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CiER MOUNTAIN

Jlequeaifyee to tlje

of tEorrmto

of il|e ?§ntoer0ttg of

alt^ eminent Canahtan geologist,

explorer, attb scholar

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

THE ZIGZAG SERIES

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN EUROPE.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN CLASSIC LANDS.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ORIENT.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE OCCIDENT.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN NORTHERN LANDS.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AC AD I A.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE LEVANT.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN 7"HE SUNNY SOUTH.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN INDIA.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ANTIPODES.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE BRITISH
ISLES.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREA T NORTH-
WEST.

ESTES AND LAURIAT, Publishers,

BOSTON, MASS.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS

IN THE

GREAT NORTHWEST;

OR,

A TRIP TO THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND.

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.

*
FULLY ILLUSTRATED.

BOSTON:

ESTES AND LAURIAT,

PUBLISHERS.

// Rights Reserved.

671346

'4 x

UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

PREFACE.

HIS twelfth volume of the Zigzag books was written after
a journey over the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Van-
couver, the cities of the Puget Sound, an8 Columbia
River. Its aim is to give in a picturesque way a view
of the scenery, industrial opportunities, and romances
of the great Northwest.

When the writer first began these books of the stories and legends
of places and of travel with interpolated tales, with a view of helping
home and school studies, he had no thought that the demand
for them would continue beyond a few volumes. But parents and
teachers have found them helpful in developing the intelligence of
the young, and in creating a taste for better reading ; so the series has
been continued in compliance with the public wish and patronage.

The author is indebted to " Harper's Weekly " for permission to
republish " Legends of the Puget Sound," and also to John Fitz-
maurice for permission to use in an abridged form his excellent story
of " DuLuth and the Jesuit's Sun-glass," a legend worthy of the
painter, composer, and poet.

The portrait with autograph, and the biographical notice abridged
from the New York "Journalist," are by their kind permission inserted
by the publishers.

H. B.
28 WORCESTER STREET, BOSTON, MASS.

T^m

BIOGRAPHY.

R. HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH was born in
Warren, R. I., December 22, 1839, his family being
among the earliest settlers of Rhode Island. He
grew up on the old estates where he worked, in the
mean time studying and obtaining his education by
teaching, and writing for the popular papers of the day. In 1870
he became connected with the " Youth's Companion " as assistant
editor, a position which he has held for nearly twenty years. While
engaged in his editorial duties some twelve years ago, the publishing
house of Estes & Lauriat showed him a popular French work which
gave an account of a French schoolmaster who took a class of boys
on a journey with a view of giving them object-lessons in history.
Mr. Butterworth, believing that books of narrative and historic stories
interwoven would be likely to prove useful to home and school edu-
cation, wrote a specimen book on the French plan. It was entitled
" Zigzag Journeys in Europe." The book was immensely popular,
and about forty thousand copies of it have been sold. The educa-
tional journals and the press generally saw the purpose of the book,
and very highly commended it. One New York paper, however, a
critical journal, ridiculed it, and said, " He threatens to go on." Mr.
Butterworth did go on. Twelve books of the Zigzag series have been
written, and some three hundred thousand volumes sold, proving
conclusively the correctness of his theory.

IO BIOGRAPHY.

Mr. Butterworth loves the quiet of country home-life ; he has a
farm home in Warren, R. I., one in Bristol in the same State, and a
cottage and orange-grove in Belleview, Florida.

Socially Mr. Butterworth is a delightful man to meet. When he
greets you, his hand-shake is cordial and his welcome warm and
hearty, putting his visitor at once at perfect ease.

C O N T E N T S.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND '. 15

II. PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST 30

III. SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS 53

IV. THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS 71

V. WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED 97

VI. OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD TO WINNIPEG. — THE BEAUTY OF

THE LAKES ; OR, THE SUN- FIRE : A DRAMATIC STORY OF SAULT STE. MARIE 1 1 8

VII. A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS . . . . -, 143

VIII. STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS 169

IX. BANFF 206

X. IN THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND .....253

XL ARTHUR BURNS'S RANCH 275

XII. THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG 300

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Tacoma, the Beautiful . . . Frontispiece

Portrait of Hezekiah Butterworth ... 8

The Land of Promise 16

" Foaming with Cascades " 18

"Pinnacles clothed with Forests of Firs" 19
A £reat " Wonderland of Mountain

Scenery " 21

"That Immense Northwestern Empire" 23
" Sunset Skies like those which cover

the Ionian Isles " 25

'* Picturesque Clear-water Streams " . . 27

" Peaks that pierced the Heavens " . . 28

On the Thames, below London ... 31

Preparing for Sea 35

Animals of the Northwest 39

Birds of the Northwest 43

Seattle, the Indian Chief 46

Tailpiece 52

A Humble but Happy Home .... 54

Sheep-shearing 55

Haying on the Prairie 56

Lost Sheep 59

A Farm in the Northwest 60

" Impatient for their Breakfasts "... 60

Reluctant to go Home 61

" No Architect ever dreamed of such a

Structure before " 63

" He would sit down on a Log by the

Roadside" 69

Tailpiece 70

PAGE

A Hardy Frontier Lad 73

Herding Cattle on the Plains .... 79

Gathering the Harvest 85

Modern Prairie Farming 91

In the Canadian Woods 99

A Herd of Mountain Sheep . . . . 101

A Meadow Brook 104

A Winding Mountain Stream . . . . 106

Resting for the Night ... . . 107

Liverpool on a Foggy Day 108

The Steamship " America" .... 109

On the Mersey in

The Burning Vessel 113

The Banks of Newfoundland . . . . 116

The Gulf of St. Lawrence 118

Old Houses in Quebec 119

A Street in Quebec 120

Falls of the Montmorenci 121

The Chaudiere Falls 122

Tobogganing 123

Cedar Bay, near Ottawa 124

Sault Ste. Marie 126

Rideau Falls, Ottawa 128

A War Canoe of the Objibwas . . . . 129

The Parliament Buildings, Ottawa . . 132

The University of Toronto 135

A Branch of the St. Lawrence .... 138

An Island in the Lake of the Woods . 141

A Prairie Station . 144

City Hall, Winnipeg 145

XIV

ILL USTRA TIONS.

PAGE

Rafting: breaking a Glut 148

The Thousand Islands 151

South Saskatchewan River, Medicine

Hat, Assiniboia 155

A Good Harvest 158

Portaging a Canoe in the Woods of Canada 161

Early Travelling on the Plains .... 165

Tailpiece 168

The Nipigon 171

" Vive la Canadienne " ...... 173

An Emigrant Train crossing the Plains . 1 75
Repulsing an Attack on an Emigrant

Train 179

A Successful Assault on a Party of Pio-
neers 189

Preparing a Home in the West . . . 193

Rat Portage, Lake of the Woods . . . 197

The Rocky Mountains from Elbow River 201

A View on the Elbow River 202

One of the Hudson Bay Company's Sta-
tions 204

Banff Springs Hotel, Canadian National

Park 207

Mount Stephen, near the Summit of the

Rockies 211

Mount Stephen House 213

Hydraulic Mining in the Rockies . . . 217

Rocky Mountains, near Canmore . . . 221

Canoeing in the Northwest 225

A Home in the Northwest 229

Goffe, the Regicide, at Hadley .... 235

Glacier House, Selkirk Mountains . . 239

Early Settlers 244

The Great Glacier of the Selkirks . . 247

The Olympian Mountains 251

Yale, on the Eraser River 254

Ottertail Range, Rocky Mountains, B. C. 255

PAGE

Cariboo Road Bridge over the Eraser

River 258

Hotel Vancouver, Vancouver, British

Columbia

259

On the Homathco River, British Colum-
bia 260

Trading-ships on the Northwest Coast . 263
Vancouver naming the Places on Puget

Sound 267

The " Discovery " on the Northwest

Coast . . 271

Tailpiece 274

A Settler's Hut 275

A Frontier House 276

The Great Bluff, Thompson River . . 277

The Peace River 279

A Cariboo Wagon-road 280

Among the Islands of the Gulf of Georgia 282

" Me and the Bar 's Coming " . . . . 285

A Vineyard in British Columbia . . . 287

Indian Salmon Cache 288

Indian Graves 289

View from Esquimalt 29 [

Seal-driving 293

The Wapiti 294

On the Coast of British Columbia . . . 295

Seymour Narrows, Canadian Pacific Coast 296

Roadway in British Columbia .... 297

Tailpiece 299

Sunset on the Pacific Coast 301

Mount Tacoma 3°7

The Oldest Church-tower in America . 309

Forest Giants 311

" There is Time enough to finish the Game

and beat the Spaniards too" . . . . 3T5
Nature's Monument, Canadian Pacific

Coast . .... 319

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS

IN THE

GREAT NORTHWEST.

CHAPTER I.

THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND.

PARTY of Americans on their way to Liverpool to
take a returning steamer were taking a lunch in the
quiet dining-room of the Golden Cross Hotel, at the
West End, London. Some of them had been to Hyde
Park to see the riding, some to the " Zoo," and one of
them to the Guild Hall to visit the queer effigies of the giants Gog
and Magog, that have been famous characters in London's history
for years, and the originals of which used to appear at the Lord
Mayor's shows before the great fire.

Among the party, but not a returning traveller, was a single
Englishman, Henry Lette, or " Harry Lette," as he was called, who
had been an explorer in the service of the Dominion government
in the Northwest Territories.

Several members of the party had been to Switzerland, and the
conversation turned upon their adventurous experiences in the land
of the mountains, lakes, glaciers, and waterfalls ; the beauties of
Geneva, Interlachen, and Lucerne.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" However picturesque may be
the high peaks of the Andes or of
India," said an American teacher,
whom we will call Mr. Brookes,
" they cannot be as noble and im-
pressive as the Alps. There is no
land like Switzerland, and there
are no mountains in the world so grand as the Alps."

" Have you ever visited British Columbia ? " quietly asked Mr.

THE LAND OF PROMISE.

THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND. I 7

Lette, "or followed the river Wapta (Kicking Horse) down the
Rocky Mountains to the Puget Sound?"

" No/' said Mr. Brookes, " I have heard that the Rocky Moun-
tains in British Columbia are very grand ; of course the Rocky Moun-
tains and the mountain systems of the Sierras are territorially much
larger than Switzerland, but they do not have the sublimity and
poetry of Switzerland ; do you think they do? The sky of Italy does
not hang over them ; they do not enchant you and overawe you.
So I am led to understand."

" The greater Switzerland is in America," said Mr. Lette. " A
few months ago I stood at the foot of a glacier in British Columbia
that was nearly forty miles square, and probably contained more
solid ice than all the glaciers you have seen in Europe. Over that
glacier rose a peak a mile and a half high, like a granite spire of a
gigantic ice cathedral, and around it were clustered pinnacles white
with snow, foaming with cascades, and clothed with forests of firs,
some of the trees in which were of such wonderful size and height
that you would think me a Baron Munchausen were I to describe
them. The Alps, as you say, are small in extent in comparison with
the great Rocky Mountain system, but I cannot agree with you in
regard to their superiority in grandeur and beauty. Did you ever
meet any one who had seen the Bow River and Devil's Head Lake,
at Banff HtDt Springs, in the Canadian National Park?"

" No," said Mr. Brookes. " The Canadian National Park, to my
mind, is merely a name."

" And yet it is destined to be the Baden-Baden of America. The
Hot Springs of Sulphur Mountain are the best known cure for certain
rheumatic diseases. But that is not to the point. If ever you shall
take a row on the Bow River, and make a study of its clear emerald
waters under the great shadows of Cascade Mountains, — waters that
might have been the gardens of Undine or fairy sprites, — you will be
likely to change your views in regard to the beauty of the American

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Alps ; and should
you ever see a sun-
set on the Puget
Sound and on Mt
Tacoma, at Seattle
or Tacoma, or in

"FOAMING \V1TH CASCADES."

the violet waters
of Elliott Bay or
Commencemen t
Bay, you will find
that there are
Italics and Flori-
das that yet await the poet and the
painter. The fact is — pardon my
plainness — you Americans do not
know your own country, nor ours ;
for the Puget Sound Empire belongs
partly to the Dominion and partly to
the United States. No one who has
been to Banff or the Glacier House,
to Elliott Bay or Tacoma, wnll ex-
perience surprise on visiting the

THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND. 19

Alps or Italy. A June sunset on the aerial dome of Mount Tacoma,
14,444 feet high, with its changing splendors, has no equal in beauty

PINNACLES CLOTHED WITH FORESTS OF FIRS."

on the Italian Apennines, nor are there any skies in Europe more
lovely than those of the long twilights of the Puget Sound. I have
seen the Salvation Army on the plateau at West Seattle, singing from

20 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

their finely printed hymn-books in the light of the red twilight at half-
past nine o'clock.

" You may think me partial, but the greater wonderland of moun-
tain scenery is not the Alps, but British Columbia, — the mighty sweep
of the Rockies and the Sierras. The Columbia River with the surprise
of Mount Hood is in itself, and apart from traditions, more beautiful
than the Rhine ; and the Wapta is the true poem of all waters."

" Then we have been visiting Europe second-hand," said an Ameri-
can lady, "like one who misses the date, and goes to the fair the
day after the sights and scenes. We ought to have gone to the
Puget Sound country before going to Switzerland."

" In that case your present visit would have made you perfectly
satisfied with your own country. Europe is covered with American
artists, musicians, and poets, hurrying hither and thither in search
of beauty and inspiration. Your truly great artists are those who
have eyes to see the wonders of your own land."

An English servant was listening eagerly to Mr. Lette.

" Beg pardon, sir; but what kind of a country would that be for
a poor man to get a livin' in ? "

" You are excusable, quite. I would ask that question myself
were I in your place. The best opportunity in all the world for a
poor man lies in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. The
climate is a long April day. The governments will give you a farm
that will produce almost everything ; fuel costs nothing ; there is
plenty of work for industrious hands ; and the future of that great
empire is the future of the progress of the world. The new and the
greater America is there. Vancouver is likely one day to rival Mon-
treal, and Seattle, New York. The gods have saved the best of the
feast to the last."

" Is n't your language rather Oriental ? " asked a quiet-looking
woman. "A son of one of my neighbors went to Seattle, but he
came back again somewhat poorer than he started."

THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND. 21

" Did he amount to anything at home ? "

" No ; he had n't any great amount of force/'

" People who amount to nothing at home have just the same
value wherever they may go ; and people who go to new places because
they amount to nothing at home, will be likely to return again for the

A GREAT " WONDERLAND OF MOUNTAIN SCENERY."

same reason. But I have seen such a miracle as a shiftless man
changed into an industrious one under the inspiring activities of
Vancouver, Seattle, and Tacoma. Everybody is full of life and
energy in those new cities, and he would be worthless indeed who
did not feel their industrial force. Such a man must be either
very unfortunate or a born failure.

'Think of that immense Northwestern Empire," continued Mr.
Lette. " Passing by the vast plains of the Northwestern Territories

22 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

and the prairie steppes, the great hard-wheat-growing empires of the
Red River of the North, the Lake of the Woods, and the Assiniboine
and Peace rivers, let us glance at

BRITISH COLUMBIA,

only since 1871 a part of the Dominion of Canada, but now teeming
with a delighted population, and building the great port cities of
the Puget Sound and the British Possessions. Here rises Mount
Brown, sixteen thousand feet high. Here is the Canadian National
Park, with its foaming cascades. Here are Alpine-like pastures and
grand plateaus, picturesque and wonderful clear-water lakes and
streams and glacial rivers. Here are natural sanitariums, and airs of
life and healing. Here is a climate as lovely as Florida during much
of the year, and sunset skies like those which cover the Ionian Isles.
Here are stupendous forests and rich fisheries. Here are mines
everywhere ; the mountains are treasure-houses of gold, silver, and
copper, and abound in iron and coal. Here flows the gigantic Fraser
River, and here sparkles the wood-shadowed Gulf of Georgia. Here
is the old city of Victoria, in a climate like the south of England,
and the new city of New Westminster on the hills overlooking the
calmly flowing Fraser, and itself overlooked by the white brow of
Mount Baker. And here is the port of Vancouver, which is con-
nected with all the ports of the Pacific, mountain-walled and forest-
sheltered, most beautiful in situation, and gathering to itself peoples
from all lands, and hospitable even to the people of China and
Japan.

"And what a romantic and almost unread history it all has!
Think of the names of the early explorers whose adventurous ex-
ploits would fill a story-book, -- Juan de Fuca, Cook, Vancouver,
Puget, Baker, Rainier, Mackenzie, and the old settlers of Victoria !
This unknown land is already full of legends and traditions worthy
of a poet's pen."

THAT IMMENSE NORTHWESTERN EMPIRE.

THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND.

SUNSET SKIES LIKE THOSE WHICH COVER THE
IONIAN ISLES."

" Who was Juan de Fuca ? "
asked one of the tourists.

" I cannot tell you now,
it would be too long a story.
I will tell you at another
time if you wish to hear. I
love the old romances of the
Puget Sound, and would be
glad to tell them to you in

the future, if you have ears to listen. I look upon British Columbia
as one of the best places for a poor young man in all the British
Empire ; as the place that offers him the largest opportunity and
the most of happiness and reasonable expectation."

It was evident that Mr. Lette had made the last thought the
inspiration of his life, and that he would repeat it over and over
wherever he should go. A good hobby is a good thing, and life
is usually the better for one.

26 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

The waiter stood with wide eyes, and the curves of his face
were all interrogation points, while Mr. Lette recounted the grandeur
and the glories of the scenery of British Columbia. When the
explorer came to a conclusion, the man fanned himself with his
napkin, and exclaimed, —

" Hi declare ! Hi will go there ; hit must be a suitable place
for a British subject to live hin. How far is hit from Quebec,
may I hask ? "

" More than three thousand miles."

"All rail?"

" Yes, all rail." Mr. Lette tilted back in his chair. The new
empire was filling his vision again. " 'T is the most wonderful road
ever made by human hands," said he, " that

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD,

stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and bridging the two
oceans with an iron highway.

" I well recall the day that the great road was completed. It was
the yth of November, 1885, in the Wild Eagle Pass of the Gold Range
of mountains. For five years the road had been virtually in progress,
moving from Winnipeg toward the mountains and from Winnipeg
toward the sea, and from the Pacific toward the mountain climbers
from the steppes and plains. It had been undertaken before this
period by the government ; but after many delays it was decided in
1880 to surrender the stupendous work to a private company. Then
it was that the enterprise was undertaken in earnest. The govern-
ment put at the disposal of the company millions of money and
millions of acres of land ; an army of engineers and laborers mus-
tered, armed with pickaxes, powder, and dynamite ; Manitoba was
soon crossed — '

" How do you pronounce that word ? " was the waiter's unex-
pected interruption.

THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND.

"PICTURESQUE CLEAR-WATER STREAMS."

" Manitoba'," said Mr. Lette, "although most people say Manito'ba.
It is manitou-&& ; that is, the manitou, or god, speaks""

" I see," said the intelligent waiter ; " the sheep said baa?

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Lette, "so I see."

" I have a brother who lives in Minnesota'," said the luminous
waiter.

" No, no," answered several of the tourists.

"*[ was saying," continued Mr. Lette, "that Manitoba' was soon
crossed, and Assiniboia as rapidly. Then began the battle of the

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

hills. Look on the map, and you may see the march of the army
of engineers and laborers, up to Banff, — so called from the Scot-
tish estates, — four thousand feet, then on, up, higher and higher,
under peaks that pierced the heavens, over streams that for ages had
been breaking the rocks in the canons below, up to the ledge pastures
of the mountain goat and the home of the eagle. At the end of the
first year the engineers and navvies had advanced one hundred and

sixty miles from Winnipeg. During the
four hundred and fifty miles had been
the end of the third year found
them amid the blue skies

second year
accomplished ;

PEAKS THAT PIERCED THE HEAVENS.

of the Rockies, *

and the fourth year

in the snow-castled regions

of the Selkirks, more than a

thousand miles from the mid-ocean city, the Chicago of the British

Empire. The two armies met in the Gold Mountains. Clank !

The last spike was driven. The two oceans were bridged ; the

Rocky Mountains were conquered and bound, never to be released.

England might now travel toward the Orient, to China and Japan,

in the continuous lights of her own ships and homes, and in the

shadow of Saint George's Cross.

" The construction of the road had not only conquered the Rockies
and linked the two oceans, it had done more ; it had bound the greater

THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND. 29

half of North America to England in bonds stronger than iron. That
clang on the last spike had riveted the two continents of the posses-
sions of the English crown, and made a greater England possible on
this side of the Atlantic. War has its heroes, and so has peace. And
among the heroes of the arts of peace, none are more deserving of
honor than the statesmen, capitalists, engineers, navvies, and laborers
of the Canadian Pacific Railroad."

" Hat ! your honor," said the enlightened waiter, touching the
bare place on his forehead where a hat-brim, had one been there,
might have added grace to the obeisance.

The next morning the party of tourists left for Liverpool.

THE FOUR GREAT EMPIRES.

Russia 7,012,874 square miles

Dominion of Canada 3,127,041 "

United States 2,999,848 " "

Brazil 2,408,104 " "

CHAPTER II.

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST.

N our last volume we left Aunt Helen Mar Hampden
and her nephew Charles Hampden and niece Mary
Hampden at the Golden Cross -Hotel, London. The
Hampdens, from Bristol, Rhode Island, had made an
educational tour to Great Hampden, England, hoping
thereby to be able to find proof that the great John Hampden, the
father of English liberty, had once visited America, and the shores
where they lived, in order to provide a place of refuge for the Eng-
lish patriots in case the cause of the people against royal tyranny
should fail. In this secret service, in 1623, it is supposed that he
visited the great Sachem Massasoit, who then lived at Pokanoket,
now Warren and Bristol, and finding him sick, helped to nurse him
back to health. The supposed place of the meeting of these two
great characters of history is called Massasoit Spring, near one of
the wharves in Warren. At the time when we took leave of the
Hampden family in our last volume, Aunt Helen Mar had not been
able to secure the positive evidence of Hampden's visit to America.
She still had faith, however, that such proof existed, and that one day
it would be made clear to her.

While the Hampdens were in England they stopped much at
the old Golden Cross Hotel Here they met Mr. Lette, whom we
have introduced. They had chanced to overhear the description

ON THE THAMES, BELOW LONDON.

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST. 33

of the American Switzerland which Mr. Lette had given to the re-
turning party of travellers from the States. It had deeply interested
them.

" I would rather visit British Columbia," said Charles Hampden,
"than go to Switzerland."

" And I," said Mary Hampden.

Aunt Helen Mar Hampden was not so decided at this time.

The Hampdens had intended to return to America in the autumn
or early in the winter. But they had learned the strange fact which
surprises most Americans, — that they could live much more cheaply
in English towns than at home. So as the journey was an educa-
tional one, they resolved to remain in London, or near London, until
spring, and then perhaps visit Switzerland, and return early in the
summer to the States.

They often met Mr. Lette, and young Charles Hampden and the
old explorer formed a very warm and intimate acquaintance. They
went to amusements together, — to the Royal Albert Hall, the art
galleries, and museums. They made frequent journeys in company
to Sydenham Palace, Hampden Court, and other places. They
would often take the boats that ply the Thames, to have a quiet
outing on the river, enjoying the ever changing panorama. Some-
times they would extend their journeys and take longer sails to the
mouth of the Thames, watching with interest the boats preparing
for sea. Almost always after 'their interviews and outings Charles
would say to his aunt, —

" I would rather visit the American Switzerland."

One day he added to this declaration the further information that
Mr. Lette would accompany a party of emigrants in the spring to
Vancouver and Seattle.

Not long after this he unfolded the following plan : —

" Let us return to Portland, Maine, with Mr. Lette in the spring,
on the winter service of the Allan Line of steamers, and go with him

34 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

to British Columbia and Washington and Oregon, instead of making
the Swiss trip."

This plan did not meet Aunt Mar's approval, but it gained a
point.

" We will not return to Portland in the spring," she said, " but
we will go to Switzerland, and meet Mr. Lette at Montreal in the
summer, when he is to make a second trip with a second party of
emigrants to the cities of the Puget Sound. And you may go with
him, if he is willing."

This seemed a most delightful plan to our young traveller. It
would bring the two Switzerlands in contrast. In the mean time
Charles would learn as much as possible in regard to both these lands
of glaciers, waterfalls, and beautiful valleys.

One evening, at the Golden Cross, Charles asked Mr. Lette in
regard to the birds and animals of the Canadian plains, mountains,
and the Puget Sound. He was interested in the natural history of
new places, and listened eagerly to Mr. Lette's reply.

CURIOUS ANIMALS OF THE NORTHWEST.

" Canada is the home of the finest fur-bearing animals. One still
meets foxes along the line of the railroad, and it is a favorite diversion
of the passengers to watch them from the windows of the train. On
the plains they live in villages, hunt gophers and mice, and are very
cunning in avoiding snares and traps. The coyote is often seen by
the settler, though the herds of buffalo that it once followed are gone.
The great gray wolf may still be seen hiding from the train or horse-
man. Horses are greatly afraid of this merciless animal, which will
hamstring a stray horse on the plains.

" Archbishop Tache relates some anecdotes of the prairie wolf which
illustrates its cunning instincts, and which I will give you from his
narrative.

PREPARING FOR SEA.

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST. 37

" ' A fisherman was in the habit of intrusting fish to one of his dogs for
his master. To prevent the dog being attacked by wolves, the man attached
bells to the animal. The dog performed his duty daily for several consecutive
winters ; but on one occasion, the bells being forgotten, the poor animal was
eaten up, and the splendid fish that the delicate attentions of a poor servant
intended for the chief of a post, became, with their carrier, a feast for wolves.

" ' While I was staying at Isle a la Crosse, three large wolves, one black
and two gray, made havoc among our train dogs, eating several of them.
Their cunning in avoiding traps enabling them to escape the death planned
for them, a price was set upon their heads.

"'An old Canadian, by the name of Morin, made a great effort to gain
the reward, and the skins. A skilled trapper, he made use of all his experi-
ence in setting his best spring traps, which, as usual, he fastened by a chain
to a very large piece of wood. All the dogs were carefully locked up, and
every other precaution adopted to make the three troublesome visitors hungry.
Morin visited his traps daily, and everybody was in the habit of going to
meet him on his return, to learn the result of his expedition. The subject
was the theme of the day.

" ' There came a furious storm, during which the trapper remained at home.
Calm weather followed, and the old Canadian went to visit his traps; in the
distance he saw snow covering one of the three thieves that had been caught ;
a second trap had been set off unsuccessfully, and the third had disappeared ;
disorder reigned in the pack of wolves ; the others never appeared again.

" ' Morin, after long and vain searching, was regretting the loss of his trap,
when, a month having elapsed, the people of Green Lake, about ninety miles
from Isle a la Crosse, saw a wolf walking on one of their lakes, apparently with
difficulty. Several dogs were sent after him ; he was caught and killed. He
was no other than one of the rogues from Isle a la Crosse, for the trap was still
attached to his leg. The chain and log of wood were detached at the time of
his companion's death; he had wandered in every 'direction through the forest
for a whole month, dragging this heavy and cruel encumbrance in the midst of
the most intense cold. This wolf was reduced to a mere walking skeleton, but
the occurrence indicates a power and tenacity of life in the animal, difficult to
understand.'

WOLVERINES.

" The wolverine is noted for its great strength and its skill in feats
of strategy. Its cunning indicates the faculty of reason, or what is

38 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

like it 'Archbishop Tache relates some anecdotes to the point; the
first, of a wolverine that had robbed a hunter's hiding-place of a gun
and some food. The archbishop says : -

" ' After a long search we first found the leathern gun-case, which had been
taken off the gun, for it had been carefully put on to protect and conceal the
piece. Then, in another direction and farther away, we found the gun under
the trunk of a tree ; leaves had been thrown over it, and scattered for some
distance around as if to conceal the tracks of the thief. We should certainly
have concluded that a man had been at work, had not the deep solitude of
the forest obliged us to recognize the acts of a wolverine, of which traces were
everywhere visible in the neighborhood.

" ' If the skilfulness of the wolverine sometimes insures him success, here is
an incident that proves his mischief frequently brings punishment. An In-
dian had left his lodge without any one to look after it. A wolverine pres-
ently entered the deserted habitation, brought out, one by one, all the things
he found inside, and hid them here and there, and even far away from the
lodge. There remained only a bag of gunpowder. This the animal seized
between his teeth, and concealed among the cinders in the fireplace. Some
fuel still unextinguished soon burnt the bag, and caused an explosion, of
which the roguish wolverine was the first victim ; for it stretched him dead
on the spot, scattering the brains of the thief right and left.'

" The black bear of Canada is harmless, and runs from man. The
grizzlies are of course a source of terror to man and beast. They
have been known to carry away Indian women, like the tigers of
India. An Indian sometimes has escaped from a grizzly after cap-
ture by feigning death.

" The beautiful prog-horned antelope has almost wholly disap-
peared from the buffalo plains. Moose still abound in the region
of Peace River, and the caribou in the north. The Big Horn or
Rocky Mountain sheep grazes on the wooded slopes of the mountains.
The bones of the bison are found everywhere, but the great herds
are gone forever."

ANIMALS OF THE NORTHWEST.

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST. 41

BIRDS.

" The birds of Canada are chiefly the inhabitants of the woods,
lakes, and thickets. They consist of thrushes and finches, robins
and swallows, white-winged blackbirds and rose-breasted grossbeaks.
The prairies abound with meadow larks and bobolinks. The
Canadian jay and cow-bird are the travellers, and the woodpeckers
the stay-at-homes. Owls hoot in the dark recesses of the forests,
and ospreys and eagles wheel over the forests near the coasts. The
game-birds are the grouse, partridge, and prairie-hen. Herons, cranes,
snipes, and plovers are common near the coast and about the
lakes and ponds, and wild geese and ducks of many kinds furnish
abundant game in the same marshy places. Grebes, or water-hens,
build their nests on the sedges that rise and fall with the water.
The Avi-fauna of the Northwest Territories numbers some two
hundred and fifty species."

Among the many places of interest that Mr. Lette and young
Charles Hampden attended was a school of working-boys, to which
free instruction was given evenings. These boys were for the most
part the orphan sons of English sailors, to whom a home had been
given until they were prepared to enter the trades. The school
was called the Grace Darling Institute. The boys of the Institute
were as greatly interested as Charles Hampden in Mr. Lette's Cana-
dian experiences. In fact, so interested did they become, that sev-
eral of them wished to go to America and take homesteads, on
their becoming of age, in Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta, or British
Columbia.

Mr. Lette had delivered before the Institute a course of lectures
on these provinces, and the opportunities for settlement which they
offered. No topics could excite a more eager ear than these
new lands.

42 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

One of these lectures related to the stories and legends of the
new cities on the Puget Sound. It was a record of facts gathered dur-
ing his own travels from Vancouver, B. C, to Olympia, Washington,
and up the Oregon or Columbia River. It contained some very
curious incidents, and we give it here, as a preparation for the in-
teresting journey which young Hampden had decided to make,
in hope that it may awaken a desire in our reader's mind to
follow him.

STRANGE LEGENDS OF PUGET SOUND.

New America is rising on the shores of the vast and: romantic fiord called
by the Indians the Whulge, but known to modern geographers as Puget
Sound. Already the prophets of Seattle claim that their city will one day
be the larger New York. " We shall be," they say, " the port of the Pacific
and of Asia. We shall distribute our commodities through the vast empire
west of the Mississippi as New York does through the east We are to be
the lumber-yard of the world. Pennsylvanias of coal and unknown mountain
treasure-houses of all kinds of ores lie behind us, and the quiet waterways
to all lands before us, and one of the three great cities of modern times must
here lift its domes of industry over the sunset sea."

Tacoma, the beautiful, makes the same claim, and argues that she not
only has the port on which are to ride the ships of the world, but the Northern
Pacific Railroad as the direct route to the shop towns and cities of the East.
The most beautifully situated of all American cities, the Naples of the North,
on the new Mediterranean, with Mount Tacoma spread out like a celestial
tent above her, the most splendid and poetic peak in the American atmos-
phere, Tacoma has literary and artistic as well as commercial aspirations.
These ambitions are well founded, if we may trust the modern prophets.
Says the author of the " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," Robert
Chambers, " When the populations of America shall reach the Pacific, the
literary period of that country will begin."

Theodore Winthrop, drifting down the Puget Sound in a canoe, prophesied
that religion would find its new spiritual development and evolution among
the nations that were to gather there. The march of progress here holds her
steeds in the blaze of the sunset, with the crystal tent of Tacoma like a de-
serted abode of the gods of the golden age in the sky. The axe and hammer

B1KDS OF THE NORTHWEST.

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST. 45

have begun their work everywhere in all these lands of the woods. Troy was,
and Troys are to be. The Puget Sound laborer, with faith in the future, smites
the giant trees. But let the prophets pass and the poets come, here surely is
to be a great political empire, and the literary sense is awakening to the fact,
and beginning to inquire about the old romances and traditions of these new-
created scenes.

The Puget Sound country is rich in legendary lore, and here new School-
crafts and Longfellows, new poets and composers and painters and artists, may
find a field worthy of a higher inspiration. The religion of the Puget Sound
Indians is spiritualism : every tree has its soul, and all the mountains are the
abodes of invisible gods ; personification, as in ancient Greece, is everywhere,
and all the truths of life are taught in parable.

The student from the North unrolls his map, and asks, " Who was Juan
de Fuca?" He finds that the strait that opens this new world was named
after an Italian romancer and pretended discoverer. And he next asks, " Who
was Puget, and why was that name given to the Indian Whulge?" Even
the cyclopaedias are silent here, as are Wilkes, Swan, and Victor; but the
old pioneer will tell you that Puget was the chivalrous lieutenant of Vancouver,
and that he measured the one hundred and twenty miles of the winding sea,
and fathomed its sea-green waters, and saw the celestial tent of Mount Tacoma
spread in the sky, and dreamed in the bright days of 1792 that he would soon
enter a marvellous river that would run from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
So he drifted on in the wonderland anywhither; but although the sky was
domed with crystal, the open river to the Atlantic did not appear. The
way to the Atlantic was to come ; but it was to be iron and steam. Pu get's
old camping-ground is still shown to the tourist on the Whulge. His body
should be brought there, and his monument bear the name of the sea. But
his name is already written eternally on the waters, like Vancouver's on the
island, where also infant cities are at play with the axe and hammer. Puget's
romantic dreams, like that of the old adelantado of Florida and Bimini, were
allegorical ; the types of stupendous realities, like a child's visions of life.

TACOMA'S FIRE BATTLE.

Theodore Winthrop, in his " Canoe and Saddle," fixed the Siwash name
of Tacoma on Mount Rainier or Regnier. The Seattle people still call the
mountain Rainier; and you may know a Seattle man by the emphatic use
that he makes of this word. " Rainier" is never allowed to be so much as

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

uttered in Tacoma. The legend of Tacoma evolved through the lively and
picturesque imagination of Theodore Winthrop may be found in " Canoe
and Saddle," a Rip Van Winkle medley of little classic importance, and we
will not repeat it here. The Siwashes have a nobler legend of the mountain,
growing out of the probable view that it was once a volcano. Once, in

times dim and distant, the
tamanouses, or guardian
spirits, of the mountain be-
came enraged with the ta-
manouses of Mount Hood,
who were acting unruly, and
tossing, as we may imagine,
stones and smoke and fire
into the air. To teach Mount
Hood a lesson and make him
more quiet in his manners
among the monarchs of the
air, Tacoma began to stone
the rival peak. Some of the
stones thrown by Tacoma
fell short, and a terrible ac-
cident happened, the bad
effects of which remain to
this day. Some of the rocks
thrown by Tacoma fell into
the Columbia River and
turned it aside, and caused
the Cascades and Dalles.

SEATTLE, THE INDIAN CHIEF. Y°U ™V SCe them there tO'

day. That is why the steam-
boat from Portland, Oregon, cannot go all the way up the New Rhine.

Tacoma has learned the arts of peace since then, and buried under
mighty glaciers her spiteful fires. Mount Hood smokes a little at times,
but he too is becoming quiet. Men will soon blow the rocks out of the
Columbia, and illumine Mount Tacoma and Mount Hood with red fires on
Fourth-of-July nights, and then all the land of the new empire will be peace.
This legend has grand outlines. Like many of the Siwash tales, it is stu-
pendous, and the proofs of it are wonderfully visible.

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST. 47

STORY OF ANGELINE SEATTLE.

Poor old Angelina Seattle, — the Princess Angeline ! Her flat, tan-colored
face, fiery black eyes, and black hair are a familiar picture in the streets of
the new city, where she sits down daily on some log or shoe-box to marvel at
all that is going on. Now and then she hies away to beg " one bit " or " two
bits " of Henry Yesler or some other old pioneer. She is a very happy mortal
if you please her, and very ugly if you tease her. She is the daughter of
Seattle, the chief who gave the name to the lively and ambitious city whose
prophets claim the earth. Her legend is : Once upon a time the town of Seattle
was surrounded by a union of the war tribes bent on its destruction. Warriors
were hiding in every bush. Angeline, the princess, the daughter of the chief,
discovered the plot and the plans to murder the town, and she stole away from
her lodge under " the moon and stars," and came to the imperilled place, and
gave the old settlers warning. Was her warning true ? Many laughed at it.
The war-ship " Decatur " lay in the harbor. The captain determined to shell
the woods. The Indians understood the "one shot" of the cannon-ball, but not
the "two shot" of the shell." The sight of a ball that would shoot again was
to them a miracle. The " two-shot " balls caused such an astonishment in the
woods that a hideous yell arose, and the Princess Angeline's warning was
proven to be an episode of heroism.

It seems a pity to doubt so desirable a story, especially as old Angeline
is a very benevolent soul, and gives away to others nearly everything she has or
begs. But Mr. Yesler, the old pioneer and mayor, has recently written an
article, in which he claims that it was old Curley, a friendly Indian, who gave
the warning and caused the shelling of the woods. We visited Mr. Yesler,
and he denied the heroic claims of the Princess Angeline. Veto. We must
know the truth, so went to the palace of the princess herself.

The palace of this daughter of the hero-chieftain of the new New York
consisted of a hovel or tent of boards on the side of a hill, among other hovels
and pans and kettles, and stumps innumerable. We knocked at the door. A
dog came to meet us. One dislikes to meet a dog at the door in an Indian
town. We went away cautiously, and looked over the bay, and listened to a
thousand hammers, which one may hear anywhere. Then we came -back again
over the charred stumps. The palace door was open, and on the step sat
the dumpy form of the daughter of the -great Seattle.

" Are you Angeline, the daughter of the chief? "

48 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

A nod, — a bow nod. Triumph !

I gave her one bit. Her face beamed.
" Nika tittle cop a mika"

II Did you save Seattle during the war? "

A low bow. There, Henry Yesler, that settles it. She herself said, and it
is greatly to her credit. We gave her another bit.

" Mitlite."

" Yes, I will sit down ; " and I did, and she " shooed " away the suspicious-
looking dog, and there on the palace step I had a talk with the venerable prin-
cess, the once lovely heroine of Seattle. Paint her picture, somebody; she
will not be here long to watch the progress of the city from the log or
shoe-box.

The " great Seattle," — who was he? The lord of all the Indians, one
would suppose. Veto again. He came with Dr. Maynard, the pioneer, to
Seattle, and was true to the interests of the whites ; and so Governor Stevens,
the great territorial governor, made him a titular chief, and the new town
received his name.

THE COPPER CANOE.

Long, long ago, say the Siwashes, in the splendid sunsets of the Whulge,
or Puget Sound, there came a canoe of copper, sailing, sailing. The painted
forest lords and feathered maidens saw it from the bluffs, — in the sunrise at
times, or in the moonsets, but ever in the red sunsets, sailing, sailing. The
gleam of copper in the red sunset is more beautiful than gold ; and ever and
anon on the blue wave was seen the burnished gleam of the copper canoe.

On it came, and the solitary voyager in the copper canoe landed at last
on the Whulge, under the crystal dome of Mount Tacoma, and he shadowed
among the cool firs of the headlands there the boat that flashed out the rays
of sunset light.

He called together the tribes. They came in canoes from everywhere.
He began to teach and preach. " I come among you as a preacher of
righteousness," he said, or thoughts like these. " All that men can possess
in this world, or any other, is righteousness. If a man have that he is rich
though he be poor, and his soul shall rise, rise, rise, and live forever.

" O Siwashes," he preached, " the unseen power that thinks and causes
you to act is the soul. It does not die when the breath vanishes. It goes
away with the unseen life, and inhabits the life unseen. You have never

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST. 49

seen the soul or life ; but death is only the beginning of a longer life, and the
soul with righteous longings shall be happy forever.

" But war is wrong, — the spear, the arrow, and the spilling of human
blood. Man may not kill his brother. The soul was meant for peace."

He preached these or like doctrines, a beautiful gospel, like the Sermon
on the Mount.

