear. I thought,
4 What a fuss about a murder! This is evidently not
Texas, and killings are scarce/ And so it is in British
Columbia ; murders are comparatively rare, and Judge
Begbie is a hanging judge, who is feared by the wilder
emigrants and settlers and citizens, whites, English or
Canadian or American, the Indians and the Chinese.
I sat down among them in silence, but soon found a
congenial spirit in a man who had travelled, who spoke
up when I ventured to express my surprise at there
being so much excitement about a solitary murder, and

159The Western Avernus

we soon found that we were agreed on the point. In
the course of a violent discussion that followed we mis-
chievously supported the Texas and Southern method
of relying on pistol arbitration. 'At any rate/ said
Johnson, my new friend, 'if a man gets into a row in
Texas, he won't be kicked and jumped on, and it is
better to be shot. And a man there does not rely on
his superior brute strength, for a small man is just as
likely to be smart with weapons as a giant, or smarter/
Then, as talk began to be rather hot, I turned the con-
versation to work, and found out that there was small
chance of getting any if it were not on the railroad
work at Port Moody or Port Hammond, unless I should
happen to be lucky enough to fall into a job at one of
the three saw-mills in the town. And then my inquiries
elicited that there was a library in the town. My
dreams were true then ! And there were actually chess-
players to be found there! So when I got tired out I
went to bed and dreamed I was in the library at the
British Museum, and that afterwards I played chess
with Zukertort at Simpson's in the Strand and beat
him badly.

160V.;-*'THE THREE SISTERS, CANMORE.

[to face p. 161.CHAPTER XIV

NEW WESTMINSTER

SUNDAY I Spent in letter-writing, in conversation, or
sulky sullenness—or, better and more euphemistically
—contemplation, retrospect, and forecasting. Prophe-
sying unto myself from the past gave little hope of
good, so my last mental resource was proverbs, such as
4 It 's a long lane that has no turning' and 4 Every cloud
has a silver lining/ and so on. Here I was, down again
to a dollar and a half, in a strange place, with no friends
save my no-account partner from up-country, who had
no more money than I. It began to seem to me that I
was a very wanderer, a male Io driven by gadflies from
plain to mount and mount to sea and strait; that I was
a footless bird, not of Paradise but of an Inferno; that
1 was a thistledown on an endless wind, with never a
friendly eddy to drop me down to root and grow,
though it were but to a thistle. And I bethought my-
self that I had consumed eight months in travelling,
that I had seen much and suffered much, and rejoiced
much as well, and that it was at last time for me to stay
for a while and gather in shekels, if it were in any way
possible, else it would be perennial seed-sowing by the
wayside and never a harvest, and no harvest-home with
songs of sweet thanksgiving and return. So I said, ' If
L	i6xThe Western Avernus

I can but turn my hand to something in this town,
however humble and ill-paid it be, here I will stay ; for
my health is better, and it is time I fed my mind with
something over and beyond scenery of pines and peaks,
of cloud and mist and dew, and the wonderful music of
the organic winds of the worlds and the Psalm of
Nature to the unknown God.'

Therefore, next day, when my cash amounted to
twenty-five cents, I sought and found work in a saw-
mill—hard and laborious lifting of timbers, arranging of
boards and planks, carting and carrying of saw-dust,
flooring boards, headings and scrollings, sashes, doors,
what not Twelve hours a day, minus one half hour
for a hurried dinner—6 A.M. to 6 P.M.; enough for a
giant, enough for me, and at first more than enough.
Board and thirty dollars a month for this labour, every
cent earned, and more than earned surely, by sweat and
fatigue of muscle, and contact with Chinamen—that
strange, indomitable, persevering, vile, and wonderful
race.

So to work I went, and was very nearly discharged
the first morning by the superintendent, who declared
that he knew not what had come over men who came
to the coast from the east, for they all wanted a ' soft
seat,' a 4 soft snap,' which is, being interpreted, a light
and easy job. Wrongly enough in my case, however,
as he found out when he sent me into the mill to work
with a mighty man from Michigan—M'Culloch, one of
the finest Americans I ever knew—strong, long and
lithe, quick of motion, quick of eye, large-handed and
large-limbed, clean-coloured, moustached but otherwise

162New Westminster

shaved, with the pupil of one eye pear-shaped, making
him strange as a man with eyes of two colours,, like
the Hereward of Kingsley's, sharp and lively in speech,
kindly of Jieart, liberal in opinion, atheist, human, and
lovable.

Next I recall a young sawyer, Johnny—little Johnny,
as we named him—small and bright, and strong as a
young bull when he got hands and knees under a log
or ' cant' of lumber; a fighter, and a ready one;
pugnacious as a gamecock, and quick as lightning with
his small hands, but pleasant and friendly if one who
cared not for quarrels watched the glint of his eyes and
made an occasional soft answer to this wrathful bantam.

Then Indians, half-breeds and Chinamen mingled
and ever changing, and the chief sawyer beyond, a
deceitful man, a speaker behind-backs. Between him
and Johnny great enmity existed, as it seemed.

In such company in the half-open mill, one storey
up in air, I passed the days, with the whirr of belts
above and below, the scream of the circular saws as
they bit the advancing log of pine or spruce or Douglas
fir, with the strips of bitten-out wood thrown out in a
stream, and clouds of smaller sawdust, with the smiting
of mallets on wedges in the cut, and the heavy fall on
the greasy skids of the divided tree. And in the pool
below stood a long figure with a pole balancing on a
round log, pushing it into its place, with his hammer
driving in iron clamps or dogs, till the chain, revolving
on the drum, drags the ponderous tree to the saw,
and then it rolls over and over on to the carriage, and
afterwards more saw-screaming and sawdust and wedge-

163The Western Avernus

driving. So hour after hour, till the trees, rude and
huge, fall into planks and boards and squared timbers
—large for bridges or small for posts or pickets, and
the waste cut into laths, and the sawdust burning in
the gaping furnaces to drive the saw again. Then
sudden whistle-screaming, and hurrying figures, while
the saws revolve slower and slower, and all is still, so;
that one can hear his own voice, and the hum of the
saw only lingers in the unaccustomed ear; then dinner
devoured, not eaten, and a smoke, and the whistle,
and the saws turn quicker and quicker, and all is to do
again till dark and supper and rest.

So went the life, and the days were quick and
laborious. The superintendent spoke to M'Culloch
one day:

* What kind of a man is that long fellow with the big
hat?'

4 Well, Mr. Gray, he does not know much about saw-
mills, but I just tell you he is a rustler. He gets round
quicker'n any man in the mill, in spite of his long legs/

' Why, I nearly fired him the first morning; I must
have made a mistake. I thought he wasn't any good.'

Now, a 'rustler' is a great Western word, and
expresses much. It means a worker, an energetic one,
and no slouch can be a rustler. So this was high
praise. And 'fired' means, in that oversea, overland
language, being discharged, so Mr. Gray did not mean
me any good. But when he saw I could work we were
friends, and he did me many a good turn.

We slept, some four or five of us, over the dining-
room, and the rest lived in cabins, or little huts, some

164New Westminster

•of them boarding themselves, being married either to
white women or Indians, or perhaps not married. My
friend in our sleeping-room was a German—Pete—a
great character, who had lived many years in California,
and had been working at various intervals at the mill
and up country at other saw-mills, or at pile-driving or
foridge-making, just to make, so he said, 20 dols. and
a suit of clothes to go back to California with. But
when the 20 dols. were collected he would disappear,
and be found sitting in front of a hotel, blandly inviting
passers-by to take a drink, and when the money was
dissipated he would come back to make it over again,
being in deep dumps and very virtuous for the future.
He had been seven years trying to make the money
and the clothes, but though he was always dressed well
enough he could not get that new suit and the dollars
both at the same time. Pete was a great favourite of
mine.

The library, of course, I did not leave long unattacked.
The third day, after working-time, brought me to it,
and there were actually lots of books and some boards
and chessmen, and, better still, men playing. I went
in, dressed as usual in my working garb, having no
other, and sat down to watch a game which was being
contested between a man with weak eyes, who had a
great grievance, as I afterwards found out, and a man
named Collins, with whom I got to be quite friendly.
Both played fairly well, but I knew I could beat them.
I had been a fourth-class player in London, and had
played regularly at Gatti's in the old chess corner, in
the Adelaide Gallery, for more than two years, so I

165The Western Avernus

was probably more than a match for any Western
player. When the game was over, and the man with
a grievance had aired it for half an hour, talking
vehemently because he had been deprived of the
librarianship of this very place, I asked his opponent if
he would give me a game. He looked at me out of the
corners of his eyes, as if wondering whether I could
play. And I took the vacant chair. The first game
was won in less than twenty minutes. My opponent
looked at me as if he thought I had made a great
mistake. The next one was played by him more care-
fully, and it took me three-quarters of an hour to mate
him. Then a look of stern resolution came over his
face, and he put his head in his hands and studied
every move. But I beat him in an hour. He sighed
and looked dazed, but shook hands with me, and said
I was the best player in British Columbia.

To console him, I told him how I had learnt to be &
player, and that I had actually, by a fluke, twice beaten
a man who had once, by a fluke, beaten Zukertort.
He looked greatly relieved. I very often played with
him afterwards, and let him win a game now and again
to keep him in good temper.

Then I went through the bookshelves, with the
librarian showing me a light, and I saw enough to make
me promise to be a subscriber, at the moderate terms
of 50 cents, or 2s. id. a month. I brought up the
money next evening, and took home Buckle's History
of Civilisation, a book I had never read through before.
There were two thousand volumes in' the library, and
during the time I stayed in New Westminster I de-

166New Westminster

voured most of those that were worth reading, for there
was a vast amount of engineering and military matter,
left by the English troops who were formerly stationed
in the locality, which had then no interest for me.

On Sundays I would take a walk, sometimes with a
companion, though usually alone, and sit down on the
river bank and look at the stream and the scenery
beyond it, or climb the hill at the back of the town,
whence I could see Mount Baker's white cone across
miles, yes, fifty miles of forest, high and shining ; or,
turning towards the west, catch sight of the glitter of
the straits, and beyond, the peaks of Vancouver against
the blue. East, thirty miles away, stood the Pitt River
mountains, snow-covered, beautiful and near in the
clear transparent air. But first glance with me at the
river on our right, broad and clear and wider than the
Thames at Westminster, and across it at these narrow
flats, with a few shanties on them scattered here and
there, with blue wreaths of smoke above their chimneys,
and a long, low, white cannery, reflecting the sun, under
the gentle slope of a hill covered with fir and pine.
Then see how the river spreads out above this to twice
its breadth below, bending away to the right until it
takes no reflections, but throws out sparkles from the
ripples of a solitary gust of wind and in a moment is
lost to sight, while beyond its farther bank rises slope
after slope of the hills beyond the Pitt River, until, on
the left, the high peaks are snow against the blue
heavens, and the long shoulder of the dim range runs
down in curve and sudden lower peak to hide the
farther fainter hills of Sumass.

167The Western Avernus

Ah, how beautiful it was, even for a discontented
being like myself!

So, working and dreaming, time ran on till well into
December, and winter came on us with rush of white
wings and icy breath. First the hills covered them-
selves with snow, and the north-east wind came down
the reaches of the river, blowing into the open mill
like the wind of death, making me rush out for increase
of clothes, until at last I worked in all the shirts I
possessed, and coat and waistcoat too. Then cakes
and floes of ice came down stream, and went back
again with the flood-tide; there was grinding of huge
blocks against the shore and piling up of jamming floes
in mid-water, and perpetual roar for days till the
bitterer frost suddenly spanned the stream with cold
fingers, fixed it and grew in power of solid dominion
up and down, growing thick and strong. And snow
came in the streets, drifting over and over; from the
houses depended stalactites and icicles four feet long,
and blunt stalagmites grew up below.

Upon the hilly streets in town, boys and girls were
laughing, shouting and screaming, running down hill in
sleighs, ' coasting' as they call it, with swift velocity,
sometimes capsizing without much harm done. And
we had time enough for play, for the logs were set fast
in the thick ice and the ' buzz-saw' was silent, the fires
out, and snow upon the piles of sawed lumber. So we
ate and drank and slept, and I read through the library
steadily: Gibbon's Rome again, with story of Alaric
and the grave of the Busentinus, and Attila the Hun
and Mohammed and the Turk, in the slow majestic

168New Westminster

sentence; Vasari's Lives of the Painters, graphic,
inaccurate, delightful; and reading on without system,
or attempt at any, Alison's History and Motley's
Netherlands, terrible and picturesque, a favourite of
my boyhood, and Buckle's book of destiny and neces-
sity, The History of Civilisation. Then a canter among
the fields of science : Huxley on the Origin of Species,
and Darwin's book itself, the most delightful book of
science, that puts all Nature into one's hand; and
Carlyle's Essays, and Landor, whose ALsop and
Rhodope I learnt by heart almost, with its beautiful
pathos and marvellous rhythm of unequalled prose.
Then snatches of Nodes Ambrosiance, and Maginn's
Miscellanies, and Locke's Human Understanding
as a cold douche, and Middlemarch, Bleak House,
and my favourite novel of novels, the Tale of Two
Cities. So I filled up my time, at any rate not to
disadvantage, save that the bitter weather and my greed
for books kept me indoors without exercise,, and this
was to be revenged on me afterwards. And then came
to me, from England, Virgil and Horace, for which I
had sent, and I dipped here and there in these.

So Christmas came and passed away, and it was the
dead of winter.

During all this fearfully cold weather of ice and
snow and bitter wind, we lived in the room above the
dining-room without any fire. Gray, the superinten-
dent, told us several times that we could get a stove
and stove-pipe from the carpenter's shop if we liked to
put it up ourselves. But no, we were absolutely too
Jazy to do it, and used to lie in bed nearly all day,

169The Western Avernus

or stand round the pipe that came through our floor
from the room below when that stove was lighted.

We would walk about with blankets round us, looking
like Indians, and sometimes we went in for making a
noise—dancing, singing, and fooling, just to keep warm.
And we actually went through it all without a stove
until a thaw came, and then we got it and made big
fires. 4 Pete/ said I,' we are deuced cunning fellows and
show lots of foresight. It will be cold next winter/

Our room, too, was often a sight to look at, especially
when we had a row about whose turn it was to sweep
out, with the result of general sulkiness and declarations
that * I won't' and 41 won't/ until somebody got
desperate and hurled a mass of dust and rubbish, chips
and rags, down the stairs. So we were tormented with
fleas for our folly, and had uncomfortable days and
nights through laziness.

On December 29 some one proposed a walk over to
Granville, or Burrard's Inlet. I wish he had been
hanged before he suggested it. But I thought a tramp
would do me good, as I had been suffering from vile
headaches for some days before. So I and Pete, and
John Anderssen, a Swede, and Charley, my partner
from the upper country, and another Swede set out in
the snow after breakfast. It was hard walking, going
crunch, crunch in it; but still the road had been beaten
down a little, and one could find reasonably good
footing if walking in Indian file. About eleven o'clock
we came to Granville, and walked down to the mill, and
long wharves, where ships loaded lumber for South
America and Australia. Then the wind began to blow,

170New Westminster

and it was fearfully chill, searching me through and
through as it swept over the Inlet, a kind of fiord,
laden with concentrated frost. Some of us ate dinner,
though I had little appetite, for my head was nearly
splitting, and I rejected all tobacco, sure sign of some-
thing very wrong in a man who had used it for ten
years. Then we set out homeward at two o'clock.
And what a walk it was! At first we kept close
together, talking; then we plodded along in silence, as
the low sun at last disappeared with pale glow of gold,
and the gibbous moon stood out half way up the sky
before us, brighter, it seemed, than the sun. Yet we
had not done half our homeward twelve miles. We
began to get thirsty, terribly thirsty, and some took up
snow and chewed it; but I thought it was not good, as
I fancied I had read so in some book of travels, and still
plodded on with my tongue nearly as dry as it had
been on some horrible days of tramping in sunburnt
New South Wales. And it grew colder and colder still
in this forest. The wind had dropped and it was calm
and still, but the frost grew out on the bushes into
diamonds glittering before us on twig and pendulous
snowy branch, and the unbroken snow on both sides
shone with innumerable millions of sharp spicules, keen
and crystalline. The moon cast blackened shadows on
the white, and her splendour came down on us with
such lack of warmth that her light seemed a ghostly
cataract of freezing water, and the sharp stars stabbed
us with spears of cold when we came out of the shadow
of the forest.

Then a faint shout from behind reached me. Tired

171The Western Avernus

as i was, i turned back. Pete was seated on a log,
swearing he was going to die; Anderssen lay in the
middle of the road in snow and moonlight, chewing
snow with his head down, talking unintelligible Swedish
and mixed English, and cursing. i sat down by the
ditch at the side of the road and put some snow to
my burning forehead. We must have seemed a queer
crowd in that silent forest.

Presently Pete: ' Charley, i can't get up, i'm stuck
fast to this log. Am i going to stay here and be frozen
to a snow image ?' 4 You can if you like,' i said, sulkily
and selfishly ; ' i'm not, if i can rustle through it.' i
got up, fell on my knees, and rolled into the snow at
the bottom of the ditch. 4 Come and pull me out, Pete.'
1 Can't get up,'said Pete solemnly, 'You then, John,'
to Anderssen. John growled and lay still. 'You hog,'
said i, 'quit chewing that snow ; you'll die there if you
don't.' John muttered: ' i die in the road and you in
the ditch.' Then the other Swede came across and
held his hand to me, and i scrambled out of the brush
and snow. i went over to Anderssen and kicked him
gently in the ribs: ' Get up, or i '11 knock seven bells
out of you. Give me your hand.' i got him up, and
we pulled Pete off his log. ' Now,' i said, ' you may lie
down and die; i won't come back any more. Good-
bye.' So i and the other Swede set off again, plodding
desperately, for i really felt as if i must have a drink
or die myself, and i would not touch the snow.
Presently we came through a patch of dead timber, and
saw the lights of the town two miles away at the bottom
of the slope. Half a mile farther brought us to a little

172

IN THE SNOW.

[to face p. ij-z.New Westminster

log-house, where two woodcutters lived. In we went,
and I drank about a quart of icy water, and out again.
I was tired now, and my head was nearly bursting,
with my temples throbbing hard. Every step I took
seemed as if it was my last, for I thought I was shod
with lead, and my legs were heavy and half dead.
And the cold grew worse and worse. At last we came
down to the flat, and another quarter of a mile brought
me to our boarding-house. I stayed and turned off,
my partner the Swede said nothing, marching straight
ahead up town. I got to the door of the dining-room,
turned the handle, and fell inside on my hands and
knees, very much surprising two of the bosses, one of
whom was Mr. Gray. He said : 4 Hullo, got back, eh ?'
I couldn't answer him at first, but I got up, shut the
door, and fell on a bench near at hand. He saw I was
about done, and he very kindly got me a cup of tea
from the kitchen. Then he asked where Pete and the
others were. 4 Coming along behind if they're not dead
yet,' I said, and then I went upstairs, threw my boots
off with a great effort, fell into my bed, and drew the
blankets over me. In five minutes the blood was
running through all my veins like molten lead, and I
was in a high fever. I fell asleep and did not wake till
morning. Looking up I saw Pete in bed. 4 You 're not
dead then, Pete ?' said I, and he solemnly shook his
head. 4 Pretty near a go, though,'

I never felt cold like it in all my life, although it was
not really very intense, as the thermometer in town did
not quite go down to ten degrees below zero, which is
nothing to the temperature at Kamloops and, farther

173The Western Avernus

east, where it sometimes goes down to 30° and 40°
below, or at Winnipeg in Manitoba, where 6o° below is
not uncommon in winter. I suppose I suffered more
than I should otherwise have done, owing to my being
in a very bad state of health at that time. For two
weeks after this I was ill, for five days in bed, living on
biscuits and milk. Then I recovered somewhat for
another week or two, and then went down completely
with so-called bilious fever, which was probably malaria
and typhoid mixed, and lay nearly dead for three
weeks, coming round at last, when I was but a long
ghost and a skeleton.

During this winter, when I was reasonably well, both
before and after the fever, I used sometimes to go down
to see some of the men who lived in the little cabins
close at hand. This was an Indian town as well, and
the Indians and whites used to live together in a fearful
state of dirt and drunkenness. Indian women have few
of them any notion of modesty left now, since the
whites came amongst them, and the consequent licence
resulting from the state of manners was curious to see.
Sometimes I walked into a cabin to find everybody
drunk, perhaps some on the bed, some on the floor, or
under the table ; or there would be a wild hubbub
inside, with fragments of English, Chinook, German, or
Spanish, or the real guttural Indian with its strange
clicks. On coming in, drink would be offered me, or I
would be invited to send for some, and the 4 jamboree'
would get worse and worse, until finally there was a
fight or a scratching match, and loud oaths and yells.

One of the mill-men, an English sailor, went about
174New .Westminster

continually with a black eye or his face scratched with
the ' ten commandments,' until at last he was relegated
to the discipline and sobriety of the jail for a period of
three] months for having broken open the door of an
Indian woman to assault her on account of some
fanciful amatory grievance. Sometimes the constable
would make a raid and take a woman to jail for being
drunk, but this was in the daytime, as he dared not
come down round where we lived in the dark, several
having sworn vengeance on him if ever they caught
him there when they had a chance of getting away
without being discovered.

Thus my time passed away with sickness, riot, dis-
order, reading, and writing. Yes, writing too, for I
wrote this winter an autobiography, psychological at
that, with snatches of verse and long letters to England.
This MS. I sent to a literary friend of mine in London,
but it never came into his hand, having been lost in the
post. Then I learnt some Chinook, so that I could
speak a little to the Indians. And a strange enough
jargon it is—English, French, and Indian ; and English
and French corrupted and altered to suit the vocal
Indian peculiarities, r becoming /, as 'dly* for (dry.'
There are some strange words, as 4 hyas puss-puss' for
the mountain lion or cougar, the northern representative
of the South American puma; 'hyas' means great or
large ; and 1 hyiu/ plenty. ' Moos-moos' is cow, and
'moos-moos glease,' butter. The great salutation is
' Clahya, tilicum,' or4 How goes it, partner ?' * Siwash' is
an Indian, and 4 sitcum siwash' a half-breed. I never
progressed very far in this gibberish, but I could say

175The Western Avernus

'yes.' and 'no,' 'nawitka' and 'halo,' and, 'What do
you want?' 'Ikta mika tiki?' and so on, and gestures
and English did the rest.

And then the frost broke up, and soon the mill was
running again, and the river swung to and fro with
burden of ice blocks, grinding on shingle and against
wharf and pile. But I was yet weak and did little
work for a fortnight, spending my time leisurely and
in repose or in the library, until I got fat again and
turned to throwing board and plank—fir, pine, cedar,
and spruce-—like a machine as before. And I was now
in debt to the mill, and had to work a month to get
out of the obligation; and, besides, I owed a doctor's
bill. So I had not, so far, made much more money by
staying in one place. It was now February, I had
been nearly four months in New Westminster, and
was 30 dols. worse off than nothing. However, I felt
reasonably contented, having some little leisure, for
we did not run full time, and, besides, something was
always going wrong with the machinery or the belts,
which gave me opportunities to get to chess or books.

But I doubt if I should have been in such a serene
state of mind if the mill had owed me money, for it
seemed they were in a bad way financially. If a man
left it was hard, nay, almost impossible, to get what
was due to him ; and even when they discharged any
one it was necessary for him to wait days to get a few
miserable dollars. One man worried the manager so
for his money, which was only 40 dollars, that at last

H- threatened to kick him off the place if he

troubled him any more! Then another man wanted

176New Westminster

his, and H-- offered him an order lor it on the

Victoria agency of the firm. 'But how am I to get
to Victoria without a cent?' said the unfortunate in-
dividual. 'Oh, get on board the Teaser and beat
your way,' or, more literally and in English, cheat the
steamer by stowing away. Strange advice under the
circumstances truly! The Chinamen employed in the
mill struck work until they got their money, which was
found for them with great difficulty. Some of the
creditors, men in the town, merchants and others, could
only get payment by taking lumber for it, and the mill
was constantly being sued in the courts, and we looked
every day for somebody to come down and take the
mill in execution, or something equally desperate. In
fact, one man seized 120,000 feet on a schooner loading
for Victoria. So I thought it lucky they did not owe
me anything.

By the middle of March I began to make a little,
and it grew up slowly to about 20 dols., which, con-
sidering the little likelihood there was of my getting it,
seemed a huge sum. However, I determined to make
it 30 dols., and then try to get paid in cash, not in
clothes and hats out of the stores. But an incident
happened that prevented the sum to my credit going
beyond 23 dols., and that was in all probability the
best thing for me under the circumstances, as, if I had
let it go to 30 dols. I should never have got any of it.
It was the first week in April, and we were all at
dinner, twenty at the table at which I sat and about
ten at the other, with a Chinaman to wait on us and
two cooking. Now this waiter was a very insolent
M	177The Western Avernus

individual, rather strong, with well-developed arms,
who had for some time worked in the mill. He was
the cause of my leaving the place. Wanting some
more meat, I asked him for some civilly enough, I am
sure, but none came. Thinking he might have for-
gotten, I asked again, and still no meat in any reasonable
time. The final result was that I thrashed the man,

and some one ran to the office and told H-, the

manager, that I was killing a Chinaman. Just as I sat
down in he rushed. 'Who's been making this dis-
turbance ?' 'I have/ I said. 4Then I discharge you.'

'That's all right about discharging, Mr. H--,' said I,

'but can I get my money?' 'You can get it this
afternoon,' and out he went.

' Served the Chinaman right, old man,' said Mac and
Johnny,' but we 're sorry you 've got to go.' Then they
and another went to the office, and wanted to know if
the Chinaman was to be discharged too. 'No,' said

H--. 'Well,' said Mac, the spokesman, 'if he isn't

discharged we '11 all go and shut the mill down.' So
the Chinaman went too, and Fraser, the book-keeper,
who was a very good friend of mine, actually charged
him with two cups, a plate, and a tin dipper which had
been smashed when we were in the thick of the fight,
and, what's more, made him pay for them.

And thus it was I left the mill, for I did get my
money, though the manager had to borrow 20 dols. to
pay me. It was lucky that it happened as it did, for in
about ten days the concern went bankrupt, and nobody
got any money at all.

That night I went up town, taking good care to look

i;8New Westminster

about me as I went through the Chinese quarter, and
bade farewell to my chess and library acquaintances,
and in the morning, after long deliberation as to
whether I should take the Teaser to Victoria or the
Adelaide for Yale, I made up my mind to the latter
course, and started for Kamloops again to visit my old
boss, from whom I had received many kindly letters
since arriving in the town of New Westminster.

179CHAPTER XV

BACK TRACKS TO EAGLE PASS

So I was bound up-stream once more, leaving saw-mill
and library behind me. Yet I carried a few books, for
I had Virgil and Horace, and a volume or two of
poetry, Coleridge and Keats, and Academy Skits for
'84, and the illustrated catalogue of the Institute of
Water-Colour Painters, sent to me from home, which
I was now taking up to give to Hughes. My
blankets were heavier than when I came down, for
I had even left my Sartor Resartus with him as a
present, as I thought I might do myself good by a
change, especially as I nearly knew it by heart, having
read it through many thousand miles of travel; to say
nothing of my habit of poring over that same volume at
breakfast when in England, to which, without meaning
any disrespect to Carlyle, I believe I owed more than a
moiety of my indigestion and congestion of liver.

And I was in the Fraser again, this time to fight the
current for a hundred miles or so to Yale. It was a
very pleasant trip. Our captain, one of the well-known
pioneer families of British Columbia, a Moore, the one-
armed one, was a very delightful companion, and Jim,
the mate, was as good. Then we had two Chilliwhack
farmers, and one from Sumass, and a Chinaman or two.

180Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

When we tied up for the night at the bank below Chilli-
whack, for we started late, we sat down and talked and
smoked most amicably, and when they found out I could
sing, it was,' Sing us another/ ' Come and take a drink,
you must be dry/ and then sing again ; and then Jim
and the skipper beguiled the intervals by telling dreadful
stories of going up the Fraser and getting steam up to
ijo lb., when the boiler was only certified for 60 lb.
He told a yarn about the steamer that blew up under
similar conditions ten miles or so below Yale, and
another of the boat we were then in, when they one
day had the tiller-ropes break in the most perilous place
on the river, and had to let her drift blindly, till she
hung in an eddy behind a rock, giving them a chance
to mend the gear. Then we sang more songs and
had more drinks till twelve o'clock, and I spread my
blankets out and went to sleep, with the consciousness
that I had done my duty in singing at any rate, for I
was as hoarse as I could be.	:

In the morning there was a frightful fog of mist and
smoke, caused mostly, however, by the latter, which came
from a magnificent mountain fire above Pitt River, which
we had seen the night before. The whole side of the
mountain was red-hot, and the horseshoe ring of the
outer flames shone gloriously bright, while there was a
mile of dull embers in the midst of it.

In consequence of this fog we had to go very slowly,
at times stopping altogether, and at last, when we
thought, or rather the captain thought, for I had no
notion at all, that we were near Chilliwhack, the deck-
hands shouted, and some one answered out of the fog,

181The Western Avernus

and next moment we went bump against the high bank,
stem foremost, and soon made a landing, and parted
with two of our friends.

Then it gradually cleared up, and we ran on, fighting
the stream at intervals but' making the riffle,' or crossing
the rapid, without resorting to bacon hams in the
furnace or a nigger on the safety-valve, as was the
custom in the palmy days of steamboat racing on the
Mississippi or the Sacramento. And then we ran
through lovely reaches of calm water, and past huge
piles of drift-wood stuck on sand-bars, and came to
Hope, whence the trail runs to Similkameen, the last
new gold find in British Columbia. After that came
fierce fighting with the stream, and again we tied Up
and waited for morning; then riffle after riffle was
triumphantly passed, the whistle-scream echoed from
the entrance of the canon, and I was at Yale once
more, somewhat exercised in mind as to the means of
getting to Kamloops without walking and without
paying my fare, which was too much for my pocket.
Now the main office of the railroad was then at Yale,
where A. Onderdonk, the well-known and much abused
contractor, whom the men usually called Andy or
A. O., had his residence, and it was often possible to
get a pass up-country to work on the road, either
grading or track-laying, without paying for it I had
no intention of working at this kind of work if it were
possible to do without it, for I now considered myself
a cut above a mere railroader, being a saw-mill man,
and railroading is considered by all who do not follow
it as a 4 low-down job/ nearly as bad as the dog's-meat

182Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

man's man in London. So I went up to the office and
bored two or three officials, even speaking to the great
Andy himself, who is a good-looking and pleasant in-
dividual, until at last I was told to jump on the train in
the morning for Ashcroft or Barnes, near the Black
Canon, where I could get work.

Down I went early, with my blankets on my back,
having slept that night at Taylor's, where the usual
racket and fandango had been going on, and found a
dozen or two others who were bound for the same place
on the same terms, and besides these I came across
Fraser from the mill, who was going up to Eagle
Pass to be book-keeper for a contractor doing grading
and tunnelling along the banks of the Big Shushwap
Lake. We got in the train and started up the canon.
I was glad enough to get to Ashcroft, or at any rate
to be out of the worst of the canon, for the narrow
shelf of rock on which we ran, the vast blocks of over-
hanging stone, the perilous high trestle-bridges, and the
black depth of howling waters beneath, kept me in a
state of mental tension, especially when we slashed
round a curve or went down an occasional sharp descent
that made me imagine the train was flying in the air.
We got out at Ashcroft, in the Alkali Dry Belt, but I
put my blankets on my back and marched a mile
to Barnes's Hotel, and slept there that night, after
having had the worst supper I ever paid 50 cents for,
spending the evening in a crowded bar-room amid
noise and smoke and half-intoxicated railroad men
from the camps near at hand.

In the morning I started on my walk to Hughes's

183The Western Avernus

Ranche, which was about forty-one miles from here. I
passed my companions of yesterday working with pick
and shovel in a mixed gang of whites and Chinamen,
and tramped along the railroad track between the rails,
for the line was now roughly finished as far as Savona's
Ferry, at the foot of Kamloops Lake. It was a weary,
thirsty walk, for it was almost impossible to step except
upon the ties or sleepers, and these were set so that
to go from one to the next made me walk with a
ridiculous short step, and if I missed one out I made
an immense stride. And I could not step in between,
for the line was unballasted ; that is, the space between
the ties was not filled up with earth or gravel. Then
there was no path alongside the track ; or if there was,
it was painful to walk upon on account of the rocks.
The water in the little creeks that ran down the hollows
in the hills was terribly alkaline, soft and horrible to
taste, so that as I tramped on the awkward ties, watching
every step, with a burning sun glaring on the bare soil,
I grew thirstier and thirstier, while the beautiful blue
stream of the Thompson, down far below me, or shining
farther off yet in the distance, mocked my parching
tongue, and the musical whisper of the water, as it
ran over the rapids, sounded like a fiend's rejoicing
voice. So I stumbled along, tasting almost every
stream I came to, unless I saw the white alkaline
incrustation on its banks, in the hope of finding good
water. But in the twenty-one or twenty-two miles to
Savona I only found one that was passable.

I tramped into that little settlement, or rather into
the newer portion, since called Van Horn, after one

184Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

of the C.P.R. officials, at three o'clock, 'peted,' done
up. I came to a Chinaman's, who, had ' Restaurant'
painted outside, with some Chinese characters as well,
and walked in. I began to demand dinner in the usual
way one speaks to Chinamen there, but found he could
talk very good English indeed. He gave me a good
dinner too, and I sat there smoking and talking till half-
past four, and then started, hoping to get to Hughes's
that night, although the distance was seventeen miles.
If I had taken the wagon-road I might have done it,
but thinking it would be shorter to follow the railroad
along the lake until I came to Cherry Creek, which ran
down through his land, I kept on the track, taking the
bare grade, which finally gave out at places. I had to
scramble round bluffs or rocks until it was dark, and
I came to a camp where there was only one man, who
refused me a cup of tea. I thanked him for his courtesy,
and started to climb the hill in the dark to discover the
wagon-road, as it would have been out of my way to go
farther on the grade. At last I found the road, and set
out on the last six miles in total darkness, but when I
had done three, arriving at Roper's, I felt I was done up
and could do no more. So I opened the door of the
hotel and walked into the bar-room. Next morning I
left for Hughes's and took three hours to do three
miles, such was my fatigue from the day before. I
found Hughes working by the house, shook hands
with him, and went and lay down, enjoying dolce far
niente for that day at any rate. I stayed there some
days, working a little, sometimes shooting, and some-
times trout-fishing, for there was a plentiful supply of

185The Western Avernus

small brook-trout to be caught there, and one afternoon
I hooked out forty.

Then I went into Kamloops and stayed a day or two
to look out for work, but seeing no chance I came back
for a little while and then went again. Finally, acting
on my friend's advice, I determined to go up to Eagle
Pass again, as work was reported lively there, and a
town building up rapidly. My 23 dols. was now nearly
exhausted, and when I got into town I had insufficient
to pay my fare up to the lakes, so I went to the captain
of the Kamloops steamer, and he allowed me to work
my passage up. I went down to the fires, and passed
wood for the fireman, stowing it away whenever they
took more on board, working like a demon. One time
I stowed away three cords of four-foot wood without
resting. First my shirt came off, then my undershirt,
and I slung the wood with the perspiration rolling off
me in streams, getting into my eyes, and running down
into my very boots. It was little scenery I saw at that
time, as I was down in the stoke-hold nearly all the
while. At last we came up to the Landing, and I could
hardly recognise the place. Instead of three buildings
there were more than a hundred, all strung along the
foreshore, and new ones were going up, and everywhere
one could hear hammers going and the axe, while on
the beach were crowds of men, and piles of merchandise,
of lumber, casks and odds and ends innumerable. Had
it not been for the unchanged mountain background I
should not have thought it was the almost desolate spot
I came to after my tramp over the Selkirks and through
the Golden Range.

186Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

I went ashore and up to Murdoch's, finding the place
in the throes of dissolution and regeneration, pulling
down and rebuilding at once. At every step I came
across acquaintances from the lower country, or men I
had met in the Kicking Horse Pass. There seemed
much business doing, especially for carpenters, who were
in great request, and, judging from the number of
drunken men, a vast quantity of liquor was being dis-
posed of, although it was forbidden to sell it without a
licence from the Provincial Government and with or
without one by the Dominion Government, which led
to a conflict, to which I shall refer afterwards. At the
present time Murdoch was the only man with a licence,
but still it was possible to buy whisky anywhere. I
went into the bar-room, threw my blankets in a corner,
shook hands with Murdoch and one or two acquaint-
ances, sat down, lighted my perpetual clay pipe, and
took in the scene and conversation. There was an
immense amount of railroad talk, and I soon saw it
would be easy enough to get work of that kind if other
things failed. I determined not to do any of it if it
could be avoided, and thinking that Fraser might be
able to get me something to do, I went down to the end
of the town and got an Irishman, voluble and semi-
intoxicated, to pull me across the lake for four bits to
where he was working. When I got across I found he
was somewhere else, and waited for three hours, mean-
while getting most vilely hungry, and ageing as it were,
for I soon suspected myself a fool, which would, accord-
ing to the Night Thoughts, indicate my age as thirty,
and soon afterwards I seemed to know it, and that

187The Western Avernus

means forty. At last I could stand no longer to watch
the salmon and lake trout leap for flies, and I got into
another boat, paying another four bits to get back. So
my trip was in vain, and cost me a dollar, which I could
ill afford. On arriving at the landing I had a good
supper and was rejuvenated, though I had now but
half a dollar left, and half a dollar in the mountains of
British Columbia only means one meal, or two drinks
or four cigars, whereas in Melbourne it would have the
larger significance of four dinners and a single extra
glass of beer, and even in London Bohemia the initi-
ated is a long way from starvation and the archways with
2s. 2d. to his credit, or even with but a splendid shilling.