The warlike tribes rejected the word. They nailed to a tree the Saviour
who came gleaming over the violet sea in the copper canoe, and he died there.
They took down his body ; but, wonder of wonders ! it rose from the dead, and
appeared to all the tribes, and the risen Saviour preached the same doctrine
of righteousness and immortality as before. The legend may have been
derived from the preaching of some forest priest in some distant place, for
the Catholic missionaries were on the coast of California before 1700.

.THE STORY OF THE STONE SHOES.

As curious and wonderful is the Siwash tradition of the flood, which may
have had a like origin. There once fell upon the earth a long and terrible
rain ; the Whulge arose ; it filled the mountain walls, and all the tribes per-
ished except one man. He fled before the rising waters up the sides of Mount
Tacoma, or Rainier, or Ranier. The waters rose and covered the mountain.
They swept over his feet; they came to his knees, to his waist. He seemed
about to be swept away, when his feet turned to stone. Then the rain
ceased. The clouds broke and the blue sky came again, and the waters
began to sink.

The one man stood there on the top of Rainier. He could not lift his
feet; they were rocks. Birds flew again, flowers bloomed again, but he could
not go.

Then the Spirit of All Things came to him. " Sleep," said he. And the
one man with stone feet slept.

As he slept there the Spirit of All Things took from him a rib and made
of it a woman. When he awoke, there stood his wife ready-made on the top
of Mount Tacoma. His stone shoes dropped off, and the happy pair came
down the mountain to the wooded paradises of the Whulge on the sunset
sea. Here sprung the human race at the foot of Mount Tacoma, or Rainier,
or Ranier. Hear that, O ye builders of the new cities ! The golden age began
with you, and it is yours to bring it back again. The ark, however, did not
rest on Mount Tacoma ; we are sorry for that. Yet this legend is worth any

50 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

two traditions of the ark ; it is the story of Adam, Eve, and Noah all in one.
Are the stone shoes yet on the top of the mountain, like the rocks tossed by
the tamanouses in the cascades of the Columbia? It is a hard climb up the
mountain. The traveller begins to bleed from eyes and ears at the height of
eleven thousand feet; and it is very hot in the thin air, although the glaciers
lie beneath. But these stone shoes would be worth going up to get. Who
shall find them, the " Rainier" man or the "Tacoma" man of the rival cities?

THE INDIAN POTLATCH.

The devil dance has been forbidden by the British government among the
Canadian tribes. It was once the great feature of all the potlatches. The pot-
latch is a feast of gifts. The wealthiest man of the tribe makes a potlatch, or
feast, and gives away to his own tribe or a neighboring tribe all that he pos-
sesses, and whoever gives a potlatch becomes an Indian grandee or lord. The
inspiring plan of this Northern feast is benevolent, though somewhat vain ; but
the ceremonies used to be of the most horrid character, especially the tamanous
dance, or spirit dance, and the devil dance, which was a dance of blood.

" I once witnessed a potlatch," said a pioneer missionary, " and I hope I may
never see such a scene again. I had landed among a tribe of northern Siwashes
on the Whulge, where I had gathered a little church some months before, and
I expected to hold a meeting, on the night I came, in one of the cabins. The
place was deserted ; the woods were all silent. Sunset flashed his red light
along the sea, — such a sunset as one only sees here in these northern latitudes,
— a wannish glare of smoky crimson lingering long into the night. As soon
as the sun went down I began to hear a piping sound like birds in all the
woods around. One call answered another everywhere. I had never heard
a sound like that. I tried to approach one of these sounds, but it receded
before me.

" Suddenly a great fire blazed up and lit the sky. I approached it; it was
built on a little prairie. Near it was a huge platform, covered with canoes,
blankets, pressed fish, berry cakes, soap-olalely, or berry soap, wampum, and
beads. Not an Indian was in sight save one. She was an old squaw bound to
a stake or tree.

" ' What is this? ' I asked in Chinook.

«* ' Cultus tee-hee,
Cultus hee-hee,

Dah-blo ! '
she wailed in Chinook.

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST. 51

" ' When, — tamala ' (to-morrow) ?

" ' Ding, ding —

; Cultus tee-hee,

Cultus hee-hee,
Dah-blo ! '

" Then I knew that all was preparation for a potlatch, and that there was to
be a devil dance — ding, ding — at that very hour.

" It was a night of the full moon ; such a night would be selected for such
a ceremony. The moon rose red in the smoky air, and the sounds like the
bird-calls grew louder and wilder. There was a yell ; it was answered every-
where; and hundreds of Indians in paint and masks came running out of the
timber upon the prairie. Some were on all fours, some had the heads of beasts,
fishes, and birds, some had wings, and many had tails.

" Then came the biters, attended by raving squaws. The biters were to
tear the flesh from the arms of any who were not found at the dance after
a certain hour.

" Now the drums began to beat and the shells to blow. Indians poured out
of the woods in paint, blankets, and beads. A great circle was formed; the
tamanous, or spirit dance, was enacted. Great gifts were made at a powwow, or
wahwah. Then the great dark crowd grew frantic, and under the full moon
gleaming on high came the devil dance.

" The first victim was a live dog. He was seized, torn in pieces, and eaten
by the dancers, so as to redden their faces with blood. The yells were now
more furious ; the dancers leaped into the air, and circled round the old woman
tied to the tree. I will not describe the sickening sight that followed ; I will
only say that the old hag who was accused of ' casting an evil-eye ' shared the
same fate as the dog.

" ' Why do you worship the Devil? ' I asked an exhausted brave the next day.

" ' Good spirit always good ; him we no fear. Please the Devil, and him no
harm you. All well, happy; good tamanous, bad tamanous. See ? '

" It was plain, — the old philosophy of the sinking sailor, who prayed, ' Good
Lord ! good Devil ! ' The tradition was — it came out of the long past — that
the Devil must be appeased."

They are vanishing, — the tribes, — and it is time to gather up the
old legends. The Southern Pacific Railroad is to run up to Seattle,
and the Canadian Pacific down to Seattle, and the city will sit like a
jewel in the great ring of iron that runs round the coast of North

52 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

America. Tacoma's triumphal road strikes at once the States, and
here the past is forever to go and the future forever to come ; here
on the woody shores of the sunset are the castellated headlands
of the Whulge. One of the old legends states that the tamanous
once stole the sun and hid it. It was happily found, and the theft is
not likely to occur again in the new empire of the North and West,
that will one day largely dominate the States, and perhaps lead the
thoughts of mankind.

CHAPTER III.

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS.

T one of his lectures before the Grace Darling Insti-
tute Mr. Lette made a tabular statement which
greatly surprised young Charles Hampden as well as
the sons of the sailors. He pronounced the words of
this statement so slowly and evenly and impressively
that it made even statistics interesting. He said : —

" The Island of Great Britain has about 90,000 square miles. New
England, in the United States, which includes six States, has 65,000
square miles. The great State of New York contains 47,000 square
miles, and the State of New Hampshire, the New England Switzer-
land, about 9,000 square miles.

" Now, boys, listen. The original British Columbia, the real
American Switzerland, contains 220,000 square miles, and is not
only much greater than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland (32,000 square miles), but would make four countries as
large as old England, three countries larger than New England,
four countries larger than New York, and more than twenty coun-
tries as large as New Hampshire. Yet British Columbia is not so
large as the State of Texas, which has an area of 274,000 square
miles. The most wonderful American province of the English crown
is British Columbia, and it must one day rise to one of the great
maritime powers of the world."

Mr. Lette delighted to repeat this prophetic statement.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

There was another tabular statement which he made in regard
to the Swiss Alps and the American Rocky Mountain systems of
British Columbia and the Californian Sierras, which as greatly aston-
ished Aunt Mar.

" The superficial area of Swit-
zerland," he said, " not including
the Lakes, is about 15,000 square
miles. The mean elevation of the
highest range of mountains is from
8,000 to 9,000 feet. The highest
point of the St. Bernard Pass is
7,190 feet, and of the Great St.

A HUMBLE BUT HAPPY HOME.

Bernard, 8,170. The loftiest pass in the Alps (Col of Mont Cervin)
is 11,200 feet. This is the highest pass in Europe. Mont Blanc is
15,744 feet high, — a little higher than Mount Tacoma; the Jung-
frau is 13,716 feet high. But Mount Brown, in British Columbia,
is 16,000 feet high ; and there is a single plain in Montana
which is as large as the States of Ohio and Indiana combined, and
in which four Switzerlands might be placed and be overlooked by
the American Alps around them. As I find myself often saying,
there is a single glacier in British Columbia that probably contains
more ice than is to be found on all the Alps. But the ranges of

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS.

the Rockies which run through the Sierras south, and to Alaska
north, form a system that leaves the Alps a mere child in com-
parison. Let me make an arithmetical table of the two Switzer-
lands on the blackboard.

British Columbia 220,000 square miles.

Switzerland and Alpine Provinces ....... 20,000 "

200,000 " "

" I have included the Lakes and the old boundaries in this state-
ment. How does it look ? Would you not think that an American
traveller would wish to see his own land before seeing Europe ? "

The free use of such statistics as these so greatly interested the
boys of the Institute in this won-
derful empire of the Northwest,
that they began to make inquiries
how an emigrant from Europe
could go there, and what were
the terms of obtaining land and
making settlements. Mr. Lette
appointed an evening for a very
curious lecture, which should con-
sist of answering such questions
in regard to emigration and
homesteading as any of the boys
might like to ask. Among the questions asked were these : —

Question. Who are entitled to government lands, and how may
such lands be obtained by the emigrant ?

Answer. Any male person over twenty-one years of age can obtain
a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres free on the public lands
in Canada by paying ten dollars, or two pounds, as an entrance fee.
Farms may be purchased at any price, from one dollar, or four shillings,
per acre, upward. The Canadian Pacific's grant of government lands

SHEEP-SHEARING.

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

consists of twenty-five million acres stretching through a large portion
of the Dominion. These lands are offered at #2.50 per acre, with a
condition of rebate in case of immediate cultivation. Each male mem-
ber of a large family, if of age, might secure one hundred and sixty

HAYING ON THE PRAIRIE.

acres of the government, and pur- "^
chase other lands of the railroad, •*~3^rf~J
and so secure an immense estate

for a very little money. A family of four might obtain a farm of
one thousand acres at less cost than as many dollars, including a
house and sheds. Aliens may acquire lands the same as British-
born subjects.

Q. What would be the probable cost of settlement on a one hun-
dred and sixty acre grant for the first five years, and what the gain ?

A. According to Magoun's " Manitoba " it would be nearly as fol-
lows. I quote the figures of Magoun, as his estimates are intelligent,
and as nearly correct as such calculations can be made.

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS.

First Year.

Expenditure of settler with family of five, for provisions, etc., one year $250.00

One yoke of oxen . 125.00

One cow .... 35-oo

Breaking-plough and harrow . . 35-oo

Wagon - 80.00

Implements, etc. . , . . . 25.00

Cook-stove, etc., complete . . . . 25.00

Furniture 25.00

Tent . c . ../...:..,. 10.00

Sundries . 50.00

Outlay for First Year $660.00

At the end of the year he will have a comfortable log-house,
barn, etc., cattle, implements, and say twenty acres of land broken,
ready for seed.

Second Year.

Will realize from twenty acres, 600 bushels of grain at 60 c. (which is

a low figure) $360.00

Expenditure 300.00

Profit $60.00

And he will have an additional twenty acres of land broken.

Third Year.

Forty acres will give him 1,200 bushels of grain, at 60 c $720.00

Will pay for land . $160.00

Expenditure, including additional stock and implements . . . 500.00

— 660.00

Profit $60.00

And he will, with his increased stock and other facilities, be able
to break at least thirty acres.

Fourth Year.

Seventy acres will give him 2,100 bushels of grain at 60 c

Less expenditure for further stock, implements, and other necessaries

Profit

$1,260.00
600.00

$660.00

And another thirty acres broken.

58 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Fifth Year.

100 acres will give him 3,000 bushels of grain, at 60 c $1,800.00

Less same expenditure as previous year 600.00

Profit $1,200.00

At the end of the fifth year he will stand as follows : -

Cash, or its equivalent, on hand $1,980.00

1 60 acres of land increased in value to at least $5 per acre 800.00

House and barn, low appraisal 250.00

Stock, including cattle and horses 600.00

Machinery and farm implements, 50 per cent of cost 200.00

Furniture, etc 1 50.00

$3,980.00
Less outlay first year 660.00

To credit of farm $3,320.00

Q. What is the United States law in regard to the securing gov-
ernment land ?

A. Any citizen or intending citizen can take government land,
and the same with unmarried women. All the adult members of a
family, except wives, can obtain quarter sections. These lands may
be obtained, first, by homesteading, for which the fee for one hundred
and sixty acres is fourteen dollars; by pre-emption, for which the
fee for filing papers is five dollars ; and by planting trees. A single
person may secure four hundred and eighty acres.

Q. How are these lands to be found ?

A. By application to the government land-offices in the Dominion
or in the United States, which will furnish free circulars of informa-
tion. Immense tracts of land in the Western Canadian provinces, and
in Montana and the Northwestern States, are still subject to home-
steading, pre-emption, and tree claims.

Q. What is the climate of this Northwestern Empire ?

A. In the regions of the Chinook winds, which include British

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS.

Columbia, and the States of Washington, Oregon, and Montana, the
climate is an almost continuous April.

Q. What are the Chinook currents of air and water ?
A. The Chinook current is a warm stream of air and water
that flows from Japan along the coast of Alaska and down to

California. It
causes warm
rains, prevents se-
vere frosts, and
melts snow. There
is but little win-
ter weather in the
Provinces and
States that bor-
der on the Pu-
get Sound. Near
the Pacific coast
roses bloom out of
doors at Christ-
LOST SHEEP. mas> winter here

is usually a rainy

season, like early April in England and New
England, and it rains chiefly at night.

Q. What is likely to be the future of these Provinces
and States ?

A. They are likely to become the most populous,
rich, and powerful political divisions of the world.

There was one plan of biographical and historical education
adopted by Mr. Lette for the use of the Institute, which he called
Audience Lectures, and which proved so successful that we must
depart somewhat from our narrative to commend it here. It made
the boys in reality their own lecturers. Mr. Lette would give the

• -

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

A FARM IN THE NORTHWEST.

school a topic, and explain it, then ask that on a certain evening
the boys relate as many illustrations of it as they could secure. The

boy who brought the best
illustration was offere
a prize, and what was
the best illustration
was decided by a vote
of the school. For ex-
ample, Mr. Lette would
say, on announcing a
topic, something as
follows : " Next week on
Thursday evening we will have an
audience lecture on ' Boys who were
Laughed At.' Let me advise you to
read ' Martyrs of Science,' the works of
Samuel Smiles, and the popular
books that relate to early strug
gles, such as ' Men who
have Arisen,' and ' Turn-
ing-Points in Life.'' „..,/

We will give a spe-
cimen of one of these
audience lectures as con-
ducted by Mr. Lette.
The plan is wor-
thy of imitation in
schools. On the

»'i3t.:^:S;Xil»

ture on " Boys who were Laughed At,"
trations were presented by the boys ;
reader to decide which is the best,

evening of the lec-
the following illus-
and we will ask the

IMPATIENT FOR THEIR BREAKFASTS.

before we give the result. of the vote of the Institute on the subject.

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS.

COLUMBUS.

" Do you suppose that there is a part of the world where trees grow upward,
and people stand upon their heads? " asked a learned ecclesiastic of Salamanca
of the council assembled to consider the claims of a young man named Colon,
to be sent on a voyage of discovery.

1 FULTON.
" Let us go and see
at crazy man try to
il a boat by steam,"
said one to an idle crowd
in New York. They
hurried off to the Hud-
son. Thousands were
there to see that crazy
man's novel experiment.
That boat went.

DISRAELI. RELUCTANT TO GO HOME.

When Disraeli first

attempted to speak in Parliament, he pitched his voice too high, and the Com-
mons roared with laughter. " You will not hear me now," he said, " but the
time will come when you shall hear me." That time came.

JOHN HUNTER.

Science is one long record of the ridicule of new discovery. Dr. John
Hunter's discoveries in anatomy were the gibes of the medical profession.
When one physician laughed at him because he did not publish his investiga-
tions in Latin, Dr. Hunter sharply returned, " I would teach him on a dead
body what he never knew in any language, Latin or Greek." Jenner (who first
vaccinated) was both ridiculed and abused.

While the first steamboat was crossing the Atlantic ocean, a pamphlet was
being circulated, showing how futile and visionary was such a plan, and that
it could never be accomplished. Edison's inventions have even in recent years
been treated in the same manner.

62 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

POETS.

The early poems of Wordsworth were criticised as being next to idiotic.
Byron says that this poet wrote so naturally of the " Idiot Boy," that he must be
the hero of his own tale.

Tennyson's early volume, " The Poems of Two Brothers," was a failure
and some twelve years passed before he began to publish those ideal poems
which were at first received as lunacy, but which have made him the poet
of the age.

Longfellow's early poems were laughed at by the imaginative Poe, who
found in them only mediocrity, with little indication of genius or promise.

Near the close of the last century there came into an editor's office in
London a young man of diffident manners and rustic appearance.

" Is the editor in?"

" I am the acting editor."

" I have a poem on country life which it would please me to have published.
I am inexperienced, but I thought perhaps you would read it and give me some
friendly advice."

Any gentleman would have received such a contribution in the true spirit
of courtesy. But this editor was one of those men without double sight, and he
took the manuscript as a joke, to use it as a joke. He read it with immoder-
ate laughter after the friendless young man had gone, and violated every law
of good-breeding by reading it to a friend, in order to show what ridiculous
creatures there are in the world.

The author had come from the fields. His home was now a London garret,
and in that dreary place he had fondly dreamed of the old rustic cottage, the
hedge-rows and trees, the flocks, herds, and farm life.

The poem found a publisher at last, despite some bad spelling, which is a
minor defect in the manuscript of a good poem. It was called " The Farmer's
Boy." It went over England and made the writer famous. That man was
Robert Bloomfield.

AN ARCHITECT.

When prizes .were offered in England for the best models of an industrial
palace for all nations, there came into the day-dreams of an unknown man of
genius a plan of such a palace, that haunted him night and day. " That is the
way the world's palace should be built," he said ; " iron and glass, iron and
glass." He worked out his plan on iron and glass, and sent it to the royal
commissioners. People thought him a fool. Architects thought him a fool

NO ARCHITECT EVER DREAMED OF SUCH A STRUCTURE BEFORE.'

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS. 65

The commissioners themselves hardly knew whether he was a fool or a genius.
It was an Aladdin's palace that he had sent them, a poet's dream, a thing
of air.

But the plan haunted every eye that saw it, as it had haunted the inventor.
Iron and glass, — the light frame of iron throwing the great mountain of glass,
like a great crystal hemisphere, into the air. Would the world laugh at it, or
admire it? No architect ever dreamed of such a structure before.

Men laughed and laughed, but the plan was accepted. The crystal struc-
ture rose like a thing of fancy that would dissolve in the twilight and depart
with the daylight. The old architects shook their heads, and criticised, and
laughed.

But London began to admire the poet-like structure as it grew, the archi-
tects began to discuss the matter, and the world to wonder at a building that
" should not have been so." The stupendous covering stood at last, a thing of
light and air, glimmering in the sun. The obscure architect, a common work-
ingman, was called forth to be knighted, and to receive the admiration of the
world. The building that ought not to be, was. Every intelligent eye in the
world now sees it in imagination, — the London Crystal Palace.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Something over half a century ago there lived a young man in the " lone-
liest nook in Britain," as he said in a letter to Goethe, " among the granite hills
and the black morasses which stretch westward through Galloway almost to the
Irish Sea." He had been a laughed-at boy, a prodigious devourer of books,
a silent thinker; and a terrible conflict in regard to the truths of life at last
agitated his soul. On a moorland farm he gave expression to this agitation
in a manuscript which he named " Sartor Resartus," — the tailor reclothed, or,
after the manner of the old Scottish song, " the tailor done over." The manu-
script was sent to various London firms and was rejected, with the wise opinions
of the critical readers.

Finding a publisher at last in " Eraser's Magazine," and also in America,
the " reclothed tailor " went forth to the view of the world to receive its valu-
able critical opinion. It is said that when John Stuart Mill, held to be the most
competent authority even at that time, first read the work, he pronounced it
" the stupidest piece of stuff that he ever set eyes on." The young writer him-
self, in after years, published many of the bad things said of the redressed tailor.
Among them are the following : —

"The author has no great tact; his wit is frequently heavy, and reminds

66 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

one of the German baron who took to leaping over tables, and said that he
was trying to be lively." 1

" ' Sartor Resartus ' is what old Dennis would call a ' heap of clotted
nonsense/ " etc.2

" An author who treats of dress, appeals, like the poet, to young men and
maidens, and calls upon them to buy his book. When, after opening their
purses for this purpose, they have carried home the work in triumph, expect-
ing to find in it some particular inspiration in regard to the tying of their
neck-cloths or the cut of their corsets, and meet with nothing better than a
dissertation on things in general, they will — to use the mildest term — not be
in very good humor. If the last improvements in legislation which we have
made in this country should have found their way to England, the author, we
think, would stand some chance of being lynched." 3

STANLEY.

The influence of Henry Stanley has touched the heart of humanity. In
some respects the African explorer transcends all the men of the age. Africa
will be likely to owe her civilization in the future largely to him.

Brought up in a parish workshop in Wales, he landed on our shores all
alone in the world. A New Orleans merchant pitied the boy, and gave him a
home and his own name, Stanley. The boy's soul longed for a worthy life
and noble achievement. The world listened only to laugh. Rejected by a
young lady to whom he had offered his hand, he is reported to have said one
day to a friend, " It does seem that the world has no place for me, and I am
tempted to commit suicide."

But he found a way into the ranks of men. He offered his life for Living-
stone. It was accepted for Africa, and the world has it. His first offer was
made amid a storm of ridicule, and the world long refused to believe his story
of the marvellous exploration. But he is to-day the companion of kings,
statesmen, and the greatest scientists. The public had nearly laughed his
highest convictions out of him, but on the wings of his inspiration he rose
over all. Entering the great arena of the world like Melchizedek or Elijah,
without even a name, his faith has set his deeds among the stars.

Mr. Lette added to these illustrations Keats and Wagner, and
then related the following incident, with inferential remarks.

1 Bookseller. 2 Sun Newspaper, 1834. 3 North American Review, 1835.

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS. 6j

YOUNG LINCOLN.

Some years ago I visited Springfield, 111., and stood at the tomb of Abraham
Lincoln. The country had already placed the hero's fame among the greatest
apostles of democracy, and that fame has steadily grown, until Lincoln's name
stands to the world for the genius of free and progressive America. The monu-
ment with its heroic figures and emblems stood in the sun, amid the sea of corn-
fields and wheat-fields. The city, like a new Troy, was building beyond it, piling
up its honest wealth. The living spirit of Lincoln seemed to be everywhere, — in
the old home, the half-finished State House, the flag, and universal prosperity.

I met at Springfield an old man who had been an intimate friend of the
great commoner President in his boyhood. I will repeat, very nearly as I
heard it, one of his reminiscences.

" You ought to have seen Lincoln when he was a young man, and just
beginning to study law. He was the curiousest-lookin' fellow one ever saw.
He used to wear blue jean trousers, and he was so tall that they only came
down a little below the knees. The folks used to laugh at him, but everybody
knew he had an honest soul.

" We boys used to sit down on a log at early evening, and how he used
to talk to us and tell stories !

" The world laughed, but there was a power in him even then. He used
to walk ten miles to borrow law-books, and people must have thought it rather
queer that Abe should take to the law. On his return home, after going to
borrow the books, he would sit down half-way on a log by the roadside and
study, he was so eager to make the most of everything. The world laughed
then ; it does not laugh now."

Here, indeed, is a picture of a law student. Walking ten miles to borrow
law-books, and studying them on wayside logs in pioneer Illinois! It is said
that he believed he would one day be President, even when he made a log his
rostrum and the weary emigrant boys his senate. Who would have dreamed
that in that laughed-at youth God had chosen his prophet of humanity, who
would call to the battle-field a million of men, who would emancipate a race,
and who, over a mighty graveyard of dead heroes, would speak words that
would live and breathe through the ages?

Do not be discouraged by a sneer. A sneer is a small weapon, which
strong men never use. Follow your highest inspiration, holding to God,
blind to ridicule and deaf to all the auction-bells of " Vanity Fair." Never
did a man gain the celestial knighthood without passing the slender spears
of ridicule. Faith is success, no matter what the world may say.

68 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

To sum up : Any young man who has an original purpose in life will fall
under ridicule; but if it be a right purpose and an inspiration, and he pursue
it, he will be respected in the end, and that in proportion to the courage of
his convictions. " He laughs best who laughs last."

The boys voted that Mr. Lette 's illustration was the most effec-
tive. The story of President Lincoln's struggle to read law seemed
to touch their hearts.

Among the most studious boys in the Institute was Arthur Burns.
His father had perished off Faroe. On hearing Mr. Lette describe
the opportunities for the emigrant in British Columbia and in the
United States, he desired to return to America with the explorer,
and to secure a farm by homesteading Or pre-emption. He was intro-
duced to young Charles Hampden by Mr. Lette, and the two boys
became friends.

" I would go to British Columbia and settle, if I had the means,"
said Arthur to Charles one day. " How could I earn the necessary
money ? "

" I do not know," said Charles. " I would be glad to go to Wash-
ington and find employment in Seattle or Tacoma, and take a home-
stead in that State or in Arizona when I become of age."

" I wish we might visit the Northwestern Empire together," said
Arthur. " I dream of America continually, and I like you because
you are an American boy."

Charles told Mr. Lette of Arthur's dream and ambition.

" Could we not in some way raise the money for Arthur to emi-
grate ? " asked Charles. " What would a second-class passage to
Quebec be?"

" About ^7, or thirty-five dollars."

"And how much the fare from Quebec to Vancouver?"

" About as much more, emigrant fare."

"Seventy dollars, or .£14," said Charles. "How much would it
cost to settle him on a claim ? "

SOME WONDERFUL STATISTICS.

" HE WOULD SIT DOWN ON A LOG BY THE ROADSIDE."

"About ten dollars for fees, and twenty dollars for a log house;
and he should have some one hundred dollars for provisions, board,
farming implements, and early emergencies. Two hundred dollars,
or ^"40, would give him a start for the first year."

70 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" Could you not earn this money for him through the school ? "

"How?"

" By giving an entertainment."

" What ? Will you suggest one ? "

" A comedy for the holidays."

" What shall it be ? "

" Oh, you could write it. The most humorous story that you
ever heard."

" The oddest incident I ever heard of for a platform comedy was
an experience of some impoverished travellers in the old Hotel de
Batteau."

" What was that ? "

" They thought that a French costumer's room in the hotel was
a den of thieves, and one alarmed another until the scene became
very comical, and ended ridiculously but agreeably. I have often
thought that the incident might be made a pleasing tableau for
exhibitions."

" Write it out, will you not, and read it to the school, and if the
boys like it, ask them if they will give it as an exhibition for Arthur,
to help him emigrate. A good exhibition by the boys would yield
two hundred dollars, or ^40, profit, would it not ? "

" Yes ; entertainments given by the boys are popular. I will write
out the incident in the form of a dialogue for the tableau, and will
read it to the school."

CHAPTER IV.

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

HEN he next met the boys of the Institute, Mr. Lette
said : —

" My boys, several of you have expressed a wish
to emigrate to the Canadian Provinces or to the
United States, and to settle on the government free
lands. But only one of you is of age, and he has not the means to
emigrate. I have a plan that I wish to bring before you. It is to
give a holiday exhibition of a humorous dialogue with tableau, and
give the proceeds to Arthur Burns, who is of age, to enable him to
go to British Columbia and make a settlement there. If the plan
proves successful, it can be repeated as others come of age. Arthur
would correspond with you, and so you would have one of your own
number on the field. How many of you approve of the plan ? "

The proposal met with instant favor. To have one of their own
number go to British Columbia and prepare the way for others was
a matter of intense interest to them. Every boy in the school was
ambitious to have the exhibition take place, to make it a success, and
send Arthur Burns to America.

" You have shown a truly generous spirit," said Mr. Lette. " The
next thing will be to decide what the exhibition shall be. I have
written a humorous dialogue, or comedy, which will admit of some
curious historical tableaux. I would like to read it to you, and illus-
trate its action ; and if you like it, we will at once assign the parts
to the speakers and begin the rehearsal."

72 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Mr. Lette then read the following odd comedy, which the boys
liked, and were unanimous in favor of putting upon the platform as
the means of raising money for Arthur.

THE HOTEL DE BATTEAU;

OR, LADY BLESSINGTON'S CHARITIES.

A Comedy for the Holidays.
CHARACTERS.

MR. TROTT, an American traveller, returning.
MRS. JOHNS, an American traveller, returning.
MONSIEUR LA PLACE, a French traveller.
PATRICK AND BIDDY, Irish laborers.

LADY BLESSINGTON, a London philanthropist.

CURATE.

A FRENCH COSTUMER.

Characters for a series of historical tableaux.

HANS LISTMAN, a German violinist.

PART I.

SCENE I. A platform representing parts of two rooms having a partition between them,
with a door, and over the door a transom, which may be looked through by a person
standing in a chair. One room represents a traveller 's bedroom, and the other the
apartment of a French costumer. The latter contains masks, wigs, costumes, face
paints and powders, and a large chest.

Thomas Trott (alone). Here I am in London again, and London is the
world. This room does look uninviting, I must confess, but it will answer
for a week in winter, when the skies are all clouds and the streets rivers of
fog. When I was in London in the summer, and took rooms at Charing
Cross, and passed my afternoons at Rotten Row and my evenings in St. James
Park, how delightful it was ! But now ^my letter of credit is exhausted, and
I have only £2 left for a week's board, and to pay my fare to Liverpool for
the returning steamer, and I shall have to practise the closest economy. Mr.
Bound, whom I met at Lucerne, said that the Hotel de Batteau was an ex-
cellent lodging-house. Lodging-house ! How cheap that sounds after my
summer and fall life in the great hotels of the Continent; weeks at Basle,
Geneva, and Lucerne, in apartments fit for lords and ladies, and, for that
matter, often occupied by such grand people !

A HARDY FRONTIER LAD.

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 75

Hark, hear the water run ! The river Thames, I suppose, though it
ight be a canal for aught I could tell in the fog. The Hotel de Batteau.
hat a place for a tragedy this would be, — for a robbery, and the body to be
rown into the river below ! An American all alone — no moon, no stars,
nly misty lamps in the fog ! I have read of such things in such places. Just
likely to be me as any one else. Papers have accounts of such things every
y, and Heaven only knows how many crimes the night waters of the Thames
ver. Bodies may have been thrown out of that very window, — splash, that
ould be all. Oh, it makes me shiver! Where's my pocket-book? Here,
my under pocket. Let me see how much— Oh yes! I haven't anything
it, like Lucy Lockett, — only £2 ; that relieves me. But how would a
bber know that? English thieves think that Americans are as rich as the
old Incas of Peru ; but as little as I have, I have nothing to spare. If I were
to lose my £2, I should have to walk from London to Liverpool, and beg
y food along the way. It is well that I have a return ticket to New York.
Looks up. )

What's that over the door, — a transom — lattice — ventilator? The
oor is locked. I wonder what 's in the other room. Let me try the door ;
fast. Let me get up into the chair and see what's there. No, that would not
be honorable, — spying. This is the first time that I was ever afraid of thieves;
but the room does look bare and scary, and the water under the balcony
goes gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, and I can hear cabs rattling, and boatmen swear-
ing, and the city is as black as the shores of oblivion. Oh, that gurgle, gurgle,
gurgle ! I must know what 's in there if it is spying. I 'm suspicious.
(Mounts a chair and looks through the transom. Starts back with open month
and staring eyes, steps down from the chair ; and clasps Jiis forehead in his hands.)
What a place is that, — false faces, scalps, dead men's clothes, all hanging on
the walls ! I do believe it is a den of thieves. I should be safer to go right
out into the night, and wander the streets in the fog and slops, and dodge
among the lamp-posts. I might just as well jump out of the window and
despatch myself at once. No ! I will get my pistols and will watch. They '11
come home by-and-by. (Rap, tap, tap!) Who is there?
Caller. Monsieur la Place, a friend.
Mr. Trott. What can I do for you, Monsieur?
Caller. Will Monsieur the Americanne lend me a match?
Mr. Trott. Yes, yes. You occupy the room next to mine, I suppose?
Caller. Yes, those be my lodgings.

Mr. Trott. Yes, yes, come in ; this is an awful night ! Shocking time for a
tragedy, or a ghost, or —

7 6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Caller. Was you expecting one of doze, Monsieur the Americanne? I
hopes not. I haf never been disturbed in the Hotel de Batteau.

Mr. Trott. Here — matches. {Hands him matches^}

Caller. Merci ! now I will go. I beg your pardon for the interruption.
Monsieur the Americanne looks nervous to-night.

Mr. Trott. Stop! {Makes signs for silence.) Listen! (A noise is heard in
the adjoining room, into which the costumer enters, followed by two yo2tng men.)
Thieves, I do believe. Put your ear against the door and listen. Don't you
leave me! I know that you are an honest man, if you are a — French — a
foreigner. There 's something wrong in this house.

Caller. The same by you, Monsieur the Americanne; I think you be
honest. I hears nothing strange. Monsieur is nervous.

Mr. J^rott. Listen — here — close to the wall. Do you hear that? {Both
listen, and Mr. Trott acts in pantomime Ids surprise and horror at what he hears.)

ROOM No. 2. A room with a window.

Costumer. So you would be Gog and Magog, and represent London's
legendary period. You will be rather hard to make up. But I have made
up thieves and assassins and goblins, and even centaurs, and I will try to
serve you. {Pantomime of suspicion and horror in Room No. I.) Let me
see who you are.

ist Masker. You know that the thirty-three daughters of the Emperor
Diocletian all despatched their husbands —

Mr. Trott {in Room No. i). Hear! hear! {In a whisperl)

ist Masker. And were sent to sea in a ship, and came to London. We
are their descendants. Our fathers were giants. We stand in the Guildhall.
We used formerly to appear in all the Lord Mayor's shows. We were burned
in the great fire. We used to stand on London Bridge, and after that at
Temple Bar, giants.

2d Masker. We ought to be fourteen feet high ; ten will do.

Costumer. You will have to stand on two barrels.

ROOM No. i.

Mr. Trott. Thirty-three of them !
Frenchman. Stand in the Guildhall !

Mr. Trott. Used to rob people on London Bridge and at Temple Bar. I
have n't anything left. This is all very mysterious.
Frenchman. It is very mysterious.
Mr. Trott. What is your theory, Monsieur?
Frenchman. I think that is one place of thieves, where they make over

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 77

peoples ; change der color, hair, eyes, and teeth ; shorten der legs, put a hump
on der back, make tall peoples short and short peoples tall ; put the small-
pox on the face ; make white peoples black, and black peoples white, and
the Englishman a Frenchman, and the Frenchman an Englishman. That isl>
theory, Monsieur the Englishman.

Mr. Trott. Do they — do they have such places as that?
Frenchman. Oh, out — in Paris, we do. Make one all over another man.
Mr. Trott. This is a wicked world indeed. They make over thieves?
Frenchman. Oh, oui — der own mothers would not know them. Don't
u know? Didn't you never hear? Make over one thieve into another —
just the same.

Mr. Trott. This is awful. What was it he said? Thirty-three daughters
the emperor, somebody despatched all their husbands, and he ought to
and ten feet high. Say, if you were in my place, what would you do?
pen the window and cry "Police," or run? Thirty-three daughters! Do
u think that I am in my right senses? I never drink, nor take opium, nor
nothing. Hark ! There are more people in there now, — women's voices, too.
Thirty-three daughters. I hope it isn't any of them. Let me look through
the transom again. You be quiet, and I will make signs to you. There !

ROOM No. 2.

Costttmer. I will have the Gog and Magog transformation all ready on the
afternoon before the act.

ROOM No. i.

Mr. Trott. He is talking about the act.
Costumer. And now, ladies, who are you ?

Ladies. We are weeping queens from the Vale of Avallon. Arthur is
wounded. Shall we bring him in? We shall need to make a study of
positions.

Costumer. Yes, bring him in, and lay him on the rug, just as he will be.
( Gog and Magog bring in the body of a man, and lay him on the rug.*)

ROOM No. i.

Mr. Trott. They have waylaid a man. They are bringing in his body.
He is dead, or dying, with his eyes rolling about, so. Oh, it is awful ; I tell you
it is awful. We must call the police. They are the most distraught looking set
of people I ever saw. Let me step down. (Steps down. Rap, tap, tap /)
Mr. Trott. Come in.
(Enter Patrick and Biddy?)

Patrick. And would you be after lending us a match, would ye? Sorry
a one have we got, an' they don't furnish no matches at the hoffice at all.

78 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

We've taken a room adjoining ye, we have, in the Hotel de Batteau, and it
has got a taller dip, and nothin' but stick of wood to light it with. We would n't
be after goin' to bed in the dark, in a strange place, too. There might be
spooks there, or a secret room, or —

Mr. Trott {pointing to the transom). Secret room. There 's one there
now. Oh-o-o ! They've waylaid a man, — Arthur is his name, — wounded
in the Vale of Avallon, wherever that may be. Gog and Magog killed him.
Just you get up in that chair and look through that transom, and tell me what
you see.

Patrick (looking through tJie transom). They've fetched him, sure. Lot
of women cryin' over him, with their hair all streamin' down their backs. I 'd
like to have my shillalah, and go right in among 'em. Oh, Biddy, we must get
out of this house straight.

Biddy. An' niver a wink of slape will I take now, after all the 'orrid sights
you are tellin' me. I knew the house was no good, when I heard the water
runnin' under it all so lonesome like. The saints preserve us ! What are they
doin' now?

Patrick. The man is dyin', kind o' ginteely like, as though he did n't care,
and the women are all tearin' their hair. I niver see the loikes o' that.
Are we all crazy now, or is it them? They told me this was the Hotel de
Batteau.

Biddy. If I only had that ould broomstick of mine now, — the one I left
in Sligo ; you know about that, Pat, the one I used to have to kape me
home affairs all so stiddy in Sligo; you remember that, sure you do? And
what are they doin' now?

Patrick. Ther's comin' a man with a stuffed cat under his arm, and an-
other man, and they are payin' no attention at all to the dyin' Arthur, but are
bowin' and bowin', and sayin' and sayin', " Did ever a subject have such a
prince? " and " Did ever a prince have such a subject? " and the women are all
smilin' and callin' him " Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London." The
Lord Mayor has come, sure, with a stuffed cat under his arm, and now they
say that the bow-bells all are goin' to ring. It does seem to me that I must
have gone out of my senses. Wrhere are we, Biddy? Sure, didn't they tell us
that this was the Hotel de Batteau ?

(The scenes seen through the transom are to be acted in Room No. 2, as indi-
cated by tJie dialogue^

Biddy. I think that you have gone daft, sure, Patrick. Step down now,
and let me look again. ( TJiey change positions. Rap, tap, tap /)

Mrs. Johns. Pardon, friends ; the lady of this establishment is a particular

""":• .. •••'. • ••; rr

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 8 1

friend of mine, and as she takes a few genteel lodgers, I have come here among
all these tradespeople on my way home to America. My letter of credit is
running close, and my friend the English Madame is not so exacting in her
charges as my friend Madame of the Golden Cross. Can I borrow a match
or two? I occupy a room that was rented by the late Lady Carroll. Very
ancient, I am told, is this same Hotel de Batteau.

Biddy. Hush — tish — thieves, another tragedy, — 'orrid ! No — they 're
goin' to have a weddin' instid of a funeral, and a big woman is singin' — list —
tish — whurra !

{Song is heard from Room No. 2. Solo.)

" The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,
The holly branch shone from the old oak wall,
And the baron's retainers were lively and gay,
A-keeping their Christmas holiday.
And the baron beheld, with a fathers pride,
His beautiful child, young Lovell's bride,
And she with her bright eyes seemed to be
The pride of that merry company.
Oh, the mistletoe bough,
Oh, the mistletoe bough."

Biddy. Now they are all dancing, and the wounded Arthur, he 's better,
I guess.

(Song.) " ! 'm weary of dancing now, she cried,

Here — tarry a moment, I '11 hide, I '11 hide.
And, Lovell, be sure thou art first to trace
The clew to my secret hiding-place.
Away she ran — "

Biddy. Whurra ! There she goes. What doin's and actions ! And now
she is hidin' in a great big chest, right before their eyes, too. Pat, you don't
think we've been takin' a drop too much, now, do you?

Mrs. Johns. What does this mean?

Biddy. Mane? The other room is full of thieves and crazy folks and
ghosts. There 's a wounded man named Arthur, and the Lord Mayor with a
stuffed cat, and we '11 all be arrested and tried in the High Court of Chauncey,
like other great folks for more than a hundred years. What now? There comes

!a tall saplin', and he is after sayin', " Remember, remember the 5th of
November." Tish — be still ! Do I hear my own ears? He says, " Gunpowder
Plot." Tish — he says, ''One hogshead and thirty barrels of powder," and — oh
that I should ever live to see the sorry night ! — he 's goin' to blow up the Parlia-

82 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

ment. It 's conspirators they be^dynamites, Nihilists from Rapscalia or some
foreign parts. We '11 all be blown up, and all go down, down, down into the
river, the H6tel de Batteau and all. Oh that I should ever see the loike o' this !
There, he said " Slow match ! " Whurra ! Let the American Madam look
and see. Here, get up here, and see a sight that will turn your eyes to ice
and your heart to stone. (Mrs. Johns mounts the chair)

Mrs. Johns. This is very extraordinary. I only came here because
Madame is, or was, a particular friend of mine. She 's gone away. I don't know
what I shall do. We ought not to stay in this dreadful place. It 's an awful
night outside. I Ve heard terrible things of these great lodging-houses —
establishments — that hang over the water. There comes a little fat man into
the room — looks clever — they 're going to paint him ! They 're putting a
(pause) hump and a pack on his back, and a fool's cap (pause), and furs (pause),
and bells (pattse), and a wig (pause)) and a long false nose. Let me get down.
{Steps down. Scenes in Room No. 2, acted as before)

Mr. Trott. What is your theory, Mrs. Johns?

Mrs. Johns. We 're in an asylum.

Mr. Trott. Is it we that are crazy, or they? What is your theory, Biddy?

Biddy. Me theory? Seems as though 'twas a wake; I've seen double
at wakes. But I tell ye they be conspirators ; I heard it with my own ears.
Did n't he say " gunpowder plot," and " thirty barrels of powder," and a " slow
match"?

Monsieur la Place. I tell you, Monsieur the Americanne, they are thieves ;
it 's a place where they make over robbers, I know. A man goes in there an
helephant like and comes out a mouse. They have such places in the Seine ;
this is the H6tel de Batteau. How that sounds, — H6tel de Batteau !

Mr. Trott. An awful name! Why did I come here? Oh, I know now,
my pocket-book. I suppose the Hotel de Batteau is known to all the thieves
in Europe. The geese and the foxes have met.

Mrs. Johns. Known to all the thieves of Europe.

Biddy. And sure, did n't you say that Madame Hdtel de Batteau was your
particular friend?

Mr. Trott. This is awful, awful ! What shall we do?

Mrs. Johns. We must stand by each other. We are all unprotected
strangers.

Mr. Trott. We will sell ourselves as dearly as possible.

Biddy. Yes, and sure we will all die together, and have one piece in the
papers about us all, 'orrid murthers it will be, in great letthers. How the
people will stare at it! My name is Biddy McQueen.

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 83

Monsieur la Place. No, there will never be anything about it in the papers,
Madame Biddy McQueen. This is the Hotel de Batteau.

Biddy. And what is that, — such as they had in Paris among the ufisane?

Monsieur. Don't you know? The hotel of the boat, of the water, where all
bodies sink into the water, down, down, down, and nothing more is ever said
or heard, except — listen !

Mr. Trott. Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle !

Mrs. Johns. Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle !

Biddy (in deep tones). Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle! All the saints protect us!
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle !

Mr. Trott. Let us arm ourselves and all stand up in row and await our
fate, and we will see what will happen before morning. I will stand here so,
and hold my pistol so. {Attitude.')

Monsieur. Let me get my loaded cane {Goes and returns stealthily), and
I will stand beside you, so, Horatius like, I will. {Attitude^)

Biddy. I feel horratious like, but T have n't any weapon at all.

Mrs. Johns. . I will get my umbrella {Steals away timidly and returns),
and I will stand beside Monsieur. {Attitude.)

Patrick. There 's a stick of wood in my room ; I '11 get it, and hold it
aloft, Paddy me whack. {Goes, returns, and attitude)

Biddy. And I'll scream " Murther !" and "Police!" I know how; lean
out-scrame a whole neighborhood.

Mrs. Johns. I once read a story called " The Tavern in Spessart," and the
lodgers — the occupiers of apartments — were put into just such peril as we
are in now. They found that there was a plan to rob them. So they armed
themselves, and to keep awake, each one related the most dreadful story one
had ever heard. We might edify one another and cheer us up in this way.
Did you ever hear the story of " The Living Eye in the Portrait "?

Biddy. Did you ever read about the lively doin's of Jack Shepherd?
We Ve got that book in Sligo.

Patrick. I know a story of Captain Kidd that would keep ye all awake.

Monsieur. Did you ever read the " Mysteries of Paris"? There's no need
of it. This is the last night I will ever pass in London.

Mr. Trott. True, true; the last, no doubt. This is an awful situation.

Monsieur. Awful it is, — de Hotel de Batteau.

Mrs. Johns (shaking). Very awful, awful !

Patrick (shutting his eyes). Extramely awful it is. Hear the water there.
All the saints help us !

Biddy (in deep voice, and shaking). Don't say another word, or I will

84 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

scrame. This is what they would call a predicament in auld Sligo. It is never
a such will I get into again !

Monsieur. Never. This is the Hotel de Batteau.

(A strain of music on the violin is heard in the entries^)

Monsieur. That is Hans Listman; he has returned from the concert re-
hearsal. (In a loud whisper?) Hans, Hans, come here. Tragedy !

Violin. (Tune " Silent Night" by Haydn.)

Biddy. Tish, tish, you German boy; this is no hour for fiddlin'. Come in,
ye saplin' of the wind, and stand there. Ye '11 be wanted before morning.

Hans. Wat ish this ?

(A II point to the transom and assume attitudes of horror.)

Mr. Trott. Tragedy.

Monsieur. A robbers' den.

Biddy. An' sure it 's a conspe-racy.

Patrick. An' piracy it is.

Mrs. Johns. There are some insane people in there. They are dangerous.

Hans. But wat, I say, does ish all mean? Ish you crazy?

Biddy. Arra, boy, put away your fiddle now, an' you '11 never need it again.
Ye '11 never see any more Zarmony over the Rhine, ye won't. This is the
H6tel de Batteau.

PART II.

SCENE II. While the above dialogue goes on in Room No. i, the cos turner in Room No. 2
arranges a row of historical and allegorical tableaux. They are the giants Gog and
Magog of the Guildhall; King Arthur wounded at Avallon and wept by women;
Whittington and his cat ; Guy Fawkes ; the Waits; Santa Claus ; and the Angel of
Christmas. The Waits are boy carol singers. The Guy Fawkes should be a frightful
figure, tall and leering, and stuck full of weapons and burglars1 implements.

Costumcr. It is now quarter to ten o'clock, and Lucy Blessington said that
she and the Rector would call before ten on her way from the Charity Lodge.
Hark ! that is her carriage. The tableaux are all ready for inspection, and
I hope she will like them ; she is so good as to arrange all this surprise
for the poor children, and come to this out-of-the-way street to see the re-
hearsal. She is coming on the stairs. Gog and Magog, get into position ;
and wounded King Arthur, and Whittington and his cat, and Ginevra and Guy
Fawkes, and the Waits, and Santa Claus, and the Angel of Christmas, — all.
There, I will turn a soft red light on you now, through the glass reflector;
ready !

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 87

Lady Blessington. I hope I find Monsieur the Costumer well to-night.
Oh, how lovely! Don't you think so, Rector Bonney? Charming! Gog and
Magog, the old London giants, — how they will please the little orphans to-
morrow night! I will tell them the story; why, the anticipation of it makes
me happy now. How I do love Charity Lodge ! All places are pleasant
where one makes others happy. Yes, Costumer, Gog and Magog are just as
I would have them ; and the wounded Arthur wept by the wives of knights.
I must get you, Rector, to relate to the children one of the Arthurean romances,
— the story of the Holy Grail, perhaps. Whittington? Ah, yes, I see. Rector
Bonney, you must also tell the story of Whittington and his cat, and I will pre-
tend to punish wicked Guy Fawkes with a whip. An excellent Guy Fawkes;
fantastic ! I know it will please them so much ! And Ginevra ! here is the
beautiful bride about to hide in the old oak chest. I will read Rogers's poem
to-morrow night. I will hear the Waits sing soon. The Santa Claus is very
good, and the Angel of Christmas beautiful. I congratulate you, Costumer;
have provided an excellent treat for the Charity School,. — excellent. I
im more than satisfied with your work ; and you will be at the chapel early to-
lorrow night, and" I know that you will enter into the spirit of the entertainment,
ind help make us all very happy.

Rector. Your plans all please me very much, Lady Blessington. They are
>uch as lead others to follow their best selves. I have a kind of theory, Lady
>lessington, that the world would be much better if people followed their
>etter hearts. I have some plans of sympathetic work for the holidays, and
would carry them out if I only had the means, Lady Blessington.
Lady Blessington. And what are they, Father Bonney?
Rector. I would like to give each poor family in the parish a little home
library for the children, — a little library of books that inspire to high ambi-
tions. I have a theory, Lady Blessington, that character is formed largely by
'ight models in youth, and the right books furnish the best models. What do
u think of my plan, Lady Blessington?

Lady Blessington. Oh, excellent, excellent ! Do it by all means. Your plan
after my own heart.

Rector. But how shall we secure the means, Lady Blessington?
Lady Blessington. Oh, Father Bonney, I know that you will let me pay for
lat. What were your further thoughts? " The valleys are being exalted."

Rector. Rents ; there are so many people who are troubled about their
rents. They would have a happier Christmas with their families if their rents
were paid. Don't you think so, Lady Blessington?

Lady Blessington. Such thoughts as these ought to be turned into gold,

88 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

as the cakes in the basket of Hungary's margravine were changed into roses.
I hope you will let me pay for that. I am sure you will allow me this happi-
ness. It would so prepare the way for Christmas.

Rector. " The crooked is being made straight." And shoes, — I think that
there is a great blessing in shoes. Don't you think so, Lady Blessington?
Good shoes are health, and there are many people in the parish in poor shoes.
They all ought to have good shoes for Christmas.

Lady Blessington. Surely, surely, they ought. Now, I hope that you will
be willing to let me pay for those.

Rector. " And the rough places plain." Now, pardon me, good lady, if I
have one thought more. It always makes a mother's heart happy to have the
baby remembered at Christmas. And a mother's heart is a sacred thing,
Lady Blessington. I have no doubt that the Virgin herself was glad to hear
the tinkling of the camel-bells of the Magi. I would like to have all the
babies that have come to live in the parish this year have a little gift, in
remembrance of the gold and myrrh and frankincense of life. I would send
them all a few shillings to be spent by their mothers. It would prepare their
mother's hearts for the better enjoyment of the festival. Don't you think so,
Lady Blessington ?

Lady Blessington. Now, I like that, and I hope you will let me bless
myself by doing that. It is so good to have a rector that sees these things.
But sympathy is the real gold of charity. If you think my thought a good one,
I will go and carry the shillings to the mothers myself, and so give my heart
with them. I have been given time, and I ought to turn it into good. I shall
need sympathy myself some day. This is a beautiful, beautiful world, but the
shadow falls sometimes on us all, and we need sympathy then.

Rector. And I know of a certain lady who ought to be remembered in ivy,
holly, and mistletoe.

All present. And so do we.

Lady Blessington. Be quiet, Pygmalions. Statues ought not to speak.

Rector. I would have our good people fill her windows with evergreens, and
her heart with happiness and gratitude.

Guy Fawkes (taking out his pocket-book, comically}. And let me pay
for that.

Cos turner. I will now turn on the golden light with another reflector, and
then you shall hear the little Waits sing.

( Three boys, car oilers, sing the old English carol?)

" God rest you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay ;

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 89

For Jesus Christ, our Saviour.
Was born on Christmas day,
To save us all from Satan's power,
When we had gone astray.

O tidings, O tidings of joy for all astray,

For Jesus Christ, the Saviour,

Was born on Christmas day."

ROOM NO. I.

Biddy. Do you hear that, — " God rest you, merry gentlemen"? Let me
look through the transom once more now. {Mounts the chair.) The saints
above ! If there ain't an angel come down from the heavins, and a mighty
foine lady, and a priest. Now I am beat, sure. What do you think now, eh?
Let me step down; what is your theory now? {Biddy steps into the room
again.)

ROOM No. 2.

•j

First Wait. I just saw a face at the transom.

Second Wait. And I. It was watching us.

Third Wait. I saw it there before the lady came.

Costumer. It is not good breeding to look into people's rooms ; but, Guy
Fawkes, suppose you see if all is right in the other room. Here, get up in a
chair. {Obeys.}

Guy Fawkes. There 's a mob there, — thieves, conspirators (women among
them), dynamites, all around, prepared to attack us. The leader has a pistol.
Oh, what shall we do?

Gog {jumping down from his barrel). Let me look. Tis so; this is the
H6tel de Batteau.

Magog. Let me look. 'T is so ; this is the H6tel de Batteau.

Lady Blessington. I hope that name bodes no evil. It has a mysterious
sound.

Guy Fawkes. A very ominous sound.

Costumer. I assure you all that this is a most respectable lodging-place.
Guy Fawkes, ask the people in the other apartment who they are.

Guy Fawkes (through the transom). Good people, who are you?

Biddy. We Ve found you out, and we 're all ready for you, that we be.
We '11 have you all arristed, we will. Who are you ? We know you, but don't
you dare, or I '11 holler.

Guy Fawkes. We are rehearsing for Christmas, arranging our costumes and
tableaux for the charity festival.

Mr. Trott. Beg pardon, beg pardon. We thought you were — were — dan-

90 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

gerous people. We are lodgers; we armed ourselves for protection. Beg
pardon, beg pardon.

Guy Fawkes (to the Rector). These people are lodgers; they thought we
were dangerous people, and have armed themselves through fear.

Rector Bonney. Very funny, very funny. Tell them we are friends. Ask
them to come in and meet Lady Blessington, and hear the Waits sing. Unlock
the door. (The door is opened by Guy Fawkes.),

Mr. Trott. Beg pardon — we thought you were —

Guy Fawkes. Beg pardon — we thought you were —

Monsieur la Place. Beg pardon — I thought you were —

Gog and Magog. Beg pardon, we thought you were —

Lady Blessington. I am quite sure that you are all honest people.

Biddy. Honest, is it? I 'm quite sure I am an honest woman, and I
know Pat is.

Mrs. Johns. And Madame, my particular friend, keeps this lodging —
this establishment. That 's why I came here among these tradespeople. I 'm
an American lady.

Lady Blessington. Well, well, the coming of Christmas ought to make us
all very equal and friendly, I'm sure. (To Costumer.) Kindly arrange the
tableaux, and turn on the white lights, and we will have one more carol. My
good woman, what shall it be? (To Biddy.)

Biddy. The Irish carol, sure. There never was any carol like that.
Don't you know, — the three ships that sailed right into Bethlehem on
Christmas day in the mornin'. I '11 just sing it to you myself. (Bridget sings.)

" I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day, on Christmas day ;
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day in the morning."

Lady Blessington. This is very pleasing, — don't you think so, Rector? —
to meet people of so many different nationalities in the H6tel de Batteau, —
French, German, Irish, American, our brothers and friends of all the world.
The true Christmas spirit is in it.

Biddy. Och, and so it is. I 'm always glad to mate me friends any-
where. I 'm not particular, me and Pat ain't, now; we've seen too much of the
world.

Mrs. Johns. I knew I should meet excellent people here ; but to find you
here, Lady Blessington, is an unexpected pleasure. This is a lovely estab-
lishment, with grand old Father Thames running under it.

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

•

Biddy. An' who is he runnin' under it ? Madame Grinders, the fish-
market woman it is that runs this two-penny lodging-house. Never mind,
we 're all on an equal here. It 's a foine time we '11 all be havin'.

Mr. Trott. I knew that you were all of the better class of people, with
artistic tastes, though I did not quite understand your movements at first.

Monsieur. Yes, oui, I was sure you were all superior people, or you
would n't have been here, at the Hotel de Batteau.

Lady Blessington. It is the mission of music to create harmony, and of
poetry to express the soul of things ; don't you think so, Rector? We have
had the old Irish carol ; perhaps our friend here, Monsieur, will give us the
old French carol, " The First Noel." You all seem like one family here, in the
Hotel de Batteau.

" The first Noel, the angel did say,
Was to certain poor shepherds of old, as they lay
In the fields where they were keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.

Noel, Noel, Noel,

Born is the King of Israel."

{Let the Waits repeat the chorus pianissimo, to the accompaniment of Hans' s
violin.)

Lady Blessington. I think that one of the most beautiful Christmas carols
in the world is Haydn's " Silent Night." I thought I heard a strain of it
a little while ago on the violin. Will not our German friend here give it
to us? Perhaps the Waits will sing it to the violin.

( Waits sing to the violin, very softly^)

" Silent night ! holy night !
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and Child !
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace."

Mr. Trott. Well, well, I declare, if everybody only was like Lady Bless-
ington, everybody would be good to everybody, and Heaven would be good
to everybody, and then —

Costumer. Everybody would have a merry Christmas inside and out —

Mr. Trott. Of the Hotel de Batteau.

Lady Blessington. Thank you, gentlemen. I wish I were more worthy
f your kind compliments. Now we must surely have one more carol, and

94 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

the sentiment of it, I am sure, will meet the spirit of this most delightful
occasion.

Biddy. Most delightful occasion (bowing}.

Lady Blessington. You seem to have been somewhat alarmed, some of
you, when you first came here. The fine old English carol, " God rest you,
merry gentlemen," contains a sentiment which we shall all share on parting.
What is the night? Let me look out of the window. Oh, I see something very,
very beautiful ! I will lift the curtain, and show it to you at the end of your
song. Let us all sing, " God rest you, merry gentlemen." One of the Waits
will lead, and we will be the chorus.

{Song — one verse. During the chorus Lady Blessington lifts the curtain
and reveals a star, while Hans plays "Silent Night" very softly on the
violin?)

Lady Blessington. It is all clear again; the stars have come back. May
you all have a quiet and happy night, and all the world be blessed inside
and outside of—

All. The Hotel de Batteau.

{Star — magnesium wire touched with flame — low light, and tableaux. If
the window be artificial, the magnesium wire star may be burned inside of
the window under a very low and diminishing light?)

The dialogue, tableaux, and pantomimes of the medley called the
"Hotel de Batteau" were well studied and prepared for exhibition,
and the entertainment attracted a full audience, who asked to see
it again. There was a novelty about it that was pleasing, and
some of the parts were admirably taken and very humorously
presented. The two exhibitions secured for Arthur Burns more
than the ^40 needed for emigration. The boys entered into the
business part of the matter, such as the sale of the tickets, with
great enthusiasm, and the delight of the audience at the final
tableaux made the exhibition an episode of joyous life long to be
remembered.

The entertainment was closed by an impromptu patriotic expres-
sion. The audience sang, " God save the Queen ! " and three cheers
were given for British Columbia, three for Mr. Lette, and three for
Arthur Burns, the young emigrant.

THE COMEDY FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

Aunt Mar continued her investigations in regard to the supposed
visit of John Hampden to America in 1622-23. She found a record
of one Phineas Pratt, who sailed from England in the u Sparrow,"
in 1622. He was one of Weston's colony, and he left a " Narrative "
of his adventures. News came to Weston's Colony that Plymouth
was about to be attacked by the Indians.

" I said," writes Pratt, " that if the men of Plymouth were not
informed of this plot, they and we would all be dead men."

Who should go and give them warning ?

No one would volunteer to set out on such a perilous expedition
through the woods, filled, it might be, with lurking enemies.

At last Pratt resolved to go himself, when the following incident
occurred. We quote from Pratt's own narrative. The spelling of
Hamdin was to have been expected if indeed the person he met were
the English patriot : —

" I came that part . . . Plimouth Bay wher ther is a town of later time
. . . Duxbery. Then passing by the water on my left hand . . . came to
a brock & ther was a path. Having but a short time to consider . . . ffearing
to goe beyond the plantation, I kept running in the path ; then passing through
James Ryuer, I said in my thoughts, now am I as a deare chased . . . the
wolfs. If I perish what will be the condish ... of distressed Englishmen.
Then finding a peec of a ... I took it up & caried it in my hand. Then
finding a ... of a Jurkin, I caried them under my arme. Then said I in my
. . . God hath given me these two tookens for my comfort; yt now he will
give me my live for a pray. Then running down a hill J ... an English
man coming in the path before me. Then I sat down on a tree & rising up
to salute him said, ' Mr. Hamdin, I am Glad to see you alive.' He said, ' I
am Glad & full of wonder to see you alive : lett us sitt downe, I see you are
weary.' I said, ' Let . . . eate some parched corne.' Then he said, ' I know
the caus . . . come. Masasoit hath sent word to the Governor to let him
( ) yt Aberdikees & his confederates have contrived a plot,' etc., etc."

Was this Mr. Hamdin, John Hampden the patriot?

JAunt Mar could not be sure, though it seemed probable. In
:63i, John Hampden the patriot, with Lords Say and Brooke, Pym,

96 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

and others, purchased a large tract of land on the Narragansett
River within the limits of the present State of Connecticut. Did
Hampden see this country across the bay when he visited Massasoit
at Warren ?

Aunt Mar found in the correspondence of Sir John Eliot many
things that would make it probable that Hampden had secretly visited
America, but the proof was not direct and positive. The study of
the lives of Eliot, Pym, and Cromwell occupied the winter evenings
of the Hampdens in London, and one of the noblest biographical
.studies it was. If one would know the really great characters of
England, let him read the lives of the patriots and pioneers at the
period of the Commonwealth and Charles II., — Hampden, Eliot, Pym,
Milton, Williams, Vane, Penn, Lord Baltimore.

Aunt Mar still believed that more positive evidence of the great
historic episode of the visit of John Hampden to America, and his
interview with the great chief Massasoit, would be found.

" I would not wonder," she said, on giving up her studies in
London, " if we found all we have been looking for some day right
at home. Now, remember what I say; I have a presentiment that it
will be so."

Arthur Burns often called on the Hampdens. He gave all his
leisure time to the study of America, reading the great books on the
Northwest, such as Lord Ravenswood's " Great Divide," Magoun's
" Manitoba," " The History of the Hudson Bay Company," the
journals of Vancouver, magazine articles on Lord Selkirk, and articles
on Victoria, B. C. He found but little fiction on the subject, and
no poetry at all, although the Northwestern Empire would seem to
be the most poetic of all new lands, and to invite the highest inspira-
tions of the novelist, poet, artist, and musician. The greater literature
and art of America are likely to be associated with this new country.
The Augustine age of America is yet to come.

CHAPTER V.

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED.

UNT MAR went to Switzerland in the spring. The party
consisted of Aunt Mar, Charles Hampden and Helen
Hampden, and a young lady named Helena Earl,
from Montana. Their course was from London to
Basle by swift train, and from Basle to Lucerne.
They arrived at Lucerne early one spring evening. The glaciers
were gleaming like palaces in the sky ; Mount Pilatus was dark in
twilight shadow, and the lake lay in deep purple under a sky ceru-
lean and amber, pink flowered and gold walled. The sight of a
glacier excited Aunt Mar; it filled Charles and Helen with wonder
and delight; but it did not seem greatly to interest the Montana
girl.

" This is the most beautiful place on earth," said Aunt Mar to
Helena.

The Montana girl looked greatly surprised, but merely said, " Is
it ? "

" Yes," said Aunt Mar. " So travellers and guide-books say. You
certainly never before dreamed of a scene as beautiful as this."
The Montana girl was politely silent.

" Look at Pilatus," said Aunt Mar. " The legend is that Pontius
Pilate came a wanderer to that mountain and committed suicide there
in one of the lakes of the sky. His ghost arises and summons the
storms. They used to ring the bells to appease him. Near us are

98 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

the Lakes of Uri, and the scene of the William Tell legend. Did
you ever see a forested mountain as sublime as Mount Pilatus ? "

" Yes," said the Montana girl, " I think I have."

" Where ? "

" In Montana, British Columbia, and Washington."

" Mr. Lette used to speak of the mountain scenery there as being
very grand, and give cold statistics, but I supposed he spoke from
the enthusiasm of an explorer. Switzerland, I think, comprises some
fifteen thousand square miles of this beautiful scenery, and these
ranges are some two hundred miles long. How long are your
ranges ? "

" I think some .two or three thousand from Mount St. Elias to Popo-
catepetl." The Montana girl spoke rather indifferently, as though
a thousand miles of mountains were not a matter to be exact about
where the territory was so large.

" You live in a valley in Montana? "

" Yes."

" How large is it ? "

" I think it has an area of some seventy thousand square miles.
It has not been very well surveyed."

" Seventy thousand miles ! Four times as large as all Switzerland,
as Mr. Lette said. Your scenery may be more extensive and loftier
than this, but it cannot have such beauty. This is the most beautiful
place in all the world."

" But why ? The long Northern sunsets on the peaks overlooking
the Puget Sound are as brilliant as this, and the twilights, which last
late into the hours that we call night, or past ten o'clock, are as soft,
and have as spiritual a tone of color. I would not like to seem boastful
of my own country, but all the splendor of the sunset around us does
not surpass the beauties of an early evening in the Selkirks, or at Banff,
or near Mount Tacoma or Shasta. The east side of our mountains
may lack a certain spirituality of sky tone, but the evening skies of

IN THE CANADIAN WOODS.

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED.

IOI

Puget Sound seem to me as beautiful as this. I hope I am not
prejudiced. This is a beautiful scene."

After supper the party went out and sat down by the lake.
Helena stepped into the old church for a time to hear the monk

play "The
Organ Tem-
pest of Lu-
cerne." When
she returned
to the H amp-
dens, the sun-
set fires in
the glaciers
seemed dying,

bells were ringing in the distance,
and lights were glimmering on the
Righi. Aunt Mar had been pur-
chasing some minerals from a peas-
ant child, and began at once to talk
with Helena on the chamois, the
mountain goats, and the flowers
of the Alps.

The quicksilver mines of
the Alps did not seem at all
remarkable to the Montana
girl, nor would Golconda itself
have surprised her. As for Al-
pine flocks and pastures, had not
her father ten thousand sheep and
cattle? It was the chamois that

Aunt Mar was most pleased to describe, — its adventurous habits and
poetic mountain ways.

A HERD OF MOUNTAIN SHEEP.

102 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" It reminds me of the Big Horns," said the Montana girl.

" The Big Horns ! What are they ? "

" The Rocky Mountain sheep."

" I suppose that they are as big as elephants, and fly through the
air, bodies and all," said Aunt Mar, losing all patience at having the
wings of her fancy clipped at all points by the Montana girl. " But you
wait until we get to Berne, and we shall see some famous animals."

" What, may I ask ? "

" Bears."

" I have seen some bears, — grizzlies."

" Yes, but you have never seen those of Berne. They are historic
bears."

" No, but I have seen some unhistoric bears."

The Montana girl was very weary, and retired early, leaving the
Hampdens overwhelmed with all the mingling splendors of sky,
glacier, and lake. There was a poem on the scene that Helena had
found in an American paper or magazine, and which she repeated to
Aunt Mar. The dark night fell ; stars mingled their silver fires in
the ice palaces, and Mount Pilatus grew black and the Righi a
shadow. At Chamouni the Montana girl entered into the spirit of
beauty and seemed at home. Stupendous Mont Blanc thrilled her
like the rest of the party ; but at Berne her want of interest again
provoked Aunt Mar.

They went to the historic bear-pits. Berne was founded where
Berthold had slain a bear, so the Bernese keep a bear-pit in memory
of the exploit of the hero.

" Poor innocent creatures !" said the Montana girl. " They remind
me of our bears of the blueberry-bushes."

" These are historic bears," said Aunt Mar, " as I told you. Did
you ever see any as noble ? "

" Why — yes. Did you ever see a grizzly bear of the Rocky
Mountains ? "

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED.

103

" No, I never did."

"It is well you have not; you can enjoy this exhibition the
better for it.

' Where ignorance is bliss, 't is folly to be wise.' "

This was too severe a reflection to go unrebuked. " You repeat
the same stories as Mr. Lette, the Canadian explorer," said Aunt
Mar. " I did think that our Yankee nation exceeded all others for
boastfulness, but they are of small account beside a Rocky Moun-
tain Canadian explorer or a Montana girl."

" I beg your pardon. I did not mean to be disrespectful. I could
hardly help saying that — "

"What?" '

" That these historic bears do not quite meet my expectations."

"Oh!" and Aunt Mar added sharply, "I wonder what would
quite meet the expectations of a girl from a ranch in the Rockies ! "

"I do not know; I do not mean to be boastful. Will you not
come and pay me a visit? You may have free use of my horses, and
I will go with you into the Selkirks, and then you will understand
what I mean. Your nephew talks of visiting the Northwest; I hope
we may have the pleasure of entertaining him. I am sure that he
will regard ranch life a very free and noble one, and will think
that our mountains and valleys and even bears are not inferior to
these. I am sorry if I have seemed rude."

Arthur Burns became acquainted with Helena on the return of
the party from Switzerland. Nothing gave him* so much pleasure
as to question her about life in the great Northwest, partly on account
of his growing interest in the great empire, and partly because the
very agreeable girl seemed pleased to answer his questions, and
enter into the spirit of what he wished to know.

It pleased Helena to so answer his questions as to excite sur-
prise. Once, when he had asked her how long a horseback ride it
would be from one end of Montana to the other, she said : —

IO4

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" Oh, five hundred and forty miles. Do you want to know how
large Montana really is ? Well, we will call it a great trundle-bed.
Come, England and Scotland,
get in first; come, Ireland, you will
need plenty of room, so we
will leave a
long space be-
tween ; come,
Denmark, here
is a wide space
for you ; and
here, little Hol-
land, you can
creep in too.
Now you can
all go to sleep
and not jostle
one another."

" How many
inhabitants

have

you

asked Arthur, one day.

" Oh, less than one hundred and
fifty thousand, perhaps."

" I should think one would be
rather lonesome in a country of one
hundred and forty-five thousand square miles,
with only one inhabitant to a mile."

" But," answered Helena, " nearly all of our

people are rich, and our poorer cousins from over the sea are coming
in flocks, like Sir Joseph Porter's numerous relatives, to keep us
company. Our keeping-room is large enough for them all, and we

A MEADOW BROOK.

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED. 105

ave plenty of grain to feed them all, and plenty of coal to warm
them all. I declare, I do pity the poor of London every time I go
into the streets. I do not wonder that they become hard, and sick
at heart, and ask why they were called into being. They do not
know that God has provided a world for them ; they think that
London is the world. You could not find ragged children enough to
make a school interesting, in all Montana, or in British Columbia."

Once when Arthur asked her how it was the steamers came
loaded every year to Liverpool with visiting Americans, Helena
said, with the free air of her own mountains and plains, —

" Let your people all remember

Uncle Sam is not a fool,
Where the people do the voting.
And the children go to school."

Are not the settlers troubled with wild animals ? " asked Arthur
on one occasion.

" Yes, sometimes," answered Helena.

" What kinds are most troublesome ? "

" Catamounts in the story-books, cats in reality. I once knew
an old lady from Boston who had a fearful adventure -on a Montana
ranch."

" What was it ? "

" She went to the mountains to make a surprise visit to her
son-in-law. When she arrived he was not at home ; he had gone
to Tacoma. So she entered the house and concluded to pass
the night there alone with her little grandchild and an emigrant
servant. In the night she heard a scratching on the roof.

" What is that ? " she asked of the child.

" Nothing but old Catamount," said the sleepy boy.

" A catamount ! " exclaimed the old lady, rising in the greatest
terror, and awaking the servant, whom she informed that a great
catamount was breaking into the house.

106 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

The servant, who had read boys' books of the far West, was
as greatly terrified. The scratching continued, and the two terri-
fied souls sat up all night, expecting every moment that the cata-
mount would break in and devour them.

A WINDING MOUNTAIN STREAM.

In the morning the little grandson awoke.

" Oh, my little innocent, such a night as we have had ! " said
the grandmother. " You said it was a catamount."

" Yes, old Catamount, the cat. There she is now at the door.
Listen — "

"Mieu!"

Miss Helena imitated the inhospitably treated cat with a most

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED.

107

comical expression of the face, her eyebrows lifting, and her lips
protruding with a pout of woe. She evidently was not troubled
about the wild animals of Montana.

Charlie Hampden and Arthur Burns continued their intimacy
until March, when Arthur sailed for America with Mr. Lette, in
an Allan Line steamer to Halifax. They were there to take the

RESTING FOR THE NIGHT.

Intercolonial Railroad for Montreal. Charlie promised to meet
Arthur in British Columbia in June. He was to return in early
summer to Quebec, and had arranged to meet Mr. Lette at Mon-
treal, and to go with him to British Columbia and Washington on
his second trip to Vancouver. Mr. Lette made several trips be-
tween Montreal and Vancouver during the summer.

A farewell meeting was given to Arthur Burns at the Grace Darling
Institute. It was made the occasion of a patriotic entertainment, and
many people were invited who were not connected with the school.

loS

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

The entertainment consisted of Dr. Mackay's cantata, called " The
Emigrants," and some original songs written by Mr. Lette. Dr.

LIVERPOOL ON A FOGGY DAY.

Mackay's song, "To the West! to the West!" was sung with great
spirit, and " Far, far upon the Sea " was beautifully rendered as a solo.
But the most inspiring song of all was " Cheer, boys, cheer ! "

THE STEAMSHIP " AMERICA."

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED.

I II

ON THE MERSEY.

" Cheer, boys, cheer, the merry breeze is blowing
To waft us onward o'er the ocean's breast ;
The world shall follow in the path we 're going,
The Star of Empire glitters in the West.

Cheer, boys, cheer, for country, mother-country;
Cheer, boys, cheer, for the willing, strong right hand
Cheer, boys, cheer, there 's wealth for honest labor ;
Cheer, boys, cheer, for the new and happy land."

112 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

This was sung by all the boys, and the chorus shook the old
building.

Mr. Lette sang a song of his own composition. It was —

THE PLOUGHSHARES OF THE WEST.

HEART of the West, I love thee, —

Thy pulses grand and free,
Thy sails of progress as they move

Across the floral sea.
The pen of art, that song indites,

May stir the gentler breast;
But history's noblest pages writes
The ploughshare of the West.
Good cheer, my boys,
Cheer, cheer, my boys,
The ploughshares of the West.

The world's best hands now drive the plough,

The soil-king's freedom-crowned,
And man's imperial chariots now

Are those that break the ground.
The rime, the rune, the saga old

May be the hermit's quest,
But man's best promise writes the bold,

Brave ploughshare of the West.

Good cheer, my boys, etc.
I

Plough on, plough on, till justice rule ;

Plough, for the ages wait ;
Plough for the church, plough for the school,

Plough for the hall of state ;
Plough, like the hand of Lincoln, plough,

Like Garfield, for the best,
And map the fields of nations now,

Ye ploughshares of the West.
Good cheer, my boys, etc.

Then hail forever, sons of toil,

And hail the work ye do,
Thy field the mighty empire's soil,

And brown thy royal hue !

THE BURNING VESSEL.

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED. 115

And hail ye cabin-palace gates

That ope to every guest ;
All hail ! Heaven's noblest blessing waits
The ploughshares of the West.
Good cheer, my boys,
Cheer, cheer, my boys,
The ploughshares of the West.

Helena Earl took part in the entertainment. She represented
America. She stood beside Arthur in the last tableau, dressed in
white, holding the American flag in such a way that the folds fell
over her shoulders. She looked very beautiful and noble, and the
boys called her the Princess Montana. She sang an American song
composed by one of her friends in Boston, and set to rearranged
music of the old war-tune " Maryland, my Maryland," itself rearranged
from an operatic air.

THE AMERICAN KNIGHT.

LET other lands of knighthood sing !

Thou art my song, America;
In thee each free-born soul is king,
In freedom and America !
Strong were the hands that planted thee,
Grand was the " Mayflower" on the sea,
That bore the seed of liberty
To thee, the world's America !

The ages waited long for thee,
Our own, our own America ;
Then rose the pilot of the sea,
America, America !

He saw the stars prophetic shine,
And dreamed the earth a star divine,
And found, beyond the horizon's line,
Thy happy isles, America !

Let other lands of knighthood sing !

Thou art my song, America ;
Each free-born soul is crowned a king,
In my own land, America !
I love thy homes, where honor dwells,
The honest toil that commerce swells ;
I love thy old New England bells,
My own, my own America !

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

THE BANKS OF NEWFOUNDLAND

Arthur ended the entertainment by singing " God Save the
Queen," under the folds of the British 'flag, which he held in his
hand. The audience responded with : -

"•So say we all of us,
So say we all of us,
So say we all," etc.

WHY THE MONTANA GIRL WAS NOT SURPRISED. 117

Several months later our party were on board the great steam-
ship "America," sailing down the Mersey. Liverpool on a foggy day,
when the smoke does not rise above the chimney-tops, is indeed
unpleasant ; but on this morning the city put on its best ' appear-
ance, the weather being fine, and the sail down the Mersey was
very enjoyable and full of interest.

When but a day out, they saw what is a terrible sight at sea, -
a ship on fire. The burning merchantman was clearly beyond con-
trol ; and the sailors, seeing that their vessel was doomed, were
rapidly rowing toward an inward-bound steamer that was waiting
to take them back to England.

The time on board passed quickly, and almost before our travellers
knew it they were in sight of the Banks of Newfoundland.

CHAPTER VI.

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD TO WINNIPEG. —THE BEAUTY
OF THE LAKES; OR, THE SUN-FIRE: A DRAMATIC STORY OF SAULT
STE. MARIE.

HE lights of the old French city of Jacques Cartier
glimmered on the Heights of Abraham, on the For-
tress, and over the Terrace, as the great ocean steamer
came calmly to rest. It was late in the evening.

" Passengers who wish to land at Quebec to-night
can now go ashore," said the officer of the boat

THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE.

Our tourists were tired of the sea, though the passage had been
a smooth one, and they hurried to the tender, and were soon landed
at the American city of 1535.

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD.

The next day they were on the Canadian Pacific Railroad bound
for Montreal. It was a charming ride, — past the ancient settle-
ments, past Lorette of the Huron Indians, founded nearly two hundred
and sixty years ago, past beautiful
churches and pastoral homes.

Montreal is a surprise, a
splendor, a veritable wonder.

OLD HOUSES IN QUEBEC.

It seems to be a city of churches. Situated on an island formed by
the junction of the St. Lawrence with the Ottawa, and connected
with the mainland by a bridge which is held to be one of the
wonders of the world, overshadowed by Mount Royal, overhung with
melodious bells and gray bell-towers, hospitable with palace hotels
and public buildings, the traveller at once wishes to stop here, and
is slow to go. Old Montreal or Hochelaga, is one of the earliest
settlements in America.

Here our tourists met Mr. Lette, and the meeting was a glad one.

I2O

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Aunt Mar and her niece were to return to Rhode Island after a
few days in the city. Charles and Mrs. Earl and Helena were to
go to Vancouver with Mr. Lette, after which Helena was to return
to her home in Montana by the way of Puget Sound, Tacoma, and

the Northern Pacific Railroad.

The first questions that Charles
and Helena asked Mr. Lette were
about Arthur Burns.

" I left hirn delighted on a home-
stead which he had taken near the
Gulf of Georgia," said Mr. Lette.
"All alone?" asked both.
" No."

" Who is with him ? "
" Wilhelmine."

" Who is he? " asked Charles.
"Who is she?" asked Helena.
"Arthur joined a party of Swedish
emigrants at Vancouver. He had
met them on the train. Among
them was a girl named Wilhelmine.
She was an orphan, and was de-
pendent upon one of the families.
Arthur became greatly interested in

her. On arriving at Vancouver, and going to the Government
Land Office, he found, as I had told him, that this young lady
could secure a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres as well
as himself, and they thought it would be social to take their claims
together. Then Arthur saw that it would be better for them both to
have one log-house, and so Wilhelmine consented that the minister
should be called to make the matter legal and agreeable. They
were living in a tent when I left them, but they will have a log

A STREET IN QUEBEC.

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD.

121

cabin before you. arrive. As soon as the cabin is built, Arthur is to
obtain work in one of the lumber-mills. A place is promised him
at good wages for a
beginner." j^s --: i

" How does the
place look ? " asked
Charlie.

" Like a thousand-
years-old forest," said
Mr. Lette. " They are
clearing with fire a
place for a garden.
They expect to have
a clearing for a prune-
orchard before fall, and
to build a good house
when Arthur has
earned enough money.
The woods are full of
game, and the waters
will soon abound with
wild geese and ducks.
They will have a
rough time for a year
or two, but their three
hundred and twenty
acres of land will grow
in value as the popu-
lation increases, and

they are likely to be well-to-do before ten years. I am glad that
Arthur came to Canada."

That evening, Charles, Mrs. Earl and Helena, and Mr. Lette

FAIXS OF THE MONTMORENCI.

122

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

were on the train for Vancouver, — a train that bridges the conti-
nent and makes the Atlantic Ocean a ferriage.