So I was very pleased to meet Fraser in the main and
only street that night, for I borrowed five dollars from
him, which were given kindly and gracefully. Indeed,
one thinks of five dollars there as one would think of
five shillings at home, and I spent a dollar when I had
plenty of them, which truly was only occasionally, as if
mere silver was nothing. Fraser promised to see if it
were possible to get me a good job with his contractor
Mitchell; but next day I was fortunately put beyond
any need of troubling him for work or further loans by
getting employment at 2.50 dollars, or 10s. Sd. a day.
My * boss' was one of the best men to work for I ever
met, a Mr. G. F. Kyle, a Canadian, who had risen to a
good position in Onderdonk's employ. I never saw any
one who had anything to say against him, but, on the
contrary, everybody had a good word for him. He was
a tall, strong, pleasant and good-featured man, some-
what English-looking, with a sharp eagle eye and that

188Back Tracks to

Eagle

Pass

undefinable look about him of a man who knows other
men—somewhat similar to the appearance and quick,
penetrating glance of 4 our only General/ whom I had
often seen in Pall Mall and the War Office when he was
Quartermaster-General and I worked as a writer in his
department. Mr. Kyle made me work hard while there
was any necessity for it, but then he worked himself,
and was as energetic a 'rustler' as British Columbia
held. My first month with him was one of almost
continuous labour, Sunday and week-day and overtime,
so that I made about eighty dollars that month, subject
to the deduction of a dollar a day for board. We
built a stable and a warehouse for the stores for the
railroad work in the Eagle Pass, over the first twenty
miles of which Kyle was superintendent. Then I
grubbed up stumps, cleared up all round, graded off the
yard into a slope, cut poles in the forest, helped load up
the wagons, weighed the stores out—potatoes, bacon,
and flour—marked them, and so on. So for that first
month I had my hands full indeed.

Beside Kyle there was a book-keeper, a Mr. Requa, who
was also a very agreeable individual, and with whom I
got along very well, so well indeed that he told me I
was a first-rate worker and hadn't a lazy hair in my
head. I said, ' Wait a while, you don't know me yet,
for I can be as lazy as the next man.' Then there was
the storekeeper, little Mac, who had been a telegraph
operator in the lower country. He was extremely con-
ceited, and would tell me,41 am so different from other
fellows, you know, Charlie,' as indeed he was, but not in
any way to give him much reason for boasting. Besides

189The Western Avernus

these there was an old white-haired watchman, with
whom I had some trouble about the horses. He was
going to break my neck, but it is still whole. There
were also two teamsters, one a good-looking, somewhat
soft young fellow, genial and pleasant, Bob by name or
nickname, and Joe Fagin, tall, clumsy, with huge
strength, capable of lifting 800 lb., hairless on the face,
ruddy and reasonably good-tempered, a great swimmer
and a splendid driver. Then there were two carpenters,
one of whom insisted I was a runaway man-o'-war's
man. The other was a gambler, and dropped his money
at stud-horse poker or faro as soon as he made it.
These two went away as soon as the store was finished.

All this time building was going on rapidly in the
town, and money was very plentiful and circulated
freely. Half the town would be drunk at night, and
there was a fight or two every evening, and black
eyes were plentiful as dollars. The Swedes were the
worst for drinking, getting intoxicated early in the
morning. One day I came across six lying in a pile,
close to our warehouse, by the edge of the lake. One
was lying with his head down hill and his hair touching
the water. I tried to put him right, but as he was a
heavy man, weighing perhaps 14 stone, with another
heavy fellow lying across him, I was unable to get him
up. While pulling away at him I woke up one of the
others, who was the least drunk. 4 Get up/ said I, ' and
help me to get your partner out; his head's nearly in
the water.' 4 So much the worse for him/ said the
other sleepily, and dropped off to rest again. I put a
hat over the man's face to keep the burning sun from

190Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

him, but when I came round again he had taken it off.
So I let him lie.

Then there was a well-known individual in town, a
Welshman whom we all called Taffy, who rejoiced in
perennial drunkenness and black eyes. He was always
fighting and always getting whipped, but, as he kept
on, I suppose he liked it One day he called a car-
penter, whom I knew, an opprobrious name, and got
badly choked and beaten. Our method of fighting
there was different from what is considered fair in
England. When a man falls or is knocked down, his
opponent gets on him, choking or thumping him with
his fists, and sometimes, if any sticks or stones, ' clubs'
or ' rocks/ are lying within reach, they are brought into
action, and, besides, biting and eye-gouging are not
considered absolutely wrong, though seldom resorted
to. Consequently, as Taffy was usually too drunk to
stand up, he got the worst of his perpetual combats,
unless he came across an opponent who was drunker
than himself. This, however, would be very rare, as any
increased intoxication must have resulted in sleep and
quietness. When Taffy got to that stage he went down
to his boat and lay under a tarpaulin, and one day,
when Mac, the storekeeper, and I found him there, we
cut him adrift and sent him out into the lake, where he
floated round for an hour or two, an object of universal
interest.

While working here I used to see Major Rogers,
the surveyor who had surveyed the line through the
Kicking Horse Pass and the Selkirks. He had been
in the mountains seven years at this task, and he and

191The Western Avernus

his men toiled and suffered fearfully at times. His two
nephews were with him, and were fine, good-looking
young fellows.

After my first month things were much easier for
me, as I had very little to do except to attend to a
few horses in the stable and help load the wagons;
consequently I used to lie on a pile of grain sacks in
the stores and read novels. Then we would go in
swimming, perhaps twice a day, and I would take a
walk up town, looking into the gambling saloons or
chatting with my acquaintances, who were not a few.
And then I got my old chum Scott again, from the
Kicking Horse Pass, who had followed my footsteps
over the Selkirks in company with Davidson. When
I saw him he was purser on a lake steamer, the Lady
Dufferin, and we had a great palaver together. He
told me that he and Davidson had often talked about
4 Texas,' as he still called me, wondering what had
become of me. He was glad to see me again, as glad
as I was to see him. He had had a hard time crossing
the trail, though not so bad as I, for his boots fortun-
ately did not chafe him, and, besides that, his time on
the trail had been shorter, owing to the extension of
the wagon road. We met constantly after this, until
at last he left the steamer, being unable to stand Bill
Fortune any longer. This man, an uneducated York-
shireman, who was * bossed' by his wife, was owner of a
little saw-mill below Kamloops. He used to cause
some amusement by blowing his little steamer's whistle
at intervals from the time he came in sight round the
point to the time he disappeared again, unless he was

192Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

too much intoxicated to pull the rope. When Scott
left his employ he took to running whisky into the
town, but without much success, as the police con-
fiscated his biggest venture, which almost ruined my
friend, as he had put all his cash into it that time. I
used to tell him it served him right for trying to make
money out of whisky, for I was then, and am now, a
prohibitionist, although not a total abstainer. I am
quite sure that I went through sufferings and privations
both in British Columbia and afterwards that would
have almost killed a man accustomed to drink spirits,
and I have often been six months at a time without
drinking anything intoxicating, even when it almost
risked my life to refuse. Nevertheless, in some com-
pany I have had to drink, and I myself have deemed
it occasionally politic to swagger into a bar-room and
say: * Step up, boys, what's your liquor ?' just to show
a rough crowd I was not too * high-toned' to drink
with them, or too mean to pay out a dollar now and
again.

It was getting towards the end of June, when one
evening Kyle sent for me to say that he wanted me to
come out with him the next day to bridge over some
sloughs, and that he needed another man, too, who was
to be an axeman. So I went round and hired one
who was Taffy's partner, and next morning this man,
Williams, whom I had met before at Kamloops, and
I set out together up the road and were presently joined
by Kyle on horseback. We all worked together, felling
trees across these sloughs to make temporary bridges
for the men to cross who were making the grade. We
N	193The Western Avernus

took all the morning to do three, and then Williams
and the boss and I ate our lunch on one of the trees in
the middle of the swamp, dipping up water, in a tin cup
to drink. I was not much of an axeman ; indeed it is
rare to find an Englishman who can do very much with
that instrument, as it requires a long apprenticeship, so
Kyle did great part of my work in showing me how
to do it. He knew very well I worked hard, but then
he could, from knowing how to handle an axe, do
twice as much as I in half the time, with half the
exertion, and he would be calm and smiling when
I was sweating and puffing, striking every blow in a
different place. After lunch we went up to the Eagle
River, and hailing the other side a man came across in
a boat, or a vile apology for one, like the thing I had
crossed the Illecilliwret in. However, we got across
safely, and went farther up to another slough, and after
working there a while we left Williams at the job alone
and came back to the river. Here Kyle told me he
wanted to make a ferry, though he did not explain how
he was going to do it. We had brought out with us in
the morning two coils of rope, which he had left in the
boat. When we got to the river again, where this punt
was, a quarter of a mile above where the railroad was
to cross, we got in and I took the oars. As we drifted
down Kyle told me what to do. There was just above
the railroad crossing a long dead tree, bare of branches,
lying on the bank, projecting half way over the stream,
which is narrow but extremely rapid, running at least
eight miles an hour. I was to let the boat drift right
under the point of this tree, so that Kyle could throw a

194Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

running noose over the end of it, which, as he stood up,
would be four or five feet above his head. So down we
swept, quicker and quicker, until at last we were right
under it. Kyle threw and missed. * Pull, pull, G— d—
it, can't you pull ?' he said. I swore back, ' Can't you
see I am pulling ?' But it was no use. I could not
make any headway, strain as I might, with a flat-bowed
thing against which the waters stood up. So down we
went, and I had to pull to the shore nearest our camp.
Then Kyle took the rope, when he had recovered from
his fit of irritation, and walked out on the tree and put
the loop on and came back again.

My heart was in my mouth, for if he had slipped he
would have had a hard struggle to save himself. How-
ever, he came to the bank in safety. Then he brought
the rope down to the boat, and, holding on to it, we
swung out into mid-stream, and then tried to steer her
over to the other side. We found it impossible to make
the shore without letting the rope go, and even then it
would have been a great chance. So back we went,
and Kyle pulled his watch out and said, * It's past four
now, and I promised to see some one in town at five. I
must go, and you must get over and bring Williams
across/ 4 Yes,' said 1,4 but how the devil am I to do
it ?' ' I don't know,' said Kyle, and strode off. I sat
down and laughed. He and I could not get across, and
now I was to do it myself. Then I grew serious, for I
could not see how it was to be done, I looked at the
stream and the strong eddies, then at the boat and the
rude oars or paddles, then at the tree and the rope. I
thought it impossible, and was very nearly turning

195The Western Avernus

round and walking off without even attempting it
However, I hit on a plan at last. I thought I could try
at any rate, and if I was drowned it would be Kyle's
fault, and I would, if possible, haunt him.

My greatest fear, however, was not of drowning but
of being carried down the river, which would deprive
the men working there of all means of crossing at the
old place. As I sat down, making plans, one of these
men came to the opposite bank and asked how their
boat got there, and when I told him he made some
uncomplimentary remarks about Kyle. I asked him
how I was to get across, and he said I couldn't do it.
' Well, I Ve got to do it.' 4 Well, you can't,' and he
disappeared. Then I got into the boat, laid hold of
the rope, the loose end of which I tied to a stump, and
hauled myself slowly up stream, hand over hand, until
I was right under the tree again, and the water boiled
in over the bows. I let go, jumped to the seat, snatched
the oars, was caught in an eddy, and came just where I
wanted to. So far so good ; but the question now was
how Williams and I were to get back again. If I had
been able to bring the loose end of the rope over, it
would have been all right, but that had been impossible
owing to its being too short. To start from that side
without any rope, just in that place, would have taken
us and boat probably a mile down stream. So there
was nothing for it but to take the boat back to the
place Kyle had brought it from, and a delightful task
that proved. The banks were thick with brush, and
trees projected over the water everywhere. One of the
railroad men got in and tied a rope to the bows, and

196A FERRY ON THE EAGLE RIVER.

[to face p. 196.Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

Williams and another hauled it up while I scrambled
round the brush to pass the end on when they came to
an impassable place. Three times I fell in, once I had
to swim and once I was dragged out by the scruff of
the neck, before we got it back, and many were the
curses levelled at my boss for his 4 darned ingenuity/ as
the man in the boat called it. At last Williams and I
got across, and set off just at dusk to walk eight miles
or more to town, thinking that we had at any rate got
over the worst and that the rest was plain sailing or
plain walking. But we were greatly deceived.

As we walked down the embankment of soft sand
in the middle of the cedar forest the sky rapidly
darkened and the wind came down in heavy puffs, like
the forerunners of a gale. Up to this time I had not
seen it blow much in British Columbia, except for a
little While once at New Westminster, so I thought .it
would blow over and be nothing of consequence; but,
instead of doing that, it came down heavier and heavier,
until it ceased puffing and came in violent blasts, each
lasting longer than the other, and fairly screaming in
the trees. Then needles and dead branches began to
fly, and presently a tree crashed down and then another.
We had got by this time to a long slough with a log-
bridge lying in the water across it, and on both sides
.there were parties of men at work. We saw them
standing up on the grade looking round, and then one
made a run and then another, trying to find a better
place: The gale's force suddenly increased, and a dozen
cedars came down at once all round us, with a roar like
thunder, and all through the thick timber they fell right

197The Western Avernus

and left, one lodging against another, until two went at
once. And the fires lighted by the men to make their
supper roared and crackled in the wind, sending out
clouds of sparks and red embers. Then the rain began
to fall heavily, and was blown stingingly right in one's
face. I ran out into the middle of the slough on to the
bridge, thinking it might be safer, but when out there
the tall trees seemed to bend over to me, and I ran
right across to the others who were scuttling round
like holeless rabbits, trying to find a shelter.

And meantime there was a perfect windy pande-
monium in the forest, roars and shrieks of wind, and
crash, crash, crash came more trees, here, there, and
everywhere, some into the slough, some across the
grade near where we were standing, and others in the
distance ; the rain was piercing and stinging, and sparks
flew into the forest and set fire to the brush, which was
extinguished again and again by the downpour.

Finally, after about an hour, it began to lull, and
came less and less, and no more trees fell. Presently
Williams came across the slough and we made a fresh
start home, and after a weary tramp in the rain got to
the store. I went in. 4 Hallo/ said Requa, 4 you look
like a ghost, or as if you had seen one.' Mr. Kyle was
sitting near. 4 Mr. Kyle/ said I, 41 brought Williams
over, but you let me in for a nice thing. We had to
drag that boat up stream and I fell in three times,
and afterwards we nearly came to an end on the grade
with the wind. Trees are lying all over the work.' He
was grinning till I came to the last, but that touched
him a little, for he was in a great hurry to get the job

198Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

finished, and anything likely to delay it made him wild.
So he stopped his smile and said, ' Very well, that will
do; I '11 go up to-morrow.' They had had it nearly as
bad in town, and there had been a big waterspout on
the lake. The amount of fallen timber must have
been immense, and that so much of it fell was owing
to a fire that had been through the forest the year
before, which had burnt round the butts of the trees
and weakened them.

Soon after this came the Fourth of July, which,
strange to say, was kept with games and rejoicings
and fights and much intoxication, just as if it had been
on United States soil. We had a horse-race down the
narrow street, and jumping, throwing the hammer, and
tossing the caber. In the afternoon came running and
an incidental fight, because our brawny blacksmith
kicked a dog out of the way of the runners. 4 Don't
you do that/ said the owner. ' I '11 kick you off too,'
said the keeper of the course. * Will you ?' No sooner
was he dared than the blacksmith knocked his opponent
down and kicked him just over the eye. Then the
constable interfered and got a blow in the mouth.
There was every prospect of a general melee, but things
quieted down and the games went on, and at last we
had a tug of war, in which I was picked on one side.
I confess our side was beaten, however, and the others
drank the keg of beer, which was the prize. By this
time it was dark, and at least 75 per cent, of the
population were drunk and vociferous, and there was
great howling down the street all night, and lugubrious
procession of black eyes and swollen heads next day.

199The Western Avernus

In the middle of the month I had a trip down to
Kamloops on a very unpleasant errand, for Kyle sent
me there with some others in charge of the body of
a young fellow who had been killed in his tent one
night by a tree falling on him when asleep. , I had to
go to the funeral, and was glad enough to get back to
the pass again to my horses and novel-reading in the
hay.

I read a good deal of trash this time, and only
remember Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowds the
best novel I had seen for many a long day. And
then I got Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, and the
first volume of Ruskin's Stones of Venice} and became
temporarily learned in voussoirs, spandrels, arches,
ornaments, etc.

During this month we had still a very lively time in
town, with occasional intervals of comparative quiet
for a day or two when Mr. Todd, the magistrate, came
up from Kamloops, for then the unlicensed liquor
dealers would hold their hands and go quietly, so that
no one coujd be very drunk in town. One day he
came into our store, when it was fearfully warm, and
sat down sighing. ' Don't you find it rather dull here,
Mr. Todd ?' said I. ' It is a little dull after Kamloops.'
'Well,' said I, smiling, 'you can bet your life it will
be livelier when you leave.' He smiled too, though
rather feebly, and left me sewing sacks, to keep myself
from dying of ennui and heat combined.

When I look back on those months they were
really very happy. I had not too much to do; I was
saying nearly ten pounds a month; I had novels and

200Back Tracks to Eagle Pass

my two classical dead friends, and my unclassical live
friend Scott, who would come in and argue about
religion, and get me to tell him something about
Darwin, in order that he might try to controvert what
I said. Then there was our daily swimming, canoeing
in Indian canoes, and jabbering with Indians, and row-
ing over to Major Rogers place at Sickamoose Narrows.
And good board was to be had, even in this place.
Better than all, I did not suffer from home-sickness,
which can so unaccountably destroy all pleasure in life
at times.

And then I actually had a long conversation with
another educated man, a Church of England clergyman,
from Kamloops, who had come up to do a little preach-
ing to those who would listen. And these were few.
I took care of his horse, and so got acquainted with
him, and one night he came down to the stable to see
the animal, and then we sat down on the edge of a
boat—Taffy's boat, by the way—and argued of strange
things, 'free will, fixed fate, foreknowledge absolute/
and the ' origin of evil,' and finding that the discussion
would be interminable for lack of something we could
really agree upon, we went off into English literature,
having a pleasant talk about many different authors.
Then I told him about my meeting the two clergymen
in the Fraser Canon, and made him laugh about the
pie, although his knowledge of cooking was no greater
than Mr. Edwards's, the author of that most abominable
crust.

So altogether I did not spend those three months to
any great disadvantage, and I was sorry enough when

201The Western Avernus

Mr. Kyle told me he would not require my services any
longer, as there was so little to do. I had been expect-
ing this for some time, as during the last two weeks I
was with him I did not do a good day's work. So I
took my money, bade farewell to Eagle Pass Landing,
went on board the Peerless, and back to Kamloops.

202CHAPTER XVI

TO VANCOUVER ISLAND AND VICTORIA

In Kamloops I sent home 100 dols., leaving myself
about 40 dols., thinking that would be sufficient to see
me through a period of rest, but I was sorry before
long that I had not kept it, as will be seen.

I went over to Hughes's, and stayed there a few
days, doing a few odd jobs for him, and hunted a little
and fished. I met an old acquaintance there again, an
Indian woman, Mary, who had been married to a white
man near Kamloops, who nearly killed her with a
shovel. So she left him, and when I knew her was
living with an American from Maine, who certainly did
not try to kill her, but still used to beat her. They
would go into town together and get drunk, and then
fight and squabble. I got her to make me a pair of
moccasins, which I lost going down to the coast. I
had a pleasant week at Hughes's place, not doing more
work than made me fit to eat a good dinner, and we
had great talks and discussions, making plans of
meeting one day in London, which may yet come to
pass. Then at last, getting tired of doing nothing and
earning nothing, I thought I would go to the coast
again.

So I bade my friend Mr. Hughes farewell, and off I
203The Western Avernus

went to Savona. I found an old saw-mill friend at
Van Horn, a man who was half an Indian by dint of
living with them, who could talk Chinook as fluently as
English, and with him I started to walk west once
more, firmly determined not to pay the exorbitant rail-
road fare; and I walked the whole way to Yale again,
looking in at my friends the clergymen's place near
Jackass Mountain, of course, as I passed by. They
gave us dinner, and we stayed to service with a crowd
of Indians, and heard them talk to them in a strange
soft tongue, very different from the guttural language
of the coast.