The cars were solid and comfortable. This road is generally
level between Montreal and the mountains. Wood is much used

THE CHAUDlfeRE FALLS.

on the engines, so that the black coal-smoke of travel is avoided,
and one can sleep as comfortably on these cars as at a palace hotel.
Indeed, a humorist has said that a bride could make a tour across
the continent by this railroad without so much as soiling her veil.
The train stops at least three times a day for meals, and has a fine

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD.

I23

dining-car attached, or dining-cars that are attached at regular inter-
vals. The road between Montreal and Winnipeg is not so interest-
ing beyond Ottawa as is the rest of the way, the last four hundred
miles of which have no equal in
the world.

Ottawa is a poem, especially
as viewed from the river. It
would be even more sightly if
the waters were freed from the
sawdust of the mills. The
government buildings here are
among the most beautiful in
America, and the views of the
river from the parks around
these buildings are a summer
delight. Here our tourists were
met by another Mr. Lette, who
has been the city clerk of Ot-
tawa for some thirty years, a
local poet and orator who loves
his country with real patriotic
fervor, and knows how to ex-
press the sentiment in prose and
verse. With him our tourists

TOBOGGANING.

hastily visited the Parliament

Park, the City Hall, and the wonderful Museum containing the most
interesting specimens of minerals and natural history. If you visit
Ottawa, reader, be sure to see the curious animals, birds, and
Indian masks in this museum. Out of the beautiful Ottawa valley
the train swept on its sunny way to Mattawa, and thence to North
Bay, a city leaping into life out of the woods on rolling Lake
Nipissing; thence to Arthur's Landing, or Port Arthur, nearly one

I24

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST,

thousand miles from Montreal, on the sounding shores of Thunder
Bay. The scenery is wild and desolate in places beyond Port Arthur.

CEDAR BAY, NEAR OTTAWA.

The Lake of the Woods offers the
most interesting views at its outlet,

at Rat Portage. At noon on the third day our tourists were at Win-
nipeg, 1424 miles from Montreal.

Ol'ER 2 "HE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 125

They were now on the Red River of the North and romantic
Assiniboine.

From old Fort Gerry of the Hudson Bay Company, on the great
Lone Land of the mid-ocean territory, Winnipeg, the metropolis of
the Northwest, suddenly began to attract the ears of the world. The
Hudson Bay Company's license over the country ceased in 1859.
Pioneers began to flock at once to the old Company's post. In 1862
a village had been formed, and England began to hear of the grain-
growing ocean of land, in which it rose like an island. In 1870 there
were some thirty buildings outside of the fort. In the fall of 1880 the
Dominion of Canada and a syndicate of capitalists agreed to begin the
construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Clear-sighted people
were not slow to discern that the situation of Winnipeg must make
it a great city if the road should be built. In 1881, speculators
reached the town ; real-estate agents filled it, and its history is in-
volved in one of those transient excitements called a boom. The
town soon became a city ; the railroad, after some changes of man-
agement, was built, and the city enlarged and is enlarging. Its spires
rose over the Lone Land, and its many bells rang over the vast grain
sea. It is a very beautiful city to-day, and has a great history
before it.

The early history of this vast region of the Lakes has many
romantic traditions, and there are few legends of early times that
are more worthy of the attention of musician, artist, or poet than
one we are about to give the reader. Every nation has a few great
legends, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Arthurean heroes of Eng-
land, the Rhine-gold and Faust of Germany, and William Tell of
Switzerland. Such stories become literature, music, and art. They
represent national history and characteristics.

America is yet young. Her great legends have hardly been recog-
nized. When they shall be husbanded for art treasures as in other
lands, the following tale of Sault Ste. Marie (itself a beautiful name

12jb ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

for art work), is likely to become conspicuous, as it has the largest
dramatic possibilities. We may call this legend " The Beauty of the
Lakes." The version of it that we give here is furnished us by Mr.
Fitzmaurice, a well-known Michigan editor and writer. We abridge

SAULT STE. MARIE.

it from a serial story published by him, and use it by his special
permission. The dramatic scene is entirely from Mr. Fitzmaurice's
picturesque pen.

THE BEAUTY OF THE LAKES;

OR, THE SUN-FIRE.
A DRAMATIC STORY OF SAULT STE. MARIE.

One afternoon in August, 1670, the Chippewa village at Ste. Marie's
Falls was thrown into great commotion. The cause was the simultaneous
arrival of what may be termed the representatives of the Cross and the
scalping-knife.

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 127

To explain ; the great Chippewa nation had several branches, the greatest
f which were the Hurons and Objibwas. The branch retaining their
original name of Chippewa had their principal town at Sault Ste. Marie.
North of them was the nation of Iroquois, and south the Objibwas ex-
tended their hunting-grounds from Lake Superior to the headwaters of the
Mississippi.

Waboegonas, "White Otter" (so called from his light complexion), was
chief of the Objibwas. His principal headquarters was upon the largest of
the Apostle Islands, near the south end of Lake Superior. His father,
a Frenchman, had deserted his mother, a Chippewa chief's daughter, while
he was yet a babe. Upon the desertion, his mother, being a high-spirited
woman, committed suicide ; first, however, intrusting the child to the care of
the chief, with the request that he should be brought up and trained to hate
white men and avenge his wronged mother. The old chief was faithful to
his trust, and White Otter's hostility toward the whites was well known.

Pere Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, — born 1637, died 1675, — had labored
among the Chippewas at the Sault for two years. He had been largely in-
strumental in bringing about a treaty between them and the Hudson Bay
Company, who, as a result, were about to establish a large trading-post at
Sault Ste. Marie.

This gave offence to the great war-chief of the Objibwas, and he made
this his excuse for declaring war upon the Chippewas. So he sent Otonogas,
" Gray Wolf," his most powerful lieutenant, to convey his message of dis-
approbation at their harboring the " black coats " and " white snakes," as the
missionaries and traders were respectively called.

By a coincidence, the great war canoe arrived at the mouth of the St. Mary
River at the same time that the French conreurs de bois, with goods to
stock the trading-station, arrived at the Falls a mile below. Hence the
commotion. It was the knife and the Cross meeting face to face.

The great war-drum began to beat, calling the chiefs and warriors to a
grand council.

When all were assembled, Gray Wolf, who was decked in all the barbaric
splendor of his high station, with a rich head-dress of gayly-colored eagle-
feathers, a gray wolf-skin robe trimmed with black scalp-locks, and a painted
face, proudly delivered his message, to the effect that if peace was to continue
between the Objibwas and Chippewas, the " black coats " and " the Jying
white traders who steal Indian maidens " must die ; and then with the war-cry
of the Objibwas he whirled his tomahawk around his head and launched it

128

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

with unerring force at the trunk of the pine forming the centre of the lodge,
to signify that a refusal meant war to the death.

To this the Chippewa chief with his own tomahawk gave an equally
defiant answer, which was received with a shout of approval by the assembled
braves : " Let it be war to the death ! I care not and fear not ! Take thou
back my answer to thy chief, and depart in peace."

At this critical moment Fere Marquette, followed by Greysolon DuLuth,
the brave leader of the traders, pushed his way through the mass of warriors
to the open space in the centre. There he stood, silent for a moment, gazing

RIDEAU FALLS, OTTAWA.

upon the multitude surging around him, astonished at his audacity. His
eyes blazed with the fire of heroic enthusiasm. Fearlessly he stood, and
fearlessly in the name of God he called upon them to cease their blood-
thirstiness, and learn to love and forgive ; and urged them to conciliate the
Objibwa chief and teach him kindness and peace, and turning to the Objibwa,
he said that God could so soften the heart of his cruel chief that it would be
like the heart of a little child, and, upon being dared, offered to go and tell
Waboegonas so to his face.

The Chippewas tried to dissuade him, knowing it was sure death; but he

A WAR CANOE OF THE OBJIBWAS.

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 131

ras firmly convinced of his duty to go in the name of his Master and preach
the gospel; whereupon DuLuth announced his intention to accompany the
holy father.

At early dawn they entered the war canoe of the Objibwas, and started
ipoh a voyage from which the assembled Indians and conrenrs dc bois felt
assured they would never return alive.

They were conducted into the presence of the White Otter, who having
been informed by Gray Wolf of what Marquette had said, was speechless with
rage. He had them bound hand and foot with tough rawhide thongs, and
thrown into the Cave of Death to await the morrow's sacrifice.

DuLuth, for attempting to resist, was knocked senseless by a war-club.
During the night he recovered consciousness and found himself in the im-
penetrable darkness. Soon the stillness was broken by the voice of song
and prayer. It was Marquette. He began to comfort DuLuth, and assured
him of their certain deliverance. " Stand thou still and behold the glory of
God in the rescue." And so it came to pass.

Waboegonas had killed his wife that night because she had interceded in
behalf of the two white strangers. His favorite daughter, Wanena, a beautiful
girl, and known as the Beauty of the Lakes, actuated partly by the same spirit
as her mother, and partly to avenge her mother's death, thereupon determined
to rescue them. Under cover of darkness she crept into the cave, freed
them from their bonds, and guided them by a secret tunnel to the shore of
the lake, amid a thick cluster of cedars, where they were enveloped in a dense
fog. She launched a small birch canoe, and at the same time disclosed her
identity, and her motive in liberating them. She bade them lose no time,
but enter at once and paddle for their lives, and she would pilot them to the
Holy Isle.

This island, which they reached about an hour after sunrise, lies nearly
in the centre of the great lake, midway between Sault Ste. Marie and the
opposite shore. Here the medicine priests of the Objibwas had established
the home of the Great Spirit, and woven every possible legend, fable, and
myth about it, to beget fear and reverence. Here the Objibwas at stated
intervals made pilgrimages to render homage and present offerings to the
Great Spirit, or Manitou, whose image was on the island. It was because it
was held so sacred that she deemed it a safe hiding-place. The canoe was
hidden among the trees. She told them that her plan was for them to
hide on the island until they could see if they were pursued, and then continue
on their way as soon as they were out of danger, while she would remain and
gladly sacrifice herself if need be.

132

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

To this DuLuth responded: "No, my girl, if we escape you go with us;
and God do so to me as I deal with the woman who has so nobly risked her
life to save us. Where shall we hide? "

She led them through thickets and over bowlders, till near the centre of

THE PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, OTTAWA.

the island they began to descend precipitous, steep rocks. Passing through a
narrow chasm between two gigantic pillars, they found themselves in a semi-
circular space of some fifty feet in diameter, the perpendicular walls reaching
up fully seventy-five feet.

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 133

Near the centre, on a flat stone, stood the uncouth image of the Manitou,
a rudely carved pine trunk, six feet high, and dressed in all the possible
Indian fantasy of bark, colored grass, feathers, and beaded buckskin strips.
Scattered about were the offerings in the form of war and hunting weapons,
broken and disordered.

" I wonder if that murdering ruffian will think to look for us here? "

" I think not, my son ; but if directed by the Power that hath led us, he
will come."

" I sincerely trust not, father, else our case would be as hard as before,
were he to find us here."

" He has found you, and no escape is now possible ! " exclaimed a deep
voice.

Starting to their feet, the two men beheld with dismay the dreaded form
of Waboegonas, with eight of his warriors, standing at the entrance to the
sacred enclosure.

They were lost ! The Cross and the scalping-knife had at last met face
to face ! Light and darkness had joined issue ! DuLuth grasped an old war-
club and stood on the defensive, prepared to sell his life dearly. The Jesuit
fell upon his knees and began to recite the prayers for the dying. The Indian
girl covered her, head with her robe and sank down by the edge of the brook,
mournfully chanting her death-song, and awaiting the final stroke, which was
sure to come. The Objibwa chief with folded arms stood and gloated upon
the victims before him with a fiendish grin upon his face, while behind him
stood grouped his warriors, ready at a word to begin the slaughter.

The sun was upon the noon hour, and shot its burning rays directly
into the gorge where the awful tableau was being exhibited. For fully five
minutes the actors in the tragedy about to be consummated were silent, till at
last Waboegonas spoke in sneering sarcasm : " And so the ' black-coat ' and
the white woman-stealer have come to die at the feet of the god of the
Objibwas?"

The priest arose from his kneeling position, and looking the savage full
in the face, replied: "Yes, heathen, if so be our hour has come, we can die
defying both thee and thy god."

So sure was the chief of his prey, that like the cat with the mouse, he
could afford to torment before slaying them. Advancing close to the priest,
he hissed : " Can the * black coat's ' god save his scalp from the knife of
Waboegonas? "

" He can, if it is His will, thou pagan wolf," replied Marquette, " and I defy
thee to do thy worst. We fear not death."

134 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" ' Black coat/ you lie ! "

" I lie not, Objibwa; for as sure as yon sun shines down upon your hideous
idol here, just so sure can the God we serve deliver us out of thy cruel hands ! "

" Ha, ha, ha ! Waboegonas and his braves would be glad to see how your
god can deliver you."

" Come on, you great hulking coward, you slayer of helpless women,
you murderer of unarmed men ! Come to me if you dare, and I will show
thee how a man can fight," shouted DuLuth, whirling his club.

The savage gazed at him with a momentary feeling of admiration : " The
woman-stealer is a brave when he knows he has to die, but Waboegonas
will not soil his hands with a dog's blood. The torment and the fire are
for him."

" Do your worst, you cowardly snake; I defy you ! " retorted the French-
man.

"Man's extremity is God's opportunity, chief," said the priest, raising his
crucifix on high.

The monotonous chant of the girl's death-song filled in the silence which
ensued.

It was a spectacle of sublimity, worthy to be perpetuated, a sight for gods
to admire. The sun glared down with still greater intensity, till the interior
of the heathen sanctuary glowed like an oven.

" Ere yonder sun shall reach the top of that hemlock, ' black coat/ thou
diest," said the chief, pointing upward.

The priest followed the direction indicated by the long, lean, cruel hand,
with finger pointing, and saw that not more than five minutes would elapse
ere the top of the tree would shade the orb.

44 Chief," said the priest, turning to the Objibwa, " thou hast often been
dared to deadly strife, and hast dared others to the same. I am a poor, weak,
unarmed man, and thou a mighty warrior, and still I will dare thee."

" To what combat, ' black coat '? " asked the chief with a sneer.

"To a battle between my God and thine. If the God I serve can conquer
thy god, thou wilt agree to spare our lives, and become, thou and thy warriors,
Christians. If, on the contrary, thy god shall overcome mine, then shall our
lives be at thy disposal. Dare thou ? "

" A battle of gods would certainly be a strange thing : but how are they
to fight?"

" If the God I serve shall send down fire from heaven and destroy thy
god yonder, so that your Manitou be consumed to ashes, will you spare us,
and become a Christian?"

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 137

" I will, if I see the fire come and burn the sacred totem of the Objibwas
yonder. But there must be no white man's tricks. It must be fire from
yonder cloudless sky," replied the chief.

" I have no fire near me, chief, but my God in answer to my call will send
His fire to consume your idol, and if I prevent it not will also destroy thee and
thy warriors."

"That I will better believe, old Joss-a-keed [medicine man], when I see
the sacred totem burning, and not sooner. I heed not woman's words."

" Do you accept these terms, chief? "

"I do ! " replied the chief, confidently.

" Warriors of the Objibwas, you are witnesses to this. Will you swear
by your totem to faithfully do as you have heard promised by your chief? "
asked the priest, turning to the warriors.

" We all do ! " replied the Objibwas.

" Then to this, chief, you also add pardon for your daughter?"

" Yes; show us your great medicine, you old witch doctor."

" And permission for the black fathers and the white traders to preach
and trade with your nation is by you to be freely granted?"

"I do ! Let the fire from your Great Spirit come and save you, for our
knives are thirsty for blood," cried Waboegonas, impatiently.

" In the name of Heaven, what do you propose doing, father? Cannot you
see the murderers are mocking you?" asked DuLuth, excitedly.

" It is in the name of Heaven I act, my son, and may Heaven forgive the
sin, if sin there be, in what I am about to do; but the end fully justifies the
means we use. Now, chief, draw near and behold ; there is no imposition
practised. Oh for the all-powerful faith in God held by Elijah on Carmel ! "

The chief drew closer to the image with evident reluctance, and near by
him stood the priest. The warriors in a huddled group looked on with awed
interest, while DuLuth, leaning upon the war-club, watched with anxiety what
was to happen, of which he knew as little as did the savages. The monoto-
nous death-song of the girl still continued, and the sun's disk had nearly
reached the shade of the hemlock.

" In the name of Jehovah, I command fire to come down and destroy this ,
heathen idol!" shouted the priest in Chippewa, at the same time extending*
the crucifix over the mass of feathers, grasses, and bark, already intensely
heated by the sun's vertical rays. A bright, fluttering spot seemed to dance /
for a moment on the breast of the idol and finally remain perfectly still. In
a few seconds more the chief started back amazed at beholding a thin column
of blue vapor ascending, which almost immediately burst into a bright flame.

138 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Astounded, the Indians beheld the strange phenomenon, which, owing to
the inflammable nature of the material of which the idol was composed,
became in a few seconds more a mass of fierce flames, and with a shout,
"The white man's God has won!" all — with the chief included— fell pros-
trate to the earth and hid their faces in amazed terror.

So thoroughly surprised
was DuLuth at witnessing this
seemingly wonderful interpo-
sition of Heaven in their be-
half, that he too fell upon
his knees and strove to recall
the long-forgotten prayers of
his youth.

•- ~3so -' ^s"S' • ^fe^-T" u

*^S " •""' J." I

A BRANCH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.

It only required a few moments to reduce the idol to a charred billet of
smoking wood, and the deed was done !

"Arise, chief, and behold the power of my God," cried the priest, his
countenance beaming with exultation. Trembling in every limb and thoroughly
conquered, the chief arose, and gazed affrighted at the smoking cinder that
had been his invincible god.

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 139

"Will the mighty black medicine spare Waboegonas?" he timidly asked,
thoroughly subdued.

" Yes, chief, provided you submit to be here bap'tized a Christian, no harm
shall reach you. But you and your warriors must carry out the agreement
entered into."

" We will, great Joss-a-keed ; thou canst do what may please thee best, only
bring no more fire from the Great Spirit," pleaded Waboegonas.

It was a strange sight to behold these wild savages, thoroughly tamed by
superstitious fear, kneeling around the priest, with their weapons deposited at
his feet. The Jesuit looked like one transfigured, as he stood telling the story
of Christianity in fluent Chippewa, till at last, gathering water in his hands
from the brook, he administered the rite of baptism to each, beginning with
the chief, all submitting in passive subjugation.

It was a wonderful triumph for the Cross over the scalping-knife !

Poor Wanena, momentarily expecting the death-blow from the cruel war-
club of her father, had sat crouching, with her head enveloped in her mantle,
crooning her song of death. She was perfectly oblivious of all else transpir-
ing, till the terrified shout from the Indians caused her to look up. It was
an awful sight which met her view. The totem was one mass of ashes,
through which glowed the horrible visage of the idol. For the first and
last time in the life of Wanena she fell into a deep swoon, and so remained
till DuLuth raised her up, when with grief he took it for granted she was
dead.

As for him, a thousand conflicting emotions were coursing through his
mind. His astonishment was fully as great as that of the savages, and so
remained till he could whisper to the Jesuit in French: "Tell me, father, did
the Almighty actually send fire from heaven in answer to your prayers? "

"Alas! for my faith, my son, it was not so; but the seeming miracle had
its origin in very simple and natural causes. This little burning glass, which
I affixed to the crucifix and gathered a focus of the sun's rays by it directly
upon the idol, was the instrumentality in God's hands in saving us ; but the end
justified the means used."

<l Well, father, in view of the result obtained, we will not stop to discuss or
criticise the questionable theology ; but our thanks are due to Heaven that you
were permitted to keep the glass when I had lost my pistols and rifle."

" Which teaches us, my son, that it is not by might and power, but by
God's spirit, men are saved, both in this and the world to come. But see
yonder to the Indian maid. Can she be sleeping? "

DuLuth, as related, found poor Wanena in an unconscious condition.

140 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

A little water, however, sufficed to restore her, when she clung in frantic fear
to DuLuth, who found new emotions surging in his bosom as the pretty
maiden nestled in his arms. Soothing her with kind, endearing words, he led
her in fear and trembling to the presence of her dread father, and said:
" Waboegonas, now that all is peace between us, I have a favor to ask. Let
this little hand I hold belong to me, if its beautiful owner will consent. What
say you, Wanena, — can you become the white trader's bride?"

" Wanena has risked her life for the chief she loves, and joy would fill her
heart to be taken to his lodge," said the happy girl, nestling still closer to the
trader.

" What says the great chief to this? " asked DuLuth.

" That my best-beloved daughter is yours, white chief, especially as you
promise to make her your wife. The mother who bore me gave her life for
a false lover, — my father, — and thus left me as a curse to all pale-faces.
Wanena has the spirit of my mother, and will be a true wife to you. I am
rich in lands and furs. Ten thousand warriors will reply when Waboegonas
shouts his war-whoop, and his daughter will not go to the lodge of the white
chief with empty hands. Take her, chief, and may her fate be happier than
that of her mother — or of mine. I have spoken."

" Chief, doubtless you have suffered, but all things come to an end ; so
with your suffering and revenge. In my mating lawfully with your daughter
a new era opens up for you and your people, and I and the good father here
will do all we may to elevate and instruct the Objibwas."

" Son, said I not, ' Stand still and behold the glory of God '? Are not these
hands still wet with the water of holy baptism ? "

" True, father; and now let the holy sacrament of marriage follow upon the
heels of the other. Make this maid my lawful wife."

" Gladly, my son, gladly ; but first let me here receive her by baptism into
the bosom of Mother Church ; " and kneeling by the little brook in the despoiled
sanctuary of the heathen, the first Objibwa woman received Christian baptism,
after which the words were spoken which made her the loving wife of Greysolon
DuLuth. The Indians, now assured that no fire would consume them, looked
upon all this with much interest, and in the case of Waboegonas it was wonder-
ful how the look of his countenance had softened and humanized. The change
effected in him was real.

" If the white chief and black father are ready, we must cross quickly to
Pawating," said the chief. " Otonogas is there with many warriors, and the
battle may even now be fought."

" Merciful Heaven ! " cried the priest, " and we lingering here ! Let us at

OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD.

141

once seek to stop the slaughter. Away, chief, and prove thy new faith by thy
works of mercy."

The two war canoes which had borne the men who came to slay but
stayed to pray, sufficed to bear the extra passengers ; and driven by stalwart
arms the light barks flew over the lake till they arrived at Sault Ste. Marie.
They were none too soon, as Otonogas had his men ready to attack the
Chippewas that very night. The latter were just as eager for the fray, and a
few hours later would have witnessed a perfect slaughter.

AN ISLAND IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS.

But the arrival of Marquette, DuLuth, and the great Objibwa chief placed
matters in an entirely different attitude. Waboegonas had but few words to
say, though they were to the point. There would be no war ; the mission-
aries and white traders were to enter and dwell where they pleased among the
Objibwas ; the worship of the Manitou was to be in the future dispensed with,
and the God of the black father was to take his place henceforth in Indian
theology.

142 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

It was a time of surprises all around. None was greater than that of the
coureurs de bois when DuLuth introduced his Indian bride, who was received
with all the honors.

The work of Pere Marquette was very much aided and simplified by the
story told far and near of the scene on Holy Island. His preaching was
received with tenfold more favor, and the rivalry of the Joss-a-keeds, or
medicine men, of the tribes, received a serious set-back. Churches were estab-
lished from Mackinac to Duluth, and far into the interior, while the name of
the beloved missionary was to the Indians ever the synonym for all true, good,
and brave, till three years later, aged but thirty-eight years, he died.

Greysolon DuLuth is a character in history ; and here it need only be said
that he lived long and happy with his devoted, heroic Indian wife, who bore
him brave sons and fair daughters. His name is perpetuated in that of the
beautiful city at the head of Lake Superior, where can still be found those who
boast descent from him and his beautiful bride.

CHAPTER VII.

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS.

HE Rocky Mountains are now one thousand miles away,
over a level of green prairies, or steppes, that rise so
gradually that the ascent is not noticed ; over the
Buffalo plains, where only the bones of the buffalo are
left to remind one of the wild empire of gigantic ani-
mals ; over seas of snow in winter and seas of bloom in summer, the
home of the fox, the coyote, the prairie-dog, the nesting-places of the
grouse and the prairie-hen.

The names of the places and railroad towns along the way them-
selves describe the journey, — as Meadows, Poplar Point, High' Bluff,
Portage la Prairie (on the Assiniboine River).

The towns, or railroad stations, occur at intervals of less than ten
miles ; as a rule they contain from about one hundred to one thou-
sand inhabitants. Brandon, the great grain-market, at an altitude
of some eleven hundred feet, has forty-five hundred inhabitants, or
more. The town is less than ten years old, and yet it is already
beautiful.

Near Fleming, the province of Assiniboia is entered, — a name as
full of music as that of the river from which it is formed. Here and
there are ponds, and colonies of water-fowl. At Broadview the Cree
Indians begin to surround the stopping train. The prairie now rises
rapidly until Qu'Appelle is reached, at an altitude of two thousand
feet, some seventeen hundred and fifty miles from Montreal.

144

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Regina, the capital of Assiniboia, has a population of more than
two thousand. Near the railroad station is the governor's residence,
and the headquarters of the Northwestern mounted police. At every
stopping of the train picturesque cavaliers and blanketed Indians
appear. The latter have polished buffalo-horns to sell. At some of
the stations are bright flower-gardens in summer, and chained bears.

A PRAIRIE STATION.

Moosejaw, a busy market-town, has a curious name. The Indians
call it The-creek-where-the-white-man-mended-the-cart-with-a-moose-jaw-
bone.

The name contains the early history of the town. The white set-
tlers abridged the name to Moosejaw, which unpoetic name the town
seems destined to bear.

Next come the Old Wives' Lakes, alkaline, with no outlet, and
surrounded by the wallows of the once long processions of buffaloes.
At Medicine Hat, so called because it was the head of medical sup-

CITY HALL, WINNIPEG.

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS. 147

plies for the Indians in early days, Cree Indians and mounted police
are again objects of interest. At Calgary, 2264 miles from Montreal,
the Rocky Mountains come into view. Calgary is the first step on
the immediate way to the regions of the sky.

Calgary is beautiful. Hills surround it, and white peaks look down
upon it. Here Indians mingle so freely with the people that time
seems to have been set back a hundred years. We are in the land
of the red men. Ranches and great herds are here, foot-hills and ter-
races, and the green waters of the Bow River.

We are now at an altitude of more than four thousand feet. Sud-
denly the high mountain-walls appear in purple, silver, and gold. Wre
are at the Gap. The snows are over us even in midsummer. The
air grows keen ; two peaks rise to the sky like the posts of giant-land ;
The whistle screams ; we enter. We are now among the chimneys
of the Carboniferous ages, going up, up, up, among the glaciers, and
through the rents and ruins of stupendous heights whose history have
long passed the memory of men. Castellated heights rise over broken
walls; there is Wind Mountain, here the Three Sisters. Here are
mountains on edge ; there towers stately and solid rise from eter-
nal bases ; everywhere are dark forests, cascades, and clear-water
streams.

Look into the distance among the clouds. A great mountain is
hurrying to meet us, so it seems. It is miles away, but it approaches
and hangs its crystal fountains over us. How it divides the sky!
How majestic it marches through the blue air! It is Cascade
Mountain.

Where? In the Rocky Mountain Park, or, as it is now known,
the Canadian National Park, or Banff, or Banff Hot Springs. Banff
is the Lucerne of the American Alps; it will one day be the American
Baden-Baden as well. Here is the future pleasure-ground and sani-
tarium of Canada, of England, of the new cities rising and enlarging
on Puget Sound. Banff is a plateau amid granite-like towers that rise

148

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

like unconfused Babels, and of stairways to the sky. Heaven and
earth there meet, and over the emerald waters of the Bow one seems
to drift in the regions of the sky.

The Cascade Mountain is some ten thousand feet high. It has
met us. The train slows. A lovely village is near us. Under the
green forests of Sulphur Mountain carnages sweep down from large

RAFTING: BREAKING A GLUT.

hotels. Mounted police again appear. Well-to-do-looking people are
waiting at the station. There is animation and bright looks every-
where. Yet all seems strange, as though we were out of the world.
We are in the high altitudes now. Mountains foam with cascades,
glaciers glisten, the Bow runs clear with glacier water. One feels light
and happy, as though a great pressure had been lifted. The sky
is a living splendor. We are at Banff.

There was one little animal that greatly amused our travellers

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS. 149

at two points on the way ; it was the coyote. Foxes were often seen
in the morning hours, running away from the coming train. Prairie-
docrs were met everywhere on the plains. They were too well accus-
tomed to living near the track to be frightened. The coyote, or little
wolf, most interested the passengers, and a story was related by an
American traveller which well illustrates the habits of this cunning
animal. We give it here in the story-telling form of the newspaper
or magazine, with some expansion for the sake of greater interest

-WOLVES! WOLVES!"

OR, THE ROGUISH LITTLE COYOTE.

« < C-o-y-o-t-e.' Audley, what does that spell? "

" Coyote," I said. " I think it is a Mexican word."

" And what is a coyote, Audley? "

" A kind of wolf, I think ; is it not? "

" A wolf, a wolf! " Aunt North adjusted her spectacles, and then exclaimed
again, " A wolf? Audley, what do you think I am reading? "

" I do not know, Aunt; a letter? "

" A letter from Elmer. Listen. ' One night the cunning coyotes carried
away our pies, stole them out of our closet through the open window, and we
found the empty plates among the sage-bushes/ "

Elmer lived in New Mexico. He was Aunt North's nephew. His father
and mother died in his boyhood, and Aunt North had given him a home and
an education. She had offered the boy a home from the principles of duty and
chanty. But Elmer had a quick wit, a loving nature, and very attractive man-
ners, and she came to love him. She seemed to think of him all the time. At
last, he was the world to her. Her affection spoiled him. She sent him to
college, and liberally supplied him with money. His money and his generous,
affectionate nature made him very popular among the students ; his easy social
life led to dissipation ; he was expelled from the college, and he returned to
Aunt North in disgrace.

" Elmer," said the good lady, " you have done wrong, but I stand in your
dead mother's place, and will forgive you. No mother ever turned against
her son."

150 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Aunt North was a maiden lady. She was rich, according to town estimate.
Her father and grandfather had " traded at sea," to use the local designation
of an old-time commercial life. She had inherited a good estate, kept it, and
increased it. She had had but one weakness in a long life, — it was for Elmer.
Her affection for him became so strong that she seemed blind to his faults. The
tempter was always wholly to blame in her eyes when Elmer did wrong. When
she said to him, on his disgrace, " I will forgive you," he had replied, " You are
like a mother, Aunt," and had kissed her.

" Like a mother." The words were golden to Aunt North, and they
turned into actual gold to Elmer. Aunt North " set him up in business,"
for these pretty words and the kiss, people said. He failed in something
less than a year. But Aunt North only said, " The poor boy is very unfor-
tunate, and I stand in his mother's stead, and pity him." Among his mis-
fortunes there came another to him; he fell in love with a young woman
of a pretty face, but without good sense, — " not facalized," the neighbors
said, — and one day this unpromising couple disappeared from the place, the
former taking with him his creditors' money. Where the handsome couple
had gone no one knew, and no one but Aunt North and Elmer's creditors
cared to know.

Aunt North paid his debts. She " stood in his mother's stead."

" I cannot give up Elmer," she said. " ' Charity suffereth long and is kind,
endureth all things, hopeth all things, thinketh no evil.' " Aunt North liked
to quote this Scripture. " I was not strict enough with the motherless boy,
but I meant well ; I shall never give him up. We help people by believing
in them and hoping good of them. I shall still love, believe, and hope. He
has a heart, after all. I shall live to see a change in him ; I feel it in my
bones." Aunt North, like other good people of her town, believed " her bones"
to be prophetic.

By "a heart" people thought that Aunt North merely designated that
poetic superficial affection that expresses itself in tender words and pleasing
familiarities. She was a lonely woman ; no one had told her that any one loved
her but Elmer; no lips had kissed her cheek but Elmer's; no companionship
had ever been like Elmer's ; for years Elmer's development and education had
been all her thought and life.

After his disappearance she seemed to brood upon his memory, and
the happy years they had passed together. The townspeople called him
a " scapegrace," and blamed her for her fond attachment to him, and she
came to care nothing for society in which her heart's idol was only
condemned.

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS. 153

Where had he gone? Would he ever write to her? Did he remember her
with love?

Years passed, when one day there came to her a letter from New Mexico.
It was from Elmer. He was living on a ranch in the Organ Mountains.
He begged her forgiveness for the " youthful mistakes " that he had made,
and filled a page with loving memories which he felt reasonably sure his
fond aunt would fill out and indorse like a check. Aunt North read the
letter a hundred times, and always ended it with, " My own dear boy, I
always believed in him."

One day she read it to Judge Holden, who had the care of her estate.

" Miss North," said the judge, " let me advise you. Do not answer that
letter at all. There will come another soon, asking for money. Wait and see.
You will not answer it, will you? "

Aunt North was silent. The prophecy of her " bones " was very active
just now in her mind.

" Not till I get another," she at last said hopefully. " I '11 wait until I
hear from Elmer again."

"You will hear from him again soon enough," said the judge. u That
letter is only a feeler. He knows how ; don't you ever be befooled by such a
scatter-brains as he again. Now, I warn you. I know women; and women
are women ! When they lose their hearts they lose their heads."

" Oh, judge, we used to be so happy once ; and —

" And what? I should think it was ' and ' ! "

" And ' charity,' you know."

" No, Miss North, you stick to Audley here ; he *s got some moral principle
and common sense. So Elmer 's found something to do in New Mexico ; let
him do it. Don't you go to sending him money; keep your money for
Audley. He '11 know how to take care of it" •

During the last year Aunt had become an invalid. Her disease was a
peculiar kind of rheumatism, that had affected and stiffened her joints ; " acidity
of the blood," one of her many doctors had termed it. She had been obliged
to use a crutch, or thought that she had, from the first development of the
disease ; of late she had used two crutches, and hardly took a step without a
halt and a sigh.

So she sat in her arm-chair day by day, and her mind seemed to be far
away among the Organ Mountains, and the coyotes also seemed to be very
active in her imagination.

"You said, Audley, that a coyote was a wolf?"

" Yes, the American jackal."

154 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" A jackal ! " Her cap-border rose like wings. " Oh, Audley, I Ve read
about them in the missionary magazines. They rob the dead."

Here was an evolved view to the terrible coyote.

" How would you like to live in New Mexico, Audley, among the wolves
and the jackals? "

" I should hate to have them eat up my pies," said I.

" Pies ! " exclaimed my aunt. " Oh, Audley, you have none of those finer
sentiments that -Elmer used to have!"

Another letter came from Elmer. It described a sunrise in the Organ
Mountains. It was a glowing letter, full of poetic thoughts and images.
.The sun was described as rising behind enormous pillars of earth, that lifted
themselves to the heavens like organ-pipes. The air was a " crystal sea," and
in these " gardens of the gods " and " resplendent atmospheres " " all diseases
of mind and body, in most cases, utterly disappeared."

Aunt North's imagination kindled. If she could only go to this land
of magical healings and enchantments, her old days of health and happiness
might return to her.

She read the letter to Judge Holden.

" Harden your heart, harden your heart, and don't lose your head," said
the judge. " He knows what he 's about People die in the Organ Mountains.
I never heard of a Mexican greaser that lived forever."

Elmer's next letter described a moonrise in the Organ Mountains. It
affected Aunt as Byron on Lake Leman might have enchanted a school-girl.
She read the Aladdin-like description aloud to me. Toward the close of
the letter her voice faltered, and she ceased reading. Her eyes filled with
tears.

" I always knew it," she said.

"What?" I asked.

" That Elmer loved me. Listen ! "

She read, her hands trembling with emotion: " 'A little girl has been born
to us ; I shall name her Mary North> for you, dear Aunt.' "

She put the letter over her face and cried like a little child. Then her tears
ceased ; a light of hope came into her beautiful face.

" Audley, I used to be so happy ! "

"Yes; well?"

"Do you not think, Audley, that you and I could go to the Organ
Mountains, if we engaged a palace car all to ourselves?"

" But you are a crip — You cannot walk, Aunt."

" Yes, I know ; but we would have a car all to ourselves, Audley."

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS. 157

4< But think what it would cost, Aunt."

" Yes, I know ; but I have spent little money on myself since Elmer went
away. I am not poor, Audley, — not very poor. The trip might cure me ; my
bones seem to say so. The air of New Mexico is wonderful, Elmer says.
Don't mention to any one what I have said. Judge Holden would want a
' gardeen ' appointed over me if he knew that I dreamed of such a journey."

There gradually came a far-away look into Aunt's face. Her life became
a dream. Her " bones " were full of prophecy.

" Next month is Thanksgiving, Audley."

" Yes."

" I wish that we could go and visit Elmer, and see his little girl, and give
him a surprise ; that would be something to be thankful for. I have always
thought that Thanksgiving Day should be one of family reconciliations. If I
were a governor, Audley, I would put that in my Proclamation ; I would ask
every family to make the day one of reconciliation. That would be something
to be thankful for."

" I wish that you were able to go, Aunt."

" Audley, when the mind is able, the body commonly is able. I am
going to write to the agent of the Southern Pacific about it. Elmer was once
as a son to me; we must be reconciled."

One morning Aunt came into the room on her crutches, looking very
happy, holding a letter in her hand.

" Audley," she said, " I am going South, and I wish you to go with
me. I think the journey will do me good. I may find some new doctor
there, too."

" Where, Aunt, are you going?"

" Well, to New Orleans, and farther, if I am able. It is all arranged."

"When are you to start, Aunt? "

" We will start the week before Thanksgiving week. The dates are all
arranged. We are to have a special car as far as El Paso, — you and my
maid and I."

"El Paso? El Paso is not — is not anywhere near New Orleans, Aunt."

" Tut, tut ! Oh, no ; but I know where I am going. It will be a splendid
trip for you, and it will get me out of the ruts of life. I feel that a change
would do me good ; I feel it in my bones."

I was a lad of fifteen years. This would be my first long journey. I
hardly knew where I was going, but I knew I was going to El Paso, and the
very name had the charm of romance. I had also heard Aunt speak of the
railroad " connection with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe route," which

158

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

also sounded very grand. Santa Fe, the oldest town in America, — would I
see that, and the Organos Mountains, " earth's great silent organ," as Elmer
described them, " behind whose golden pipes rise the sun, and whose silver
pipes the moon," and the coyotes, whatever they might be? Aunt seemed
to have forgotten the coyotes, the " wolves that ate pies."

Aunt left the town on her crutches, amid the remonstrances of all her
friends. Every one believed that the journey would somehow end in a visit
to Elmer, and every one thought that her heart was better
than her head.

Away to Buffalo, to Cincinnati, to Chattanooga, and then
away again from the great shadow of Lookout Mountain to
the regions of the cotton-fields ; past Birmingham at night,
with its furnaces blazing against the black sky; over the long
bridge of Lake Pontchartrain, and into the old French city of
New Orleans ! How delightful it all was to Aunt, and what
I?S a geography lesson to me ! I seemed to live a week in a
single day.

Aunt did not stop in New Orleans at all ; she did
not leave the car. In an hour after our arrival we were

flying away toward
the green fields of
M*^ Texas, past live-

E~:; oaks trailing with
moss, and old plan-
tations and quaint
1 negro cabins.

It was a long
j ride from New Or-
1 leans to El Paso,
but we arrived at

the latter place one listless sunny afternoon, and found it full of fine hotels,
to one of which we were taken. The town was alive with Mexican people, and
the next morning I took the horse-car and crossed the Rio Grande, and visited
the old church in El Paso del Norte, in Mexico.

It was a region of brown mountains of all kinds of queer shapes, that glim-
mered in the clear air and bright sun, without any vegetation, not so much as a
tree. The charm of the place seemed to lie in the brightness of the air, the splendor
of the sunlight, and the barren grandeur of the castle-like mountains. It seemed
to me much as Elmer had described the region, a " castle land of the giants."

A GOOD HARVEST.

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS. 159

Aunt rested but a single day ; she seemed impelled to go on. We found
ourselves on a palace-car again, this time on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe
Railroad, and the wonder of the brown mountains with their fantastic shapes
grew. A day's ride brought us to a quaint town, seeming more Spanish than
American, and here in a good hotel, half windows and balconies, our long rail-
road journey came to an end, and Aunt began to make inquiries about " one
Elmer North." The people at the hotel knew him. He lived about five
miles from the place, and I engaged a mule-team to take us there the next
day, at Aunt's direction.

We were among the Organ Mountains. Everything seemed colossal and
strange. The world was pictured in my mind like a vast cathedral, and the
mountains around me were its grand organ, silent indeed, but grand.