Then to Yale, and thence by steamer to New
Westminster, and the Farmers' Home.

I had been so careless of money coming down that
I found I was running short once more, as usual with
me; and as the mill had 'Started up' on a different
basis I went to work there again, but had trouble with
another Chinaman, and was discharged for knocking
him down. This was the second time. It was very
unfortunate.

I had only about 10 dols. If I had had four times
as much I should have bought a rifle and hunted and
trapped that winter, but under the circumstances I
thought it best to leave British Columbia, especially as
I wras told the Chinaman was going to take me to court,
and I should have been heavily fined if he had. Of
course I could have got help to pay it if it had come
to that, but I thought it best to avoid accidents, so I
jumped on board the Teaser for Victoria. The last
incident of note in New Westminster was my meeting

204To Vancouver Island and Victoria

with a Japanese sailor, who had been looking on in the
mill when I had the difficulty with the Mongolian, and
now insisted on shaking hands with me for thrashing
him ; for these Japanese cordially hate their neighbours,
and regard them, as this one and many another told
me, as 4 pigs and dogs.'

We ran down out of the river and were in the Straits
of Georgia, on the sea. Not the open sea, for it looked
more like a large lake, yet it had the smell of the brine
and the long roll of the sea, and the seaweed, and it
was pleasant to me, whose last sight of open salt water
had been outside of Sandy Hook. We ran across the
straits, down a multiplicity of channels, among a
thousand islands wooded to the very edge of the water,
and came at last into the land-locked, pleasant little
harbour of Victoria.

I had by this time picked up a companion or partner
on board. He was an Englishman, who had been in
the Cape Mounted Rifles and the Mounted Police of
the North-west Provinces east of the Rockies, from
which he had been discharged as an invalid. He was
a tall, strange individual, in a sort of velveteen jacket,
evidently a gentleman, and with a good voice and
English accent, but there was something uncanny about
him. One might suspect him of being haunted. We
talked a great deal of British Columbia, and I found
he had been at Hughes's once. Then I remembered
Hughes had told me of such a one who came and asked
for work during haying time, and when terms were
agreed upon said he would like to go and read the
newspaper that afternoon, and, finally, that he thought

205The Western Avernus

he would not work there, but would try to get a job
that would last longer somewhere else. I found out he
was the same individual. He had since then been in
the Spullamacheen Valley, and was going to Victoria
to try to get admission to the hospital.

In Victoria I went to the same hotel, and slept in
the same room with him, and was rather alarmed at
the wild way he talked. He was clearly insane. He
raved about his relatives in England who had robbed
him of his money, of his comrades in the Mounted
Police who had put forth evil reports about him, and
even about the people in Victoria, who knew what had
been said of him, for he had heard them talking about
him in the streets. I went to sleep, but not without
some misgivings, glad that he had no razor in his
valise, for he looked no unlikely subject for homicidal
mania.

Next day I was relieved by his getting admission to
the hospital, which, unless I am much mistaken, would
be a first step to his obtaining a permanent refuge at
the lunatic asylum, certainly the best place for him.

I was now coming down gradually in cash, and was
in a very fair way to have nothing at all. It really
seemed to me that it was my fate to be perpetually in
financial difficulties, for no sooner did I get anything
than it vanished again, and when I got a good job it
would not last But then a bad one would not either.
I was perpetually in anxiety, and sometimes even felt
inclined to spend my last dollar or two recklessly, in
order to know the worst at once and be no more in
suspense. As I was walking about town in a state of

206To Vancouver Island and Victoria

mental inquiry as, to ways and means, occasionally
asking for work at some likely-looking place, I met
suddenly my two friends from the canon, Now I was
a pretty object to talk to clergymen in a populous city.
It is true my old Texas hat had been discarded at
Eagle Pass, but I was nevertheless only in rough
working clothes, and doubtless the state of my pocket
might have been discerned by a keen observer in my
dejected face. Nevertheless my wild appearance did
not daunt Mr. Small and Mr. Edwards, who bore
down with smiling faces and shook hands, making all
sorts of inquiries. Then I walked down the street with
them, feeling something like a prisoner between two
policemen, and many were the curious glances cast at
me by passers-by when they saw me in such company.
Perhaps they thought I was a brand snatched from the
burning; I met a man from the hotel in which I was
staying, and his astonishment and temporary paralysis
were delightful, and I had to stand a considerable
amount of chaff about my ' high-toned' acquaintances
when I left them, after promising to lunch with them
next day. I tried to get off, but they insisted, so I
went to a good restaurant with them, and surprised the
waiter, who at first, I have no doubt, thought I was an
unfortunate man these two charitable individuals had
brought in to save from starvation; but when he saw
the terms we were on, and heard snatches of our con-
versation, he looked at me with more respect and a
great amount of subdued curiosity. After lunch we
went out and hired a boat, and I pulled them round to
Esquimault Harbour, and we took a look at H.M.S.

207The Western Avernus

Triumph. Coming back we began a religious argu-
ment, and I fear they , got to look at me as a very
heathen, for my views and pessimistic philosophy of
life seemed, no doubt, extremely wrong viewed from
their standpoint, and it was with the sorrowful charity
of shocked yet forgiving spirits that they parted from
me for the last time. And I was left alone to come
back, from metaphysics to the reality I philosophically
denied, and from subjective introspective analysis of
motives impelling to action, faith, or belief, to the
objectivity of nearly penniless pockets and need of paid
employment.

That afternoon I went down to the wharves and
asked the mate of the steamer Olympian, which ran
down the Sound, to let me work my way to Tacoma,
and after several refusals, as I would not be denied,
he told me to take a truck, and I helped discharge
her cargo and then to load her up again, working like
a horse, running and sweating along with the regular
hands.

So I left Victoria and ran down Puget Sound, calling
in at Port Townsend, Port Ludlow, Port Madison, and
Seattle, doing little or nothing on the way down, as
there was no discharging to do until I came in the
morning to Tacoma. .

208CHAPTER XVII

MOUNT TACOMA OVERHEAD*

As I had had breakfast on board the steamer, I was
not obliged to pay out anything from my scanty stock
for meals, and I went up town to look for work. I
soon discovered that I had jumped out of the frying-
pan into the fire, for there was even less to be done in
Tacoma than in Victoria. I tried road-contractors and
house-builders, but could not even get work at mixing
mortar. I went to the coal wharves and tried to obtain
employment trimming coal, but every one was full-
handed. Then I walked down to the great saw-mill,
and tackled every one about the place without success,
until at last I came to the man who superintended the
loading of the vessels at the mill's wharves. Yes, I
could come down in the afternoon and go to work.
Then I wanted to know the wages. He looked at me.
' Oh, it's the wages you want to know ! Then you can
wait till you find out/ I got wild and f talked back,'
and finally told him and the mill to go to a warm
locality, for I didn't want his work, and wouldn't work
under him at any price. This, of course, was not true;
but then I had never been answered in that way in all
my life, and it very naturally made me angry. And
the fact that he replied in such a manner showed me
O	209The Western Avernus

that men must be very plentiful, or he would not have
ventured to speak so, for the bosses are polite enough
when hands are scarce. I walked off boiling, and made
up my mind to leave Tacoma and the Sound and go
to Portland. Then I would go to sea again and get
out of America. I began to think I had had enough
of it.

I walked up town, and, in order to reduce myself to
a cool and quiet state of mind, I climbed the hills
beyond the main street, for I desired to see Mount
Tacoma, which I had been told was a lofty and mag-
nificent mountain. After a while I turned and looked
back, but could see nothing, for all the level land across
the head of the Sound was filled with a mass of vapour.
I sat down and waited, and presently mist and cloud
began to shift and roll in the wind, that bared to me at
last the most glorious mountain I had yet seen. The
peaks of the Rockies faded from my memory, and the
snowy pinnacles of the Selkirks—even the white cone
of Mount Baker—were hidden and diminished, as this
white miracle of rock and ice and snow rose before me
towering nearly fifteen thousand feet above the sea that
was at my feet and the level lands at its base. Its
tremendous majesty is not lessened by division of peaks
nor marred by additions; it is one and indivisible,
solitary, patriarchal yet childless. It lifts its ancient
head for ever above the clouds ; the storm-thunder rolls
below the thunder of its loosened avalanches; the scream
of the soaring eagle fails to pierce to the olden silence
of that height; and only the fires of the stars are above
the cold sharp jewels of its glittering icy crest. But

210Mount Tacoma Overhead

when at dawn the splendour of the sun kindles it to
responsive rose, its magic colour is beyond even the
ethereal glory of the rainbow and the tinged fleece of
floating clouds at even. It is imperial, antique, beyond
worship, eternal and godlike.

I had seen a mountain, and one unsurpassed in Alps
and Andes. Is there a greater on Himalay?

I came back slowly to earth after that, not this time
from the depths of subjectivity but from the rapt state
of ecstasy that one knows so seldom, when one be-
comes one with Nature for a while, and an unreasoning
pantheist, when one's eyes are blind to anything but
the glory of the universe, and one's ears are deaf to the
anguish of the world, and forgetful even of one's own.
I was alone that hour, and I am glad; a voice would
have jarred on me like a false note in an exquisite
sonata, and even another being silent like myself would
have kept me to the earth and reality. For that time
I was a mystic, a theopath, and a believer in dreams
and visions, and the mountain was alive, theurgic,
whole and part of me, and the sea-strait beneath and
the sky above were ways for spirits and spiritual
ministering.

Yet I came back to reality, pain, anxiety, to converse
with brutish men, and weariness of the flesh.

My plan was now to get out of this town and go to
Portland, that was now so near to me, in comparison
with the huge distance when I had dreamed of a raft
voyage down the Columbia from the Rocky Mountains.
As it was impossible for me to pay my fare, since I had
but two dollars and a half, there remained two courses

211The

W estern

Avernus

open to me. I could walk, or c beat my way' on the
train. I declined walking; I had had enough of it in
British Columbia, toiling to and fro over mountain and
road, so there remained but1 beating.' I had to find a
freight or goods train, and in it an open or unlocked
car in which I could secrete myself, so that I might
be taken to Portland without any one knowing. And
even if I was found out, perhaps a dollar would set it
right with the conductor or brakesman, who are, as a
rule, not above making an addition to their pay. So I
went down to the railroad yards, and was told by a man
to go to a certain hotel, kept by an ex-conductor, who
would be able to put me up to the tricks and tell me
what train would be best for me to take. I went there,
and found out that there was a train at four o'clock
next morning going to Portland. I learnt the con-
ductor's name, but was told to keep out of his way. I
could find out nothing about the brakesman.

I went down in the evening to the place from which
the train would start, near which there was a sawmill,
and I soon made friends with the night watchman, who
promised to find me a good pile of sawdust to sleep on,
and so save me paying for a bed, which I could as ill
afford as when I was in Chicago. I sat down by the
fire and talked and smoked with him till ten o'clock,
and then together we hunted up some good shavings
and sawdust, and I spread my blankets out and went
to sleep most placidly.

Next morning, at half-past three, he called me, and I
rolled up my blankets and went out into the darkness
to seek my train, after shaking hands with him. When

212Mount Tacoma Overhead

I came to the cars I went along trying the doors, and
was nearly caught by the conductor. However, I hid
in some lumber until he passed by, and then came out
again, finding, fortunately, a car with the end door
open. I jumped up, put my head in, and finding there
was room I dropped my blankets inside, following them
as quickly as possible, shutting the door behind me. I
found there was very little stuff in the car, but making
my way nearly to the other end I kicked a soft yielding
mass, which grunted out : * Hallo, partner, where are
you coming to ?' ' Didn't see you, pard, it's too dark/
said I; and then thinking I had heard the voice before,
asked : 4 Ain't you the Irishman I spoke to last night?'
'Yes, I am.' So we knew each other, and presently,
when the engine whistled and rang her bell, and started
out, I lighted a match and took a look at my com-
panion and my travelling carriage, or 'side-door Pull-
man,' as the 1 tramps' and ' dead-beats' facetiously call
it. It was new and stunk most villainously of vile paint,
there were some dirty and evil-smelling planks in it, the
floor had cracks in it, and the sides as well. My Irish
friend was a man about thirty-five or forty, or even
more, bearded and dirty, with a longish upper lip and
a sulky inward look—in all respects a man whom I
did not desire as a companion or a friend. He was
lying down with his head on his blankets, chewing
tobacco. I spread mine out and rolled myself up in
thejn, and soon went to sleep, waking up every time
the train stopped. About two hours from the time of
starting, when we were side-tracked, waiting for a train
to pass us on the single line, the door was suddenly

2*3The Western Avernus

shot back on its slide and a young fellow leapt in.
' Hallo, you fellows, where are you bound for?' 'Port-
land,' said I, sitting up and biting off a bit of tobacco
to show I was at my ease. 4 Well, you '11 have to put up
the stuff (Anglice, put down some money), or you can't
travel.' ' How much will do it ?' said my Irish partner.
' A dollar and a half each.' We both swore it couldn't
be done. ' I haven't got a dollar and a half,' I said.
I lied. I had 2.50 dols. Then he came down to a
dollar and a quarter. 'Yes,' said I, 'but suppose we
give you the cash now, what will happen if the con-
ductor comes along?' 'That will be all right.' 'No,
it won't be all right, brakie; I know this man's name,
it's Martin, and you know it isn't all right.' This took
him aback. i Well, I '11 tell you what I '11 do. If you '11
give me a dollar and a quarter after we get across the
Columbia at Kalama I'll let you ride. If you get
bounced by Martin before then it will be my loss, and
if it's over the other side it will be yours.' ' That's a
bargain,' said I; ' you shall have it when we cross.'
So he went away, and I went to sleep again for a
while, and then woke up and sat smoking and thinking
of the stories my brother used to tell me about
beating his way in New Mexico. Very often men will
ride on the engine above the pilot or cow-catcher, and
sometimes even inside it. Then some men travel on
the passenger-trains, on top of the cars, or on the
baggage-car at the end where there is no door—the
' blind baggage,' as it is called, And, besides this,
there is what is known as the 'universal ticket,' a board
with notches in it to fit on the iron stays under the

214Mount Tacoma Overhead

passenger-coaches. Some, too, will ride on the brake-
beam. In fact there is no method, however hazardous
it may be, that is not practised by men who want to
go somewhere in a hurry or without walking. My
Irishman told me that he was travelling in Oregon
once, and was standing up between the freight-cars,
with his feet on the drawhead, holding on to the steps
with his hands. A brakesman coming along on top
noticed him, and demanded a dollar, which the Irish-
man either wouldn't or couldn't pay. The brakie came
down a step and made a kick at him. ' I grabbed hold
of his leg,' said he, ' and held him. He couldn't let go
with his hands or shift his other foot. It was a pretty
position. But I got tired myself, and at last I sez :
" Will you be quiet if I let yez go?" "I will," sez he,
for he was scared I should pull him down and throw
him under the wheels, and devil the good in his
hollering for the row of the train. So I lets him up.
And what do you think the murdering blagaird did ?
He goes right back to the caboose, I guess, and fetches
a coupling-pin' (of iron, about one inch thick and ten
inches long) 4 and comes over me and sez: " Take that,
you dam bum," and lets drive at me. When I see him
lift his arm I pulled my six-shooter. The pin came
down an' just missed me, an' I shot at him. Away he
goes forward, and presently the train slackens up. Sez
I: " It's time I left, if I don't want to be killed." So
I jumps off, and rolls twenty feet down a bank. I
scrambled on me hands and knees about twenty yards,
for I was hurt and I couldn't run, and got into a thick
bush, an' I lay low. The fireman and brakie and the

215The Western Avernus

conductor came huntin' me with lanterns, and two o'
them had guns, and I heard 'em swear to kill me. I
cocks mine and says: "Not if I can help it." Twice
that brakie came within five yards o' me, and each time
I was just going to shoot him when he turned off. At
last they gets tired and goes on board the train, cursing
horrible, you bet. I wish I 'd killed the bastard
anyhow.'

With such yarns we beguiled the time, and I began
to think that we were going ' slick ' through to Port-
land, but I reckoned without the conductor. When
we stopped at a small station, after running about five
hours, the door slid back again and a different head
looked in. ' Hallo, boys, how are you making it ?'
with a sardonic grin that boded us no good, 4 Oh, well
enough,' said I. ' Are you going to Portland ?' * That's
where I'm going.' 4 Then you had better get out and
walk.' I grinned and sat still. ' It's far easier this
way. Ain't you going to let us ride?' 'Not by a
darn sight. You've come ninety miles, and that's good
enough.' ' Well,' said I at last, 4 if I must I must,' and
I grabbed my blankets and jumped out, thinking at
any rate that I had saved my dollar, for if the ' con' had
found us on the Qther side the dollar would have been
paid and yet part of the ride lost. So I rolled up my
loose blankets oil a pile of ties, while the Irishman sat
alongside smoking philosophically. I heard a colloquy
between the brakie and the conductor. The former
was angry with the latter for spoiling his little game,
and the conductor evidently enjoyed the whole business.
Finally he said : * Who's running this train, you pr I ?

216Mount

Tacoma

Overhead

If you don't like what I do you can get off and walk.'
So the brakie 'dried up' and said no more. Presently
the train moved off, and I found myself at Cowlitz, ten
miles from the Columbia, and set out to walk, soon
leaving the Irishman behind. After walking five miles,
I heard a hand-car coming along behind me, with some
section hands working it along by means of the lever,
' pumping/ as it is commonly called. When they came
up with me the boss stopped it and invited me to take
a ride and pump with them. So I was on a hand-car
again, for the first time since I had left the section in
Iowa, where Ray Kern and I worked for three days.
In a very short time we ran into Kalama, and I went
and got some supper and slept in a big deserted house
that had been built when the town had a * boom'—i.e.
when there was great speculation in lots and building,
and a great future was predicted for it. This is the
place where the cars run across the river on a big ferry-
boat ; from the farther side they then go to Portland.

Next morning I went across with the passenger-train,
paid a dollar to go to that town, and soon arrived there,
an utter stranger with no friends and a dollar and a
half in my pocket. This was just as usual, however,
and by this time I began to get used to it, and did not
feel as miserable as I ought to have done. I went to a
cheap hotel, had supper, and next morning began to
look for a ship to get out of America. I was not
particular where I went—England, Australia, South
America, or China.

I had a notion then in my head to go to China,
thence to Singapore, thence to Calcutta, and then home

217The Western A^vernus

to England through the Suez Canal; or I could go to
Australia, and thence to Calcutta, in some of the ships
that take Australian horses for mounting the Indian
cavalry. I had been to sea before, indeed I had served
as an able-bodied seaman between England and
Australia for a while, and though six or seven years
had elapsed since my more youthful escapades, I
thought I had still enough of the business at my
fingers' ends to carry me through. So I walked down
to the wharves along the Willammette (accented on
the second syllable), and the first vessel I came to I
was lucky enough to get a job in. This was a barque,
the Coloma, of Portland, bound to China with lumber
and returning Chinamen. I spoke to the mate at the
gangway as he was tallying lumber down the chute
into the bow-ports, and afterwards to the skipper, pre-
senting him with my brother's certificate of discharge,
as I had lost my own by shipping once before in
England for New Zealand in a fit of pique—a love
affair—and then backing out just before she sailed. I
was told to come to work in the afternoon. I brought
down my bundle, had dinner, and stowed lumber down
in the hold with my new companions. It was hard
work, lifting heavy planks, forty feet long, in a confined
space, and driving them in with a sledge-hammer or
using another plank as a ram. Then sometimes lumber
would come down without much warning, through the
carelessness of the man on the look-out for it, and it
was necessary then to jump for one's life, or any rate
to save one's legs.

My shipmates were a mixed lot. One was a French-
218STOWING LUMBER.

[to face /. 218.Mount Tacoma Overhead

man from France, not a Canadian Frenchman, who
spoke very bad English, so bad that I had to make
him talk French slowly when I wanted to understand
him particularly, but at other times I would let him
ramble on unintelligibly, throwing in a few remarks at
random to make him believe I was listening. Another
was an old Englishman, formerly sailing in the steamers
from England to the West Coast of Africa: a little
man he was, whose boast was that he never got drunk,
although he drank to excess. He told me many
horrible and circumstantial accounts of fever-stricken
ships, and how once he made canvas shrouds for
eighteen men on the voyage home, the only survivors
of passengers and crew being himself, the captain, two
firemen, and an engineer. There was a Newcastle-on-
Tyne man, a Geordie, fair and blue-eyed and strong
and broad-shouldered, a gay Lothario of seamen, and a
babbler concerning' bonnes fortunes/ but a good-hearted,
pleasant Englishman. After him, in my mind, comes
an Irish sailor, long in America, lithe and loose-jointed,
perpetually smiling, mirthful and mirth-provocative,
loud and witty, a great joker, a natural humourist, a
born low comedian out of his element. He made me
laugh against my will, waking me in the dead of night
by stumbling into the fo'c's'le half-drunk. His first
remark in the dark would make laughter and sleep
struggle against each other in me, and by the time he
had the lamp lighted I would be shaking in my bunk
and shouting.

Down below, working in the hold, it was the same ;

time ' could not stale, nor custom wither his infinite
• 7

219The Western Avernus

variety1 of facial contortion and remark. Once he
nearly caused me to fall from aloft by making me laugh
until my sides ached.

He was delightful so, and at the same time an
inimitable raconteur. Three times had ships sailing
from the Pacific coast to England foundered under him,
compelling him and the rest of the crew to the boats,
after laborious pumping day and night, until some died
of fatigue and some jumped overboard.

Then in the West Indies, one time, the cook died of
yellow jack, and the captain made him cook, much
against his will. He got on well enough for a while,
cooking beef and potatoes, as the bread came from the
shore. But one day the skipper brought ten pounds of
rice on board, and told him they would have rice for
dinner that day in the cabin. Now Jim knew as much
about rice as a man would who had only eaten it, and
thinking, from the size of the bag, that it would about
do for the three in the cabin, leaving perhaps some for
himself, he began to cook the whole of it. His account
of the progress of that cooking was delightful: how it
swelled up and thrust the lid off, and began to pour out
on the range ; how he snatched more saucepans, and
how those filled up and came over ; and how, finally,
every available pot he had was choking with rice, while
he was ladling it out, blind with excitement, on to a
board. His tragic accents and facial play would have
made his fortune as a story-teller.

At night time he and Geordie and I went up town,
but after a little while I always left them, to avoid
getting drunk, as both of them could drink buckets of

220Mount Tacoma Overhead

lager beer, while five glasses would be more than
enough for me ; indeed, four would make me crawl
along the gang-plank to the t'gallant fo'c's'le for safety.
Then they would come in, boisterous and singing, at
midnight.

Our officers were mixed, as usual. The captain was
very quiet, and, as far as I found him, very considerate;
especially so when I had some days of severe illness
and great pain, which nearly sent me to the hospital,
though I did not knock off work.

The chief officer, or first mate, was a big, heavy man,
weighing about fifteen stone, loud-voiced but good-
tempered, and yet rather a dangerous man to handle, I
fancy. At any rate, I had no desire to try conclusions
with him, as he had once been in prison for man-
slaughter. The second mate was my particular aversion,
and it was through him I left the ship. I had soon
found out, when once on board, that as my sea-education
had been very hasty I had forgotten a great part of it
after six years of the land, and that made this second
mate get a down on me. Then he had a particularly
bullying way of speaking to all of us, and I disliked
it very much. He used to look at me sometimes as if
he was saying, 4 Wait till I get you to sea/ Now I
could have whipped him if it had only been between us
two, but I knew that if I had trouble with him at sea I
should have to reckon with the mate as well, and I
could not have whipped him. And to make things
worse, one day the second mate set me to grease down
the mizzentopmast, and would not give me a bo'son's
chair. I refused to do it, and the ensuing altercation

221The Western Avernus

was heard by the captain, who ordered him to give
me one, saying I could not be expected to do it
without, as I was a big heavy man and not a boy.
This made him thoroughly my enemy. So, after I had
been on board two weeks, I determined to leave,
although I had signed articles, and having got my
money due for working with lumber, which wa$ paid
every Saturday night, and a little more of that due to
me from the monthly wages on the pretext of wanting
to buy some underclothing, I left here early on Monday
morning with my blankets and five dollars cash,
intending to see if I could not get work in the country
in the valley of the Willammette. And if I was
unsuccessful I could walk south towards California,
keeping in my mind, as an ultimate possible destination,
the city of San Francisco.

222UisFARY
Of THE

<1 t-tWMS..

■



MOUNT HOOD, OREGON.	[to face p. 223.CHAPTER XVIII

oregon underfoot

All Oregon was before me where to choose, and I
determined on that southward course. I was sorry
indeed to feel myself forced to leave the Colomay but
still I knew it was probable I should have come to
Hong Kong in irons, or maybe not at all, for the
occasional brutality of American officers is incredible,
and far beyond anything that occurs in English ships.
So I cast loose and let myself into the stream of Destiny,
that runs for ever southward to that ' common sink/
San Francisco ; whither, sooner or later, all men on the
Pacific slope must come for a while, drawn by the
magnetic influence of a great city.

Portland, that flourishing, detestable, Chinese-ridden
town, that selfish city, I left without regret. Here they
believe that the part is greater than the whole, that
their prosperity overweights calamity even of greater
Oregon, and that all the rest was made for them.

So my time in America had not come to an end, and
the ' terminus ad quem' was unknown and unknowable.
I was thrown back again on myself, and my late
companions were behind me and a cloud-covered path
before me.

I went over the river and took a ticket for Aurora,
223The Western Avernus

so that I should get a good start into the country far
from the city, as the farther I went the more likelihood
there would be, in all probability, of obtaining work.
And when Aurora came, I sat still in the cars, in order
that I might go a little farther without paying for it.
If the conductor had not come to me I would have gone
on as far as the train went, but he politely reminded me
that my ticket had been for Aurora; so I had to get
get out at Hubbard, and walked down the line after
the disappearing train.

I felt most melancholy for the rest of that day, and
my thoughts ranged forward without finding any
satisfaction, and backwards with regret. It seemed as
if I had no will of my own ; that I was but the sport
of Necessity and Destiny—a straw on a stream to be
carried on or lodged on a bar, as it might be. The sky
of blue was dull, and the singing of birds melancholy,
and the wind a dirge and a wail. I was too much
alone, and dwelt in a cave without light; no natural
cave-dweller or troglodyte, but a prisoner with all
natural friendly impulses and affections repulsed and
rejected. Like a vine that finds no support for its
tendrils to grow on and to be uplifted by, I ran along
the ground, thrown down. My sacrifices were rejected,
my fires quenched, and the heavy smoke ran low in the
air, portending storm. I was raging, nihilistic, anarchist,
a mutineer against gods and men, a sneerer, a scoffer,
atheist even as to Nature and Loveliness; a misan-
thrope, a misogynist, a reviler of all things, a Sadducee,
a Philistine. For the iron entered my soul. And I
walked like a whirlwind, with a pestilence and despair

224Oregon Underfoot

in me, self-contained and wrathful. I ate in silence or
went hungry in silence. I rose up in starvation, and
lived on apple orchards like a bird of prey forced to
hateful fruits, lacking blood and flesh. I passed men
on the road and spoke not. If they spoke to me I did
but stare at them, and went by in strange quiet. This
for days. Then I came back to myself somewhat, yet
still walked as if towards a fixed goal that was far off.
I asked for work and asked in vain; there was no work
and no money, and the hospitality was niggard and
mean and unbountiful. I was no happy tramp who
never worked, preferring to beg and lie in the sun or
steal; I was strong and tall, and could do most things ;
yet no work. I passed quiet Salem and widespread
Albany, and through Eugene City without hope. At
night I camped out without supper; in the morning I
awoke cold and chilled through, and walked in hunger.
I bought but little, and got a meal now and again for
chopping wood. I split much during that journey, oak
and pine, madrone and manzanita. I drove the axe
down vengefully, as though an enemy's head was be-
neath the keen edge. I filed saws for people. I did
all things that came to hand; but no work yet to be
obtained.

And I left the fruitful, cursed Willammette Valley,
and strove across the range to the valley of the north
Umpqua River, walking, recklessly and hard, nearly
forty miles that day. And that night I found a human
being on the range, a farmer and a man, who spoke
kindly and asked me in. I remember him gratefully.
Then through Oakland, old and new, and across the
P	225The Western Avernus

North Umpqua River to Roseberg. Still no work, and
starvation. And I left the road, crossed the South
Umpqua, wading it, and went up Rice Creek into the
hills, meeting no work but more friendly people. Then
to Olallie Creek, for I heard of rail-splitting to be had.
I came to a little house belonging to some men owning
sheep. My hope proved vain. They had nothing to
do. That night I slept a mile away down in the quiet
valley, getting breakfast in the morning. And then the
trail to Cow Creek, and to Riddle. This was a pleasant
walk, and I began to recover from my fit of depression.
The air was bright and kind and large. I could breathe.
And as I went along the ridges of the hills I looked
down on peace and solitude, and sunlight and shadow.
And ever and again, as I walked quietly along the un-
frequented trail, a deer would jump through the brush
and plunge leaping down or up the hill. And I sat
down and took out my Virgil and read part of the
Sixth Book, and got up calmer and better than I had
been for days. I had come up from the Avernus for
a while.

I came at last out of the trail on to a road and a
little house on the side of the hill. Beneath lay a
stretch of plain with farmed land and houses, and
beyond a line of willowy creek, and, beyond, again hills.
Under the verandah of the house sat a man reading.
I went up and said 4 Good-day/ which he pleasantly
returned. I saw I had come across no ordinary farmer.
He was an educated man evidently, with good forehead
and head and keen eyes, though spectacled. His hands
were finely shaped, though hard and brown as his face ;

226Oregon Underfoot

good teeth and supple lips, and a fine smile ; young,
about thirty-five perhaps. I sat down beside him.
Presently he gave me the paper, and I set to and read
the news. I asked him for a bit of tobacco, and he
gave me nearly half a pound. Then he asked me to
stay for dinner, and introduced me to his wife, a gentle,
pleasant, girlish, graceful figure, with much intelligence
if slightly uncultured. Her pet fawn, with large ears
and lovely eyes, made friends with me. After dinner
we sat and talked. He was manager of a mine near at
hand, an assayer and practical miner, a chemist too.
He took me to his little laboratory, and I showed him
that I remembered a little of the chemistry I had learnt
in days gone by, and mentioned some of the best
known names in that science. Then we spoke of books,
and I found him well informed even outside of his
specialty. So I spent a pleasant hour or two, and
parted with him regretfully.

I came down to Cow Creek, and passed on to Can-
yon ville, sleeping in the canon in a barn that night,
walking next morning fifteen miles before I got break-
fast. Then I ran into the wilderness again at Wolf
Creek, and spent 25 cents of the last little money I had
in buying a can of salmon, which I devoured sitting on
a log in the forest, and came at night to Grave Creek,
and split a pile of oak wood, getting a good supper
thereby and a long talk with the hired girl, who was
pretty and pleasant, not deeming me a common tramp.

Then onward next day as hard as ever. And I came
past Grant's Pass and saw Rogue River in the rain, and
sat in a deserted barn, thinking what a fool I was to be

227The Western Avernus

there, while the rain came to sleet and snow, and the
wind was bitter. Then to Woodville, and 25 cents gone
for supper, and sleep in a barn, and no breakfast. And
I came now to an old English farmer's place, still asking
for work, and still finding there were more men in the
country than enough to do what was wanted. Then I
saw the Rogue River Valley, beautiful and level to the
base of the frowning Siskiyou Mountains of Northern
California, that lifted peak on peak of snow above that
smiling valley. I walked miles through it in vain, and
turned at last to Jacksonville, having then but one
dollar.

I recklessly had supper and a bed that night. I had
come 300 miles from Portland in twelve days.

Next morning I breakfasted with an old farmer, with
whom I talked, telling him my adventures. He was a
tall, thin, careful-looking individual, shaven. He said
but little, but at last asked me whether I would go to
work for 10 dols. a month. I would have willingly
worked for nothing for a week or two, just to take a
rest and be sure of my meals and a place to sleep. In-
deed, I offered to work for the men on Olallie Creek
three days for nothing on that account. So I jumped
at the offer. He said he lived near Waldo, sixty-five
miles away, and that he was not going back for three
days. He offered, rather unwillingly as I thought, to
pay for my board in town until then, but I said no, that
I would walk there, for I didn't want him to think that
I was one of the very numerous class of men who would
suddenly disappear at the end of the three days. So he
gave me his name and directions, and I set out, having,

228Oregon Underfoot

when I had settled my bill at the hotel, thirty-five cents
left to carry me sixty-five miles. However, I had
served a good apprenticeship to starvation, and did not
doubt my ability to walk the whole distance on nothing,
since I was sure of a meal at the end. So I left Jack-
sonville with a lighter heart than I had had since
leaving Portland behind me. That day I walked
steadily about twenty-five miles, having nothing to eat
but a pound of dry biscuits. I slept in a barn. Next
day I started without breakfast, until I came to a farm
at ten o'clock, where I got a meal for my last twenty-
five cents. The country received but little attention from
me, though it was worth more, as it was a gold-mining
district. I passed the Applegate River, and many
places where they were sluicing away the gravel with
water, ' hydraulicking,' as they call it, filling up the
river with 'slickens' or soft mud. I walked all day
with some degree of hunger, and slept in a barn, by this
time ravenous. Next morning no breakfast, for I would
not ask for it, as I knew I could get to my destination
that day. I walked through Kirbyville, and then went
out of my way. I was put right by two men who asked
me where I was going. When I told them they looked
at me with pity: 'You are going to work for the
meanest man in all Oregon.' This was consolatory, but
I answered I was ready to work for the very devil him-
self sooner than work for nobody at all, and walk and
starve.

Then I got lost again, and went nearly ten miles out
of my way, for this place was so full of roads in every
direction that it was impossible for a stranger to keep

229The Western Averjstus

right. At last, by dint of inquiry, I made my way to
what I imagined was the house. On one side of the
road were barns and stables surrounded by a fence,
and, behind, forest and hills; on the other stood a
ramshackle old shanty, dirty outside, unpainted, with
moss-green roof, with piles of rags and old boots on
the verandah, and more rags stuffed in the broken and
uncleaned windows. It was antique but unvenerable,
ruinous but not majestic. It looked like a miser's
house. I went through a little badly-hung gate, that
was pulled-to again by a string with an old saucepan
hung to iz for a weight, and went up to the door.

H-, my boss, had told me there was a man named

Pete working for him. I knocked, and getting no
answer turned the handle. The inside was worse than
the outside. I shut the door, and, going to the back of
the house, saw somebody working in the orchard. I
crossed the fence and went to him and said, ' Are you
Pete?' 'Yes,' he said. 'Then, for God's sake, come
and get me some dinner. H—— sent me out to work
here, and I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday
at eleven in the morning.' It was then three In the
afternoon. Pete grinned and left his potato-digging.
He was a fine young fellow, keen-eyed and intelligent,
with the figure of a man who has worked hard, but no
harder than is sufficient to bring out all his strength;
his skin was beautiful and his. eyes bright blue. He
was confident, rather selfish, very self-reliant; a man to
get on in life if it could be done.

He made me some tea and cooked bacon, bringing

out good bread, meanwhile talking about H--. This

230Oregon Underfoot

man had formerly been a lay preacher, through some
extraordinary want of knowledge of his own character.
He even then used to swear volubly, much to Pete's
astonishment when a child, as he averred. Then he
gave up what he had no vocation for, and turned all his
attention to farming and money-making. Pete pro-
phesied evil times for me, but told me to stand no
nonsense and talk back if necessary. This I felt quite
able to do, and generally I thought myself able to
-hold up my end' in a row.

Pete and I spent all next day together digging

potatoes and making fences, and in the evening H-

came home. Pete stayed three days more and then
left. So I was alone with my' meanest man in Southern
Oregon/ I did not find him very difficult to get along
with, however, for I worked hard, and if he growled in
spite of what I did I growled back. The weather was
very bad, raining nearly all the time, but I lost scarcely
an hour through that. I had four to six horses to look
after and the stable to clean. I fed these and about
twenty head of cows and calves. I did what milking
was to be done. I chopped the wood, got up in the
morning to light the fire, and often cooked the break-
fast. Then we hauled firewood and made fences. I
rode for letters and after cattle. I did everything, and
he did nothing at all at first, for his hand was but then
recovering from a felon or whitlow. Pete told me that
a man who had been there before me had had a very

bad hand with the same disease, and that H-had

charged him four dols. a week for his board, and made
him as uncomfortable as he could, jeering at his

231The Western Avernus

sufferings. Then he got one himself, and behaved
like a sick child.

One day, when I came in from the field, I found

H-'s brother Angus was in the house. He had

come from Crescent City, in Del Norte County, Cali-
fornia, having been farther south, working in the red-
woods of Mendocino County. A greater difference
could not be between two brothers. Angus was fifteen
years younger, stout and ruddy, with a full beard and
an open, pleasant smile. He had the greatest contempt
in some ways for the other, declaring that all the
meanness of the whole family had centred in him.
His coming was a great relief to me; I had some one to
talk to; and as Angus worked there and I with him,
he would quit work before I could have done had I

been alone. Then if H- ever growled he would

take up the cudgels for me as I sat silently smoking by
the fire. He did all the cooking too, which not only
resulted in greater freedom for me, but in better bread
and food, though there were great rows at intervals
between the brothers about the tea, as the elder liked it
weak and the younger strong.

All this time I did various kinds of work, sometimes
harrowing with three horses, sometimes hauling rails.
And then all three of us went out felling timber, and
we hewed out logs to build a place to put roots and
potatoes in, using axe and broad axe,' weapon naked,
shapely, wan/ as Walt Whitman calls it.

On Sundays I would take the rifle and go hunting,
not so much to kill anything as to get away from our
miserable little interior of dirt and smoke-grimed ceiling

232Oregon Underfoot

beams, cobwebby rafters, and windows through which
the fowls came to pick up the unswept crumbs from
the floor. Kitchen and dining-room in one was as
dirty as sleeping- and sitting-room, even though Pete
had so far revolutionised appearances as to make

H- suspect him of wasting time in the very

necessary job of cleaning up. So it was a relief to
go up the mountains after deer, even if I mostly killed
none. It was a good place for hunting, and a good
time, for the snow on the upper hills drove them down,
and I could, if I hunted carefully, often see them. I
hardly ever shot at them, but stood watching. One
day I saw an elk, and would certainly have killed
him if he had not been too quick for me. Then I
could watch an occasional fox or the long-haired grey
squirrels with their winter fur. And I usually got
drenched through and through, and came back soaking
to attend to the horses and the cattle, for nobody else
would do it.	/	v

So time went, and my month began to draw to a
close. My affectionate regard for my employer did
not increase with more knowledge, as I found him
selfish, close, and querulous, and, in spite of my previous
experiences when out of employment, I determined to
leave at the end of the month if he would not increase
my wages to at least 15 dols. a month, and go across
the Great Coast Range to Crescent City, and thence to
San Francisco. So the night on which I had completed
my term I spoke to him, and was refused any advance.
He paid what was owing to me, 8 dols. 75 cents, for I
had had some tobacco and one or two other things.