We sat on the upper balcony of the hotel that night, and saw the harvest
moon rise. I never had dreamed of anything so scenic and beautiful. We saw
her appearing, like a silver world behind the stupendous pillars of brown earth,
as in a dream. The splendor was inconceivable as she emerged into the clear
air above them. The world seemed changed into some mighty temple, inta
which the goddess of night was descending like Dian, for the moon appeared
not to rise, but to fall. The town was still, the lights few. We went to
rest early.

The next morning, after some assistance, Aunt was seated in the mule-team.
I thought it a hard seat for her with her lameness, which latter I noticed seemed
less troublesome ; but she showed great resolution, and the people of the hotel
and the driver were very kind to her. The morning air was clear and exhilarat-
ing. She left the little maid and her baggage at the hotel to await further orders.
I went with her, and was soon lost to the grand scenery that rilled the atmos-
phere around me, in watching the cunning little prairie-dogs, as they appeared
and disappeared on every hand.

" You are sure that Mr. North is at home," said Aunt to the driver, with
an expression of anxiety in her face.

" Yes, I think so ; he may have gone to the protracted meetin', up to Santa
Fe, — his wife 's turned Methody, — but I guess not. They have a young child,
only a few months old, — a little girl. I guess you '11 find 'em there, but I can't
be certain. A woman can't stay at home forever in these mountains, you know ;
it makes 'em go crazy. They '11 be at home to-night, anyway. Are you any
particular relation of theirs?"

" Yes, I 'm his aunt."

" He '11 be proper glad to see ye, I reckon. Where did you come from? "

" From — near Boston."

160 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" Ah, did you ? So far away from everybody, too. I Ve hearn tell of the
place. It was where they fit the Revolutionary War. A very old place, I
reckon."

The sun brightened. The mountains seemed to burn. The atmosphere
became a calm, living splendor.

" That 's North's place over yonder," said the driver.

A long white house appeared amid an island of low green trees and a gray
border of vineyards.

We presently met a tall, lank settler on horseback.

" Norths at home? " asked the driver, abruptly.

" No, I guess not. He 's gone with his wife to the protracted meetin'."

" His men are at home? "

" No, gone to the cattle-show."

" Sho ! you don't say so. I Ve brought down some company. They '11
all be at home to-night, won't they?"

" Oh, yes, yes, be at home to-night. Let his company stay until they come
home. 'T will give 'em a chance to look around a little."

Aunt looked troubled.

We soon arrived at the clean white adobe house. The driver got down
and opened the door.

" All right, lady ; I '11 help you down and get you in. It 's all right.
North and his folks will be home before long, and proper glad to see ye."

Aunt was helped down with trembling limbs, and with a most distressed
face.

We went into the house. It was a simple place, but very neat. Aunt sat
down, laying her crutches on the floor. I paid the driver, and the team rolled
away in a glimmering cloud of dust.

" I don't feel quite right to be left here, a stranger, in this way," said Aunt.
" Let 's keep the door shut, Audley ; suppose a pack of those wolves — coyotes
— should come, and the folks all away? "

The day passed in dead silence, — a long blaze of sunlight. Aunt watched
through a little window for the return of Elmer, but no human being appeared.
There was plenty of food in the house, and we felt free to eat what we
needed.

At last the great red sun went down between the pillar-like mountains.
Aunt began to look very anxious, and I shared her fears. The moon came up
as the sun went down. The mountains stood like great shadows against an
ocean-like sky. The mountains seemed to grow in size, and the silence of
everything was oppressive. Hours passed ; the evening was late. We listened

PORTAGING A CANOE IN THE WOODS OF CANADA.

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS.

1 63

almost breathlessly for any sound. Moonlight, awful shadows, and silence !
it last we heard a far-away cry.

" Hark ! What 's that? " said Aunt.

It was answered by another sharp cry. Then it seemed to be answered
>y a hundred cries.

"Wolves! wolves!" said Aunt. "The mountains are full of wolves.
)on't you hear them?"

She began to tremble.

" Fasten the windows," said she. " I 'm going to have a trembling-fit."

The poor woman shook all over. I began to shake in nervous sympathy.

She then rose up, and walked to and fro the long, connecting rooms, wring-
ig her hands. I did not notice at the time that she did not use her crutches;
was too much frightened to think of that strange event.

" Audley, do you know the way back to the town? "

" Yes."

" Are you sure? "

" Yes."

"Could you run there?"

" Yes."

" They may not be at home to-night, and we might be eaten up by
:oyotes before morning. I have read of such things. The mountains are full
>f them."

" 'T is five miles to the town," said I.

" But 't is only about half that distance to that last lot of houses that we
>assed."

" About two miles, Aunt."

"Audley, let's go."

" But you cannot run, Aunt."

" Why not? Yes, I can. It is the will that runs, don't you know? I can
*un as fast as you can. I used to run when I was a girl. Why can't I run? "

" I '11 go out and see if the road is clear and safe."

" I '11 go too."

The road lay level in the full moon. The air was like a silver sea.

" Audley, what shall we do? I' 11 start if you will."

Just then there pierced the air the most terrific, spiteful cry, or bark, that
ever fell on my ears. It was, or seemed, answered in the distance, and then
the same sharp cry seemed to change into a hundred, as though one wolf had
suddenly become multiplied into a hundred wolves.

" Yep, yep, yep, yep ! " and we looked around in wildest terror, and were

1 64 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

about to re-enter the house, when we saw an object with a little head on the
top of an adjoining shed.

" They 're climbing the house," said Aunt, " a hundred of them. We must
run. Just hear them ! We cannot go back now. Run ! "

" Yep, yep, yep, yep ! " I never heard such a peculiar, spiteful sound. I
verily thought that a pack of wolves was climbing the house, and would be
likely to leap down upon us if we returned. I ran ; Aunt followed, holding me
by the hanc[. She faltered once, and said something about " crutches ; " but
there came another piercing cry from the vicinity of the house, which seemed,
as before, to change into a hundred voices, and she started forward again with
renewed energy.

The noise seemed to be answered from every hill.

" They think they 've got us," said she; " a hundred of them, or nearer a
thousand. Sounds as though they were biting one another's heads off. They
do sometimes, I've read, — jmt eat one another up."

After this startling recollection we flew. Lights soon appeared ahead, and
then came up a great mule-team full of people. It stopped.

" Hello, strangers! v;hat is the matter? " said a man in a very pleasant voice.

" Wolves ! wolves ! " said Aunt, panting.

" Wolves ! wolves ! " echoed I.

" No, I guess not, good woman. Where did you come from? "

" Boston."

" Boston ! Did n't run all the way, did you? Are you on a visit? "

" I don't know how I ever got here, but I came to visit Elmer North."

11 Then you have not far to go. I 'm Elmer North."

" Oh, Elmer, Elmer ! Let me get up there. The wolves are after us, — a
whole pack of them."

Aunt mounted the team like a school- girl, and sat down, saying, " Oh, I am
so glad that I am safe ! "

" This is n't Aunt Mary, is it? " said the handsome man.

There was a tiny cry. " This is very astonishing," he added. ' That 's
little Mary. Aunt, what were you running for? "

" Wolves ! wolves ! " Aunt uttered the words with awful emphasis.

"Wolves! There are no wolves here. This is a safe country. I never
saw a wolf in my life."

There filled the air another piercing cry, that, as before, seemed to change
into a hundred. " Yep, yep, yep, yep ! "

" There, don't you hear them, — a whole pack of them, at your house, too?
They electrified me."

A THOUSAND MILES TO THE MOUNTAINS. 167

" Wolves ! That pesky little coyote ! He would n't hurt you no more
than a cat. He 's sort of company for us. We don't harm him. We 've made
him tame by leaving food for him out in the yard. You must have lost your
head, Aunt ; but never mind."

" There are a hundred of them. You must have lost your ears, Elmer ;
but never mind."

" Oh, Aunt, you don't understand ; one little fellow makes all those noises.
Why, Aunt Mary, how did you get here? I was never so surprised in my
life."

" I came to spend Thanksgiving with you. I Ve a kind of theory, Elmer,
that Thanksgiving Day should not only be one of reunion, but of family
reconciliation. Don't you think so?"

" Yes, and you are welcome, Aunt Mary ; you are welcome. See, here is
my wife. But I thought you were — "

The team shortly stopped before the long white house. A pretty little
animal ran out of the open door, and passed like a gray streak in the moonlight
over the brown dust.

" There goes your wolf, Aunt Mary, — the whole hundred of them. One
little coyote has many voices, and these voices as many echoes. You left the
door open, and he's been up to some thieving, I '11 be bound. Here, Aunt,
you get down and take little Mary, and we '11 go in and have some supper, if
that coyote has n't eaten it up already."

Aunt took little Mary and carried her into the house.

"What are these crutches for?" asked Elmer, as soon as a light had been
procured.

Aunt looked at them, and, like the " little woman " in the nursery rhyme,
began to cry: "A miracle! A miracle has been wrought! Oh, I am so
thankful ! I knew it would be so ! I felt it in my bones. I used to be
lame, but New Mexico is very electrifying; you said 'twould be so, you
know."

Thanksgiving Day we sat down to a table savory with game from the Organ
Mountains. The doors and windows were open ; there was a gentle coolness
and a glimmering brightness in the air, as though there was being sifted down
from the sun-hazes a shower of gold.

" It is a beautiful day," said Aunt, after the meal. " We ought to recount
our blessings. We are all well; we ought to be thankful for that"

" And your heart has been as true as a mother's to me," said Elmer. " I
did wrong in my young life, but I will be a true son to you now, and as long
as I live ; and my motive is not money or any personal advantage."

1 68

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" I knew it would be so." Aunt here, as usual, proceeded to speak of her
prophetic bones. "I have my boy's heart again; let us be thankful for that.
I was right, Audley. Thanksgiving Days should be forgiving days. We
owe it to our own blessings to make them so. To rise above self and make
others happy is the true Thanksgiving. I wish I were a governor, but I don't
expect that I ever shall be."

" And little Mary here," said Elmer's wife ; " let us be thankful for her!'
" And there goes that miserable little coyote with his hundred tongues and
no one knows how many echoes," said Aunt, with a jump. " He did me more
good than all the doctors I ever had. Let us be thankful for that"

CHAPTER VIII.

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS.

HERE was a young French Canadian on the train, who
was called Jean. He had been a raftsman on the
Ottawa ; he had easy manners, a generous heart, and
good-nature, and could sing happily the boat-songs of
the St. Lawrence and the Canadian rivers. Several
of the songs which he sang on the train have pleasing histories,
and some accounts of them are given in a French work called
" Chansons Populaires," which we find dedicated to the Princess
Louise and Marquis of Lome. The collector is Ernest Gagnon.
Of course the two most popular airs to Canadian ears were " La Claire
Fontaine " and " Vive la Canadienne," which Jean rendered with that
sympathetic action which belongs peculiarly to the French habitants
of the province of Quebec. We give a translated history of these
folk-songs, with a verse or two.

LA CLAIRE FONTAINE.

From the little child of seven years to the old man with white
hair everybody in Canada knows and sings " La Claire Fontaine."
One is not a Canadian otherwise. The melody of this song is very
elementary, and offers little of interest to the musician. Never-
theless, because of its great popularity it is often taken for the theme
of airs of dance and even of concert music. In Normandy they

170 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

sing a song of which the words are nearly the same as those of our
" Claire Fontaine," but the air is wholly different.

" A la claire fontaine
M'en allant promener,
.J'ai trouve Teau si belle
Que je m'y suis baignd.

Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai."

It is a very simple love-song ; a young lover loses his sweetheart
by caprice, and wishes the old happy days of their courtship were
brought back again. The refrain is quite suggestive, sad and spiritual :

" Long time have I loved thee,
I will never forget thee."

This song, sung by an American in the mechanical American way,
would mean little, but put into sympathetic action by a French Cana-
dian would be full of emotional suggestion ; there would be recognized
a soul in it, all the more beautiful because suggested in an evasive
manner. Jean was asked to sing it again and again, and a warm-
hearted French Canadian seldom refuses to grant a friend any favor.

"VIVE LA CANADIENNE."

The melody of this song, as well as that of " La Claire Fontaine,"
holds the place of the national air, until something better turns up.
It is needless to say that the words of " Vive la Canadienne " are
of comparatively recent composition, and did not come to us from
France ; but I must say that the first stanza of this song is the only
one which is generally known : —

" Vive la Canadienne,
Vole, mon coeur, vole,
Vive la Canadienne,
Et ses jolis yeux doux.
Et ses jolis yeux doux, doux, doux,
Et ses jolis yeux doux."

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS.

173

VIVE LA CANADIENNE.

Jean sang the "Song of the Three Rivers" several times; but
the most acceptable song of all to the company as a whole was " En
Roulant, ma Boule," a provincial song of France, that always delights
the ear whenever and wherever heard. It is a mere collection of

174 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

nonsense rhymes, and may be lengthened at will by the rowers on
the sunset rivers and streams. The song relates that a king's son
had a silver gun and went out to shoot a white duck for the down ;
and the rest of the story may be supplied at will, provided that the
words " En roulant, ma boule, roulant," are repeated to measure the
strokes of the oars.

Tom Moore's version of the popular Canadian boat-song of the
Ottawa was sung by Jean and several, of the other emigrants who
knew it well. In fact, there were few on the car who had not heard

" Row, brothers, row ; the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near, and the daylight 's past."

Jean sang the gay paddle-song of the Red River of the North,
which strangely enough is a tale of tropical orange-trees. It must be
pleasant for the Red River voyager to dream of the tropics with -

" A heart to love,
So gay, gay, gay."

PIERRE, THE FRENCH CANADIAN SINGER.

THE BURNING OF THE POWDER-CANDLE.

I can see the old chest now in my mind as I used to glance at it hastily,
very hastily indeed, in my boyhood. It stood there, scarred and dusty, among
the ancestral rubbish of the tool-room. The fact that I only cast telescopic
glances at it was due to my early spiritual education, and to a very alarming
remark that was once made to me by Jerry the clam-digger: " Don't go there,
Sonny ; there is where Pierre the French boy saw the Devil ; don't go near the
tool-room." I needed no further instruction in regard to the matter. Had the
tool-room contained a less startling legend, I might have been tempted to
some intrusion among the superannuated farming implements ; but no Rhode
Island boy who ever listened to the chimney-corner legends of the ubiqui-
tous individual mentioned by Jerry would have ventured on any spot that he
was supposed to visit. In the fine old days of the Charter and Berkeleyan
philosophy, when tar-water was supposed to be the remedy for all the ills of

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS.

177

life, the spiritual world seems to have been very near to Rhode Island. The
old Puritans of the Plymouth Colony seem only to have had visions of grim
ghosts and graveyard people, and the early Boston folks were accustomed to
see yet more awful scenes; but Rhode Island, thanks to hopeful Bishop
Berkeley and Roger Williams, had a more merciful ghost-world, and a brighter
spiritual atmosphere, and it came to be regarded as a disgrace for a Rhode
Island man to meet the Evil One anywhere, and we trust it is so still, now
that the old Charter has long passed the period of its great usefulness. In
fact, it is related that when the Evil One last appeared on the green plantations
of the blue Narragansett Bay, it was to a stately Baptist dame, whom he
wished to terrify from attending evening meetings. She was humiliated to
have met him, and at first did not speak a word, but went on her way indig-
nantly. He at last announced officially who he was. " Then you are a poor
critter indeed, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself," replied she promptly;
and since then, we may imagine, good -angels only have haunted the ways to
the conference-room and the Quaker meeting.

Who was Pierre the French boy? I would ask Aunt Experience Smart,
the whilom village teacher, when we next went hen's-nesting in the old barn.
I would know the meaning of the awful legend so darkly outlined by Jerry
the clam-digger.

The morning after making the resolution to seek for occult knowledge
was a beautiful one indeed. The sun came broad and golden through cur-
tains of damask, and rolled in flames up the dewy sky. The great elms dried,
and the locusts chorussed in their green tents, and the world seemed all life
and light and vivid splendor. Cool winds rippled over the seas of corn, and
the ospreys hung in air on motionless pens, screaming with content. There
was a tremendous cackle in the barn, announcing great events, and Aunt Expe-
rience listened with a serene hopefulness at the probable large increase of her
revenues.

" Come, Sonny," said she, putting on her calash, the most marvellous bon-
net ever invented, — " Come, Sonny, let us go to the barn and gather up the
eggs."

She pushed the roses away from the door, and I let down the bars for her,
and we turned into the orchard, and followed the path to the barn. The
orchard was full of pencilled sunlight and cool shadows. We could hear the
mowers rifling their scythes near by in the meadows, and breathe the air of
the new-cut hay.

The barn doors were open. How hospitable are the doors of an old
Rhode Island barn ! When all other doors were closed against some poor
wanderer of humanity, he would be told he might go and " sleep in the barn ; "

178 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

and there he would bury his sorrows in profound slumber among the sweet
harvest of the meadows.

The swallows were skimming the air, and their young were twittering in
the plastered nests among the beams. Now and then a mother-swallow would
dart into the peak under the roof, when all the air above would turn into
ripples the silvery notes of the young broods awaiting to be fed. The mows
were half full of clover, and the air was odorous everywhere. We stopped
on the cool barn floor to breathe the air and look away to the sea-meadows
and the white sails of the violet sea.

" This is a beautiful world, Sonny," said Aunt Experience. " Don't never
leave the farm, Sonny. Blessed are they who are born on the farm and know
enough to stay there. All of the good Lord's gifts come to the farm."

She crooked her arm over her calash, and gazed into the over-sea of sun-
light that glimmered everywhere, a picture of contentment for a Hogarth.

Her day-dream was interrupted. There was another cackle. An aston-
ished hen had left her nest under the ruffled impression of invaded rights;
the tax-gatherers had come to Jerusalem. The great hubbub was in the tool-
room, among the cobwebs.

" Go, look, Sonny," said Aunt Experience. " Stole her nest in the old
sea-chest, likely as not. That's where I used to keep my Rhininjun [Rye and
Indian] meal."

I opened the door very cautiously. No dark object appeared, — only the
industrious hen. I held the leather latch-string in my hand for prudence and
security, and then I ventured to remark, —

" Aunt Experience, who was Pierre the French boy?"

" Pierre — yes, Pierre ; he was the farm hand that frightened old Deacon
Woodpecker out of his palsy. What made you ask, Sonny?"

" Did he ever see the — see anything strange in this room? "

"Oh, la no, Sonny; it was old Methuselum. Who has been telling you
that story? Run along and get the eggs."

" But who was Methuselum, Aunt? "

" Methuselum ? Why, he was old Methuselum; don't you know? "

Here was indeed a mysterious order of events. Pierre the French boy
had met the dark wanderer of the evil atmospheres in this cobwebbed room,
or else old Methuselum, — I wondered if it were the patriarch Methuselah, —
and he had frightened old Deacon Woodpecker out of his palsy. My imagi-
nation began to grow and glow, and a dark apprehension came over me, even
there amid the meadows of lucid sunlight, under the protection of Aunt
Experience's calash.

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS. 181

" But where did Pierre the French boy see old Methuselum? " I persisted.

" Right there by the chest. He had horns on, and Pierre had just woke
up in the chest and lifted the cover, and — "

A shadow darkened a broad patch of sunlight outside. Hens flew in
every direction. Aunt Experience rushed to the barn door, and shook her
apron with a spasmodic " Shoo, shoo ! " A hawk had swooped down, and
we presently heard a chicken peeping in the sky.

" I declare, it does make my heart ache to see a poor chicken carried off
so" said she. " I wish I had a gun ! I don't believe in killin', but I would
kill that there hawk, I declare I would."

It was a mere matter of the imagination. We fancy that Aunt Experience
had never used a gun, or any weapon other than a Rhode Island button-
wood whip.

Here the excitement abated, and she broke off a broad burdock-leaf grow-
ing near the open door and began to fan herself.

" Who had horns?" I continued.

" Oh, don't ask me anything more about Pierre ! If you will be a good
boy, I will give you a powder-candle next Christmas, and I will tell you the
whole story while it is burning, the same as I did the story of the ' Wee, wee
pig,' last year. Pierre thought that he saw the Evil Spirit, but it was only
old Methuselum. It is a story for a winter night. Let 's gather up the
eggs and go field raspberrying."

Here was indeed something to look forward to, — a powder-candle, and a
story that would make clear all these darkly mysterious events associated
with the tool-room and the old carved sea-chest.

My readers may have never heard of the old powder-candle of Rhode
Island days. It is, indeed, a departed light, but few Christmas inventions
ever created greater interest and amusement. The Rhode Island Baptists
did not celebrate Christmas in their churches, nor the Quakers; yet nearly
all the old farmers' families burned a powder-candle on Christmas Eve. The
custom had been brought from some provincial towns in England, and it
spread in Rhode Island in the following strange way. Each farmer used to
kill each fall the beef for his own use; and the good dames of his richly
stored household used to melt the tallow in an enormous pot, and dip into it
candle-wicks over and over, until the wicks grew to be candles. The candle-
dipping day was an event in the thrifty household. Into one of these wicks
a goosequill filled with powder was tied, to follow an old provincial custom.
This wick became a powder-candle. When burned, it would explode as
the flame reached the quill; and the watching of the burning of the candle

1 82 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

by the young people of the family and their invited friends furnished one
of the most dramatic events of the year. As it had been the old English
custom to burn the powder-candle on Christmas Eve, the rich Episcopal
families of Newport and elsewhere burned their powder-candles on the same
date of the twelve-day festival, and Baptists and Quakers conformed to the
custom.

The burning of the powder-candle on Christmas Eve was often accom-
panied by the telling of some marvellous story, the climax of which was to
be reached just as the candle exploded. Many of the rich families had
obtained their wealth by trading on the African coast, and among the story-
tellers were the Guinea negroes, who would relate adventures with the native
forest giants, and with snakes " a thousand feet long." All the family and t
household listened to these tales out-imagining Cervantes, Smollett, Fielding,
and Scott, from the grand-dame in her high cap and crossed kerchief, to the
turnspit and pickaninny. The negro fiddler was sure to be found at the more
aristocratic gatherings, and roasted Rhode Island greenings and cider were
served after the great shout that followed the explosion of the candle, which
for a time turned the room into smoke and darkness, and made the timid
cringe with real or pretended nervous fear. It was the enjoyment of a modi-
fied form of this curious custom to which I had' already been invited by
Aunt Experience, who always fulfilled her liberal promises. Then I should
know who Pierre was, and Methuselum, and how Deacon Woodpecker's
palsy was cured, and the real truth of the awful event which Jerry the clam-
digger had hinted had taken place in the tool-room in the barn. How I
waited for the autumn trees to turn, the chestnut-burrs to open, and the
snows to fall !

It came at last, that eventful December, and in the mean time I had avoided
with a mediaeval horror the tool-room and the old barn chest. I had even
refused to help pile up the pumpkins and squashes in the tool-room. How
could I know whether the inhabitant of the haunted air was at home or not,
or when he might appear? I think it would have turned me idiotic to have
a glimpse of him, and I had no wish whatever to meet Methuselum, even if
he were the patriarch, as a part of his name seemed to suggest.

Snow fell ; the candles were dipped and dried, and with the candles, the
powder-candle with a big quill of rock powder. I was allowed to invite my
friends to see the burning and listen to the mysterious tale of the old
barn chest.

Aunt Experience was a natural story-teller, one of the story-books of old.
Almost every family had one natural story-teller, as every old castle in

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS. 183

England once had its natural minstrel. They were living books, these old
entertainers, and their faces furnished the illustrations. They acted their
stories, as well as told them, and exercised a sort of magnetic influence over
their hearers. The Guinea negroes were geniuses in producing nervous results
while relating such stones.

I never shall forget Aunt Experience's last year's Christmas story on the
occasion of the powder-candle. It was an English story, and a very curious
evolution of the Hebrew story known as " A Kid, a Kid which my father
bought with two pieces of money; a Kid, a Kid." The story was an alle-
gorical history of the Jews, and the most orthodox people might relate that
on Christmas Eve.

Not all the stories of the Orient, or of Grimm, Andersen, or Fielding,
ever so charmed me as this Christmas tale of the " Wee, wee pig," told while
the powder-candle was burning its thrilling tallow. I will produce a specimen
of it, as among the curiosities of the story-telling art. In order to read it
correctly, or tell it, the words " wee, wee " had to be uttered in a little com-
plaining squeal, like the cry of a young pig, and no one who has not heard
the peculiar cry could tell the story effectively, or appreciate its queer and
comic influence. It began in this wise : —

" Once upon a time there was a wee, wee old woman who lived in a wee
cottage in Cockermouth, England. This wee, wee old woman was one day
sweeping her house with a wee, wee broom, when she found a wee, wee sixpence.
The wee, wee old woman took the wee, wee sixpence, and bought a wee pig,
and started to drive the wee, wee pig to her wee, wee home. She came to a
wee bridge over a wee, wee river, when the wee, wee pig stopped, and refused
to move. Then the wee, wee old woman said to a wee, wee stick, ' Oh, stick,
do beat wee, wee pig; wee, wee pig won't go over the bridge, and I sha' n't
get home to-night' "

It would fill pages to relate the trials of this wee, wee old woman, which
grew and grew, and were ended at last by a little gnat which bit a bear on
the inside of his nose, when the following astonishing series of events hap-
pened. The bear, stinging with pain, began " to kill the dog, the dog began
to kill the cat, the cat began to kill the rat, the rat began to gnaw the rope,
the rope began to hang the butcher, the butcher began to kill the ox,
the ox began to1 drink the water, the water began to quench the fire, the
fire began to burn the stick, the stick began to beat the pig, and the wee pig
began to run over the bridge." Just here the powder-candle went off with a
blackening explosion; all shrieked, and ran about in the darkness as if in
the greatest terror, after which followed a charming merry-making, and the

184 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" wee, wee old woman," and, " the wee, wee pig," and the guests, negroes and
all, brought the scenes of the night to a happy conclusion with a jingle of
sleigh-bells. They are gone, all gone, those happy days, and the snowy
marbles reflect the starlight on the forgotten graves of the actors on the old
Rhode Island hills.

Our dinner on the evening before the burning of the candle was espe-
cially sumptuous. Turkeys, Yorkshire puddings, apple dumplings with potato
crusts, all kinds of dishes made of pumpkin, roast pig, rye1 pancakes and
gingerbread, Rhode Island johnny-cakes and apple-sauce, suet pudding, berry
cakes, boiled pudding, apples, nuts, and cider, — what a board it was ! I have
never seen the like in any modern hotel in Boston or New York.

The long-awaited evening fell with a crisp, frosty air, and a jingle of
bells. They came, the old Rhode Island names, — the Potters, the Almys, the
Buffons, the Barneses, the Chases. The candles were lighted, and the great
kitchen was filled with children, with lovers in the dark corners of the parlor,
and old men with buckles on their shoes before the great roaring sitting-
room fire.

Aunt Experience came down from her room in huge cap, laces, and
brown satin dress. The young people seemed awed by her stately presence
as she sat down in her high-backed chair. She lighted the powder-candle,
and proceeded to relate the story of " Ginevra," in Rogers's " Italy." She
then seized the silver snuffers, glanced slowly and mysteriously around,
and said, —

"There is a carved sea-chest in the barn that has a very grave history;
but it did not prove to be a tomb, as you shall hear. Listen."

The room became very still, and the powder-candle burned slowly and
silently. She gave the burnt wick one pinch with the silver snuffers, and
continued : —

" The old people all remember Pierre Rigot, the Canada boy who used
to sing such beautiful songs at the huskings, and whose only fault was that
he would drink too much, — poor Pierre ! "

Aunt paused, and cast her eyes about the room.

" He came to us friendless and poor, and we gave him a home, and
the young people liked him on account of his amiable ways, his handsome
face, and pleasant, mellow voice. I will first tell you how he was the means
of curing Deacon Woodpecker of the palsy, and then I will relate a strange
event that happened in the tool-room of the barn.

" I ought first to tell you what I had learned of Pierre's history. He had
a father and mother living at Hochelaga, Canada, and the memory of his

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS. 185

mother (' My poor mother ! ' he called her) was always very dear to him. He
said that his father ' drank hard,' and used to abuse him, and that was why he
had come to the States to look for work. He had been brought up a Catholic,
though he gladly attended meeting with me, and came to love the old Quaker
preachers.

" How sweetly he used to sing in French the old Canadian songs ! I
recall them now, and his bright, dark eyes and pleasant smile. His heart
was always full of sympathy; he felt for every one in pain, and when he sang,
it seemed as if his soul was speaking.

" There was one song of his I shall never forget, and I will quote a part
of it to you in French, for perhaps I shall have occasion to speak of it again.
His soul used to seem to take delight in it, — a sort of poetic and spiritual
delight that made his young face beautiful. Where he learned it I cannot tell.
The music was full of emotion.

* Le matin, quand je me reveille.

Je vois mon Je'su venir.

II est beau a merveille,

Cest lui qui me reveille.

C'est Je'su !

Cest Jesu!

Mon aimable Je'su !

'Je le vois, mon Je'su, je le vois

Porter sa brillante croix
La haut sut cette montagne,
Sa mere 1'accompagne.
C'est Jesu !
C'est Jesu !
Mon aimable Je'su ! .

1 Ses pieds, ses mains, sont clouees,

Et son chef est couronne'
Des grosses epines blanches ;
Grand Dieu ! quelle souffrance !
C'est Je'su !
C'est Je'su !
Mon aimable Je'su ! ' "

The candle sputtered at times, but it would require at least a half-hour
for the flame to reach the powder-quill, and the great company filling the
rooms and doors were all eyes and ears, and stood in interrogative attitudes.

1 86 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" Well, about the deacon's palsy."

44 There was a ferocious bull on the place, called Brindle. Pierre had
the charge of him, and kept him perfectly under control. I never saw any
animal paw the earth and bellow like Brindle, and the whole town seemed,
afraid of him. He used to chase the people who came berrying in our pas-
tures, and I never saw fat people and lame people and short people so aston-
ishingly nimble and active as when old Brindle took after them. I have often
heard terrible screams on the hot summer days, followed by bellows that might
have shaken the hills, and have sent Pierre to see that no harm was done to the
flying berry-pickers.

• " Pierre used to bathe in the pasture brook under the great elm every
Sunday morning in summer before dressing for meeting. The bathing-place is
exposed to the bridge, and I used to provide for him a white bathing-suit of
under-clothing and have it ready when he asked for it.

" One Sunday morning in June he asked for his bathing-suit, and I handed
him a red flannel covering, and he hurried away. The bell began to ring for
meeting, and he did not return.

" Just then I saw good old Deacon Woodpecker and his little wife coming
along the way very slowly. The deacon was hobbling on a crutch, and his
wife was leading him by the arm. The thrushes were singing, and the orioles
were swinging among the sun flood in the elms. I stepped out of the door
under the morning-glories.

" ' This is a beautiful morning, Miss Smart/ said the deacon, with a very
melancholy look.

" ' Yes, glorious,' said I. ' How do you do? '

" ' Miserable, miserable. I can only just hobble along, as you see, and I
never expect to take another step in this world without pain. My pilgrimage
is almost done, and a weary journey it will be to the end. I have been e'en-
most an hour coming half a mile. I shake so, and then I have the spring halt
so, and the pain catches me here, and here, and here, and everywhere, — oh, oh,
oh ! ' and he uttered a dismal groan, and added, ' I could not go a step faster if it
were to save the town. Some folks thinks I am spleeny, but I am not ! If you
were to tell me the house was on fire, I could not bring a bucket of water. T is
oh ! and oh ! and oh ! with me, and will be until I die.'

" He hobbled on, a perfect tableau of wretchedness and hopelessness. He
presently turned, and said, 'Would you mind letting down the pasture bars
for me? The way will be shorter across lots. All my ways of life must be
short now.'

" I let down the bars, and the deacon passed over them, with the assistance

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS. 187

of his little Quaker-like wife. I saw them go up the hill, among the sweet-
ferns and wild roses, and went to my room to prepare for meeting. I had hardly
undone my hair before I heard a bellow. I was sure it was Brindle. I recalled
the deacon in the pasture, and my heart beat; but I remembered that Pierre
was there, and the thought brought relief.

" I hastened to the door, when the most astonishing scene that I ever saw
met my eyes. Brindle was appearing above the hill, his tail erect, tearing
up the earth with his feet, and bellowing; and Pierre, arrayed in red, like a
Mephistopheles, his wet clothes sticking to his form, was on the animal's neck,
holding on to his horns. At every plunge that the animal made, the boy's red
form was thrown into the air, but he clung to the horns still. What could it
mean?

" The deacon had stopped. Brindle saw him, and putting down his head
and giving a snort and bellow as of pain, he rushed with the force of a hurri-
cane toward the afflicted man. I saw his little wife bravely shake her parasol.
Then I saw the poor deacon drop his crutch and begin to brush his face in a
very unaccountable manner; and then (could I believe my eyes?) I saw him
start and run, — run like a boy toward the great rock in the pasture, leaving his
poor little wife in the open field. Up the road he went like a badger, followed
by the bull, and screaming, ' Help ! help ! Miss Smart, Miss Smart, run, run !
O Lord ! O Lord ! '

" Something had maddened the bull, and was still maddening him. What
could it mean? I asked over and over. Presently I saw the deacon wheel
around and around on the rock a half-dozen times, and swing his arms like a
windmill, and then he leaped off the rock; and in the face of the roaring
animal he ran like a wild boy toward the pasture bars, crying, ' Help ! help !
O Lord ! O Lord ! '

" The people going to meeting stopped, and armed themselves with clubs
and sticks, and went into the pasture to rescue the little Quaker-like deaconess,
who had fallen down in a limp little heap, and thought that the supreme crisis
of the world had indeed come.

" Pierre leaped from Brindle's horns. His eyes glowed with excitement.

" ' Boy,' said I, ' what does this mean? '

' I cannot help it,' said he. ' Brindle did not know me in red clothes, and
he dove after me. I lifted myself up on the branches of a tree, and there was
a hornet's nest. It was awful. Then I dropped down on Brindle's back, and
oh, oh, oh ! I am all stung up ! ' He began to rub his wounds, and I could
see that he spoke the truth.

"The people gathered to hear the thrilling recital, but half a dozen hor-

1 88 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

nets, which had come to verify this strange tale, soon dispersed them, and set
them flying with otts of terror. The valiant band rescued the deaconess, and
long before the rescue the deacon had gained the steps of his own home,
crying, ' O Lord ! O Lord ! Have I come to this? '

" Talk of miracle cures ! He was not lame again for years ; but alas ! his
influence as a deacon was ever after greatly impaired. (Let me snuff the
candle again.)

" Pierre inherited a love of liquor ; he learned to drink at the huskings, and
this became the poor boy's weakness. He was invited to all the merry-makings
to sing the French Canadian songs, but he usually came home light-headed,
and I at last forbade him to accept all invitations. I hated to do so, for we all
loved Pierre. For a time he obeyed me.

" Years passed. Pierre took to his old ways, and I could not restrain him.
At the huskings, on Thanksgivings, and at Christmases, Pierre was sure to get
intoxicated. He was always penitent after these humiliating days, and often
promised reformation, but his will-power seemed unequal to his resolution.
I almost dreaded the coming of the merry-makings and holidays for his sake.
(Let me snuff the candle; it burns well now.)

" The village Squire's name was Jeffrey. He was an odd character, and did
many things unbecoming the debt that he owed to a dignified profession ; but I
one day carried the burden of poor Pierre's infirmities to him, and asked him
his advice.

" ' Can he be reformed? ' asked I.

" ' Of course he can,' said he. 'Any man can reform if he have a sufficient
motive. The slattern is not a slattern when she has a beau ; tell any man that
you will give him one thousand dollars to keep from his besetting vice for a
month, and he can do it. A man in love rises above all his temptations, and
a sudden opportunity to make money will for the time make the weakest charac-
ter as virtuous in his acts as is the strongest. A frightened man always loses
his temptations.'

" ' But what would you do in the case of Pierre? '

" ' When you find him drunk again, send for me.'

" There was a Guinea negro who lived with the lawyer, very old, named
Methuselah, but commonly called Methuselum. One day, before Christmas,
Squire Jeffrey and Methuselum were riding by and saw Pierre under the
orchard wall stupidly drunk. The lawyer stopped the carriage and fastened
the horse, and the two took up the stertorous body of the poor boy and car-
ried it into the barn. It was near night, the short red twilight of the white
winter day. (I must snuff the candle again.)

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SOA'GS. 19 1

" I saw what Squire Jeffrey was doing, and I drew over me my thick shawl
and went to the barn. The Squire had gone into the tool-room, and was taking
the rubbish out of the old broken sea-chest.

" ' What are you going to do, Squire? '

" ' Reform Pierre. I have always said that any person can be reformed by
a sufficient motive. The revival preachers all understand that. Wesley did —
Whitefield.'

" I protested. I have no faith in tricks of any kind, and fear is not the
most powerful and permanent motive.

" He laid an old horse-blanket in the chest.

" ' Methuselum/ said he, * help me lift the boy into the chest.'

" They did so, and wrapped him in the blanket, and the Squire closed the
lid, putting a cob under it so as to leave a sufficient place for breathing.

" * Now, Methuselum,' said he, ' I want you to watch by the chest, and
strictly follow my directions.'

" ' Yes, sah.' I can hear his broad tone now.

" ' First, let me fix you.'

" ' Yes, sah. Do as you say, Massa.'

"The Squire took down the beefs hide and horns which hung in the room,
and put it over Methuselum, so that the horns might project from the negro's
head, and the hoofs be conspicuous.

" ' There,' said he, placing a broken chair near the chest a few feet away,
' you sit down here, and when the boy wakes up, you stare at him, and grin
at him, so, and SO, and SO ! He does not know you, and when he begins to ask
questions, you tell him that you are Lucifer, and that he is in Tophet.'

" ' Yes, sah. Dat I wilt ; all them things, sure.'

" ' I will hide and do the rest.'

"' Oh, Squire,' said I, ' this does n't seem right. You will never reform poor
Pierre in any such way as this. Fear is not a sufficient motive for the reforma-
tion of any one. There is only one power in all the world that will conquer
evil habits, and that is love. Pierre has a heart; reach that, and you may
change him.'

" ' Bring me a candle for Methuselum/ said the Squire, ' and some of that
medical phosphorus from the house.'

" I did so. Phosphorus had begun to be a popular medicine at this
time.

" The candle was lighted, and set down near Methuselum. The phospho-
rus was rubbed over the palms of the negro's hands.

" ' When he begins to wake,' said the Squire, ' rub your hands over your

192 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

face. Remember, you are Lucifer. Do as I have told you. You go away,
Miss Smart, and I will wake him.'

" It was quite dark now. The shaded candle shed a dim light about the
room, and old Methuselum, with his black face and luminous hands, great
mouth and cow's feet, was indeed a fearful-looking object. To complete the
awful figure, the Squire put a cone-like eel-basket on the top of his head,
and rubbed phosphorus over it, so that it looked like a fool's cap of fireless
light.

" ' Now/ he said, ' I am going to wake Pierre.'

" He pounded upon the chest. I stepped into one dark corner of the room,
and the Squire into another.'

"There was a stertorous breathing in the chest, but no response.

" The Squire raised the lid of the chest and shook the boy, then closed it
again on the cob.

" A half-hour passed in waiting, with several attempts to awaken the boy,
when a movement was heard in the chest, and a pitiful wail, ' Where am I? '

" Then the lid of the chest began to be slowly raised in the shadow, very
slowly. It dropped down again, and we heard a groan of terror. Then all
was still.

" The lid was slowly raised again. The poor boy's eyes ventured to look
again on the awful object watching over him in the shadows. I could see his
hand tremble as he held up the lid.

" ' You — sur,' said Methuselum, plastering his face with the phosphorus.

" ' You — sur,' repeated Methuselum.

" Pierre dropped the lid in terror. We could hear him praying in a dazed
and bewildered way. I wished to rush forward and break the delusion, for I
have no sympathy with deceptions of any kind.

" The lid was cautiously raised again. Methuselum, all aglow with phospho-
rus, now met the bursting eyes of the boy. The negro, in the strange light,
with his horns, hat, hoofs, and open mouth, presented the most terrifying object
that I ever saw.

"'You — sur?'

" Say, ' Down, Caleff; what would you have?' mumbled the Squire.

"'Down, Caleff; what would you have?' said Methuselum, like a spectre
of darkness and fire, his white teeth grinning as if gloating over the ruin of
human souls.

" ' Where am I ? '

" The negro, following his master's instructions, played the cruel part well,
and represented himself as the Spirit of Evil, as he indeed looked in the thick

STORIES OF THE CA ACADIAN RIVER SONGS. 195

and uncertain shadows. The Squire seemed greatly amused, but I had too
much pity and sympathy for the boy to care for anything but his rescue from
such a perilous fright.

" Pierre fell back again, overcome for a moment by these exciting shadow
scenes. What beings surrounded him? He was uncertain, in the low light
and his clouded brain. At last we heard a movement in the chest again, fol-
lowed by the chink of an empty bottle, possibly in his pocket. The sound
evidently awakened his old appetite. We heard him mutter, ' It is no use.'
Temptation was on him again, even amid all these fearful uncertainties. Temp-
tation, without love, without hope. Heaven pity the man to whom the evil hour
comes in this way !