233The Western Avernus

Next day, however, it began to rain furiously without
ceasing, and the creeks got full and overflowing, and a
passing neighbour told us the Illinois River was not

fordable. At noon H-told me I could stay till it

cleared up if I liked, on condition of working, and so
for nearly a week I did all the stable work and odd
jobs as usual. During this last seven days I walked
over to Waldo to see if I could get some letters I
thought would be lying there for me from Hughes,
to whom I had written on my first arrival on this ranche.
I had to cross the river on a big flume or aqueduct
built to carry water across the river to a ditch for a
hydraulic mine. The sight beneath me was magnificent.
The river was fairly roaring in its rocky channel, red
and turbid, running ten or twelve miles an hour, beaten
into foam on the huge rocks in its midst and hurling
the spray into the air, while the flume on which I stood
trembled with the burden of water it carried and the
shock of the stream below. I found letters at Waldo
from my friend at Kamloops, and next day I left
Mr. H-and set out over the Coast Range.

234■'.QrttfEA MOUNTAIN RIVER.

[to/ace p. 235.CHAPTER XIX

ACROSS THE COAST RANGE

I HAD made preparations for a three or four days' walk,
packing up some bread, bacon, and a little tea, with a
small bag of parched maize or Indian corn, while I put
some of it, stripped from the cob, but unparched, in my
pockets. I had no exact knowledge of the distance
to Crescent City in California, from which steamers ran
to San Francisco, but knew it was between seventy
and ninety miles or thereabouts, and, of course, as the
road was very lonely, it was necessary to be provided
with food. And then my finances would not have
permitted me to pay for my meals, even if I had been
able to buy them, inasmuch as the fare from Crescent
to San Francisco was, I had been told, about 7 dols.

The week's rain and storm that had kept me from
travelling had had a terrible effect on the roads. At
stated intervals during the summer it was usual to run
a stage from Waldo to Crescent, but this was now
abandoned for the present for great part of the way,
owing to the roads being ' washed out/ The rainfall
had been terrific at the ranche, for at least an inch and
a half fell in ten hours one night, and the wind had
done some damage. There were vague reports of
disasters on the coast, which most probably arose more

235The Western Avernus

from the likelihood of such occurring than from actual
knowledge. What was of more importance to me were
the facts that the Illinois was still unfordable, necessi-
tating a detour over the flume, and that all the creeks
in the valley were likely to be very full; and I found,
after passing Waldo, that I had occasionally some
difficulty in crossing one or two, while the road itself
was muddy and full of pools of water. I walked, how-
ever, in good spirits until nightfall, and camped about
twelve miles beyond Waldo at the foot of the range,
in a miserable hut with no doors or windows or flooring.
All possible wood had been burnt by other travellers,
and I had great difficulty in kindling a fire, partly from
the scantiness of fuel and partly from the dampness
of everything. I took my knife and scraped off the
outer bark of a big fir-tree close at hand, and took
some of the dry under-bark; then I gathered up little
bits of sticks, putting them inside my shirt to dry;
finally, I took some gum or pitch from an old axe-cut
in the tree, and with the aid of a letter from a friend in
London, who little thought to what end his letter would
come, or in what way aid me, I managed to make a
poor blaze and to keep it in long enough to boil some
water for tea. I need not have taken so much trouble
if I had cared about tearing some of the shingles from
the little hut, but I never liked to do that. There are
men who will always do this, but I had some little
consideration for those coming after me, and if every
one camping in a place took some of the building for
a fire there would soon be no shelter.

I cooked a little bacon, ate that and a piece of bread,
236Across the Coast Range

and drank the cup—the tin cup—of tea. Then I went
into the shanty and spread my blankets. There was
every prospect of a bitterly cold night, for it was now
getting towards the end of November. The wind was
chilly, and moaned outside and came through the
openings and cracks of my abode. My blankets were
old and thin, and the ground, even inside, was damp.
My fire outside was now extinguished, with but a
smouldering ember the wind puffed into momentary
redness and a little wreath of smoke, and there was no
wood to make one inside without aid of an axe. The
situation was lonely and dismal. Below me ran the
creek, not singing sweetly and placidly, but groaning
and hurrying. Thick forest went back to the hills all
round, while overhead the sky, moonless and chill,
showed frequent clouds and an infrequent fugitive star.
The nearest house was three miles from me, down the
road on which I had come, and was uninhabited. To
make matters worse I got an attack of nervousness, a
thing most unusual with me, so that my imagination
became heated, creating panthers, cougars, and bears,
that would come and devour me in the night. To be
sure there were these animals somewhere on the hills,
but hitherto they had never alarmed me, not even in the
Selkirks, where they were really numerous, and hiere they
were scarce. I tried to lull myself with the notion that it
was late enough in the season for the bears to be in their
winter quarters, fast asleep and dreaming, but all the time
I knew I was but deceiving myself, and every howl of
wind I converted into a growl of nocturnal predacious
animal—bear or wolf or mountain lion. And it grew

237The Western Avernus

colder and colder, until it was nearly freezing. I lay
on my right side and dropped off into uneasy slumber.
Presently I woke and found my left side nearly frozen,
so I turned over and lay awake for a while until that
side grew a little warmer. Again I went to sleep, and
woke once more with a start to find the other side cold.
So went the night, until at last I woke, shivering all
over, in the very earliest dawn, finding a white frost
outside. I made a little fire again, drank some tea, and
started off before it was fairly light, recovering courage
and confidence as I grew warm with hard walking and
climbing. The road was fairly good, and I had no
dangerous creeks to cross. I climbed up and up in the
fresh morning air, with bright sunlight above me and no
fear or threatening of rain, until I was far above the
valleys in a very winding road. The hills were not
covered in all places by timber, and I could see far
across the depths beneath me, which were filled with
glistening clouds or mists.

About seven o'clock I came round a turn in the road
that ran high up the hillside above a deep valley or
gorge, which was filled with cloud. The sun was behind
me, and here, to my great delight, I saw a phenomenon
similar to the Spectre of the Brocken. On the dense
white fleece of cloud was a sun-ring or halo, and in it,
magnified to gigantic size, my own figure. I threw
down my blankets and shouted with joy. I was all
alone with my own ghost, my enlarged and liberated
cloud-spirit, my likeness, but great, spiritual, free,
apotheosised, among the gods. And from cloudland
he returned my salute as I took off my hat, and

238Across the Coast Range

waved his arms as I waved mine. I was free there
from grossness; I was etherealised, idealised, poetic.
And what a background even for a spirit, for a god!
The little valley of my sun-shadow ran out into a larger
one, filled with a sea of glistening cloud that lay still
in places, or rolled and heaved solemnly like a light sea
freed from the heavy chains of gravity. It lay not level,
but in hills and long upward curves, indicating faintly
the possible outline of the under-hills, and here and
there one loftier height thrust through the veiling mist
fir and pine, like a far ocean palm-island, when the
island is not seen, and the trees are unbased and dream-
like, fantastic, divided from earth, and skyey. And the
mass of mist was white, shining, fleecy and glorious,
while beyond miles of it rose higher range after range,
with the farthest capped with frost and snow, glittering
like diadems of jewels.

I looked long at the scene and breathed in the air,
and turning I bowed solemnly to my cloudself, who
bowed again. I took up my burden and walked on in
a curious state of mental exaltation, oblivious of the
future and the past, regarding simply the scenery, the
sun and the clouds beneath and above me. Yet the
walk was arduous enough, though the worst was to
come, for I was climbing up and going down all the
while, while the road took most disappointing turns,
and frequently I could have saved miles of tramping
had I had wings to fly across a narrow valley or gorge
round the head of which the road ran. Still I felt so
well, for my nervousness had fled with the night, that I
did not grumble, and when I came at noon to a good

239The Western Avernus

cabin, or house, I made dinner with care and sang while
I prepared my frugal meal. This house belonged to a
man named Bain, who had a notice put up on the door
asking travellers to beware of fire, and I thanked him
for the hospitality of open door by writing with a burnt
stick a few lines of rude verse on the name-scrawled
wall, signing myself 'A Tramp/ I had no notion of
any place to camp in at night, though I thought it
possible that I might reach Smith River, on which there

was a hotel, as I had been told by Angus H-. So

I walked on cheerfully enough, meeting not a soul on
the road, and at last it began to grow towards evening
without any sign of a house or river. About half an
hour before sundown I was walking along the road on
the side of the hill; and across the valley, which was
deep and thick with trees, I could see that I should
have to make my way in exactly the opposite direction
to which I was then going, after coming to the head of
the gorge. This, of course, rather irritated me, although
my anger was unreasonable, as the road was just so
long, and I could not make it shorter. Still such a
round made me anxious to camp, as the road, I could
see, made quite a fresh start up the hill, and evidently
Smith River must be a good many miles away yet.

Finally, I plunged deep in the valley, and I found
at last a kind of broken-down hut or house, with a
roof on, by the side of a creek, in silence and shadow.
I looked at it for a while and sat down, but the aspect of
the place was so forbidding, so chill and damp, and so
fearfully lonely, that I took up my blankets again and
walked on, chewing corn as I went, determined not to

240Across the Coast Range

stop or stay until I came to the river and the hotel. I
came out just at sundown on the top of a very high ridge,
and I fancied I caught a faint glimpse of far sea, but was
not sure. It rapidly grew dark, and I walked hard and
harder. Finally, there appeared a deep valley, or cafton,
in front of me, with a narrow streak of silver turbulent
river 4000 feet below, and opposite another wall of west-
ward mountain. I plunged down the road, and I fancied
I saw the gleam of a far-off light close by the river. The
descent was difficult and dangerous. The rains had
washed out the earth and gravel and smaller stones
of the surface of the road, so that it was like going
down the dried bed of a mountain torrent. Every
hundred yards or so the way zigzagged to and fro,
seeking the easiest way down. Twice I fell, and times
innumerable I only just saved myself. At last it grew
so dark that I could only distinguish the road by the
absence of brush. And the roar of the river below
grew louder and louder. After an hour and a half's
hard stumbling over rocks I came on to level ground,
alongside the river, and with difficulty at last found a
bridge across, and saw the lights of a house near at
hand. This was my resting-place for the night.

Inside the main room were two men, one with a
wooden leg, the owner of the establishment, a great
hunter in spite of his infirmity, and the driver of the
stage from Waldo, who had passed me during the night
as I slept and shivered in that hut There were two
women, wife and sister-in-law of the one-legged man,
a child, and two hunting-dogs. There was a good
wood fire, and I was glad to sit down and smoke in
Q	241The Western Avernus

front of it, being little inclined for talking. Soon after
I came in supper was announced, but I declined taking
any, my ostensible reason being that I had had supper
before coming down into the valley, and the real one
that I was anxious to keep all the money I could in my
pocket for my San Franciscan fare. I was hungry
enough, however, and could well have enjoyed a good
meal. However, I promised myself a breakfast. That
night I slept on a lounge or sofa in my own blankets,
and was charged nothing for accommodation, so I only
spent fifty cents for my morning meal. After eating I
started to go up the opposite mountain, which took me
about two hours' hard climbing by another zigzag of a
road. On the top was a kind of plateau, almost bare
of trees, and it was easy walking, with a fine view of
mountains behind me. At noon I went down into
another valley, coming on a deserted mining town of
several houses and two hotels, with all the furniture
removed, including doors and window-sashes. This
desolation of past habitation made the scene more
chill and lonely than if there had been no dwellings at
all. I was very hungry, so I lighted a fire and boiled
some tea.

In the bar-room of the largest hotel I found the
hindquarters of a deer that had been left by some
hunter, possibly by my one-legged acquaintance, and
although it was somewhat flyblown I found it fresh,
and with the aid of my bowie-knife I managed to get
some good pieces of steak, which I toasted on a
sharpened stick over the fire. Then I cooked some
bacon.

242Across the Coast Range

I had now a choice of roads—one the old and the
other the new. The former was the shorter, and after
some consideration I chose it and had some frightful
scrambling over rocks, at times, too, having difficulty in
discovering what was the road and what was not
Finally, I got in better walking on a gentle slope.

I was now eagerly looking for sight of the ocean.
The Gulf of Georgia and the Straits of San Juan de
Fuca, the land-locked waters of Puget Sound, were but
salt water; they lacked the enchantment of the sea.
And I came over the long ridge, and before me was
the deep sea—not a gulf or a channel or a strait, but
the mighty main, the vast and tremendous waters of
the mysterious Pacific, misty and grand, the ocean that
Balboa saw from the silent peak in Darien. I sat
down quietly on a knoll of dwarf manzanita, so still
and quiet that the shy birds came and sang to me,
and a wondering rabbit peeped from the brush and
played before me; and as I drank in that sweet fresh
air and watched the majestic expanse of far faint blue
I seemed to see that the earth was round, huge and
curved; and beyond the horizon I saw, with spiritual
insight and in trance, the long brown plains of the great
Australian continent, whereon I too had wandered in
the years passed by; and in front lay the long coasts
of ancient populous Asia; and yet farther beyond that
illimitable expanse, far across zones of calm and
cyclones of wind and storm, and belts of terrible
thunder-cloud, lay the shores of the Dark Continent,
full of mystery. And Europe, my home and birthplace,
was behind and beneath me.

243The Western Avernus

I thought of Vasco Nunez, the discoverer of this
ocean; of Magellan, who had blundered through the
narrow straits that bear his name, and of Vasco da
Gama, who had entered on its waters round the far-off
stormy Cape; of Pizarro, on those shores of Peru to
the southward ; and of our Drake, who chased the
Spaniards through these seas; and I drew in with
ecstasy the air that all those strong old voyagers and
sea-captains had breathed in the times when some-
thing was yet unknown and there were possibilities of
Eldorados unmarked on any chart, when charts were
graved on horns with strange adornment of gaping*
imaginary sea-monsters, such as the young Amyas
Leigh wondered at in the etched ivory of Salvation
Yeo.

I looked still, and the mystic water grew alive, subtle*
serpentine, and more mysterious, coiling and wonder-
ful. She became eyed like the peacock's tail, with
faint eddies of currents, and grew personal and feminine.
This was the ocean from which the earth arose, this
was the grave to which she descended to be renewed ;
and the eyes grew intense and vivid, prophetic and full
of kindness unutterable, and of cruelty. In her was
the beginning of all things and the end; she and the
sky were time and space, and symbolic. From her
came the primaeval slime of life, and she was full of
dead men's bones. Ships sailed on her bosom, and in
her depths they lay shattered, broken, sunken dwelling-
places for her monsters, evil as the thoughts that never
pass men's lips. Her eyes were as those of one who
knew all things, and her lips were touched with the

244Across the Coast Range

■melancholy of cruelty satiated, and yet her hands and
fingers were eager for slaughter. She was calm and
silent as a handmaiden of Fate, but passionate in her
hair and eyes even as a sleeping fury; for in her dwell
all things evil and good, and all knowledge and all
power and all possibility of being.

And there was more of grief than of joy in my
heart, for I remembered I was a man, and finite, and
the spirit of my race, and the desire of love came upon
me, and while the birds sang, and fearless squirrel and
rabbit played in the wind-rustled manzanita and the
slender grasses, I was oppressed and cold at heart, and
I was glad to take up my burden and the burden of
life and walk on and on, to save myself from thought.
So I went on downward, for I had done with climbing,
and I saw in the far distance, across the level lands
between sea and mountain base, the smoke of Crescent
City. Down narrow paths, and all winding ways,
through roads cut deep with the wash of rains, I still
went on, among brush and a few scanty trees. And
at last I plunged into a dark forest and a steeper path,
and as I stumbled over bare roots and rocks I grew
wrathful, and cursed the whole Pacific from Behring's
Straits to the southern unknown lands of the South
Pole, from San Francisco to African Zanzibar, and the
Pacific coast and Horace Greeley, and the strange long-
ing that had brought me West. For it grew darker yet,
and still no sign of habitation or indication of nearing
any, while I came down into mist and fog, damp, chill
and penetrating, making the gloom worse, hanging in
^reaths among the thick .growth of trees, touching the

245The Western Avernus

brush with damp dews that dropped on me as I walked,
Twice and again I fell and rolled over, the last time
wrenching my ankle severely; but I walked in spite of
it, desperately determined not to camp out in a gloomy
place if perseverance could bring me to a better. And
suddenly the path grew level, and I came out in the
aisle of a very forest cathedral. I was in the redwoods,
the most majestic of all trees, save only their elder
brethren, the gigantic sequoias. These were huge and
solemn, some ten feet and more in diameter at the butt,
rising bare of branches to two hundred feet above me,
where they spread out in thick crowns, that darkened
yet more the obscure and misty air of night. Tired as
I was, I stood for a few moments to admire them, and
then with difficulty I discovered the road# I found
that it forked here. I stood and considered again*
The straight road was most probably the road to the
town, the other would possibly lead to some house of
camp. I determined to turn off, and as a reward for
my reasoning I saw a light less than a hundred yards
away. I passed through the barn-yard and knocked
and went in. There were two men, rather well dressed,
and a very ladylike woman. We talked for a while
and they gave me supper, and said I could sleep in the
barn. The hay was wringing wet, through the leaks in
the roof, but, after the walk I had had, I managed
to get to sleep in spite of any inconveniences, and next
morning I had still thirteen miles to do to reach
Crescent City, and I started without breakfast, doing
the whole distance wearily and fasting.

My road ran still through the redwoods, and if they
246Across the Coast Range

were solemn and weird at night they were more beauti-
ful in the daytime. Under them at times was thick
brush, from which they rose like towers or great light-
houses from the breaking of little waves, and in other
places they stood by themselves, springing straight
from the bare ground, or moss, or scanty turf* These
had grown for so many centuries, and had such great
life in them, they were so grand and solemn and king-
like, that I felt they had personality. It seemed
nothing short of murder to hew and saw them down
for planks and post-making, for house-building, and
shelter for little men, who lusted to destroy in an hour
the slow, sweet growth of their unnumbered years.
We come with our quick and furious flood of life to a
quick conclusion; they, with the slow sap under bark
and in the wood, rise imperceptibly to majesty, and fall
at the end of their long term by overgrowth of summit
and crown; they sink at last under the burden of
natural honours, and mingle slowly in long decay with
the soil in which they were rooted. But men come
and destroy them, as barbarians in the pathetic, silent
senate-house, and nature lies wounded and bleeding;

I came out on the banks of the Smith River again
and was ferried over, and was asked no fee. I was
astonished at the lack of greed, and the natural sweet
kindliness of the man, a Charon fair and young, which
are so rare in all countries, and, alas ! much too rare in
America* I thanked him courteously, and he bowed
and wished me well most knightlike, pushing back
across the stream, and I passed again into the red-
woods, climbing up through a sweet tangle Of thick

247The Western

Avernus

brush with the great god-trees rising from it, and then
descended and came on a flat, more bare, with willow
and birch, and no more redwoods. And I began to
hear a faint roar, like a singing in my ears. But it
grew and grew till I recognised the sound of the sea,
the roar of breakers, the eternal ocean voice. It put
new life into me; I walked faster, though I was faint,
until I came where I could hear the separate roar of
separate waves—distinct thunders. I sat down under
a tree by the roadside and lighted my pipe, and, to
save myself from vain imaginings of possible things,
I took my Virgil and again read part of the Sixth
Book. And when I came to the middle I thought,
* I am not yet out of Avernus, and who knows if I
shall return to the lucid stars and lucid earth, for there
is much to be passed through before my time is at
hand.'