" The lid of the chest began to lift again, slowly, slowly. A white hand rose
out of it in the grewsome candle-light, and in it was a bottle.

" He gazed on Methuselum.

" ' Say — come here,' he said tremblingly. 'I want to go to sleep — to
sleep forever. May my poor old mother never know ! She loved me, and I
would have died for her. Come here. Can you, — can you tell me how I can
get this bottle filled once more?'

" I saw the bottle waving to and fro, glittering. I could endure the scene
no longer, but rushed forward to the chest.

" ' Oh, Pierre, Pierre ! ' I said, ' have you come to this? Can it be possible
that your soul is enslaved by drink like that? Oh, Pierre ! ' '

" Squire Jeffrey was furious.

" ' Miss Experience/ said he, * you may see in him an utterly hopeless soul.
No power on earth can ever break the habits that hold him. He is as much
enchained by evil as though his fate was already fixed. Boy, get out of
that chest ! '

" He seized Pierre and shook him."

Aunt Experience gave a glance at the candle. She saw it was burning near
the powder-quill, and moved away from it. " He shook him so" she continued,
laying her hands on one after another of the boys, so as to direct attention away
from the candle, that the explosion might come unexpected, and be the greater
surprise. " And old Methuselum rose up so" Aunt was acting now. She
moved her arms about as though to represent the confusion of the tool-room,
and to make the mental atmosphere as nervous as possible.

Flash !

There was a sulphurous explosion, followed by a chorus of shrieks. The
powder-candle had gone off. The rooms were filled with powder-smoke, and
poor Pierre was for the time forgotten. Laughter and cries, jokes, kisses, and

196 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

all kinds of antics followed, and when the air cleared, apples and coffee were
brought out, and the boys and girls were provided with a candy-pull. The
black fiddlers played the Virginia Reel, and Money Musk, and Fisher's
Hornpipe, and the Devil's Dream, and the merry-making lasted until the
hands of the old English clock pointed to midnight. Then voices chorussed
" Merry Christmas," and all went home under the crystal stars of the frosty
morning.

The excitement that followed the explosion of the powder-candle, and the
candy-pull and merry-making, had led us all for the time to forget the
fate of poor Pierre. As soon as the last sleigh-bells had died away in the
snowy roads, the French boy's incomplete history recurred to, me. I returned
to Aunt Experience as she stood before the dying embers of the great logs
and said, —

" Did the Squire's experiment reform Pierre? "

" No," said she, " but another experience did."

" Tell me," said I.

" I will to-morrow night," she said. " It is too late now."

The same question on the morrow seemed to have come to the minds of a
number of the guests, for the next evening several people called, and each asked
Aunt Experience the same question, — " What became of Pierre? "

The Christmas night came with a cloud of snow. The winds whistled about
the corners of the house and down the great chimneys, and we were glad that
the interrupted story of the merry evening before was to be continued ; for with
all his weaknesses there was something in the history of Pierre that had
won our hearts.

" Poor Pierre," continued Aunt Experience, " was n't reformed by his expe-
rience in the old carved sea-chest. Deception and terror do not change one's
nature. Only love does that, — a sense of love, human and Divine. The Squire's
theory was right, although he was so swift to lose confidence in it after his
unfruitful experiment.

" The quickening power came to Pierre at last like a good angel, and ful-
filled all his better desires, and enabled him to live his better and his true
self; for our better selves are our ideals.

" One day there came to the boy a letter from Montreal. It told him that
his father was dead, and said that the dream of his old mother's heart was that
he would let her come to him.

" He brought the letter to me.

' My poor old mother ! ' he said. * I would do anything for her; my heart
bleeds. Miss Experience, if you will let me bring her here, I will never drink

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS. 199

a drop of liquor again as long as I live, — indeed, I will not. I love my mother.
I will do anything for one I love ; I would die for such a one, Miss Experience.
You think me weak and bad, and have giyen me up to my failings ; but there
are some people that I love better than myself.'

" ' But, Pierre, the fright of the old barn chest did not give you any will-
power, or correct your ways. How can I be sure that the care of your mother
would? '

" ' That was a cold, heartless trick and deception/ said Pierre.

" ' But suppose I were to allow you to bring your old mother here, and you
were to fill her last days with double sorrow by drinking again? '

" ' No, before God, Miss Experience, that shall never be ! Unless some
one tell her, she shall never know that I ever drank at all. I love my mother;
and oh, it would make me so happy to make her happy in her old age. She
had such a hard life with father. I have seen her go hungry for days ; and I
have seen him strike her, I have. I am sorry I have inherited his weakness,
but, Miss Experience, I have prayed and struggled for deliverance a hundred
times, and when I woke up in the old barn chest I thought that God must be
dead. Give me a chance to follow my better heart now, and you shall never
see me drunk again.'

" 'But where would you live, Pierre?'

" ' Oh, let me hire two rooms of you in the old house under the hill ; you
say that you would tear it down, only that you were cradled there. We would
be so happy, and it would make you happy in your prayers to think you had
reformed me. Wouldn't you like to be happy with your prayers? I think
that would be the greatest happiness on earth.'

" I hesitated.

" ' Miss Experience, I have struggled ; my soul has struggled in the night.
I wish I were a spirit, for spirits can have their desires, and we poor creatures
cannot Oh, I wish you could see my true heart ! You would know that I
am not bad there.'

" I sat in silence. How beautiful he looked, — his dark eyes and his fine
form! The silence became painful.

" He at last looked up to me and said, repeating a part of the Pauline
apostrophe : 4 " Charity believeth all things, hopeth all things, and thinketh
no evil. It suffereth long and is kind." Miss Experience,' he added, with a
sudden flow of spirits, ' let me sing you a song/

" His anxiety passed away like an April cloud, and he sang in French the
queer old ballad of 'Dans les Prisons de Nantes/ or how the jailer's daughter
helped a handsome young prisoner to escape. The words themselves were

2OO ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

a ripple of music, and the story had an ending which put one into the best
heart.

' Dans les prisons de Nantes

Lui y a-t-un prisonnier, gai, faluron, falurette,

Lui y a-t-un prisonnier, gai, faluron, donde.

' Oue personn' ne va voir
Que la fill' du geolier, gai, faluron, falurette,
Oue la fill' du geolier, gai, faluron, donde.'

"He laughed when this song-story was over and the last 'falurette' had
melted in air. His sympathetic manner engaged my heart in spite of its hard-
ness, and I grew so human that I said, —

" ' Well, Pierre, you may let her come.'

" ' Oh, Miss Experience, you are so good ! the world is all sunlight
now, —

" Ouand il fut sur ces cotes
II se mit a chanter, gai, faluron, falurette,
II se mit a chanter, faluron, donde :

" Que Dieu be"niss' les filles,
Surtout cell' geolier, gai, faluron, falurette,
Surtout cell' du geolier, gai, faluron, donde.

" Si je retourne a Nantes,
Oui, je 1'espouserai ! gai, faluron, falurette,
Oui, je Pespouserai ! gai, faluron, donde." '

" One September day, when the golden-rods were fading, and the apples
were mellowing, and the locusts piping in the still sunlight that was an ocean
of golden lustre, the stage-coach came rattling down to the village, past the
red orchards, yellow cornfields, and rowened meadows, and left a single pas-
senger there.

" It was the old mother of Pierre.

" He went for her with a wheelbarrow, his face full of delight. The farm
horses and wagons were all away. So, like the hero of the nursery rhyme, he
brought her home in a wheelbarrow, but without any such disaster as that
related in the old ditty.

" A little woman she was, decrepit, but with a very refined and sympathetic
face, and manners all vivacity and grace. It seemed to make her perfectly
happy only to look at Pierre.

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS.

2OI

" Pierre began to work on the farm with new fidelity. He had a care for
everything. How faithful he was ! Training-day came ; he did not go to the
parade, but remained at home with his old mother, and they had a little spread
of peaches and cream and melons and election cake. Training-day used to be
one of special temptation to Pierre.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS FROM ELBOW RTVER.

" The huskings came. He went and sang ballads as of old, and delighted
the young with the old French boatmen's melody, ' En Roulant ma Boule,' the
paddle-song of the Ottawa. But when liquor was passed around, he always
said ' Merci, — I do not drink any more; mother, you know — excuses.' If
one tempted him further, he would break into, —

' Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule,'

and the tempter would lose his purpose in the pleasantry.

4 Thanksgiving came with rustic merry-makings, and Christmas with boun-
tiful dinners and musical nights, but none of the merry-makings brought a
drop of liquor to the lips of Pierre. When I called on his mother on my way
to the village, she once said, * God bless you for being so good to Pierre ; it

2O2

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

takes but little to make life happy, if that little is love. A golden heart has
Pierre, and I think it has been touched by Heaven, like an altar. A singing
heart is the most beautiful altar in the world ; you have made two hearts sing.
Pierre and I share such thoughts as these between us. This is a beautiful
world.'

" In the winter
the old French-
woman died. How Pierre
wept as they laid her
away under the snow !
4 He will return to his
old ways now/ said every
one. But he did not.
There came another suf-
ficient motive, — sym-
pathy.

" The spring brought
the great epidemic of

typhoid fever, that desolated the town. Pierre did not fear it at first, but as
case after case proved fatal, it became difficult to obtain watchers to take care
of the sick. The best watcher in the town was Pierre. Night after night the
boy might be seen going to some sick-room, and for two months his nights
were passed in the atmosphere of the pestilence. He was so feeling, gentle,
and tender ! He anticipated every want. Everybody spoke gratefully of him,
even Squire Jeffrey.

" But one day, amid the early blooms of May, the report went round that
Pierre had become exhausted, and was lying in the old house sick and alone.

A VIEW ON THE ELBOW RIVER.

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS. 203

Our own home was full of sickness and anxiety, but I sent the doctor to see
Pierre, and he returned with the dread announcement, ' He has the fever/

" There was no one to take care of him in the condition of affairs. I sent a
farm hand to see him three times a day, and I visited him each evening and
administered medicines. I have never met such a soul as his, and I shall never
forget those evening visits.

" * Miss Experience,' he said, ' I am going to die. It makes me so happy
to think that the Lord is willing to take me now ; I might fall into my old ways
again. Last night I had a dream, Miss Experience. I thought I saw a great
cross uplifted in the western sky, and the cross was pearl. That was a good
dream. This is the month of May, a good time to go away, — and I am going
soon. But, oh, I pity the tempted ! '

" He grew worse, and was delirious for weeks. He fancied that he was in
the old barn chest. One day, in a sudden return of reason, he said to me, —

" ' Miss Experience, when I am gone, let the old Quaker minister come
and say " Our Father." He need n't say anything more. Why should he for
Pierre? God will take care of me. Miss Experience, Heaven loves me, and
I have overcome the world.'

" One day the hired man came running with the message, ' Pierre is
dying, and he wants to see Miss Experience.'

" I hurried away to the old house, and stopped to breathe, before I entered,
under the blooming cherry-trees. It was a beautiful morning. The old
orchards were loaded with flowers and humming with bees ; every breeze
scattered over the cool, green sod drifts of apple-blooms. The cherry-trees
were white and the peach-trees red. Bluebirds were flitting in the woods, and
orioles flaming among the sun-filled elms. Oh, it did seem dreadful that a
young life should go out into mystery amid scenes like these !

" I entered the room. He lay there, amid the sickening odors of the fever,
a breeze from the orchard blossoms now and then stealing over him. A
humming-bird darted in at the open window and out again.

" His face lighted up with gratitude.

' Oh, Miss Experience, I am glad you have come,' said he. ' It is a
beautiful morning, and I am going away soon. Miss Experience.'

" ' Well, Pierre.'

' Did you ever think that new horizons come to you wherever you go ;
they are lifting, lifting, lifting, — those curtains of heaven.'

" ' Yes, Pierre.'

' I am dying, Miss Experience, and new horizons are lifting. I think that
it will always be so, forever1 and ever. The same hand made both heavenly

2O4

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

flowers and these. This is the month of May, and I am going away into God's
great shining gardens. I shall be with mother to-night.'

" His spiritual eye seemed to receive light. He looked upward, and his
soul seemed to glow through his thin white face, like a golden lamp in a vase
of alabaster.

" ' Miss Experience ! '

" ' Well, Pierre.'

"'The pearl cross that I saw, — I hope it was meant for all poor souls.
I love everybody, Miss Experience.'

" ' Well.'

" ' Put over me a wooden cross. Put I. H. S. on it; that means more to
me than you can see now. You will see more when the horizon lifts, Miss

ONE OF THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY'S STATIONS.

Experience, and you wait by the doors in the morning. And put on it, — put
on it, " Pierre and his Mother.'"

"The cool May -breezes came in, and the room was full of the echoes of
bird-song everywhere.

" His face changed. His eyes grew lustreless, and there followed a deep
breathing, slower and slower. A perspiration spread over his face ; then there
was a tremor in his hands. The beautiful eyes became fixed. I wiped away
the sweat, and kissed his forehead. His breathing became mechanical. His
breath was cold, and I thought he was gone.

" But he seemed to return to the world again.

" ' Miss Experience,' he said, as if waking from a dream, ' the horizon — the
horizon is lifting. It is brighter beyond. I cannot see you, Miss Experience,

STORIES OF THE CANADIAN RIVER SONGS. 205

but I can see. Everything is growing clear. I see the pearl cross lifting,
lifting — '

" He felt for my hand. I took his. There was a flutter of breath, and his lips
parted motionless, but the power to close them seemed to have gone forever.
But they trembled again ; the tide of life flowed back on the shining sand once
more.

"' Miss Experience, you do pity me, don't you? '

" ' Yes, Pierre.'

" ' But I am happy here/ — his white hand fell on his heart.

' Je me reveille,
Je vois mon J£su venir.

' When I awake,
My Saviour near I see,
Most wonderfully beautiful;
3T is he who wakens me :

C'est J£su !

C'est Je"su !
Mon aimable Jesu ! '

" He seemed lost in happy dreams. Then the old French manners' melody
that he had heard somewhere, and that had ever haunted his poetic mind, came
back again, —

* Ses pieds, ses mains/ etc.

' His feet, his hands are pierced,
And to his forehead clings
A crown of thorns. Oh, think, my heart,
What dreadful sufferings !
C'est J£su ! '

" An angel's wing passed, — so it seemed to my fancy. The last flutter of
the soul came.

" ' Pierre ! '

" The room was silent, the lips silent, the face silent.

" ' Pierre ! '

" The birds were singing in the orchards and woodland pastures ; the flowers
were blooming everywhere, and the breezes winging amid buds and balms.

" I closed his eyes, crossed his hands, and covered him with a sheet. The
inward struggle was over, the outward, — where, oh, where, ye celestial hori-
zons of God? "

CHAPTER IX.

BANFF.

[MONG pyramids older than the Pyramids! Lift your
eyes ten thousand feet. See Cascade Mountain flow-
ing with crystals ; note the solitary bird whose gray
wing encircles the peak. On what an upheaval of
rocky temples its eye looks down !
But the Bow River; will it compare with Lucerne and the clear
waters of Uri ? The Swiss lakes are purple, but the Bow is green.
Both Lucerne and Banff are as wonderful for the clearness of their
waters as for the height of their mountains.

But the Hot Springs of Banff; what are they? What is Sulphur
Mountain ? It is a mountain that pours hot sulphur-water, clear and
gold-like, from its sides. Where is this water heated ? Only theory
can answer. How? Only theory can speak again. Far up the
mountain it pours forth. What volcanic caverns and wells are
below them ? No eye has seen ; no one can tell. People come to
this volcano land and go, but know no more of what is beneath them
than of what is in the stars above them. One stands by the yellow
stones of the mid-mountain hot springs, and feels that the earth, like
life, is a mystery.

No carved Lion of Lucerne is here; but what is the Pool of which
one hears ? Let us go and see. A house, a covered passage, lights,
and a roof of stalactites ; a great well, clear as glass, through which
bubbles rise out of the earth. Look down, — fairy-land. Look up, —
a dome of gems.

BANFF. . 209

How beautiful is Spray River, glacier fed ! How glorious is the
cascade of the emerald Bow River under the very balconies of the
o-reat hotel! One may hear the eternal music of the waterfall here, —
the symphony of the glaciers, the chorus of the hills, but not at
Lucerne.

A few miles ride, what peaks appear! The Inglismaldie, Peechee,
more than ten thousand feet high. Yonder we may reach the
Vermilion Lakes, or Devil's Head Lake with its fifteen miles of
glacier splendors.

But we cling to the Bow. " And he shewed me a pure river of
water of life, clear as crystal." The Bow is a water rainbow. The
red or pink phlox covers its banks with flowers, — red, blue, emerald ;
the sun adds gold. Where are we ? Shall we stay, or back to the
common world again?

A bird flies swiftly over the broken wall of the sky. A gray
cloud shows its head. It sails up, and darkens ; there is a rush of
cool winds through the gorges. The cloud puts out the sun. There
is an electric gleam across it. Hark, it thunders! not as from a
cloud overhead. The mountains thunder ; gleam follows gleam.
The cloud marches on ; great shadows fall everywhere ; it lightens
again ; the cloud bursts ; there falls a deluge amid a thick darkness,
illumined by fiery flashes. But a sky all roses breaks where the
cloud first appeared.

On the retreating cloud is a rainbow — two — broken parts of
many. How cool is the air ! What a sense of rest and trust
is in it !

The cloud is withdrawn at last and the stars are left. An
hour or two passes. On the glaciers there rises a great circle of
silver fire. The valley fills with a dim light, a live mysterious splen-
dor. The moon is over the mountain and is rising among the stars.
The Bow reflects the march of the Night Queen. There is silence
everywhere, except the music of the waterfalls. Sleep comes easily

210 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

in this rare air. We turn away from the luminous enchantment ;
we seek the seclusion of the great hotel, and are glad to rest the
overpowered senses, and glide away in dreams to those fair lands
where we left our hearts in the trust of others.

Beauty is not love, and to be perfectly happy one must see beauty
through other eyes than his own.

Banff has a single grand hotel and several small inns. A part
of the town is occupied by the mounted police. These handsome
officers would have a lonely time were it not for amusements. They
are as a rule famous as story-tellers; they love music and in-door
games and all kinds of curious diversions. They are men of gallant
bearing and high intelligence. They provide many entertainments
for tourists and guests at the hotel. Later on we will give you some
account of amusements at Banff.

Our travellers stopped three days at Banff. One of these even-
ings was spent on the balconies of Banff Hotel in story-telling. The
moon rose over the mountains, turning them into crystal palaces, and
the cascade made music, while the travellers' narratives pleased the
ear.

It was agreed that each guest on the balcony should relate the
most interesting episode of travel within his recent experience. The
first story was related by one of the Canadian mounted police.

THE LOG HOTEL.

Paul Yates was a lover of the Rocky Mountains. Year after year with a
party of young friends he made pedestrian tours through the plateaus of
British Columbia, among the stupendous chimneys of the Carboniferous ages,
usually starting from Calgary, going through the Gap and down the winding
valleys and canons of the Bow and Wapta rivers to the Puget Sound.

Paul was a young man of good principles and habits, but of nervous tem-
perament and a very active imagination. He saw everything that is sublime
in Nature in the mountains, — the cloud shadows, the sunset fires on the gla-
ciers, the colors of the glacier rivers and streams, the grizzly bear in the

MOUNT STEPHEN, NEAR THE SUMMIT OF THE ROCKIES.

clefts of broken volcanoes, and the gray eagle wheeling over all. I have seen
tears fill his eyes as he gazed on the majestic mountain-walls of the Cascade

212 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

and Gold ranges, on Mounts Hector and St. Stephen. He had a poetic mind,
and that double sight which is the gift of a fine nature. These qualities were
very delightful to literary people and artists, but seemed quite ridiculous to less
susceptible folks.

" If Paul were to see a pussy cat in a fog," said one of his companions, " it
would be a tiger."

" Say, Paul, you never saw a ghost in the Rockies, did you?" said I to
him one day, chaffing, after he had been telling me about some wonderful
cloud shadows on the Vermilion Lakes <and glacial meadows.

" No ; but I once had an experience in the Rockies that was more fearful
to me than the seeing of a ghost, were there such a thing, could have been."

" What was it, — a bear out blueberrying? "

" No ; I might call it my other self."

" Well, I declare, Paul, I never quite understood you. So you have more
than one self. Which are you now? "

" Myself all the time, now."

"There was a time, then, when you were not yourself, but some other
self? Is that the way the matter stands? Your other self! I declare, Paul,
that idea is too good to keep ; I must tell the schoolboys about it. But when
was it you were your other self, and how? Give me some account of it."

"You will, not look upon the matter so lightly when I tell you my story,
although the adventure has a comical side to it. Nothing in my life ever
troubled me as that experience did. I should be afraid of the same experience
now, had I not learned how great is the power of correct habits and moral
self-control. I will tell you.

" I first went to Banff because I was out of health. I had a cough, was
very nervous, and the doctor said that I had a chronic follicular disease, and
that the best remedy would be a summer at the Hot Springs. Life in the
mountains helps one physically, mentally, and morally, and the prescription
was not a hard one for me to take.

"There was then an old inn near Banff which is not now used for a public-
house. It was a great log-like structure, and had been a hunters' or pros-
pecters' lodge in the year before the railroad. It was pleasantly situated
among great firs, running streams, and intervales and plateau meadows.

" It was evening when I first reached Sulphur Mountain. The stars hung
low like lamps among the great mountain shadows. The place seemed walled
with mountains that touched the sky, and there was a solemn stillness every-
where. There was a piny odor in the air; everything seemed solitary amid
such shadowy outlines.

BANFF. 2 I 5

"An old mountain horse took me to the lodge where a party of adventurous
travellers were stopping. I ate my supper in a dark, strange dining-room of
bare logs. I took my trunk, or rather leather portmanteau, to my room
myself soon after supper. I was tired and excited, and I wished to be
alone.

" The windows of my room looked out on Cascade Mountain. There
stood the great pile of shadow, with a light silvery twinkling in the glaciers on
the summit, under the golden light of the stars. I sat by the open window
for an hour or more. I seemed to feel the grandeur of the surroundings
which I could not distinctly see. I went to bed at last, my pulses throbbing,
and dreaming, even before I fell asleep, of the glorious morning to come, when
for the first time I should clearly see a sunrise in the mountains.

" In my portmanteau was a long, bordered night-gown, a present from my
sister, who made for me a mountain outfit of underwear, and added the priestly
looking night-robe. It was not a garment for a log-house on an Indian trail,
and I was so weary, nervous, and excited that I did not unlock my trunk
before retiring. I was alone ; no courtesy was due to any one, and it gave me
a sense of relief to lie down in a cool bed in my simple light underclothing.

" I was suddenly awakened, late in the night, by a cry as of agony in the
adjoining room, 'Help! help! for Heaven's sake! come here, landlord!
landlord ! '

" My heart bounded, and I started up in bed. I listened with stifled breath.
There was a movement in some of the rooms ; people were awake, and evi-
dently preparing to answer the call should it be repeated.

" I glanced out of the window. The moon had risen and was hanging
over the plateau. The tall glaciers of the mountains glistened in the white
light like a ghost. I had a painful impression that I had seen the same moun-
tain in that sheeny robe before. It seemed to me like a ghost of a mountain,
and it somehow suggested to me the wearing of a long white priestly robe.
The mountain looked like a mantled god.

" Presently I heard a nervous step on the stairs, and I felt sure it was that
of the landlord. The step approached the door of the adjoining room, and a
loud rap rang through the hall.

" ' Say, Professor, what is wanted?'

" ' Heaven knows ! Come in here. There 's been a ghost here, or some-
thing ; I don't know what.'

" ' Professor, you have been dreaming. Nightmare !

" ' No, I have not ; I saw it as plain as I see you now. There Js been an
apparition in here, or something, in a long white robe.'

2l6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" ' How long ago? '

" ' Half an hour, it may be. There is no mistake about it. I saw it ; looked
like a priest in a tableau, or — Oh, it was awful, sailing about ; and its eyes were
sot [not the best grammar for a professor].'

" ' Why did you not call before? '

" ' I could n't get my breath. Here, landlord, you just wait. I 'm going
down to sleep on the box lounge in the office until morning, and then Y\\ go.
I never saw a ghost before, and never believed that there was one. The moon
shone in at the window, and you ought to have seen its eyes. I tell you it was
awful.'

" I heard a real professor, whoever he may have been, moving rapidly about
the adjoining room.

" ' Landlord ! ' he exclaimed ; ' say, landlord, I cannot find my watch.'

" l What kind of a watch was it? '

" ' Small gold one; belonged to my wife. Her name is on it, " Mary Mott."
I would n't lose that for anything. My purse is here, but my watch is gone,
sure. What next, I wonder.'

" ' Did you not bar the door? '

" ' No, I forgot it. I never passed such a night as this before, and would n't
spend another such hour for all the mountains in the universe/

" I heard the door close, and the two men passed through the hall and
down the stairs.

" In the morning I looked out upon the beautiful scene of Cascade Moun-
tain in the clear steel-blue air. Near it rose the Devil's Head, skirted with
green trees. The little plateau was a circle of mountains. I seemed to be in
a fortress of giants, outside of which lay the world. The grand trees of the
glacial meadows glistened. On one side of the place broken ledges arose like
the walls of giant castles, on the other, cool green hills. At the head rose a
cliff like a steeple, some ten thousand feet high. Banff is a great cathedral of
Nature, and no other cathedral uplifts around it such granite towers.

" I went down to the log dining-room. I found it full of excited people,
adventurers, prospecters, and several ladies, talking over the events of the
night.

" ' I will tell you just how it looked,' said the Professor, whose name I in-
cidentally found to be ' Mott.' ' It had on a long white robe, with a yellow
border, and a yellow pocket on one side. One never sees anything of the
kind -here.'

''• My heart leaped again. This was a perfect description of my night-dress
in my strapped portmanteau.

HYDRAULIC MINING IN THE ROCKIES.

BANFF. 2 I 9

" ' But a ghost, Professor Mott, could not have taken away your watch/
said an incredulous boarder. ' Ghosts are done with time, you know.'

" ' I should hope so, if they have eyes like that. But it would be a strange
kind of a thief that would enter my room in a long robe with a yellow border,
here in the mountains. No mortal man on earth ever had a night-dress like
that one, unless he was crazy.'

" ' But, Professor, a ghost would n't have a pocket, would it? '

" * I don't know whether ghosts wear pockets or not. One might if he came
after a watch. The watch is gone ; that is certain.'

" ' But you do not think, Professor, that the watch has gone out of this

world ? '

" ' Heaven only knows. I hope that it will never be brought back by the
being that took it away, as much as I think of it, — at least, when I am in the
room. The gold of the Indies would never tempt me to look upon those eyes
again. It walked about just like machinery. I tell you it was awful'

" The professor rose from his chair to illustrate how ' awful ' the visitor
was.

" ' Then,' said he, ' I woke up ; the moon was shining on Cascade Moun-
tain, and there it stood just like a frozen dead man, so. Its eyes were fixed on
the mountain, so. At last it lifted its hands up so, like a priest, its great
sleeves waving so. Then it spoke in a hollow voice, just like a talking-machine.
" Silver robes, silver robes," it said, just like that. " Silver robes for the moun-
tain. Watch it, watch it, watch it ! " I should think it did watch it. It stood
there, I have no idea how long, — it seemed to me a life time ; then it turned just
like that, and marched out of the room with a noiseless tread, as though its
feet were feathers.'

"I had little appetite for breakfast, — why, I could not tell ; a nameless,
mysterious fear crept over me.

" I went to my room, and unstrapped my portmanteau. On the top lay
my night-dress, — a long white robe with a yellow border and pocket. I had
taken it merely to please my sister. I took it out and held it up. There was
something in the pocket. I put my hand into the pocket, and drew out a small
gold watch. I examined the case. On the back was engraved in ornamental
scrolls, ' Mary Mott.' I locked the door, and sank on the bed in terror, a
cold sweat creeping over me.

"What had I been doing during the night, and what was I to do now?
My conscience told me that it would be the manly thing to go directly to Pro-
fessor Mott, and tell him what I had found. But every one would believe me
to have been a thief, who had been frightened into confession by the events of

220 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

the morning. No one in a strange public-house kept by a half-breed landlord
would credit the story I would have to tell.

" I rose, put the night-dress in my trunk, and covering the watch with my
hand, stepped into the hall. The Professor's door was open, and the room
empty. On a wooden peg near the door hung a vest. I entered the room,
stuffed the watoh into the vest's watch-pocket, and hurried back to my own
room and barred the door, and lay down upon the bed again, sick at heart and
a terror to myself.

" A sense of relief gradually came to me, and I fell asleep. When I awoke,
the Cascades seemed everywhere alive with waterfall music, the room was full
of cool thin mountain air, and the crystal tops of the mountains were covered
with sunshine.

" My mind was clear, and I began to think of what had so recently passed.
I had been living another self, of which I had no memory; I had been another
self. I had arisen in the night, unstrapped my portmanteau, put on my night-
dress, gone into another room, returned from it with a watch, taken off my
night-dress, put it into my travelling-bag, barred my door, and it may have
been, gazed from the windows on the moon rising on the mountain ; and yet I
knew nothing of it all except by circumstantial evidence.

" I resolved not to sleep alone again. Could I find a room-mate in the
hotel?

" The Professor did not leave, as he had intimated, in the morning. I made
his acquaintance, and we went together to visit the Sulphur Pool, Devil's Head
Lake, and the falls of Bow River.

" ' Professor,' said I, on our return at noon, ' I was greatly alarmed last night.
I wish I had some one to sleep in the same room with me.'

" ' So do I,' said the professor. ' If I had, I would stay.'

" ' I do not like to stay, myself, under the circumstances,' said I.

" ' Could we not take a room together? '

" ' I would be glad to do so/ said I.

" The Professor went to his room, and presently came down to dinner
wearing the identical vest into whose pocket I had put the watch. He
took a seat beside me at the table. I saw the outline of the watch in the
pocket.

" After the meal was over, I asked, ' What time is it, Professor? '

" He put his hand on his watch-pocket, unconscious of his supposed loss,
and a strange, wild, dazed look came into his face.

" ' My watch is here — here] he said. ' Now I understand it all. I did
have the nightmare.'

BANFF.

223

" The Professor and I took a room together, and I immediately wrote to
my father and told him all these strange occurrences, and sent the letter
to Calgary for mailing. He consulted a physician, and returned answer by the
mounted police. The physician said that such things often happened in youth,
when the nerves were weakened and the mind was suddenly placed in a state
of excitement; that its cure was habits of self-control; that its danger would
pass away with returning health ; and that it would not be likely to recur in
after life. There has never been any recurrence, so far as I know, of this
dual life.

" The Professor passed the month of August at Banff, and became quite
intimate with me.

"The September days came. How beautiful they were in the mountains!
I had used the waters of the springs freely. My health had returned. I had
gained ten pounds in weight in some six weeks ; my spirits rose with my
health, and so I came to love the mountains and the mountain air.

"The day was fixed for me to return to Winnipeg, and one evening I
opened my travelling-bag and began to repack it. I took out the bordered
night-dress, which I had not worn, and threw it over a chair. Presently I held
it up. While doing so I heard a step, and the Professor opened the door.

" ' Hold ! ' he exclaimed ; ' there it is again ! '

"' What?' asked I.

" ' What? The very robe I saw in my nightmare.'

" ' Oh, Professor, I was almost crazed that night. I was weak — was all
alone in a strange room — and — and — '

"'What, boy?'

" * My other self walked about in my sleep.'

" The Professor sat down.

" ' I can believe it all now,' he said, ' but I could not have believed it then.
But there is a mystery about the watch. I felt in that very pocket that night,
and it was not there.'

" My father had written to me to tell Professor Mott the true story. I now
did so, and showed him my father's letters, and read to him what the physician
had said. 'You will not arrest me, Professor? ' I asked.

" ' Arrest what, — your other self ? No ; but it seems that both your selves
used the same body, and only one that awful garment. When you get back
to Winnipeg, put that habiliment away with your other self. I hope you
will never have any use for either again.'

" I never have had. When the nerves are strong and the conscience clear, a
person generally has but one self, and it is my purpose to live so as to secure

224 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

these blessings. I have been able to strengthen myself .by always doing what
I believed to be true and honest. A strong will has given tone to my nerves,
and my nerves to my body. A visit to my physician brought me this good
advice, which I have tried to follow.

" ' A person with a vivid imagination/ said the doctor, ' needs to cultivate
a strong moral will and habits of self-control. The self-controlled man seldom
walks in his sleep. His daily habit governs the night. It is so with many
nervous diseases. If young people would learn to govern themselves when
young, and to give up their own wills to the highest interests of the moral life,
many forms of nervous diseases would be avoided. Habit becomes the govern-
ing power of life. Follow your better will and self, my boy, and you probably
will never be troubled by the ghost of that other self again.' "

THE BRITISH CORPORAL'S STORY OF

A SONG IN TENNESSEE.

" I was travelling through America," said Corporal True, " to visit the
battlefields of the War for the Union. I was on my way to Atlanta, Georgia,
with a view to following, as nearly as possible, the old historical route of
Sherman's army in its famous march to the sea.

"' Shall I see Lookout Mountain as I pass through Chattanooga?' I asked
the conductor of a train from Washington to Jacksonville, Florida. ' Is it near
the city ? '

" ' See it?' said the well-informed conductor, smiling. 'Pardon me, but
if you have eyes you will not fail to see it. We pass under it. Lookout
Mountain hangs over Chattanooga. Why do you not stop over a day or two,
and visit the battlefields, and see the celebration?'

" It is not literally true that Lookout Mountain hangs over Chattanooga,
though it seems to do so from a little distance ; but it is quite true that the
main line of its railways passes under the mountain and through its rocky
base.

" It was the evening of the 3d of July. The sunset was blazing amid the
pines of the Carolinas, and a soft light was gathering over the wood wiers and
cottonfields. Late in the evening we would be in Chattanooga, near the battle-
field of Chickamauga, the cemeteries where slumber two armies of dead soldiers
side by side, and the scene of some of the most thrilling and poetic events of
the war. The night was dark and still, full of cabin lights and fireflies. Blaz-

BANFF.

225

ing furnaces at length broke open the cloud of darkness, and the kindly
conductor said, - ,

" ' Yonder is Lookout Mountain.'

" I gazed from the car window, and although I could see no mountain, I
saw a long row of lights twinkling in the sky, as though there were a habitable
region in the air.

" ' Hotels,' said he.

" ' Is that the place of the Battle in the Sky? ' I asked.

" * Pardon me, sir, but there never was any battle on Lookout Mountain,'
he said, ' except in poetry. I am merely quoting General Grant's own words.
The facts were these : In November,
1863, the Federal army occupied the
city of Chattanooga, and the Con-
federate army the plateau on the
mountain. On the 24th a cloud set-
tled down upon the mountain, and
a Federal force advanced under the
cover of the cloud up the mountain-
side, and the Confederates retreated
before it. There was a great rattle of
musketry, and it was telegraphed to
Washington and the North that a
battle was raging above the clouds.
The fog-cloud was followed at night
by an eclipse of the moon ; the next
morning the Union flag was seen
flying in the early light from the
highest point of the mountain. The
Confederates had evacuated the moun-
tain plateau, though few soldiers of
either side had been killed or wounded.

There was great joy in Chattanooga over the capture of Lookout Mountain,
and the skirmishes in the fog-cloud and darkness became magnified into a
great battle, and though history disproves it, poetry will ever have it so.
Sentiment would make it so, but it was not.. You could not understand the
situation unless you were to see the city and mountain under a fog-cloud.
Perhaps you will.'

" The train stopped.

" ' Carriage for the mountain,' said a negro driver.

CANOEING IN THE NORTHWEST.

226 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" I was whirled through the darkness, over tortuous ways, for an hour, up
toward the lights and the stars in the sky, so it seemed, and found rest at last
in a good hotel, and wondered what the morning would reveal to me. I only
knew that near me was Missionary Ridge, and somewhere below me in the
glimmering darkness was Chattanooga, the Tennessee River, the battlefield of
Chickamauga, the great national cemetery, and the monumented field of the
Confederate dead.

" The night was still. The hotel stood near to the edge of a rocky preci-
pice which I was told descended almost perpendicularly to the city and
overlooked the valley of the Tennessee. I lay awake long, thinking of the past.
It was here came the missionaries of the American Board to the Cherokees,
and gave the name to the long, green, smoky mountain-wall, — Missionary
Ridge. Here was the home of the Indian patriot, John Ross; here in these
fastnesses of curving hills lived the Union men of Tennessee ; here was the
scene of the great war contests that once thrilled the nation as it stood listen-
ing to the click of the telegraph ; here was Rosecrans's headquarters ; here
Thomas swept over the doubtful field ; here was the place of the high-spirited
achievements of Longstreet, Polk, and Bragg. I had never seen the place, but
this view of it common newspaper history had made familiar to me.

" While I was thinking upon these things I heard a distant tinkle of music,
and a harmony of sympathetic voices broke on the still air : —

' Rise, shine, and give God the glory, glory,

For the year of jubilee ;
Oh, don't you hear dem bells a-ringing, ringing,

For the year of jubilee !
Rise, shine,' etc.

" The song came from some old negro servants in a dooryard, out-house,
or cabin. It was native music, and it haunted me for days. I was awakened
in the early morning by a cannon — a fen de joie — in the valley below.
I was soon dressed, and threw open the window and stepped out on the
cool balcony in the morning air. The scene was grand beyond description.
Flags rloatin| in the breeze filled it with patriotic sentiment. Over the moun-
tain range, cool, shadowy, and dewy, was rising the unclouded sun. The smoky
light made the great luminary fiery red. The air was refreshing. There was
every promise of a clear day.

" Below lay the valley of the Tennessee, and the winding river with its old
plantations and grain-encumbered farms. Under the mountain, or nestling
close to its rocky side, lay Chattanooga, merely Ross's Landing fifty years ago,
but a rich city to-day, full of growth, spirit, and enterprise, and destined to

BANFF.

227

become at no late date one of the most -beautiful and influential cities of the
re-crowned South.

" There were flags everywhere. Patriotism had meant something here ;
and the fine buildings among the glimmering spires blossomed like hanging
gardens with the national emblems. The soldiers' cemeteries — those great
cities of the dead — lay full in view, and in answer to our inquiry a negro
servant pointed into the kindling air, and said, ' Chickamauga ! '

" ' Chickamauga ! ' Yes, but the land was peace, and how lovely was the
scene ! The fires had been lowered in the furnaces of the great iron-works.
The roads were full of odd vehicles, and people in holiday attire. There came
a peal of bells. Was it possible that here, twenty-five years ago, human blood
soaked the earth like water, and that around me in the many cemeteries of
Tennessee were fifty thousand soldiers' graves?

" I spent the day in visiting Rock City, Lulu Lake, and the place of the
once great army hospital erected by General Thomas, and afterward turned
into a school.

" The mountain plateau was full of fantastic rock scenery, and recalled
the Garden of the Gods, of Colorado. The air was cool, even under the bright,
fierce sunlight. The groves of oak, pine, and laurel teemed with summer life
and beauty. The great hotels were filled with guests early in the day, and in
many places on the mountain the flag of thirty-eight stars rose above the trees
in the calm of the sun-bright air.

" I chanced to make the acquaintance of a State senator of Tennessee,
who had come to one of the great mountain hotels to pass the day in cool
and quiet. Near sunset we went to a bluff overlooking the Chattanooga
valley, which lay like a great garden below us, watered by the serpentine
flow of the Tennessee, the air blooming in the long distance with flags.

" ' I shall never forget,' said the senator to me, ' the thrilling scene that
occurred in Chattanooga in September, 1881. It had been agreed to hold
during Chattanooga week of that year a reunion of both the army of the
Cumberland and the Confederate army.

" ' So great is the spirit of good-will and peace in Tennessee among all
classes of people, that a plan had been arranged by which on the principal
day of the celebration the American flag should be raised over Cameron Hill,
the place of the principal cemeteries, by both Federal and Confederate officers
at the same time, each of the respective corps pulling the cords together. As
the flag of thirty-eight stars should ascend, the artillery was to peal forth,
and the bands were to play both Union and Confederate airs, and so inaugurate
an era of eternal peace and good-will.

228 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" ' Chattanooga was all preparation for the grand event. Patriotic senti-
ment was awakened as I have seldom seen it anywhere but here. The city
was gay with bunting. Excursions had been arranged over all the great high-
ways of travel. It was to be a festival like that which is so common at patriotic
periods in Germany and France.

" ' At midnight on the day before the inauguration of this grand Peace
V Festival the bells began to toll. People rushed into the streets. Clang, clang,
clang ! on the still, starry, midnight air. Clang, clang, clang ! What did it
mean? The telegraph had sent into the sleeping city a lightning flash,—
that intelligence which made the world sad, — Garfield is dead!

" ' Should the festival go on? Yes, but under another programme. The
city filled with a wondering, awe-struck crowd. The flag-raising was appointed
to take place as planned.

" ' I never saw men's hearts so moved as they were that day as they stood
on Cameron Hill, waiting for the lifting of that flag. Out of the city swept
a long procession of Federal and ex-Confederate officers, with reversed arms
and banners draped, the bands playing the dirges of the heroic dead. Near
the flag-staff stood a beautiful catafalque, a coffin of flowers, with floral crosses
and crowns, the work of the ladies of Chattanooga.

" ' The marshals of the two armies met at the foot of the flag-staff and
saluted ; two officers grasped the halyards, and amid an awful silence the flag
began to rise. Red, white, and blue? Yes, and bla:k. The cannon thun
dered, the bands played the " Star-spangled Banner " and " Dixie."

" * Up, up into the cloudless sky of that September day ascended the
flag with its stripe of black. Men clasped each other's hands ; women wept ;
every heart thrilled with emotion. I never beheld such a scene.

" ' Then the bands broke into a dirge. The flag began to descend slowly,
waved to and fro in the dazzling sunlight by the mountain air, and rested at
half-mast. Orations followed; and seldom has an orator had an easier duty
than under the inspiration of those thrilling events. I have often thought
that the sentiment of that day is the one the whole country should share:
" With malice toward none, with charity for all ; '• and " that government
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth." '

" I rose next morning and looked out to see the city. It was gone. The
sun was rising red over Missionary Ridge, but an ocean, or lake, or great
lagoon appeared to lie beneath me. The waves of the strange sea seemed
rolling on the orange light among islands and archipelagoes. Did the city still
lie beneath it?

A HOME IN THE NORTHWEST.

BAXFF. 211

" Out of the mysterious regions of the fog below came a voice, joyous and
melodious, —

' Rise, shine, and give God the glory, glory,
For the year of jubilee.'

" Slowly the great fog sea began to rise and dissipate, and the outline of the
spired city to appear. Then I understood the poets' Battle in the Clouds,
which I had not comprehended before. If the poets are historically wrong,
they are in spirit right, when they mingle the cloud with the mountain in the
great events of November 24, 1863. It was more than a battle; it was the
change of front of America.

" As I left the mountain, I stopped to look up to the floating mists in the
sunlight. Birds were singing. Suddenly came that joyous song again, —

'Rise, shine, and give God the glory, glory.' "

THE OLD YANKEE EMIGRANT'S STORY.
'THE FOREST BLACKSMITH.

When I first heard old Ephraim, the pedler of watches, say, " Boys, I can tell
you a story a great deal stranger than that, and you won't know any more when
I Ve got through than when I began," my curiosity was greatly excited. By
" that " he referred to the old story of Goffe the regicide, and the appearance
of the so-called Angel of Deliverance at the attack on Hadley, Mass., during
the Indian War. That was old Ephraim's favorite story. It embraced the
incidents of the Judge's cave, the stone cellar at Guilford, the secret chamber
at Hadley, and the appearance and vanishing of the white stranger during the
old battle; no story heretofore had ever held me like that.

The itinerant story-tellers, such as lived in old colony times, are gone, like
the minstrels of the days of the old English barons. A quaint class of people
they were, these old New England story-tellers, — the pack-pedlers, the tin-
pedlers, the tinkers, the wandering revival preachers, the huskers, and the
fortune-tellers. The bread-cart man must be numbered among them; he carried
the gossip of the town from house to house on Saturdays, usually with an old
horse and red cart, and a jingle, jingle, jingle of bells. The old lady who
earned her living by going visiting, and the travelling dressmaker, whose
tongue was as pointed as her needles, belonged to the same class.

They are all gone ; but I think that no better stories were ever told than
those by the old-time entertainers as they sat before the great logs of the

232 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

grand colonial fireplaces. They were often colored, it is true, by superstition,
for the travelling tradesmen were a superstitious race, who feared the unseen
more than the seen ; but even the marvels of ghost-lore had a spiritual meaning,
and illustrated goodness and peace, and the terror of evil, and there was the
substance and philosophy of truth underlying them all.

It was the habit of most of these wandering story-tellers to remain over
night at the farm-houses on their way. This habit enabled them not only to
relate stories, but to collect them, and their best stories grew by repetition.

My youth was spent in an old colonial house at Warren, R. I., near Swan-
sea, Mass., in view of Mount Hope, and amid the scenes of the early tragedies
of the Indian War. The Baptist and Quaker founders of Rhode Island came
to these plantations, and the exiles from Boston during the period of persecu-
tion and the witchcraft delusion. I have been a reader of stories for many
years, but I still retain a vivid memory of the strong and subtle fascination of
the old colonial fireside tale.

There was an old pedler by the name of Ephraim Pool, whose wonder-
stories I distinctly recall. He lived in Guilford, Conn., and was accustomed to
wander through the Connecticut River Valley in summer, and through Provi-
dence, and thence by Bristol Ferry to Newport, in winter. He was consequently
at Hadley, Mass., during one part of the year, and at the old towns of the
Mount Hope lands in winter, — two dramatic points in the old tragedies of the
Indian W7ar.

He sold watches and snuff-boxes, and cleaned and repaired clocks. He
used to be called the Clock Doctor. He was an habitual snuff-taker, and used
to pass the snuff-box often during the telling of a story.

I can see him now. " Here I am ! " he used to say. " Come to set your
clock all right again. The time will come when you won't see old Ephraim
any more. Time will go on just the same after old Ephraim Pool has ceased
to travel ; yes, time will go on, but I don't believe clocks will ever go on half
so well again. Have a pinch of snuff ? "

To new listeners, the unexpected end of these customary introductory and
very solemn words seemed very odd and comical. The snuff-box was old
Ephraim's inseparable companion, and he punctuated with it all that he had
to say. We used to light two candles instead of one when old Ephraim came,
set a row of apples to roast before the fire on the great brick hearth, sit
down on the red settle, and ask the genial and much-travelled snuff-taker for
stories. The story that had the greatest interest for us was the attack of the
Indians on Hadley, Mass., in the valley of the Connecticut, during King Philip's
War, and the sudden appearance and disappearance of a so-called Angel of

BANFF. 2H

\J O

Deliverance. The story in its historical relations is well known. It fascinated
Sir Walter Scott, who tells it vividly in " Peveril of the Peak." It charmed
Southey also, for it is highly poetic and spiritual in its suggestions, and the
busy singer of Grasmere and Windermere had planned a long poem upon it,
when his mind failed. It is at once one of the most thrilling and remarkable
tales of American folk-lore. I well recall how old Ephraim used to tell it, —
before the great fire, with his handkerchief spread over his knee.

" I am not so young as I was," he would begin ; " my beard grows a little
whiter, just a little, every year, and I set the clocks a little nearer the time, -
the time for all of us. (Have a pinch of snuff?) Yes ; well, as I was saying, I
sha' n't be about here many more winters, so I shall have to please you this
time, and I like to tell that old story right here, where the Indian War
began. But, boys, I can tell you a story a great deal stranger than that, and
you won't know any more when I 'ye got through than when I began. But
first let me tell you the story of old Hadley.

" Hadley, at the time of my story, was a little village in the woods. It was
a Sabbath day in early fall when it all happened, and the people had gathered
in the church. Old Nehemiah Solsgrace had just begun to pray, when a woman
rushed into the church, with wild eyes and hair streaming, without bonnet or
shawl, and shrieked, * The Indians ! the Indians ! ' just like that. (Have a
pinch of snuff?) The prayer stopped, and all started up. In the silence there
was heard a cry in the distance that would have pierced your soul. It was the
war-whoop.

" The men seized their guns, for men went armed everywhere that doleful
year, even to church. They rushed out-doors, and heard another wild cry,
nearer now, and more fierce and defiant. What should they do?

" In the midst of the confusion appeared a wonder such as had never been
known in New England before. There came stalking into the streets — from
what place no one knew, but many believe from another world — a tall man
like one of the old patriarchs. No one among the defenders, so far as known,
had ever seen him before. His garments were of skins; he carried a sword
which he flourished aloft (just like this) ; his hair was long and gray, his beard
fhite and flowing, and he had the air of a leader of armies.

" He shouted, and his voice seemed to fill the village, — ' Behold in me the
'aptain of Israel. Follow me.' The people were awe-struck, but the men
followed him. Out of the town went the white stranger, making a semicircle
around the Indian warriors, unseen by them, and soon appeared behind the
enemy, to their surprise and terror. The Indians, thinking they had a foe both
before and behind them, fled in confusion.

234 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" The white stranger returned to the village, followed by the men. ' Bring
me a cup of water,' he said, ' and let us offer thanks for this great victory to
God, who sent me to be the Angel of Deliverance/

" All knelt down. He prayed in trumpet tones; it was a thanksgiving of
such thrilling and lofty language as the people never had heard before. It
ended with, ' Be still.' There was a deep silence, and when, one by one, they
looked up, the white stranger was gone. (Have a pinch of snuff?) "

We usually spent an hour or more in asking questions to clear up this
remarkable recital. Uncle Ephraim then would slowly tell us that the-wjiite
stranger for many years was believed to be an Angel of Deliverance sent from
another world ; but he really was Major-General Goffe, one of the judges who
had condemned to death Charles I., and who sought refuge in America, and
was hidden in different places, once in a cave on the top of a hill near New
Haven, once in a stone cellar at Guilford, and finally, for many years, in a
secret chamber in Hadley, Mass., where he was when the Indians fell upon the
place.

" But the other story? " we asked eagerly.

" It was something like this, only a great deal more strange," he said.
" There were all kinds of strange things that happened and were expected to
happen in old colony times, when people were fleeing from kings and par-
liaments and persecutions ; but this took place not more than thirty years ago.
I never tell the story of Goffe without thinking of the other, for there is a like-
ness between the two, as you shall see.

" I was a young man when it happened, but the scenes are all as vivid as
daylight in my mind still. The old Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was a
power then, under Mary Lyon, of blessed memory. I used to stop at several
farm-houses in Holyoke. In one of my journeyings I was surprised to find
not far from the village, in the woods, a new blacksmith-shop and a small
cottage.

" * Who lives there? ' I asked of a farmer by the way.

" ' A stranger,' said he. ' They call him the Forest Blacksmith.'

" Seeing my curiosity, he continued, ' Name is Ainsley. Came here kind
o' mysterious like. People don't know much about him. He is n't very
handy.' The last remark was meant to imply a lack of experience or skill in
his work.

" The shop was merely a covered frame and forge* The cottage was small,
and seemed to consist of two rooms. In the doorway stood a woman with
white hair, and a handkerchief crossed on her breast. Her face fixed itself on
my mind like a picture ; I can see it now. It was a quiet face, full of trouble.

GOFFE, THE REGICIDE AT HADLEY.

BANFF.

237

You may not understand that, but it was so. It was a beautiful face, that
seemed to hide a weary, sad heart.

"The next summer, as I was coming up the valley, and travelling along
the old Holyoke road, a storm overtook me one afternoon near the Forest
Blacksmith's. The clouds darkened and settled down upon the mountains,
and a heavy rain, mingled with hail, began to fall. I hurried along to the
blacksmith's shop, found the man there, and sat down by the fireless forge.

" ' You will allow me to rest until the storm is over? ' said I to the man,
who was not at work.

" ' Certainly, friend, certainly. You are quite welcome ; make yourself at
home. It will all be over in an hour. Go into the house, if you like.'

"'The gentlemanly mildness of his tone and politeness of manner sur-
prised me. It seemed strange amid such rude and simple belongings. I
accepted his invitation, hoping to sell something to the woman, and went into
the house.

" The woman with white hair received me very politely, but cautiously.
She moved back and sat down in a great arm-chair, the only comfortable
article of furniture in the room.

" The chair had a stuffed leather cushion. I noticed that she did not
leave the chair during my stay, which lasted two hours. As I rose to go, I
noticed again the heavy, stuffed leather cushion.

" Another year passed, and I came to the blacksmith's shop again one
•day, just at nightfall, early in September. The golden-rods were blooming
about the door, and flocks of birds were gathering for migration. The low
sun blazed behind the reddened trees, the sunbeams gleaming here and there
among the branches and twigs. I hailed Blacksmith Ainsley, and asked him
if he would keep me over night.

" ' I wish I had better accommodations,' he said. ' I like to oblige a
stranger, but I am not situated now as I wish I were. Ask wife.'

" I went to the door. The white-haired woman opened it with a ques-
tioning look, moved back to the same arm-chair, sat down, and offered me a
rude seat I repeated the question that I had asked the blacksmith.

" ' Heaven forbid that I should not offer hospitality,' she said. ' But we
have only two rooms, this and the other, and only two beds, here and yonder.
Could n't you go farther ? It hurts me to say it ; I never in my life turned
away a stranger when I could help it.'

" ' I will give you little trouble,' said I. ' I am very tired. Just let me
lie down on the bed in the other room and give me a bit for breakfast, and I
will pay you handsomely.'

238 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" ' It is not the pay about which I am thinking,' said she.

" I knew that. Her eye moistened, and her lip quivered.

" ' Well, you may stay,' said she. ' It is not like me to say no.' She then
became silent.

"The sun set. Shadows fell across the way. The old blacksmith came
in and lighted a tallow candle. It was dry weather, and the blacksmith was
speaking of the effects of the drought on the crops and cattle, when there was
a sudden sound of horse's feet at the door.

" ' Some one come to get shod,' said the blacksmith. The expression is
not to be taken as it runs, but it was a common one.

" He opened the door. I can see him now. What a change came over
him ! His face turned pale, and an expression passed over it of utter helpless-
ness and hopelessness, as though life had been stricken from his soul.

" His wife started up, and then she sank back into the chair again with an
expression of intense anxiety and terror.

" The stranger came stalking in without any invitation. He was a man
with a hard, determined face. He held his whip in his hand, and looked
around.

" ' What brings you here?' said the blacksmith.

" ' I must pass the night here,' said the man. ' I have travelled far, and
have business here. I wish you would care for my horse ! '

" ' But, stranger, I cannot accommodate you,' said the blacksmith. ' I
have but one spare room, and that we have promised to this man who is
sitting here.'

" ' Can you give me a bit to eat? ' he asked, turning to the woman. She
did not move.

" ' Get the stranger something,' she said to her husband. The man looked
at her rudely.

" ' Are you lame, that you do not rise and accommodate me yourself ? '

" The old woman made no reply.

" ' Here, husband, you are perhaps tired ; sit down here and I will wait upon
the stranger.' The blacksmith sat down in the arm-chair.

" ' It would be better courtesy, I 'm thinking, if you were to offer me that
chair, tired as I am. Perhaps you do not know that I am an officer of the law,'
said the man, brutally.

" The woman set the table. I could see that her hands trembled as she
handled her dishes.

" ' Supper is ready,' said she, at last.

" She passed to the arm-chair, which her husband offered her.

•••

BANFF. 24,

" Do you not usually have grace before meat? ' said he.

"'Yes/ said the old woman. 'Are you a godly man?' There was a
hopeful tone in her voice.

" ' I want you to say grace/ said the stranger to the blacksmith.

11 The blacksmith rose. ' Kneel/ said the stranger, ' and you too/ turning
to the woman. We all knelt down.

" The old blacksmith's voice began to offer thanks in a tremulous way, but
it grew firm. Suddenly the light was blown out. The stranger started up, and
walked about heavily in the dark. What did it mean?

" ' I will get a light in a minute/ said the old man, and then went on to
finish the prayer, showing in this a reverent sincerity that has always been a
mystery to me. At length he rose from his knees, and stumbled about for a
light.

" The old woman sank back into the chair. As she did so she uttered such
.a cry of distress, ending with the words, ' It is gone, William ; it is gone ! '

" ' What ? '

"When the lamp was lighted, the stranger had left the room. The
chair was there, but the cushion was gone. The woman wailed helplessly,
' Oh ! oh ! after all these years ! ' She knelt down by the chair and cried like
a. child.

"'It is all over/ said the old man. 'Don't cry; there's another world,
Amy/

"I turned from this pitiable scene to 'look for my pack. It was where I
had placed it. There were sobs from the woman, and intervals of silence, for
an hour. I then went to bed, having first put my pack under the bedclothes
at my feet. I was tired, but did not fall asleep until toward morning.

"When I awoke, it was broad day. The sun had risen, and the tinged
leaves of the forest were glimmering in the light, warm wind. How beautiful
everything looked through the little window ! I rose, dressed, pulled my pack
from the bed, and then went out to the other room. No one was there. The
table still was set as on the evening before, with the food upon it. The great
chair was there, without its cushion. There was no fire.

" I opened the outer door. The shop was empty; there was a dead silence
everywhere, except the call of the jays in the walnut-trees.

" I started toward the village, but stopped to repair a clock and take break-
fast at a farm-house. At the village I examined my pack, when another
mystery appeared ; I found that my watches were gone.

I summoned a sheriff, and went back. The house was empty ; everything
emained as I had left it in the morning.

242 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

"The next year I came again to the place. It was deserted, as when I last
saw it. No one knew who the occupants had been, or why or whither they
had gone. I have asked myself a thousand times, What was in the leather
cushion? Were the forest blacksmith and his old wife honest people? Who
was the mysterious stranger? Why did he come?

" You know as well as I do, boys. (Now I will have another pinch of
snuff.) People do not vanish now as they used to do; times have changed.
As I told you 'twould be, you don't know any more now than when I began."

MR. LETTE'S STORY OF TRAVEL.

THE " DEVIL AMONG THE TAILORS " AT THE PONCE.

Two years ago I went to Florida. I have long taken a great interest in
the most rapidly developing part of America, and I went South to see Atlanta,
Birmingham, and those parts of the Southern States that were growing most
rapidly, and offered promising fields for emigration. I visited Tennessee,
Alabama, and Georgia, then set forth for St. Augustine, Florida, going by the
indirect wa^of Palatka.

I had seen St. Augustine ten years ago. I recollected it well, and set out
from Palatka with the old vision in my mind. Out of a long region of shadowy
palm crowns, sunny orange-groves, and swamp fields of glimmering palmetto
the train swept into the open country by the sea, and crossed the St. Sebastian.
What a wonderful change ! There is no other like it anywhere. America
seemed to vanish at the river. An Oriental city of airy towers, red-tiled roofs,
and acres of palaces half buried in ancient trees rose before the eye. The
Spanish tales of Washington Irving came to life again in memory. Were
we looking out upon some conquered Moorish town in the Spain of the
conquistadors?

There was a light pull at my sleeve.

" And now we will go to the Children's Playroom in the Ponce, and see the
' Devil among the Tailors.' "

It was my little Florida cousin, a lad of twelve years. He pronounced
" Ponce " as if it were a common English proper name.

My head had been the region of romance from the moment the turreted
roofs and hanging gardens began to fill the eye. The palaces of coquina (shell
marble) before me had arisen since I last saw St. Augustine, as under the wand
of an enchanter.

BANFF. 243

" The Children's Playroom at the Ponce," — what was that; and " the Devil
among the Tailors " ?

The train stopped at a long station. We stepped out into a tropical garden.
The railway stations in England are famous for their flower gardens, but we
never saw there any like this.

I stopped a moment to view the scene before me. The town lay under the
quiet blue sky, green with fringes of orange-groves. The sky itself was won-
derfully beautiful. It was as soft as that of Seville, delicately blue, as it were
an arch over the luminous air. The balmy Gulf winds just stirred the gray
Spanish mosses in the old live-oaks about the town ; pinnacles everywhere
kindled and blazed ; open balconies and airy corridors, — all rising over acres
upon acres of red-tiled roofs and trees eternally green. It was my first view of
new St. Augustine.

" Have a 'bus for the Ponce? "

He, too, had Americanized the fine old Spanish word. It seemed like the
throwing of a bottle of ink against a masterpiece of tone color. " A 'bus for
the Ponce " and " the Devil among the Tailors," indeed !

My little cousin pulled me forward, and hurried me toward the town. At
every step the wonder grew. A long line of carriages swept ahead of the foot
passengers and travellers, and these were already being welcclrhed by the
Spanish band. I was in the land of fancy again. America had at last pro-
duced a poem of Mosaic and native stone gems and sea marbles as romantic
as the Taj, as lovely as the Alhambra; it was here.

" I am told that Flagler has spent six millions of money on his hotels, and
is going to lay out four millions more. Do you think that he will ever get his
loney back? "

This was prosaic enough, and clipped the wings of my fancy. There
fas something really noble in the answer to the mysterious question which I
lad heard behind me.

" I think that Mr. Flagler feels a patriotic pride in what he is doing; that
he is a true American gentleman, and does not consider the matter of gains or
losses at all. What he has done is a historic credit to the whole country. A
tan who so spends his money is a benefactor."

The gentleman to whom the allusion was made is Mr. H. M. Flagler,
the builder of the two principal palace hotels, the Ponce de Leon and the
Alcazar.

The Spanish hotel palaces now confronted us, and we stood before the two
lions' heads at the gateway to the Ponce de Leon, under the iron portcullis and
its beautiful arch of tracery and airy colorings. Could this be America? We

244

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

stopped to look around, amid the odors of rose gardens, the flash of fountains,
and the music of mandolins. Courts, turrets, Moorish towers, loggias, and cool
retreats, acres of red roofs, with art and beauty everywhere !

There was another pull at my sleeve, s

" Let us go up to the Children's Play-
room. I want to see the ' Devil among the
Tailors.' We shall have time to see these
things afterward."

" But what do you mean by the ' Devil
among the Tailors ' ? "

" Oh, don't you know? It is a great game
down here. Everybody goes to see it. You

spin a steel top on a marble surface, and it goes whirring into a great doll-
house all full of little doors and rooms and compartments. In the little rooms
the tailors are supposed to be at work, and the top bounces around each little
room until it finds the door, and then it goes through and knocks over all the
tailors, or most of them, and then it finds the door to the next little room, and
goes spinning in and knocks over the tailors there, and so on and on ; and he

BANFF.

245

who can start the top so as to knock over the most tailors wins the game. Oh,
it is all too funny for anything. The greatest people go to see it, — senators,
governors, artists, singers. Come, and I will show you."

" But what do I care for a toy game amid all this magnificence ? "

" Oh, there is too much of it ! It makes me tired ! I like to see something
I can understand."

Oliver Goldsmith once attracted much attention on a London street until
there came along a man with a hand-organ and a monkey. He was then left
to pass on unnoticed. He thought the world very strange and changeable.
The Ponce de Leon's gorgeous courts and rooms all seemed to lose their
interest for young people after some genius introduced into the Children's
Playroom at the top of the building the very, very funny game of the " Devil
among the Tailors."

I allowed the persistent little hand to lead me on. We passed through the
court, — who can describe it? — through the reception-room, all so bewildering
as to be oppressive, amid music and flowers and tone colorings, over pavements
of beautiful stone.

" The Playroom," said my little cousin to the elevator boy.

Up we went to a room in the rotunda, all beauty and balconies and out-
looks on pile upon pile of historic art. I found myself amid a crowd that sur-
rounded the seemingly magic toy.

Presently a small, bright-looking girl drew the string around the steel top
trough a hole in the board framework of a little platform of open-topped
rooms, so as to give it force. It began to spin on the polished surface. It
found its way into the first little room, or open compartment, and knocked over
the tailor. It bounded around the room until it found the next little door,
when it entered and continued its destructive work. It went on and on; it
seemed as though it would never stop. What mysterious laws of motion kept
it going?

The top entered all the rooms and knocked down nearly all the poor
lilors.

There was a joyous shout. The number of the tailors overturned was
marked upon a blackboard, when a boy came forward, a counterpart of little
Lord Fauntleroy, and wished to try so to start the top as to topple over all the
tailors.

It was fascinating ; but what was I doing here in a children's playhouse,
while I was on such historic ground?

There were the landing-place of the poetic old adalantado, Ponce de Leon ;
the scene of the Spaniards' Mission ; the ruins of old Fort Caroline, of the

246' ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Huguenots ; the bloody Matanza, green with eternal palms ; gray Fort Marion,
the place of the English sea-kings and the torture-house of the Spaniards ; the
decayed plantations of the Minorcans, and the shell lands of the Seminoles.

Here rose the pillar of stone with the arms of France; here Sir Francis
Drake, who ploughed a sea furrow around the world, came pillaging the coast
and returned thence for England with a ship of gold ; here Mendenez reddened
the land with noble blood; here Father Juniper preached, and Ribault and
Laudonniere sang on the River of May, now the St. John's.

I broke away from the bewildering little game, and went down the bewitch-
ing palace stairs. I glanced at the famous dining-room and its panorama,
where the exploits and dreams of old Ponce de Leon appear as if in a vision.
Then I went out beyond all the great area of the mosque of old palaces to Fort
Marion and the old sea-wall. The sky was flushed with the sunset, blue and
amber and crimson. I had stood on the same place six years before.

I turned and looked back. Old St. Augustine was gone. The frost of 1886
had withered its ancient date-palm, and the fire of 1887 had swept from the
Plaza the old cathedral and its cross of bells. Before me lay new St. Augus-
tine, with taller date-palms and a grander cathedral, with new spires and towers,
and acres of palace-like structures that had gathered to themselves the Spanish
and Moorish art of a thousand years. It is the most beautiful and poetic city
in America.

I had left my little cousin in the Playroom. I went back and found him
there. He had been trying his hand at the wonderful top, much to the delight
of a governor, an artist, and a poet.

" This reminds me of what Shakespeare — ' Puck ' — says," said the gov-
ernor to me.

" Do not repeat it," begged the artist. (" What fools these mortals be ! " )

" St. Augustine was always a place of tragedies," continued the governor,
as one after another the poor tailors went over before the endlessly spinning
top.

" Come, we will go to dinner," said I to my little Florida cousin; and amid
the Spanish music of the band we went down to the dining-room of golden
windows, and took our dinner amid the painted visions of the romantic old
adalantado, Ponce de Leon.

BANFF.

249

ON THE GREAT GLACIER.

A half hour's walk from the Summit or Glacier House found our travellers
on the stupendous mass of the Great Glacier. The Great Glacier, that looks so
dark and broken from the railway, — what is it?

In reality it is a moving river of ice, grinding its way over the granite moun-
tains,— a frozen Rio Grande, Colorado, or Columbia, travelling. Now it is
shallow ; now it measures a depth of two thousand feet. Great green forests
and rocky cliffs border its slow eternal march.

When did this march begin? When was this mass, over which the eagles
wheel, frozen? How old is this glittering ice-river?

No one can tell. The settler views it from the far-off valleys, and pauses in
wonder. It lies in the sunset a pile of splendor, and the moon changes it into
palaces of crystal in the high and voiceless air.

It pours down to the green valleys a thousand waterfalls. One hears these
sun-loosened streams eternally singing. Every newly explored solitude bears
witness to the musical glasses of the mountains.

The river travels over the wrecks of old volcanoes, and through rents that
the ages have been crumbling. Was the great sea of ice once a sea of fire ?

How many ages has the moon glimmered above it, and the night led over
it the long procession of stars?

What eye first beheld it, and out of what mysterious migrations did the
people who first saw it come?

What changes of fire and water and internal upheaval left it here to melt in
the eternal sun, and be renewed again in the nights of the long arrays of
winters ?

Below it silently moves the glorious Columbia, which one has well called
the Achilles of rivers. Sky-born indeed it is ; we stand at its birthplace and
try to dream how it falls through gorges and canons, gathering force, until, a
calm and placid flood, it mingles its waters with the far-off Pacific. Another
stream has its beginning beside it, and rolls down to the north and becomes a
river, and pours its flood into Hudson Bay.

Glorious and mysterious is the Great Glacier under the stars! It is the
most beautiful mirror of heaven in the New World. Stand in one of its great
caverns which beasts and eagles shun, and look outward and upward to the
lamps of night. One seems more than mortal then ; the lights of the homes of
more than mortal beings seem to glimmer about him, and he wonders if he
shall know more of the great city of the universe when his soul shall be free.

250 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

What to him are the selfish aims of life here? What is wealth; what
fame; what the glittering halls that feed the animal appetite?

The soul can find no relief but in adoration. It thirsts for spiritual
knowledge.

Life seems but a passing day in the calendar of the ages. A few springs
light the hills, and a few autumns wither the leaves, and immortalitas adest, —
eternity is at hand. Great resolutions crowd upon the soul, — to rise above sin,
to be high-minded and spiritual, to serve humanity, to do the grand deeds of
heroic endeavor with humility and awe. All dream such dreams on these
mountain stairs. The old conceptions of life all change here.

As when one listens to a symphony, he becomes aware of great aspirations
of soul to which he before was a stranger ! One only knows how grand he
is in his inner life when he has an experience like this. Immortality may have
been a doubt at Calgary, but it is a certainty here. Only an immortal soul
could so glow, expand, and feel its wings. Could such an inspiration continue,
what godlike beings men would be !

But see that party of dark forms hurrying down the glacier toward the
twinkling lights of the Glacier House ! The spirits of speculation flock around
them again. Ambition returns, — appetite, selfishness. On the Glacier
thoughts were eagles cleaving celestial air; now they are buzzards again.

In the morning the train goes screaming away among the Selkirks. The
tourists now seem like a different order of beings. But each one has Jiad a view
of soul possibilities that none probably ever had before. These views will
return again in dreams, in solitudes, in churches, and by the caskets of the
dead. Life will always be lifted by them ; it is indeed a glorious thing to have
stood at night on the Great Glacier of the Rocky Mountains, and to see one's
self as the angels see life, and to have felt the movement of the little planet
amid the ages gone and the ages to come, and to have wondered if conscious
life is an endless progression, and to have felt that it indeed was so.

CHAPTER X.

IN THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND.

HE five hundred miles ride through the clouds and
great volcanic systems of the Rockies from Banff Hot
Springs to Vancouver is the grandest that can be
made in North America or in Europe. The train
sweeps into a forested valley toward the Vermil-
ion Lakes, and the glance backward is a thrilling
vision. The road is upward. Presently a great ice-river appears,
yellow with age, and Hector is reached, and Mount Stephen, at
an altitude of 5,296 feet, about as high as Mount Lafayette, in the
White Hills of New Hampshire. The station is at the summit of
the Rockies. The scenery here is colossal and terrible. One feels
his littleness and the lightness of his temporal concerns here if any-
where. Mount Stephen rises to a height of some eight thousand
feet from the valley, — as high as the Greek Olympus. On its shoul-
der is an emerald glacier some eight hundred feet in thickness, which
is slowly travelling toward the vertical cliff. We now follow the
Wapta (Kicking Horse) Canons.

The Wrapta is like a Niagara broken loose, and finding its long
way through mountains, dashing and foaming, and seemingly flowing
backward as it rushes against tens of thousands of rocks and stones.
Its apparent backward waves is not the cause of its being called
the Kicking Horse. A mule, according to the tradition, refused to
move forward or backward on the high pass over the canon. He

254

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

stopped in this most perilous place, and kicked and kicked. Hence
the gorge became known as the place where the. horse or mule
stopped and kicked, or Kicking Horse Canon, and the wonderful
cascade river of the high Rockies took the unpoetic name. The
Wapta is the true name, but that does not do justice to the wild,

mad, glacial stream.

" Come this way," cries one of the
passengers on the train. " Oh, such a
cascade ! but it is gone."

" Come this way, all," cries another.
" Such a waterfall I never saw ! We
have passed it now."

"Here! here!" cry
others. Tourists run
from one side of the
car to another. Some
weep, some laugh,
some are over-
whelmed, and desire
nothing so much as
silence. The rail-
way and river plunge

together under towering cliffs. The Co-
lumbia River is reached and crossed, and
we are in view of the supremely lovely
Selkirks, which seem to be the feminine
mountains in all this warring giant land.

The grandeur culminates at the Glacier House. The train stops
before the Great Glacier, which is some thirty-eight miles square,
and said to be greater than any in Switzerland. It rises like a
roof of a grand cathedral, and over it towers the granite pyramid
of Sir Donald, a shaft fit for the monument of a John Hampden

YALE, ON THE FRASER RIVER.

IN THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND.

257

or a Gladstone, a mile and a half high. Think of a train ring-
ing its bell between such a glacier and monumental pinnacle. Was
there ever seen such a pass or monolith ? Did ever a railroad
car rest in such a place? The walls here touch the sky; tourists'
heads hang on the back of their necks. He has not seen how-
grand Nature can be, who has not stood in this place. The Great
Glacier is only about a mile away from the hotel. Beautiful is the
name and more beautiful are the waters of the Illecilliwaet. It
is a pea-green stream, fed by glaciers, and seems to bear to the
world joy from the crystal palaces in the atmospheres of the sun.
It calls for poets, for artists, for composers. It is poetry and art and
music.

On, on goes the train, over violet and emerald rivers, under
cities of castles that no man inhabits, through long snow-sheds,
inder dark cliffs and luminous glaciers, the scene shifting at every
:urn, — on, on, ever on. When will the. wonders cease?

The mountains grow lower. There is a new peace in the air.
The heavens are expanding and coming back again. The rivers
grow wider. Houses multiply, and farms, and churches. There
is a gleam of a violet harbor. How restful it seems ! There are
ships and steamboats and the English flag. We are gliding into a
city again. The train goes slowly. The conductor hurries through
the cars and cries, " Vancouver ! "

VANCOUVER.

There are three cities on the Pacific slope of British Columbia
that are indeed beautiful in their situation and surroundings. They
are Vancouver, New Westminster, and Victoria. A city of won-
derful growth is Vancouver. It seems destined to become the
London of Canada. In 1886 it was a forest, and such a forest!
The trees were giants. Let one stand before the high stumps of

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

the two trees that form the natural gate-posts of the great Vancouver
Park, and he will wonder at the battle between the pioneers and

the trees, and that
man ever was able
to make so rapid
a conquest. There
was a stump in
New Westminster
that it cost some
forty dollars to
remove ; there is
a hollow stump of
a giant tree near
F r a s e r River,
in which it is said
that two horses
and a yoke of oxen
could be stabled ;
and we are told of
old evergreen lords
of the forest that
tower above three
hundred feet high.
The dooryards of
the expanding city
of Vancouver are
full of stumps that
are large enough
for tables.

Mountain walled is Vancouver, with the blue Puget Sound rolling
like a winding river amid the great forests at the foot of the long
elevations. The climate is the Chinook, or almost continuous April

CARIBOO ROAD BRIDGE OVER THE FRASER RIVER.

IN THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND.

259

weather. The census? No one can fix it any more than one could
count an old herd of the plains that gathered force on its march.
The city is levelling the great trees in the dark forest valleys, and is
building, building; the tap of the hammer is heard like the drill of
an army. The poor emigrant knows that a continual fire will waste
anything, and so about the high stumps of the immense tree she

HOTEL VANCOUVER, VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA.

keeps the flame in continual activity. The great woods smoke ; the
new settlements smoke; the hills smoke.

Here is Canada's future port of China and Japan. Here is the
port of the great coal-mines. Here is the market of one of the
Vnost wonderful farming districts. A mighty sweep of history is in-
tended for Vancouver.

260

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

The Cascade Mountains smile upon her, — the snow-lined and
shining Olympus ; behind her rolls the glorious Gulf of Georgia ;
out of her streets sweeps the gigantic water-road of the Fraser ;

ON THE HOMATHCO RIVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA.

and Mount Baker looks over all like a beneficent father, crystal
crowned, and mantled in eternal snow.

New Westminster, from the hills overlooking the Fraser, is a
twin city of progress and beauty. There can hardly be a more
thrifty community in the world than here.

IN THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND. 26l

Victoria is a little England, in climate, in people, in quiet homes
protected by inherited wealth, and in parks of wonderful beauty.
Here the traditional fine " old English gentleman " would find himself
quite at home and at ease. It looks serenely out on the Juan de
Fuca, and is guarded by mountain walls that fill the air. Thence go
ships to the many ports of the world, — to Asia and South America.
Americans who stop at the quiet hotels are filled with delight at
the beauty of the mountains, the sea, and the air; they are reluc-
tant to leave the noble parks, and the cathedral-like aisles of the
woods. The English people all love the little Liverpool that was,
and the great Liverpool that is to be.

THE JAPAN CURRENT.

Look upon your map of ocean currents in your physical geog-
iphy, and you will find a stream of water running between the coasts
of China and Japan and the Puget Sound. It is called the Japan
Current. It is four thousand miles long. Its water is warm, and it
warms the shores of the Pacific from Mexican California to Alaska.
Over this stream ships sail rapidly, and usually in calm water, and
over it a great body of the commerce between England, America,
and Asia is likely to come and go.

Look again on the map of the world, and see how long is the
present distance between the English ports and those of China and
Japan. England carries her goods to eastern Asia over an ocean
route of some twelve thousand miles. The ocean route from the ports
of the Puget Sound is only about four thousand miles, and British
Columbia and Washington and Oregon will soon be able to produce
for the Asiatic market many of the goods and supplies now manu-
factured in England.

And how great is that market likely to become ! The population
of China is some three hundred and sixty millions. Japan is growing

262 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

in intelligence, and is calling upon the world for all the arts of
progress.

The great Northwest Territory is full of productions that eastern
Asia needs and must have, and it is the law of trade to seek the
shortest routes. The boast of Vancouver that she will rival Montreal,
and of Seattle and Tacoma that they will one day be the New Yorks
of the Pacific, is not without a basis of reasonable suggestion. The
State of Washington is to act no common part in the future of the
United States. She is likely one day to lead the great Republic.

Over this warm ocean current between Asia and the Puget Sound
what processions of ships may go during the centuries to come !
What trade-transforming steamers ! what argosies of wealth that will
bring back golden fleeces! what navies! what pleasure craft! It is
this water-belt that is likely to bind the oldest and newest civilizations,
and bring, them into one common brotherhood. Here the West will
meet the East, and will teach the East the same truths that the East
gave to mankind thousands of years ago. So nations rise and decay,
and progress passes from one land to another ; but truth lives and
seeks its best interpreters, and they who receive it become powerful
and wise, and their acts encircle the earth !

STORY OF THE NAMING OF PLACES ON PUGET SOUND.

The years 1891 and 1892 should witness some patriotic celebrations in
British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, besides those that relate to the
Columbian discovery. Four new stars have lately appeared on the American
flag, and the brightest of these is Washington. It was in the years 1791 and
1792 that Puget Sound, Mount Baker, and Mount Ranier (Tacoma) received
their names ; and these years may well be made to commemorate the worth,
magnitude, and glory of the great voyage of Vancouver and his lieutenants to
the Northern Seas.

It was on the I5th of December, 1790, that Capt. George Vancouver re-
ceived his commission as commander of His Majesty's sloop the " Discovery; "
and since the days of Drake, and the old sea-kings of Elizabethan age, few

IN THE AMERICAN s\\~i 1Y.I-:KI.AND.

265

vessels have set forth from any port thai opened the way to such grand his-
torical achievements. The discovery of the Northwestern Kmpire must now
rank among the gtv.it events of the world. Here the rich port cities of the
Pacific are to rise and grow. Already Kn-land finds her swift commercial
highway from Liverpool to Hong-Kong over the Canadian plains and moun-
tains, and out of the sunset ports of Puget Sound. The violet waters of this
Mediterranean of the West are already white with sails, and crowding with the
floating cities of giant steamers. Look upon the map and note the warm
ocean current that runs from Japan along the shores of Alaska, and down to the
coast of Northern California. The shores of this warm ocean-river are to be
a new world. The great ports of iron, coal, lumber, and precious ores, of hops,
fruit, and a hundred agricultural industries, of the teas of China and the silks
of Jap. in. are to be in the Puget Sound. Here is to rise the other New York
and the other Boston.

The discovery and naming of the Puget Sound, its grand mountains, bays,
and rivns, have he-en made great events of history by the emigration that is
flowing to these April regions from all enlightened lands. We copy from the
journals of George Vancouver his own account of these beginnings of the
wonderful history. Vancouver seems to have had a heart formed for friend-
ship, and he named many of the places of the sublimely picturesque region
that he visited under the blue spring sky and in the burning noons and 1«
crimson morning and evening twilights of the June days of 1792, for the honor
of his faithful officers and his best-loved friends. Among the officers on the
" I )iscovery " we find the names of Lieut. Peter Puget, Lieut. Joseph Baker, and
Joseph Whidbey, names that are eternally fixed in the geography of the north-
ern empire. The following notes and extracts are little histories of remarka-
ble interest and value. They closely follow Vancouver's own narrative.

following the eoast northward from Cape Mcndocino, on Tuesday, April 24,
1792, Vancouver sighted an extremity of the mainland projecting from the
hi ;.di, rocky coast a considerable way into the sea. This he distinguished by
the name of Cape Orford, in honor of his friend, the Earl (George) of that

title.

Sunday, the 29th, he discovered the first sail he had seen for eight months ;
she proved to be the ship " Columbia," Captain Gray, of Boston, the same who
had been reported to have penetrated the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but who had
really only penetrated it for fifty miles. On the same day the snow-covered
summit of Mount Olympus was seen. Later in the day Cape Flattery \\ a-
rounded, and the Strait entered.