So I came at last to Crescent City, and found it dull
and vile, with work scarce, so they said, and men
plenty. I was truly in golden California, but not in
the land of wine and oil, of fleeces and fat beeves.
Being hungry and disconsolate, it was necessary to eat,
and I ate the worth of 25 cents and was more refreshed.
The steamer for San Francisco was lying in the bay,
loading lumber, and was to sail in the night, having
been delayed by the storm, which had torn away part
of the pier and driven driftwood upon the very streets
of the town. So I went to buy my ticket. Now

Angus H-had told me the fare was 7.50 dols. As

I had started on this last journey with 8.50 dols., and
had only spent three-quarters of a dollar—50 cents at

248Across the Coast Range

the Smith River Valley and 25 cents in town—I had
7.75 dols., which would leave me 25 cents with which to
make a start in San Francisco. But when I got to the
office they demanded 8.50 dols. as the fare, and I had
it not. I used much persuasive eloquence and rhetoric
to induce the agent to make a reduction, opening up
fully the state of my finances. But he was adamantine,
flinty, and I could make no impression on him. I
appealed to the chief man, a general of militia, and
calling him General I asked him to 4fix' it for me.
But no! he would do nothing. The fare, the full fare,
and nothing but the fare. So I went out to consider.
To walk to San Francisco meant 300 miles of semi-
starvation at least, if I did not obtain work. I furiously
•determined to go by that steamer or perish in the
attempt. I took stock of my possessions. Had I
anything to sell ? My clothes, might have been worthy
of acquisition by a museum of antiquities, but even
then I could not go in that vessel 'Berserker,' My
blankets were old and thin; besides, I attached a
superstitious value to them. They were part of myself.
Had they not travelled in Australia with me over hill
and plain? Had they not been wet with salt water ir\
my voyages ? And they had done me great service in
great need in all parts of America. No! I would as
soon part with my skin. Then I had a bundle of
letters from men who might be celebrated one day,
literary Bohemians of London, who had not forgotten
their Waring on his travels. There were photographs
too. But these would not fetch money in the market.
Finally, I came to my Horace and Virgil. Was it

249The Western Avernus

possible there were men with a knowledge of the Latin
tongue in this wilderness, this end of the earth? Or
were there some burning with thirst to acquire such
knowledge ? I walked up the street and came to a
notice:—

Walter Jones, B.A., Advocate,

Teacher of Latins Greek, and Mathematics.

Ye gods ! I stared, thinking I was dreaming I This
was the man. I pushed open the door and entered,
acting on the spur of the moment* I saw a little sad-
looking man, with a good forehead and shabby clothes.
There were lots of books there too. He received me
courteously and asked my business* I sat in silence
for a moment, wondering if he thought I wished to
learn Latin or Greek or even mathematics. Then I
told him I wanted to get to San Francisco, and then,
interrupting me nervously, he said ;

'If it's money you want, I'm very soriy, but I
haven't got any myself.'

' I'm not surprised,' I answered, ' that an educated
man should be without in such a brutish wilderness.
But I did want money—75 cents—and I want to sell
you this Horace or Virgil for it.'

'I can't, I can't, I haven't got a cent, and I'm in
debt too. But perhaps you could sell it to Father
Grady, the Roman Catholic priest.'

' Is he an Irishman ?'

< Yes.'

4 Then I don't want anything to do with him. I
have a premonition of the kind of man, and somehow
I don't like Irishmen, especially if they are religious.'

250Across the

Coast

Range

I meant the lower class Irish, who are not usually to
be admired in the States.

' Well, I can't do anything for you but that. I'm
really sorry. I could see, when you spoke, that you
were an educated man, and I would do anything I
could for you. But I am positively unable to make
a living here myself.*

I was sorry for him. He looked ill and weak. I
was at any rate well and strong, and could do manual
labour.

'Well, thank you, Mr. Jones. I suppose I must try
the reverend father.'

4 Yes, do, and come and tell me how you get on
with him.'

I shook hands with the little man and made my way
to the priest's house. He came out to me. I was
right He was just the kind of low-class peasant
Irishman that I detest most cordially. The very look
of him made me half sick, and I nearly turned away
without speaking. However, I opened my business to
him, and told him Mr. Jones had sent me. * Thank
you, I don't want either of them. I know them by
heart already' (said I to myself,4You lie'), 'and I have
copies with me of course. But you might try Mr.
So-and-so' (I forget the name) * the hotel-keeper.'

I thanked him as civilly as I could, which was not
over courteously, for my gorge so rose against his fat
conceit and complacency,

I found the hotel-keeper. He was an intelligent man,
but half-drunk. 'Yes, I am something of a classical
scholar, but I don't read these books now, I don't

251The Western Avernus

want 'em.' Then a look came into his eyes I could not
quite fathom. 4 But/ said he,4 do you see that tall man
down the road, with a plank on his shoulder ?' 4 Yes/
said I. 4Then you go and ask him. He's the best
scholar in this city, bar old Jones.'

I turned away and went after the man with the
plank. I had serious doubts as to his scholarship when
I came close to him. Good-natured idiocy seemed
more his intellectual station among men than learning.

I went up and told him that the hotel-keeper had
sent me. He burst into a roar of laughter. 4 Ho ! ho !
ho ! Why, man, I can't read or write at all. Ho ! ho J
ho !' and he put his plank down and sat on it to laugh
at his ease. I was in a fearful rage. I turned to go
back and assault my jocose friend, but as I went along
I thought, 'If I do they'll have me in gaol too quick,
and I have no friends here at all.' So I thought better
of it and restrained myself, although I was fairly boiling.
It would have gone hard with him, even after second
thoughts, if I had met him face to face.

I went back to the office and tackled the General
once more, but in vain. Then I determined to jump
on the steamer in spite of Jhem, and if I got on and
out to sea they should have no fare at all. If I could
not manage to get on board with the other passengers
when they went off to her I would ' borrow' a boat and
try to get on her in the dark. So I went down in the
evening and found a crowd of people waiting until the
boat was ready for them. A big barque, or scow, laden
with lumber was to take them. When word was given
for the passengers to come forward I tried to get downr

252Across the Coast Range

but the agent or clerk was too smart for me, and
demanded my ticket. I had none, of course. Then
the fare. ' How much ?' said I, as if I didn't know.

4 Eight and a half dollars.'

' I've only got seven dollars and six bits/

4 Then stand back.'

So down the others went until I wras left alone on the
pier with the clerk and one or two lookers-on. He
came over to me.

* How much did you say you had ?'

I told him.

4 All right, you can go. Hand over.'

I handed over, and then said: 4You may as well
leave me two bits to get a meal with in San Francisco/

He looked at me and hesitated a moment, then gave
me back the twenty-five cents. I thanked him and
went down to the scow, and presently we got on board.
I had 'made that riffle' at any rate, and was not
compelled to risk the ' conveying' of boats and stowing
away.

When we got on board I went down into the steerage
and found one more white man and four Chinamen in
it. This place was a veritable Black Hole. There
were four double bunks, each holding two men, a big
chest in the small space between the bunks, and the
rest of it was taken up by the steps. The only light
came from the hatch above, and was supplemented by
an evil-smelling oil lamp. I am cosmopolitan enough,
Heaven knows, and have consorted with all sorts and
conditions of men—Australian blacks, Hindoos, Malays,
Japanese, Indians, and all kinds of Europeans—but

253The Western Avernus

of all I have been thrown into contact with I most
thoroughly detest the low Chinese. And now I had to
spend two whole days, at least, in close quarters with
them. I chummed in with the white man, who was a
nice, good-looking young fellow—a milker and butter-
maker—and slept in the same bunk with him ; but we
had to eat with the Chinese, and as they were violently
sick when we got out to sea they managed to make
things very unpleasant. I stayed on deck as much as
possible, and when I did go below I went there to sleep.
Yet these two days are black ones in my calendar,
though blacker ones were yet to come to me.

On the evening of the second day we came to the
Golden Gate, and ran through it into the great bay of
San Francisco. It was a beautiful sight, but I was too
melancholy and anxious to enjoy the sight of sea and
cliff, of lighthouse and quiet shining water, and the hills
gleaming in the setting sun that sank behind us. As
we passed up the harbour the city was gradually lighted
up with gas and electricity, and the waters grew gloomy
and gloomier yet. We threaded our way through ships
at anchor, and passed dark wharves with others loading
or discharging, and at last made fast ourselves to the
wharf at the foot of Mission Street. Outside on the
wharf were numerous 'busses to hotels, and as we
touched the sides we were boarded by a crowd of hotel-
runners, shouting and screaming: 'The International,'
'The American Exchange,' 'The Russ House,' and
eulogising the merits of a dozen others. The man
from the 'American Exchange' came to me as I sat
smoking on my blankets, and was most urgent I should

254Across the Coast Range

go with him, and would not let me alone. At last I
turned to him and said : ' It 's no good, partner, I'm no
catch. I'm dead broke.' He left me, and when things
began to get a little quieter I picked up my bundle and
went over the side. I was again in a strange city, and
all that I had was 25 cents—one shilling, and a half-
penny over.

255CHAPTER XX

in san francisco

In the steamer I had had plenty of opportunity for
reflection as to the course to be pursued on arrival in
San Francisco, but all the mental exercise had resulted
in was the conclusion that I should be in a very bad
fix indeed when I got there, and that I should, if
possible, leave it at once. As it is a great shipping
port, in fact the port of the whole Pacific coast, my
mind naturally turned on going to sea again if nothing
else turned up. So when I slung my blankets on my
back and walked along the city front towards the
better-lighted portions of the city, I determined to look
for a sailors' boarding-house, the proprietor of which
would take me in if sailors were at all in demand. I
came in front of what I afterwards found out was
called the Ferries, at the foot of Market Street, and
went where there were a lot of saloons, eating-houses,
boot-black stands, peanut vendors, and newspaper
sellers, and asked a man to direct me to a sailors'
boarding-house. He pointed to the saloon before me
and I went in, and, asking for the boss, told him I was
a sailorman, and that I wanted to find a house, acting
in a jaunty, devil-may-care manner.

'Hev you got any money?' 'Nary cent.' 'Then I
256MOUNT SHASTA, CALIFORNIA.

[to face p. 256.. i fi a R Y '

Of imE

' ✓ «'»♦ I .♦Wig,IN S A N Francis C O

can't do anything for you. Hell ain't fuller of devils
than San Francisco is of sailors, and most of them dead
broke. My house is full up now. Perhaps you might
stand a show at the Arizona Hotel on Clay.1 He came
outside and showed me which way to go. In Clay
Street, a dirty, dark, narrow way, I found the other
house, and had no better luck there. I asked the
proprietor to let me leave my blankets for a while.
Then I went out and found another house, and was
again refused, this time roughly, and without courtesy
such as the other two to whom I had applied had
extended to me. It must be remembered that I looked
rough enough to be a sailor a dozen times over, and I
could very well affect the old manner and walk which
now were no longer natural to me. So I looked like a
sailorman who had been taking a spell in the country.
However, it was no good trying these houses, and after
talking for a while with a sailor, who confirmed the
statements of the boarding-house keepers about the
numbers of idle men in the city, I thought I would go
and look for a lodging. I found one in Clay Street,
and after paying 20 cents for my bed I put my blankets
in the trunk-room and went in and sat down in the
sitting-room. There were more than twenty men in
this place, which was bare of adornment save a quack
doctor's advertisement on the walls. The tables were
wood, uncovered and somewhat hacked with knives,
the floors were dirty and covered with saliva, old chews,
and tobacco ash, while two or three spittoons of rubber
were full to overflowing. There were chairs, however,
and hot benches, as in many lodging-houses. The
R	257The Western Avernus

denizens of the place were not, after what I had seen,
in any way strange to me ; but I fancy if some cultured,
educated man direct from London civilisation had been
dropped into the room he would have been struck by
the scene.

The room was well lighted with kerosene lamps, but
a dense cloud of tobacco-smoke hung from the ceiling
to the heads of those who were seated, and the gabble
of tongues made the place a very Babel, for some were
talking at the tops of their voices, some playing cards
at the tables, laughing and occasionally even yelling,
and there was a ring of others round the stove keeping
up a loud and animated conversation with all the
interest of a round game, in which victory remained
with the longest and loudest talker, and ignominious
defeat and forfeit to him who ceased first. Then there
were others round the wall, some asleep in spite of the
din, others with their chairs tilted back, sunk in coma
or reflective study, and some with their heels on a
vacant table, chewing tobacco and spitting with vast
differences in accuracy of aim at the over-burdened
spittoons, one of which was most gruesome to see,
betraying occasionally faint gleams of aroused interest
when a lucky shot was made in this modern American
game of KOTTafto?.

The faces, figures, and dresses of these men were as
various as their moods, attitudes, and occupation, and
after a little while spent in quiet observation, with my
chair tilted back against the wall, the differences began
to be very perceptible to me. One of the loudest
talkers was an American Irishman, and his professional

258In San Francisco

occupation was evidently something to do with coal, as
I noticed the grime of coal-dust round his eyes, which
comes off only after repeated washings. He was slight,
dressed in blue dungaree trousers and an old shiny
black coat. His face was merry and red, and his brown
eyes twinkled as he made a joke at a stolid-looking
Swede or German, with a face as motionless as a block
of wood, who, nevertheless, at times let out a flood of
broken English which I could scarcely understand.
There was another, manifestly a sailor, rather smartly
dressed, with a bright face and a red knotted hand-
kerchief under it. He was evidently at home, and
noisier than a man of forty usually is when sober.
There was a big, heavy German, whom they addressed
as 4 Bismarck,' who sat playing casino, or seven up, or
some other card game, sometimes joining vigorously in
the talk and thumping the table till the lamp jumped
and the light flickered up the chimney. Then there
was a very fine, handsome-looking young fellow, who
was a cigar-maker, as I found out afterwards, with well-
cut features and a pleasant laugh, who usually sat with
his heels on the table.

There were men, too, who looked as if they did
nothing—' bums' in fact—others whose trade it was a
puzzle to discover, and some who seemed, like myself,
to be from the country. It was a curious mixed gang,
and I was glad at last to take my lamp and go to bed
in a little narrow room, in which the bed took up most
of the space. There were nearly two hundred of these
apartments, separated from each other by wooden
partitions with an open roof covered with a mosquito

259The Western A vern us

netting, and I could hear the snoring of my neighbours
in various keys from deep bass to shrill treble, while
one or two ran through the whole gamut, some occa-
sionally choking and waking themselves.

In the morning it was a very serious question with
me. I had five cents—2jd.—and no prospect of break-
fast. Of course I was hungry, and the fact that it
seemed impossible to appease the growing famine made
me worse. I walked out and up and down to consider
things, and finally, after taking a smoke, I determined
to go to the British Consul, to see if he could get me
a ship. I found my way to his rooms near the Post
Office, and had an interview, not with the Consul
himself, who is an august and unapproachable person,
but with a short stout man of sailor-like appearance,
who heard my story, briefly told, and gave me a note to
the captain of an English ship, asking him to ship me
if possible. I went down, found the vessel, and after
waiting dismally for two hours, kicking my heels on the
wharf, and disconsolately watching the boats in the
bay, I was told that the ship would not sail for six
weeks and wanted no hands at present, as she had
more than enough staying by her. Then I tried a
dozen other vessels, but without success, and got so
weary, hungry, and disgusted that I went back to Clay
Street, and sat down in the house for an hour or two,
still having a little tobacco to prevent me from suffering
too acutely from famine. Then I went again to the
Consul's, but got no encouragement there.

I went up Market Street and tried to divert my
attention from myself by taking a look at the city,

260In San Francisco

whose] fine broad streets, and street cars or trams that
run without horses, being drawn on an underground
cable, had great attraction for me. I noticed, too, the
cosmopolitan character of the place, the numerous races
to be seen, and the beauty of many of the women ; but
as evening drew on the calls of hunger became so
piercing that I went back again to my lodging-house,
and sat down thinking where I should get something to
eat and how to get a lodging. At last I determined to
spend my last five cents, and going to a restaurant got
a cup of coffee, telling the man that the 'nickel/ or
five-cent piece, was my last money. He gave me a
dough-nut to eat with the coffee. This was the first
I had eaten for twenty-four hours. I thanked him and
went back again to the house, thinking that I should
have to spend the night in the streets. I sat down and
got into conversation with the man next to me, and
I opened up the talk by speaking about the state of
things in the city, and he told me that thousands were
out of work, and that there was every prospect of its
being a hard winter to working men. Then I told him
I was dead broke, and asked his advice as to where
I should sleep. 4Well/ said he, 'the clerk here is a
good fellow, and won't turn you out; you can stay in
this room all night and sleep on a chair or on the floor.
There's lots of fellows do it.' This was some consolation,
for I did not desire to tramp about the city and spend
the damp cold night in the open air. I asked the clerk
at ten o'clock if he would let me stay, and he said that it
would be all right if I came up when the others had gone
to bed. At half-past eleven I came up, and he let me in

261The Western Avernus

the room, from which the lamps had been removed, and
I found there five or six other men whom I had seen
about the place during the evening. One was quite a
respectable-looking old man, another was a jolly-looking
individual, who carefully spread some newspapers on
the floor in the warmest corner and lay down on them.
The others were nondescript fellows, rough and dirty.
I drew a chair up to the stove and slept for an hour
very uncomfortably, then I lay down on the bare boards
and slept uneasily until four o'clock, when Jim, the
clerk, came in and roused us by calling out 'Breakfast/
which seemed to me a very poor joke indeed, as I was
about as hungry as I could be. We went out and washed
in the lavatory, looking a miserable lot of wretches, and
I crawled into the street, lighted dimly by lamps, for
there was yet no sign of day.

It was absolutely necessary for me to get something
to eat. It could be put off no longer. So, after think-
ing a while, I went down to the wharf where the steamer
in which I had come from Crescent City was lying,
and had a talk with the night watch-man, whom I
asked to give me some breakfast. He gave me some
coffee and bread and meat, which I ate ravenously, and
went away thanking him for his kindness. I ate no-
thing else all day, and spent the time hunting for a ship,
and at night slept on the bare boards as before. Next
day I went in the forenoon to an employment office,
not with any hope of getting employment, having no
money for fees, but just to do something. But my luck
was great. I sat down on a bench, above which was a
notice-board with requisitions for milkers, butter-makers,

262In San Francisco

coachmen, choppers, and labourers of all sorts, among a
crowd of men, some of whom I knew by sight, when in
came my old friend of the Rockies and Eagle Pass
Landing, Scott! I jumped up and we shook hands
warmly. He was dressed well, and had a gold chain
across his waistcoat. I was as rough-looking as possible,
and just as I had been when I saw him last, save that
my hat was new. He asked me how I was ' making it/
or getting along, and I told him just how it was with
me. He gave me 25 cents, and I went out and got a
10-cent dinner at a cheap eating-house, where they give
a great deal for the money. Scott had left Eagle Pass
soon after me and had gone direct to Victoria, and
then to San Francisco, where he had been for some
weeks, working part of the time. The remaining 15
cents kept me for that day and the next, as I spent
nothing for lodging, and then he gave me a little more.
At the end of a week from the time I had come to the
city he told me he had heard of a chance for work for
me, and I went up to a store in Market Street, owned
by a man whose possessions ran into millions of dollars.
He told me to come round in the morning and I could
get a day's work. I came accordingly at seven o'clock
and went to work without having had breakfast, my
supper the night before being a cup of coffee and a roll.

I helped two men, one a Swede, the other an
Englishman, to clean out the cellar or basement of
some new buildings, carrying up heavy timbers, iron
boilers, bricks, and glass frames, hard work at any time,
but laborious in the extreme on an empty stomach.
However, my Englishman was a good little fellow, and

263THE WESTERN AVERNUS

lent me 15 cents, with which I got the best meal I had
yet had in San Francisco. At night I got a dollar and
a half, my day's wages, and was told to come again on
Monday, as this was Saturday. I was now quite a
capitalist, and by eschewing the luxury of a bed I
could manage to live for some time. I worked again
on Monday, and then my boss told me to come up to
his private house next night, as he wanted a man to get
some rock and gravel out of a quarry to fill up his yard
and make a good floor. I was to sleep in the barn. I
went up and lay in a loft among bales of hay and in*
numerable rats, who ran along the bales and then
jumped on me, waking me up all night long. Some-
times half a dozen would charge across at me at once,
and if I made a noise it would only quiet them for
a minute, and their games would begin again. In
the morning I went to work in the quarry, and kept at
it for ten days, taking all the dogs of the establishment
to bed with me at night, whereby I saved myself from
rats, but was troubled with fleas and an occasional fight
over my recumbent figure.

My meals cost me a good deal during this time, so
when I left I only had about nine dols., upon which I
lived for nearly three weeks, still staying in Clay
Street, where I now had a bed, paying a dollar a
week for it.

Scott by this time was working in a Turkish bath-
house, and was at any rate making a living.

r tried hard to get employment myself but without
avail, and gradually my small store of silver got less
and less as I went back into my old condition, even

264I N SAN F RAN CIS C O

though I nearly starved myself, exercising great self-
control in the matter of meals". And in these days I
passed into the company of books, and in them found
nepenthe. They were a refuge and a consolation,
for ill them I sought strength for my weakness, and
renewed courage, and did not seek in vain. They are
indeed steadfast friends to the afflicted, and wise coun-
sellors to the wavering and infirm, and but for them
who can say what might have been my lot? If there
are no fields of amaranth beyond the grave, there is
even asphodel on this hither side, and in the company
of the mighty men of old we wander at last in a dis-
coverable Eden, and by the very borders of the fabled
lakes of Elysium.

But reading did not help me to a job, and I came
down at last to no money at all, and in desperation I
sent home for the 100 dols. which I had remitted to
England in Kamloops. Then I had at least forty days
to get through. Times were now terribly hard in San
Francisco. It was estimated that there were at least
20,000 men out of work, to say nothing of women and
children. Londoners have nowadays some faint notion
of the struggle for life among the poor of London, and
the unutterable miseries they suffer during a bad winter,
but they still think that America is a paradise, and that
there can be no want there, especially in the Golden
West. But they are much mistaken.

I had to take again to sleeping on bare boards, and I
was much luckier than many others, who slept in door-
ways, and on the pile of potatoes on the wharf, and
sometimes went to the police station and got a bed

265The Western Avernus

there. Then there was a fearful struggle for food. I
used to sit in the lodging-house room and hear men,
whom I knew to be near starvation telling each other
of hotels and restaurants where they would give men
food, warning each other not to go to others lest they
should be given into custody. I knew one marl who
lived for months by going down to the iron-working
places and machine-shops in Mission Street, and asking
the men who were lucky enough to have work to give
him what was left when they had finished their dinners.
Another lived on a friend who used to bring twice as
much as he could eat to work with him. Then some
were without food for two days at & time. For my own
part, Scott helped me considerably, and at last I found
out a charitable organisation from whom I got much
help, promising to repay them when I got my money
from England, and I did so. The secretary was a fine,
kind old fellow, and used to get me to clean the office-
windows, giving me a dollar for two or three hours' work,
finding me a job at gardening sometimes.

He knew I was an educated man, and, in spite of
my appearance and poverty, treated me as an equal.
Then at last I had quite a stroke of luck. I met in
Clay Street, one day, John Anderssen, the Swede who
had worked with me at the mill in New Westminster,
and had been with me on that terrible winter walk.
He took me down to a schooner and got me a job
helping to discharge her. The work was fearfully
heavy, and I had to run all day long dragging heavy
planks; but the pay was good—four dols., or 16s. 8d.,
for nine hours. It is one of the hardest things a man

266In San Francisco

can do, and there are thousands of working men who
are unable to do it. Yet I stuck to it for a day and
a half, till the work was done, and made six dollars.
This was quite a windfall, and I lived for two weeks on
it, having a bed again, after three weeks on bare
boards. It was now the beginning of 1886. But I
hoped to get money from England early in February,
and then things would be better. Meantime I spent
my time in walking round the city, with which I got
thoroughly acquainted, and in reading in the library.
Scott I saw at frequent intervals, and when I was in
good spirits we used to renew our old discussions about
religion, and he used to make me read the letters I
wrote home, for he had a great admiration for my
epistolary style, and considered me a complete letter-
writer of a very high order.

Then at nights he used to take me off to some
revival meeting, which would be more comic to me
than any theatre, as the way such affairs were carried
on was new to me, for I had never been to any before.
I think Scott had a dim hope in his mind that I should
be converted to active religion, but he was doomed to
disappointment, as my sense of humour was too great
for me to forget the rank absurdities of speech and
demeanour of these apostles. It surprised me, how-
ever, to see with what fluency even manifestly unedu-
cated people could tell their experiences, until at last
I discovered that their method of talking, when they
got stuck, was to interject a stream of ' Praise the
Lords* until they thought of something else, finally
attaining a rapidity of utterance in some cases worthy

267The Western Avernus

of the main demi-god of the platform, round whom
would be sitting a circle of devout hysterical girls.

During these weeks of comparative ease, owing to
my six dollars, I never ceased trying to get work, but
it was no use, and finally I got so disgusted that I left
off trying, leaving things in the hands of Destiny. The
number of men in town seemed, if anything, to increase,
and the employment offices were fairly besieged by
applicants. Some poor fellows actually committed
suicide, and I saw more than one in the morgue who
would have been alive, I doubted not, if work had been
obtainable. I used sometimes to go to this morgue,
not, I think, out of morbid curiosity, but simply from
sheer ennui\ when I felt incapable of reading. And
it had generally an occupant or two, for San Francisco
is fertile in violent deaths, and in five months I know
there were ten murders at least. Murders I call them,
though a corrupt bench and jury usually bring it in
anything but that, and acquit the guilty person if he
or she have sufficient money or influence.

In that same morgue I one night saw a woman
lying dead—a woman with a most beautiful, calm face,
splendid hair and delicate skin ; a woman of a common
history and the old perpetual tragedy of our life and
society. Young and lovely, with a beautiful voice, she
left her husband's home, God knows by what drawn or
driven, and was for years an outcast in the streets of
San Francisco. Yet, in spite of disease and want and
drink, her fatal beauty remained with her scarcely
diminished, and" the touch of sudden death purified her
and made her Saintlike—to me at any rate, though I

268In San Francisco

doubt if the group of ghouls around her thought so.
But one wretched woman, her companion for years in
the polluting and polluted ways of that vile city, sat
by and wept bitterly with her face in her hands, her
hair dishevelled like the locks of an Eastern mourner.

For three months San Francisco was a city of sorrow
and despair to me, of laborious occupation or worse,
of none at all, of poverty, of starvation, of discomfort.
When I think of those miserable nights on bare planks,
in vile smell of tobacco, I shiver. It is a nightmare to
think of myself standing outside in the dreary street,
with my equally unlucky companions, looking up at
the windows of the sitting-room, to which Jim would
only allow us to come when the lights were removed,
as sign that the rest had gone to bed. And the uneasy
sleep and the dreams of better things, and the awaken-
ing to misery and starvation—it was bitter. The walk
in Oregon, bad as it was, and the Selkirk trail, are
nothing, in my memory, to these most evil days in that
city, when it seemed little indeed that kept me at times
from the tables of the morgue. And even when
brighter days came at last, and my long-expected
money came from England, I could not help seeing
the misery of others, which was so patent to me who
had gone through it myself. In those days I was an
Anarchist, a very Nihilist, and the sight of rich
prosperity filled me with fury, and a millionaire was a
loathsome object, a vampire, a bloodsucker. Even
now I shiver to think of the horror of that time, when
it seemed as if every avenue of hope was closed, and
black necessity drove me slowly backward to the.

269The Western Avernus

waters of suicide. It was at times vain to try to read;
I only saw my own history in the pages, and the head-
ings were Misery and Starvation. It was vain to try
to think of things past when I was bound to the wheel
of the present, crushed and maimed. I had no patience,
no hope, no charity. I was tortured by the lack of all
human feelings in me. I was at times a brute and
carnivorous. Then I grew sad and melancholy, no
more savage and wild, and I sat down by myself
in silence, and would have wept for sheer misery and
utter loneliness had not my tears been dried up, And
sometimes I grew almost delirious, ^nd came into a
new world, suffering from a calenture, viewing a mirage;
and my veins bounded, and I was strong and wise,
philosophic, calm and virtuous, and then cast down
in utter confusion, sweeping like a lost boat over a
cataract to the whirlpools of a lost soul. Yet at times
I was merry, and laughed and joked with my fellows
about our sufferings, and made light of them, and then
went out cursing. And all this for lack of work, for
lack of a little money, and because I had known other
things, and was, it may be, cultured, and in many ways
gifted beyond my poor brutish friends.

It was thus I learnt the misery of cities and the
perpetual warfare and bitter fight for life. I have no
need to go now to the slums of London in search of a
new sensation. I will keep away unless I can do good
there, for the sight of such misery would come back to
me with more than a hundred times the effect it would
have on even some delicate highborn lady, who from
motives of compassion and curiosity has gone to the

270In San Francisco

dreadful East-end in winter time. Do these not look
at the sufferings they see as if the sufferers belonged to
a lower, different race ? It may not be so, but I fear
it is, too often. But I know I was even as these—
starved, hopeless, miserable, passionate, hating, and
their sight and memory are dreadful,

And how strange the contrast to me with a little
money, when that for which I had sent came at last!
New clothes, and a bath and plentiful meals. Lo! a
new man, careless, laughing, and too forgetful. The
change was too sudden, and I changed too much, and
for a time became callous. I had suffered; then let
others suffer. I had starved; was I to help others,
that I might perhaps the sooner starve again ? Should
I not take some luxury, because others lacked necessary
things ? I grew selfish and went off reading, or I took
long walks to look at the waves breaking on the ocean
beach, to see things while I was in the humour for
them. I thrust aside my past sufferings, and with
them those of the rest. Yet this was but a reaction, I
think. I had been strained almost to the breaking-
point, and now I was let loose. I had been played upon
so harshly that more than one tuning was wanted to
make me tolerable. I was weary of seeing evil when
all things seemed evil. I was a passive Manichaean, on
the whole on the side of good, but a non-combatant.
Then between Good and Evil. There was no Good and
Evil. It was ' thinking made it so.' Perhaps it was that

4 A little discord makes My music sweet,'

Saith God upon His throne; 4 so let men beat
Their painful breasts and moan.'

271The Western Avernus

And my life ran in calmer channels as i sought
vaguely for work, knowing that it would ere long be
necessary, yet not striving earnestly for very lack of
power. I passed into the world of books, remaining in
the library for hours, and I read the Meditations of
Marcus Antoninus and Blake's Poems of Innocence once
and again, understanding much, and, I am fain to say,
looking at some as a child might at Sanskrit in the
Devanagari character—as something occult, mystic,
hieroglyphic, and secret. In some other cities I should
have spent much of my leisure in picture galleries—
in Melbourne, for instance—but in this city of outer
barbarians there is no such thing, and little art and
few artists. Chromos and oleographs such as one sees
in London are infinitely ahead of much water-colour
work and oil-painting in San Francisco; and to look
at the many villainous daubs that hang there, even
in good shops, was extremely painful to me, who at
any rate had seen, and seen often, the best in London
—Turner, Danby, Gainsborough, and Reynolds, and
Rossetti's marvellous morbid work, and all the old
schools, Italian and Venetian, and Leonardo da Vinci,
and had sat and dreamed vague dreams unexpressed
anywhere or by anybody, except by Pater's words on
La Gioconda,, and had read Ruskin over and over again.
Then even etchings and engravings were from old
worn-out European plates, and were ghastly. So I
was forced back to Nature again, and yet went willingly,
and sat for hours on a rock on the ocean beach and
heard the sea thunder, and saw the white foam lightning
on the dark blue of the turbulent waters, taking good

272In San Francisco

care to turn my back to the cliffs that soulless, enter-
prising Americans had placarded with advertisements
of champagnes and brandies unknown to European
merchants. Or I went up Telegraph Hill, above the
bay, and saw the huge ferry-boats running to Oakland,
Alameda, San Rafael, or Saucelito with foam-tracks
behind them, and contemplated the merchant ships
lying at anchor with delicate tracery of rope and spar
against the calm water, or the opposing hills, above
which rose the winter-crowned crest of Mount Diablo
or Tamalpais, and heard the near current of humanity
on the wharves and the roar of traffic and handling of
far-brought merchandise.

At last it was undoubtedly time for me to be at
work, for living even in dreamland costs money, and
the veriest Buddha has to live on victuals and drink.
In the middle of April I received an offer of work on
a ranche in Lake County, to the north of San Francisco,
on the condition that I should engage myself for a year.
Having still some money left, I declined to put myself
in such fetters and shackles, knowing that the very
fact of its being impossible for me to leave would in-
evitably make me desire to do so. But in the be-
ginning of May I began to feel very anxious, for my
hoarded dollars decreased one by one. I went to a
great bookseller's in town and undertook the work of
a 4 book agent.' I had to wander round the city with
a large sample atlas under my arm, going into every
place I thought might offer me a chance to dispose of
one, and suffered during some days the misery of
trying to induce a man who manifestly was not in need
S	273The Western Avernus

of my book to buy it nevertheless. The successful
book-agent is a man who can read character, who is
pliable, ready, quick-witted, and not to be repulsed.
He must have brains, but cheek, impudence, or what
is often called 4 gall' in America, is far more necessary,
and it was most decidedly in this that I was lacking.
I sold a few and made 40 per cent, on my sales, but
80 or 100 per cent, would not have compensated me for
the shame and diffidence I experienced in entering
house after house for a whole day, with perhaps only
one success to be ^pored to me, and only too often I
worked hard and made nothing at all. Finally, after
three days, which were absolutely blank, I sold my
sample copy at a sacrifice, and renounced a business for
which I was evidently unfit.

In the second week of May my luck began to turn.
I had come down at last to five dollars, then four,
three, two, one, and then I had none at all. I was dead
broke again, and without prospects. Up to this time
I had dwelt in a fool's paradise, and was a kind of
dreamy Micawber, but the rude shock of finding myself
again without cash awoke me like a cold douche, and I
set to work ' rustling' for a job. And as it was spring
there was some likelihood of my being able to find it,
even if I had to put my old blankets on my back once
more and go out into the vast Californian country on
speculation. But by a happy chance this was spared
me, and I was glad, for it would have been most
extremely bitter for me to make another tramp like
my British Columbia or Oregon journeys, perhaps in
starvation and suffering once more. I had met a

274SHOOTING HOGS.

[to face p. 275.In San Francisco

certain English merchant in San Francisco, a man of
wealth and many ranches. To him I applied for
employment. He could give me none, and sent me
away disconsolate, but the day after I received a
message from him, and the next morning found me on
my way to Sonoma County, to work upon a vineyard
and stock and grain ranche. The wages were but
small—20 dols. a month—and I found the work suffi-
ciently arduous, but I made up my mind to stay there in
spite of everything until I had enough money to take
me back to England, for after being out in the cold
so long I desired to feel the warm air of civilisation on
my cheeks once more.

The situation of the ranche was beautiful. At the
back of the farm buildings rose a precipitous mountain
clothed on its lower slopes with fir and birch and pine,
while above the trees ran rocky peaks that shone rosy
red in the summer's setting sun. Across the valley
rose another chain of hills more bare of timber, and the
lands between us and this farther range were green
with vines and golden with wheat and corn and barley.
From the higher peaks of the mountain I saw the
waters of San Francisco's bay, and at times the haze
and smoke of the city itself, while nearer mapped out
beneath me lay farm after farm and vine-plot after
vine-plot, verdant and flourishing.

My work was very various, and required a man who
had some knowledge of many things, and certainly I
think my experience had so far fitted me for it. I was
stableman for one thing, and in that capacity sometimes
had charge of as many as a dozen horses. Then

275The Western Avernus

I harnessed and 'hitched up' all the buggies and
carriages, and had to keep them and the harness clean.
I was milkman, milking four cows, taking charge of
their calves and feeding them on hay and grass, and
occasional apples and pears in the season. My spare
time in the summer was devoted to picking and drying
apricots, plums, greengages, magnum bonums, and
peaches, and when the summer still further advanced
I had to see that our fifty horses came up to water
at the ranche, for the heat dried up the pools and
springs in the pastures. There were 300 sheep, and
these I looked after during lambing and brought to
water also. Half the day I was on horseback, for the
most part riding a black Californian ■ broncho/ who
threw me twice 4 buck-jumping/ and on the first occa-
sion nearly killed me. But before I had done with
him I made him kind and tractable, teaching him some
school tricks, such as backing and going sideways, and
he learnt to follow me when I went on foot.

My companions were for the most part Italians, who
swore most diabolical and blasphemous oaths, but were
kind and pleasant, hard workers too and steady. My
particular partner was a Swede,' Andy,' who was a sailor,
and had been a passenger on the ill-fated Atlantic, and
he and I got along extremely well, sleeping in the
same room, an apartment decorated with illustrations
from the English Graphic and Illustrated.

I stayed there through haymaking and harvest and
thrashing, until the vintage. There were three hundred
acres of vines—Mission, Zinfundel, and Berger, and
many others—for it was the largest vineyard in Sonoma

276In San Francisco

Valley, and during this time I used to go down the
vineyard on horseback, carrying a rifle to shoot the
half-wild hogs who broke in to get the sweet, plentiful
grapes. And ere the end of the vintage I left. The
work was not in every way suited to me, and it grew
more and more irksome as my small stock of money
increased, for when I saw an avenue open for escape
to England and civilisation, converse with uneducated
men grew intolerable, and I longed for the society of
those whose interests were not merely bucolical and
pecuniary, whose talk was not of bullocks, 4 for how can
such get wisdom ? '

So at last I bade farewell to my companions, sang
' L'Addio' to my Italian friends, and went down to San
Francisco, and next day took the overland train for
New York. It was a glad release for me, that swift
flight overland, that triumphant progress through the
long sunburnt plains of Southern California, the high
plateau of sweet-breath'd Arizona, the land of the
beautiful maiden, through New Mexico of cattle and
sheep and brown adobes, down the long descent of
Kansas plains, through Missouri and the eastern States
to the Atlantic seaboard and the roar and rush of New
York City, and finally over the furrows of the ocean,
blue and wonderful, the very sea that ran in cease-
less currents to the island of my birth, and England
at last.

277Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press& °A MAP OF THE AUTHOR'S ROUTE

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LondonSian/brds GeogLBstabtThis book is a preservation facsimile produced for
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
and produced on acid-free archival

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Preservation facsimile printing and binding
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2014