Continuing their progress until nightfall of the 3Oth, they anchored for

266 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

the night under a long sandy point of land projecting from the cliffs into the
sea. This point, from its resemblance to Dungeness in the British Channel,
Vancouver called New Dungeness.

During the afternoon Vancouver's third lieutenant had discovered a very
high, conspicuous, craggy mountain, towering above the clouds, and covered
with snow as low down as they allowed it to be visible. From their anchorage
it rose very conspicuously, and in compliment to the lieutenant it was called
Mount Baker.

On Wednesday, May 2, 1/92, a harbor was reached which, says Vancouver,
could not have been placed more happily for the protection of the port from
winds and enemies, had it been designed by the most able engineer. This he
named, after his ship, Port Discovery. A few days were now spent in making
the necessary repairs to sails, etc., and the serenity of the climate and of the
season was extremely favorable to the execution of their several duties.

Monday morning, the /th, the " Discovery's " yawl and launch, and the
" Chatham's " cutter, properly armed and supplied with stores, started out to
extend their researches into the new country.

The result was the discovery of a pleasanter, safer, and more capacious har-
bor than Port Discovery ; to this port he gave the name of Port Townshend,
in honor of the noble Marquis of that name.

Marrow-Stone Point was the name given to a high, steep cliff which seemed
to be principally composed of that stone.

A round, snowy mountain which bore N. 42° E. from here he named Mount
Rainier, after his friend Rear-Admiral Rainier.

The expedition was continued ; but the weather changed materially, and
while thus detained in an inlet several oak-trees were found in the vicinity.
In consequence of this valuable discovery, the place obtained the name of Oak
Cove. Leaving the cove, a high, perpendicular, bluff point which divided the
inlet into two branches was called Foulweather Bluff, because of the change of
weather. The western arm was followed.

Saturday, May 12, they directed their course back to Port Discovery, now
seventy miles distant.

Friday, the i8th, both ships set sail to explore farther the two branches
of the inlet, beginning at Foulweather Bluff, the " Discovery " taking the
eastern, and the " Chatham " the other. The result was the complete explora-
tion of Puget Sound, so called because of Lieut. Peter Puget's exertions.

In the mean time Port Orchard and Vashon's Island had been discovered
and so named, the one after Mr. Orchard, a gentleman on board, the' other
after Captain Vashon of the navy, a friend of Vancouver.

IN THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND. 269

Restoration Point (lat. 47° 30', long. 237° 46') received its name May 30,
1792.

Saturday, June 2, an excellent harbor was discovered, and named Penn's
Cove, in honor of a particular friend.

A fortnight had been dedicated to the examination of the large inlet, the
southern extremity of which had been called Puget Sound, and Saturday,
June 2, it was duly distinguished by the name of Admiralty Inlet. The
country in the vicinity of this branch of the sea was the finest they had yet met
with, notwithstanding the pleasing appearance of many others.

Sunday, the 3d, all hands were given a day of needed rest, and Monday
being the anniversary of His Majesty's birth, Vancouver went on shore and
formally took possession of all the countries north of 39° 20' north latitude, that
he had explored, in the name of, and for, His Britannic Majesty, his heirs and
successors. The entire interior sea he " honored with the name of the Gulph
of Georgia, and the continent binding the said gulph and extending southward
to the 45th degree of north latitude, with that of New Georgia. This branch
of Admiralty Inlet obtained the name of Possession Sound; its western arm,
after Vice- Admiral Sir Alan Gardner, was called Port Gardner, and its smaller
or eastern one Port Susan."

Proceeding up Admiralty Inlet, its north point (lat. 48° 16', long. 237° 31')
was called Point Partridge, and its west point (lat. 48° 10', long. 237° 31'), after
his esteemed friend, Capt. George Wilson, of the navy, he distinguished by the
name of Point Wilson (June 6).

Sunday, June 10, it was discovered that the eastern shore of the gulf,
from lat. 48° 27' to the north point of entrance into Possession Sound, in
lat. 47° 53', was an island, in its broadest part about ten miles across. In
consequence of Mr. Whidbey's circumnavigation it was named Whidbey's
Island.

June 13, a point in lat. 49° 19', long. 237° 6', was named Point Grey, in
compliment to his friend Capt. George Grey, of the navy.

The vessels continued their route northward, occasionally despatching boats
on surveying expeditions, on one of which Mr. Johnstone, master of the
''Chatham," discovered a passage to the sea: this, July 13, in his honor,
received the name of Johnstone's Straits.

In the early part of August they reached and passed through the inlet
which Mr. S. Wedgborough in August, 1786, had named Queen Charlotte's
Sound.

On the way every inlet, point, and island received a name, either suggested
by circumstances or given in honor of an esteemed friend.

270 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

STORY OF JUAN DE FUCA.

But there is another celebration of an event that may well claim
the attention of our Pacific friends, — the discovery of the Straits
of Juan de Fuca by the Greek pilot of that name, in 1592.

Who was Juan de Fuca? Was there indeed ever such a man, or
are his supposed discoveries the dream of fiction ?

These questions have been discussed over and over by Spain,
England, and America, for the last two hundred years.

Alexander S. Taylor, in an article in Hutching's California Mag-
azine entitled "Memorials of Juan de Fuca," sets the question at rest
by publishing the following letter from Michael Leek, English Consul
to Venice, 1 596 : —

" When I was at Venice, in April, 1596, haply arrived there an old man,
about sixty years of age, called commonly Juan de Fuca, but named properly
Apostolos Valerianus, of nation a Greek, born in Cephalonia, of profession a
mariner and an ancient pilot of ships. This man being come lately out of
Spain, arrived first at Leghorn, and went thence to Florence, where he found
one John Douglas, an Englishman, a famous mariner, ready, coming for Venice,
to be pilot for a Venetian ship for England, in whose company they came both
together to Venice. And John Douglas being acquainted with me before, he
gave me knowledge of this Greek pilot, and brought him to my speech, and in
long talks and conference between us, in presence of John Douglas, this Greek
pilot declared, in the Italian and 'Spanish languages, thus much in effect as
followeth : First, he said that he had been in the West Indies of Spain forty
years, and had sailed to and from many thereof, in the service of the Spaniards.
Also he said that he was in the Spanish ship which, in returning from the
Islands Phillippinas, toward Nova Spania, was robbed and taken at the Cape
California by Captain Candish [Cavendish], Englishman, whereby he lost sixty
thousand ducats of his own goods. Also he said that he was pilot of three
small ships which the Viceroy of Mexico sent from Mexico, armed with one
hundred men, under a captain, Spaniards, to discover the Straits of Anian, along
the coast of the South Sea, and to fortify in that strait, to resist the passage
and proceedings of the English nation, which were feared to pass through those
straits into the South Sea ; and by reason of a mutiny which happened among

IN THE AMERICAN SWITZERLAND. 273

the soldiers for the misconduct of their captain, that voyage was overthrown,
and the ship returned from California to Nova Spania, without anything done
in that voyage ; and that after their return the captain was at Mexico punished
by justice.

" Also he said that shortly after the said voyage was so ill ended, the said
Viceroy of Mexico sent him out again in 1592, with & small caraval and a
pinnace, armed with mariners only, to follow the said voyage for the discovery
of the Straits of Annian, and the passage thereof into the sea which they call
the North Sea, all along the coast of Nova Spania, and California, and the
Indies, now called North America (all which voyage he signified to me in a
great map, and a sea card of my own which I laid before him) until he came
to the latitude of 47 degrees ; and that there finding that the land trended north
and northeast, with a broad inlet of sea, between 47 and 48 degrees of latitude,
he entered thereinto, sailing therein more than twenty days, and finding that
land trending still sometime northwest and northeast and north, and also east
and southeastward, and very much broader sea than was at the said entrance,
and that he passed by divers islands in that sailing, and that at the entrance
of this said strait there is on the northwest coast thereof a great headland or
island, with an exceeding high pinnacle or spired rock, like a pillar, thereupon.

" Also he said that he went on land in divers places, and that he saw some
people on land clad in beasts' skins ; and that the land is very fruitful, and rich
of gold, silver, pearls, and other things, like Nova Spania. And also he said
that he being entered thus far into the said strait, and being come into the
North Sea already, and finding the sea wide enough everywhere, and to be
about thirty or forty leagues wide in the mouth of the straits where he entered,
he thought he had now well discharged his office ; and not being armed to
resist the force of the savage people that might happen, he therefore set sail,
and returned homewards again towards Nova Spania, where he arrived at
Acapulco, anno 1592, hoping to be rewarded by the Viceroy for this service
•clone in the said voyage. Also he said that after coming to Mexico he was
greatly welcomed by the Viceroy, and had promises of great reward ; but that,
having sued there two years and obtained nothing to his content, the Viceroy
told him that he should be rewarded in Spain, of the King himself, very greatly,
and willed him therefore to go to Spain, which voyage he did perform. Also
he said that when he was come into Spain, he was welcomed there at the King's
Court; but after a long suit there, also, he could not get any reward there to
his content, and therefore at length he stole away out of Spain, and came into
Italy, to go home again and live among his own kindred and countrymen, he
being very old. Also he said that he thought the cause of his ill reward had

274 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

of the Spaniards to be for that they did understand very well that the English
Nation had now given over all their voyages for discovery of the northwest pas-
sage : wherefore they need not fear them any more to come that way into the
South Sea, and therefore they needed not his service therein any more. Also
he said that understanding that the noble mind of the Queen of England [Queen
Elizabeth] and of her wars against the Spaniards, and hoping that her Majesty
would do him justice for his goods lost by Captain Candish, he would be con-
tent to go into England and serve Her Majesty in that voyage for the discovery
perfectly of the northwest passage into the South Sea, if she would furnish him
with only one ship of forty tons burden, and a pinnace, and that he would per-
form it in thirty days' time from one end to the other of the strait ; and he willed
me to so write to England. And upon conference had twice with the said
Greek pilot, I did write thereof accordingly to England unto the Right honorable
the old Lord treasurer Cecil, and to Sir Walter Raleigh, and to Master Richard
Hakluyt, that famous cosmographer, certifying them hereof. And I prayed
them to disburse one hundred pounds to bring the said Greek pilot into Eng-
land with myself, for that my own purse would not stretch so wide at that time.
And I had answer that this action was well liked and greatly desired in England ;
but the money was not ready, and therefore this action died at that time,
though the said Greek pilot perchance liveth still in his own country, in Cepha-
lonia, towards which place he went within a fortnight after this conference had
at Venice."

CHAPTER XL

ARTHUR BURNS'S RANCH.

N arriving at Vancouver, our tourists' first purpose was
to visit Arthur Burns. So back they went into the
region of the beautiful Cascade Mountains, over the
blue Gulf of Georgia. Helena went with them, and
the visiting party consisted of Mr. Lette, Charlie,
and Helena.

The landing nearest to the ranch was a low shore under high
bluffs, or bluffs that seemed high
with their giant firs. Some of ^

these trees were as tall as Bun-
ker Hill Monument. There
was but one house at the place,
a log hotel, which was also
a post-office. The hotel was
chiefly patronized by lumber-
men and fishermen.

The bluffs were matted with
vines, and were full of red whor-
tleberries, — a delicious fruit. A SETTLER'S HUT.
Wild morning-glories flowered

in the cool, dewy shadows, and strange birds flew hither and thither
wherever a footstep went. The air here was cool and vigorous, and
there was a solitary silence everywhere.

276

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

The steamer pulled away from the landing, to return again at
nightfall. The party took a corduroy road; it was indeed a corde du
roi road, and fit for a king, if grand arcades of ancient trees make a
kingly way. It was constructed of logs laid side by side, and inclined
so that lumber could be slid down to the Gulf.

Up this silent way the party hurried, only stopping now and then
to pick some blackberries or red whortleberries, or to drink from
some clear water-spring. The trees grew taller and the shadows and

silence deeper. At times, through
some opening, a silver glacier ap-
peared far away in the Cascades,
and glistened in the sun.

They came to a waterfall and
rested. The stream flowed down-
ward, and from afar one could hear
its music in the distant arcades of
firs. At this waterfall the way to
the ranch became a trail.

How lovely, solemn, and ma-
jestic the way seemed ! The sun-
light covered the interwoven pine
tops like a tent Crows flew cawing away — and jays.

They at last came upon a little black bear, which scampered off in
the greatest alarm. These bears are quite harmless unless attacked,
and are more afraid of a settler than the settler is of them.

Suddenly they found themselves at a little Swedish log cabin in
a clearing. The settlers came out to meet them, and brought them
water and berries. They were evidently honest people, of good hearts
and fair intelligence. They had cleared a large garden by burning.

Soon they came to other clearings and cabins. The people here
were hard at work burning land for gardens and grain. Then they
passed a lake or pond out of which flew a flock of ducks, and which

A FRONTIER HOU.SE.

ARTHUR BURNS' S RANCH.

277

is covered with wild geese in the fall. Then they saw some deer, which
are very numerous, then an old Indian squaw who appeared very

THE GREAT BLUFF, THOMPSON RIVER.

friendly ; and at last they stood before
a little cabin of logs and splints, and
beheld a handsome young man in scanty

clothing standing in the door.

« This is the place," said Mr. Lette, " and there
The young man at first did not recognize the party.

278 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" Hurrah for the Hotel de Batteau ! " said Mr. Lette.

Arthur leaped over the ground to meet them. " Hurrah it is!"
said he. "That's just what I have called my place, — the Hotel de
Batteau. There it is, one room. You are good to come to see me.
I shall never forget this. Come in. This is Wilhelmine."

A fresh, honest-looking Swedish girl, with blue eyes and broad
face, came to the door. She spoke English imperfectly. The furni-
ture consisted of a small sheet-iron stove, and some boxes that Wil-
helmine had covered with cushions, and a bed made of pine logs and
pine needles and blankets. There was no glass window, only a
wooden slide. The cupboard of the Hotel de Batteau contained
three plates, and as many cups and saucers, a pitcher, some bowls and
spoons, and some knives and forks.

Wilhelmine was cooking some salmon for dinner.

Our guests looked around. They were evidently of the opinion
that they would not be expected to dine at the Hotel de Batteau.

" We have only a couple of hours to stay," said Mr. Lette. " Tell
us all about your life."

"Yes," said Charlie. " Are you happy here? "

" I am," answered Arthur. " Ask Wilhelmine."

" Very — beautiful -- health — enough to eat — everything'' said
the bride of the Hotel de Batteau, Wilhelmine.

"But, Arthur," said Charlie, "how do you expect to live? Your
money must be already spent."

" I am going to work in the lumber-mill a few miles from here
on the Gulf for a year, and spend what I earn on my place," said
Arthur.

" Won't Wilhelmine be lonely ? "

" She is going to work in New Westminster a part of the time,
and spend what she earns in furnishing a house which we hope to
build in the fall. Winter does not come until late here, and is short,
and consists of a season of rainy nights. So I am told."

ARTHUR BURNSS RANCH.

2 79

" But do you have to bring your provisions up here on your back ? "
asked Charlie.

" Yes, what we have. The woods are full of game, so that we
shall not require to buy any meat. Fish is plentiful, so we will not
need to buy any. We can obtain wheat flour from a ranch on a

THE PEACE RIVER.

little prairie a few miles from here ; and so I think we can live if we
have health."

" But are you not very lonely ? "

" No ; we live in the future. It is our happiness to look forward,
to plan and hope. The imagination is the same here as in London,
and most people derive their happiness from their imagination. We
love each other ; we expect to work, and to have a fine ranch some
day, and we own ourselves, which is more than half the people of
London do; and we are very happy."

" How will you clear your land ? "

280

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" A part of it is prairie land. This I shall put into grain when I
am able. The wooded part is very rich soil. I shall burn a place for
a garden and a prune-orchard. The province will run a road through
this section soon, and we shall
The Swedish settlers are a
we will build a log church,
a good voice, and will sing
will have a large ranch for
day, and all our own.
I feel that I have

have a school-house,
religious people, so
and Wilhelmine has
in the choir. We
poor people some
I am glad I came,
something to live for
now. I expect hard-
ship, but I also ex-
pect independence in
the end, — a home of
my own ; and I shall
be happy in the
growth of the coun-
try. Yes, my good
friends, I am glad I
came, and I thank
you for all your helps. I wish
I could offer you a good dinner
at the Hotel de Batteau, but I can-
not. Come here again in ten years,
and I will give you one that will surpass any in
the Charing Cross Hotel or the London club-
houses. Let me bring you some water from the
brook. The brook reminds me of the story of
the old Hotel de Batteau."

Arthur brought some water from the running brook.
" This came down from the snows of the Cascades," said he. " See
how honest and sparkling it looks ! Try it ! "

A CARIBOO WAGON-ROAD.

ARTHUR BURNS' S RANCH. 28l

" Health ! " said Mr. Lette.
" Health ! " said Charlie.

" Health ! " said the Montana girl. " I am sure that you will
succeed."

Arthur was asked what he had for amusements.

" A man should take his enjoyments in his work," said Arthur.
" But in the evening, when Wilhelmine and I have talked over the
events of the day, I get her to sing to me."

" Will you not sing a song to us ? " asked Helena of the happy
bride'.

" If you wish it, I will try," said Wilhelmine. " Let us go out of
doors."

They went out through the door of the little cabin, and sat down
on the long log of Douglas fir. The cool shadows of the tent-like tree-
tops fell across the log, and afar gleamed the crystal crown of the
Cascades in the sun.

Wilhelmine had a beautiful voice, pure and clear, and she sang a
popular Swedish love-song, — one that Christine Nilsson once sang
to delighted ears in Boston Music Hall, — " When I was sweet
seventeen."

How strange it seemed, — this airy, rippling song of the land of
Gustavus Adolphus, in the American wilderness ! A good song wins
the heart ; and our tourists went away, to carry in their memory the
tenderest good wishes for brave Wilhelmine.

On the return to Vancouver the boat passed through a little fleet
of long canoes filled with Indian families. These Indians were
coming down from the North to pick hops in the Pugallup valley.
Few things in America are more truly poetic and romantic than the
hop-picking festival, for a gay festival it really is in this beautiful
valley of Puget Sound. The glorious season, the gleaming moun-
tains, the picturesque hop-farms, the Indians from many tribes, the
night songs and dances, the plays, the torches, the gayety and good-

282

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

humor, the full moon, the great excursions, all combine to make the
season wonderfully ideal and romantic.

It was twilight as the boat dipped down the Gulf, — one of the
long northern twilights of the inland waters, calm as a sea of peace,
and splendid as a vision of celestial glory. The gold-crimson light

AMONG THE ISLANDS OF THE GULF OF GEORGIA.

burned through the tall firs like the sunset in the oriel windows of
old cathedrals. The Indians sang, and long flocks of birds like gray
clouds floated amid the white-blue light of the sky that bordered the
red sea-fires of the west.

" I should think," said Charlie to Mr. Lette, " that emigrants would
come here and find the country and climate all that had been repre-
sented, but yet not be able to gain employment, and so suffer and
become discouraged. A man cannot live on grand scenery."

ARTHUR BURNSS RANCH. 283

" I think," said Mr. Lette, " that the emigrant ought to have some
five hundred dollars, with which to begin life in this new country.
But the lumber-camps, the coal-mines, the small mining interests
everywhere, the necessity for building and improvement on the part
of capitalists, offer a large field for profitable labor ; and if a person
comes here with a spirit like Arthur's, with a resolution of success,
and willingness to work, the chances are as a hundred to one that
he will become a successful man."

THE CHINOOKER.

In British Columbia and Washington the people have one common name,
the Chinookers. The mellow climate here is the gift of the Chinook winds.
Everything old and noble bears the same nickname, — a five-hundred-years-old
tree, a grave Indian, and in one instance it was applied to a very troublesome
bear.

An English mining-camp in the Selkirks had been twice alarmed by the
appearance on its border of a too familiar bruin. To this camp came an Eng-
lish speculator and some sportsmen. The speculator heard the report of the
visits of the bear, and thought it might be an interesting investigation to return
them. This bear had received the name of the old Chinooker.

One evening before a late supper the speculator, being weary of the mo-
notony of the camp, said that he was going out for a walk.

" Where be you going, massa?" asked a negro cook.

" To call on the old Chinooker."

" Don't bring him home with you, massa," said the negro, who had hardly
dared sleep for a week for fear of the bear.

The Englishman was gone until the dark shadows fell, and the camp-fire lit
up the valley. The sportsmen were resting, and the negro was idly busy
in keeping the coffee warm.

"Where is our gouty friend?" asked one of the sportsmen.

" Gone to call on the bear."

" Finds his new friend entertaining," said the other. " Milo [to the negro],
blow the horn."

Milo blew a blast that shook the hills. There was no response.

The stars began to come out.

" Blow again, Milo," said the sportsman.

284 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Milo blew the piercing horn again.

There was a stirring of underbrush at the fringe of the clearing. The
hunters started up and seized their guns. The negro awaited with curious eyes
the development of the mystery.

Suddenly the fat speculator's form appeared, flying toward the camp like
a boy. In a moment after, the bear appeared. The two seemed to be running
a race.

" Fire, fire ! " cried the negro ; " the bear am after him ! Kill him, quick !
There 's no need of his catching bof/i of its ! "

By "bofh of us" Milo meant the doughty knight of the mines and his
precious self. He knew the value of the cook who made the coffee.

The speculator ran. His hat was gone, and his short legs made up in
activity what they lacked in length. He was in a terrible state of excitement
until he came surely under the cover of the guns; then his face assumed a
most delighted expression.

"You blew horn for me," said he. "That was right. Me and the bar's
coming."

But poor bruin had a very inhospitable welcome, and found a place in
Milo's dinner-pot for several days afterward. The negro never recovered from
his fright on that evening, but was anxious to go "down Souf" again; and the
speculator himself made no more evening calls in the territories of an old
Chinooker.

VANCOUVER ISLAND.

The Island of Vancouver seems destined to become a very impor-
tant factor in the future, as one or more of the great ports to Asia,
more especially to China and Japan, will be here. England will find
from this island a short ferriage to Asia, as America finds her short
ferriage to England and Europe by the way of Quebec, the St. Law-
rence, and the Straits of Belle Isle or Cape Race. The ships with
tea for Canada will follow the Japanese Current, as will the ships of
fabrics from Japan. The Island of Vancouver is about to wed the
islands of the Flowery Sea.

Bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the
Straits of Georgia, warmed in winter by the Chinook winds and

ARTHUR BURNSS RANCH.

287

currents, having a climate of almost continuous springtime, over-
looked by lofty mountains, and connecting by sheltered water-ways,
with the ports of Alaska, Vancouver has probably an eventful and
historic part to enact in the re-mapping of the world, and such as is
likely to surpass that already enacted by the maritime provinces.

The cities here are likely to become larger

and more important than Montreal or Quebec.

In case of international differences it would

probably become a place of fortresses and

navies. It is an island which England and

the Dominion of Canada will some day regard with especial pride.

It is two hundred and seventy miles in length, and some forty miles

in breadth, and has an area of about sixteen thousand square miles.

The outline of the island is especially picturesque. Here the
buttress-like walls of Mount Arrowsmith descend for thousands of
feet almost abruptly to the shore. The shores have fiord-like arms.

288

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN~ THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

and sheltered harbors. Afar are seen the
glaciers of the Olympian Mountains, in
the State of Washington.

Here the atmospheres are bright and
the summers cool, and the mind is always
impressed with the grandeur of mountains
and seas.

Victoria is the beautiful capital.
It stands at the southeast extremity
of the island, and has a very pic-
turesque and intricate harbor. It
is a free port.

The city is famous for its scen-
ery, parks, elegant suburbs,
and conservative English
society. It is wholly un-
like the progressive city of
Vancouver.

English families of
wealth and social position
like it, and many such make
it their provincial place of
residence. It exerts a fas-
cination over lovers of
romance, poetry and art,
and elegant seclusion.
Vancouver says to the
world, " Come ! " delight-
ing in growth and expan-
sion. Victoria is more
given to the traditions of
the past. She is like an English seaport city.

INDIAN SALMON CACHE.

ARTHUR BURN&S RANCH.

289

The trees of Vancouver
are giants. Some of the
Douglas firs are three

hundred feet in height,
and the stumps are large
enough for houses, for
which purpose hollow

INDIAN GRAVES.

ones have been used. The Indians here are a very interesting
people. The traveller is struck with their salmon caches along the
shores, and with effigies that mark their houses and graves. These

290 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

salmon caches are a kind of basket hung in trees or placed upon the
high branches. Their purpose is to secure the fish from animals
and birds, and to keep it sweet in the clear, pure air.

The carvings of the Vancouver Indians are quite skilful. They
ornament the houses, and are used as a kind of family record.
Many families have peculiar carvings which answer the purpose of a
coat-of-arms.

The graves at a distance remind one of a house with the family
grouped outside. The utensils used by the warriors are buried with
them or placed on the outside of their tombs.

Vancouver was discovered by Juan de Fuca in 1592. Captain
Cook visited it in 1778, and Vancouver in 1792. It was taken into
the charge of the Hudson Bay Company in 1849, and became a part
of the Dominion of Canada in 1871. It has made a most wonderful
development during the last twenty years.

Wonderful also, is the .town of'Nanaimo, the port of the coal-
trade. Here, or near to the town, are some of the richest coal-mines
on the continent. Many of the miners are Scotch, and the habits
and customs of Scotland prevail here.

Near Victoria is the beautiful and calm harbor of Esquimalt,
the winter station of Pacific vessels. The mountain scenery through
the water-ways here is very inspiring. The officers of the English
navy are as a rule very contented and happy here, in a climate
where roses and laurestinus may be found in the gardens on the
shore on Christmas Day.

Strange scenes may be found on Vancouver, like the Buffalo
Dance of the Indians. In this dance the revellers wear buffalo
heads for masques. But stranger than the Buffalo Dance, or the
Wapiti's horns, or Potlatch masques, found in the stores in Victoria,
are colonies of seals that come and go, and seem almost human in
their loves and jealousies. It is said that St. Paul's Island has an
annual population of over three hundred million seals.

ARTHUR BURN&S RANCH.

291

Mr. Elliott, who furnished to the United States government an
account of the mode of the capture of the seals on the islands
of the Vancouver group, says : -

VIEW FROM ESQUIMALT.

" The full-grown male is from 6i to J\ feet long, and weighs four hundred
pounds. The old bulls will maintain their chosen position on the shore
among the countless herds. ^ constantly sustained fight between new-
comers and the first arrivals goes on incessantly. A well-understood prin-
ciple seems to exist among them, that each shall remain on a special spot,
usually about eight feet square, provided that at the start, and from the
first coming until the advent of the females, he is strong enough to hold
the ground against all comers, as the crowding of the fresh arrivals often
causes the removal of those who, though equally able-bodied at first, have
become weak by constant fighting. They are finally driven by fresher ani-

292 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

mals higher up in the rookery, and sometimes off altogether. Many of
the bulls exhibit wonderful strength and desperate courage. I remarked
one veteran who was the first to take up his position early in May, and
that position, as usual, directly at the water line. This seal had fought
at least forty or fifty desperate battles, and fought off his assailants every
time, and when the fighting season was over I saw him still there, covered
with scars and frightfully gashed, raw, festering, and bloody, one eye gouged
out, but lording it bravely over his harem, who were all huddled together
around him.

" The young seal is from the moment of his birth until he is a month
or six weeks old unable to swim. If he is seized by the nape of the
neck and pitched out a rod into the water from shore, his bullet-like head
will drop instantly below the surface, and his attenuated posterior extremi-
ties flap impotently on it ; suffocation is a question of only a few minutes,
- the stupid little creature not knowing how to raise his immersed head.
After the age of a month or six weeks their instinct drives them down
to the margin of the surf, where the ebb and flow of the waves covers
and uncovers the rocky beaches. They first smell and then touch the
moist pools, and flounder in the upper wash of the surf. After this begin-
ning they make slow and clumsy progress in learning the knack of swim-
ming. For a week or two they thrash the water as little dogs do, with
their fore feet, making no attempt whatever to use the hinder ones. Look
at that pup launched for the first time beyond his depth ; see how he
struggles, — his mouth wide open and eyes staring. He turns to the beach ;
the receding swell which had taken him out returns and leaves him high
and dry. For a few minutes he seems so weary that he weakly crawls
up out beyond the swift-returning wash, and coils himself up for a recu-
perative nap. He sleeps perhaps half an hour, then awakes ' as bright as
a dollar/ and to his swimming lesson he goes again. Once boldly swimming,
the pup fairly revels in his new happiness.

" The fur seals after leaving the islands in the autumn and early winter
do not visit land again until their return hi the spring or early summer
to the same 'rookery' grounds. They leave the islands in independent
squads ; apparently all turn by common consent toward the south, dis-
appearing toward the horizon, and are soon lost in the expanse, where
they spread themselves over the entire North Pacific as far south as the forty-
eighth and even forty-seventh parallels of north latitude. Over the immense
area between Oregon and Japan doubtless many extensive submarine fishing
shoals and banks are known to them; at least it is definitely understood

ARTHUR BURNS* S RANCH.

293

that Behring's Sea does not contain them long when they depart from
the breeding-places. While it is remembered that they sleep soundly and
with the greatest comfort on the surface of the water, and that even when
on land in summer they frequently put off from the beaches to take a
bath and a quiet snooze just beyond the surf, we can readily agree that
it is no inconvenience whatever, when their coats have been renewed, to
stay the balance of the time in their most congenial element, the deep.

" The seals are driven slowly to the slaughter. Men get between them
and the water, and the poor beasts turn, hop, and scramble up over the

land. The natives then leisurely walk in

the flank and rear of the drove thus secured, directing and driving it to
the killing-grounds. An old bull seal, fat and unwieldy, cannot travel
with the younger ones, though it can go as fast as a man can run for one
hundred yards, but then fails utterly, and falls to the ground entirely exhausted,
hot, and gasping for breath."

The aboriginal inhabitants of Vancouver hardly interest the trav-
eller more than the Celestials. - Directly across the Pacific lies China,
with three hundred and sixty million inhabitants, as we have stated ;
and England has made it easy for treaties with this great empire by
protecting the Chinese in her American colonies. A happy, clean-
looking, well-dressed people they are, as one finds them in Vancouver
and Victoria. At Vancouver they have built a church, where they

294

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

have preaching in their own tongue. Very grateful are they to the
American and English teachers who instruct them. In one instance
a lady by the name of Monk who had instructed them moved away
from Vancouver to Montreal. Her work had been conscientious and
sympathetic, and they wished to bring her back again. They raised
the money to do so, and made her a present on her return. They
are eager scholars, bright, quick, and active.

The Swedish population of the
new country, both in the provinces
and States, sustains the traditional
history of the men of the North.
One finds the Swedish farmer
everywhere. He i$ an American
as soon as he lands. True to his
history and the traditions of his
race, he yet comes to America to
be an American. He loves reli-
gion and liberty. The new coun-
try is like a Paradise to him.

The Roman Catholics have fine
churches and institutions every-
where. One, is surprised at the
costliness and solidity of their
buildings. Nowhere has the Meth-
odist Church finer buildings than in Canada, and the Methodist
Church in Vancouver would do credit to any city.

In these new cities the noble structure of the schoolhouse lifts
its towers among the steeples. Education here is to do her noblest
work. The provinces and States of the Northwest are all rich in
school-funds and provisions for education. California is making
herself famous for the building of great colleges and institutions of
learning. The great telescope of the world is there. One University

«•*••-•%,

THE WAPITI.

ARTHUR BURN&S RANCH.

295

starts with a building and endowment fund of some twenty million
dollars. The same educational spirit prevails in the empire on the
Puget Sound. Harvard College will one day be small in architectural
comparison with the educational structures that will arise on the

ON THE COAST OF BRITISH COLUMBIA.

northern shores of the Pacific, if the dreams and plans of the rich
founders of the new cities are realized.

Mount Baker is the glory of the North. It is seen almost every-
where in the upper Puget Sound country, gleaming like a dome
over the water-ways. Wherever one climbs a hill, the white-mantled
mountain greets him like a bishop of the skies. Serene in the
metallic blue of the wide heavens, its dome burns in the meridian
hours, and turns into roses in the melting skies of the sunset. Dis-
tance lends it poetry, but nearness in moonlight makes it wonderfully

296

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

beautiful, like the Taj, or the Capitol at Washington, — if such small
structures may suggest a comparison.

There is a solitary grandeur in the high mountains that overlook
the Fraser, the Columbia, and Puget Sound. Most of these frozen

SEYMOUR NARROWS, CANADIAN PACIFIC
COAST.

domes are twice as high as
Mount Washington in the
East, and they once blazed
with fire as they now glimmer

in everlasting ice. They were chimneys of gigantic furnaces that have
long ceased to burn. One dreams of the past on beholding them,
and imagines the time when the heavens rained fire. Giant forests
are now rooted in soil that once was ashes. There are traditions that
Mount Hood and Mount St. Helen's have been seen to glow and blaze
in the night like ghosts of the age of Carbon, but we do not know
that these tales are true. An attempt has been made to illumine
Mount Hood and Tacoma on the evenings of Independence days, and
to produce the effect of artificial volcanoes ; but the scheme has
proved grander than its success. The illumination of these moun-

ROADWAY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.

ARTHUR BURNS >S RANCH.

299

tains at night by means of electricity may become a feature of future
national holidays.

The Marquis of Lome says that British Columbia is by far the
most beautiful of the Canadian provinces. It certainly is the most
beautiful province in North America; but it shares its wonderful
beauty and resources with Washington, which surely is the most
beautiful of all the Union of American States.

CHAPTER XII.

THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG.

ASHINGTON is the land of young men. It is the
young mind that is developing her, governing her, and
guiding her. New York may be proud of her com-
merce, Pennsylvania of her mines of iron and coal,
Illinois of the mountains of grain that fill her elevators,
Maine of her timbered forests, Nevada of her silver,
California of her gold, and Massachusetts of her noble schools ; but
Washington is rich in all of these, or in the promise and expecta-
tion of them all. In this new Florida of the Japan rivers and airs
that we call " Chinook " is Nature's masterpiece of America. It is
bounded on the south by the imperial Columbia, the most beautiful
of all American rivers, and is walled on the north by mountains that
surpass the Alps; along its western forests rolls the Pacific, and from
the sky everywhere crystal mountains look down like domes in the
heaven, on forests and plains of eternal verdure, soon to be changed
into summer seas of billowy grain.

SEATTLE THE WONDERFUL.

Beautiful is Elliott Bay with its purple waters, its deep harbors, and
its majestic bluffs. Mount Tacoma (Rainier) seems to hang over it
like a silver tent of some vanished god; the mountain seems to glisten
everywhere, though so far away. It haunts the heavens. One turns
toward it always, for in the changing light it is never twice the same.

SUNSET ON THE PACIFIC COAST.

THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG. 303.

One sees a hundred Tacomas in a single clay, — a mountain of roses
in the morning, of gold at noon, of sapphire at evening, and of silver
under the falling curtains of night.

The Olympic Range as seen from blue Elliott Bay is also beauti-
ful, though not as beautiful as Mount Tacoma. Is there anything in
iNorth America as beautiful as that? The Olympic Mountains are
a sky-wall, with towers and pinnacles frosted with everlasting snow.
The sun sinks down behind them and they are on fire.

There was no city of Seattle a few years ago, only a lumber-mill
and a few houses in the midst of an apparent wilderness. Mar-
vellous changes, however, are often wrought in these Western pioneer
forests, and Seattle was destined to be a splendid example of what
push and endurance can do toward building a city in a day.

Suddenly Seattle became a port. The Canadian Pacific ran into
Vancouver, and the Northern Pacific into Tacoma, and steamers plied
between the two, and the mid-sound town, with its open road to the
Pacific, began to build, and to multiply its inhabitants. Capitalists
came, and it began to be whispered, " Here will be the New York of
the Pacific, the rich port of Asia and the East. The story of the
uncovered wealth of iron and coal and precious ores in the territory
around Seattle flew abroad ; people came hurrying ; the great pine-
trees fell before the axe and fire ; houses seemed to start up every-
where ; armies of hammers seemed to be marching over all the hills,
and from Lake Union to Lake Washington the wonder grew.

A sunset at Seattle is a glory ever to be remembered, especially
if seen from the hills. Glorious Rainier, as the people here still call
Mount Tacoma, the crystal Olympic Mountains, the cool blue bay,
the deeply shaded bluffs, the evergreen arcades of the primeval woods,
the over-sea of the peaceful sky, the poetic mellowness of all the
splendor, — who that has stood on the hills of West Seattle in a
twilight of June can ever forget the scene ? How did it happen
that this beautiful region of the sea, this Vale of Tempe, this place

304 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

worthy of the Golden Age, should have been the last in America to
become settled !

The electric-car system in Seattle is the most rapid and daring
that we have seen. The cars seem to race over the hills like horses,
and stop on high hills with the ease of a flying deer.

From one of the far inland ranches a boy came to Seattle one day on
a mule. When he had last seen the place i; was a town. He entered West
Seattle slowly, wondering at all he saw, when suddenly a car without horses
went flying by, emitting lightning from its wheels, and sweeping over the
hill. The mule saw it and fled, and the ranch-boy was as alarmed as the
mule.

On reaching home, he told his father what he had seen, — a car without
engine or horses.

" It was drawn by nothing," said he, " and its wheels were on fire."

"Jack," said the old ranchman, "I have always held you to be an honest
boy until now. But no car was ever drawn by nothing, or ran over any
hill in Seattle alone."

" It was spirits, father."

" Jack, if you were not a temperate boy, I should think it was spirits
indeed. You have lost your senses, Jack."

The old man was greatly distressed. He had been proud of his boy's
sense of honor and his sound mind.

In the course of a few weeks Jack met with an accident, and sickened
and died.

" I never knew that boy to do wrong but once," said the old ranchman to
the minister who attended the funeral, " and that was when he told me that
he saw a car in Seattle drawn by nothing. He also said that Seattle was
a great city. I could forgive him that, for he did not know what a great
city is."

Jack was buried ; but his supposed falsehood haunted the mind of his
old father. Had Jack really lied?

" I will go and see," said the old ranchman at last.

He started away from the valley on the same mule that had borne the
boy when he had seen the mysterious car that might have amazed Baron
Munchausen. He rode slowly up the hill of West Seattle overlooking the
surrounding country.

THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG. 305

Suddenly the mule stopped ; then began to back. A car glided by with
flashing wheels, without horse or engine. The mule turned and ran.

" I have seen the Evil One with my own eyes," said the ranchman. " I
don't know what the world has come to at last ; but, thank Heaven ! my boy
Jack spoke the truth."

AN EVENING AT SEATTLE.

I shall never forget a scene I once saw in Seattle soon after the
great fire.

. The crimson flush of twilight quivered over Puget Sound, and
the crown of Mount Rainier lighted up for the last time in the after-
glow of the dying day. There was the sound of a drum in the
streets, a rattle and jingle of tambourines, and a red flag came sweep-
ing by, followed by a procession of decently dressed men and women
singing a lively tune. The musical company wheeled on to a plateau
near the Hotel Bellev'ew, planted their flag, and knelt down in a
circle.

"The Salvation Army, I declare!" said a speculator. "They are
a disgrace to Seattle ; " and he put on his hat and left the veranda
to enter a saloon.

It was Saturday night, aiter one of the great days of emigration,
and the streets were filled with people, many of whom were taking
their first view of wonderful Mount Rainier and the blue Puget Sound.
There was a tramp of feet everywhere on the miles of wooden pave-
ments. Saloons blazed; it was a harvest night for all those places
which spring up so quickly in a new city, and from which Seattle -
a moral city — is not free.

I passed from the hotel to the plateau. It was nearly nine
o'clock, but still light, and the great tt-nt of Mount Rainier still glistened
in the high air. I expected to hear some minstrel songs, some comical
and excited talking, and to witness sundry sensational performances
such as I had witnessed under similar circumstances in the East.

306 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

The army was kneeling in a great circle in the open lot, under
the northern twilight with its' glimmering of stars. Orderly men
and women were gathering around them, and the circle widened and
widened until a great concourse of people was gathered, all reverent
and devout as in a church. There were prayers, songs, and then
came the "testimonies."

The pleasure-seeking critic from the East might have sneered
at the scene. But brave men were here, — men who had faced the
cannon in the old campaigns; men who had beaten down the wilder-
ness and opened the highways of progress ; and better yet, men who
had overcome their own passions, the saloon, and all the ruinous-
excitements incident to pioneer life.

Indians were there, negroes, men who had been intemperate,
and both men and women with whom passion had been stronger
than conscience and will. One spirit animated all, — the desire to
be free from the enchainment of sin.

It was ten o'clock when the great concourse dispersed. Puget
Sound was a shadow, and Mount Rainier a ghost. The moon was
shining.

" That was better than the saloon," said an observer to me.

" Yes ; whatever may be thought of the Salvation Army this was
better than the saloon."

TACOMA THE BEAUTIFUL.

Am I far from the truth when I say that Tacoma is the most
beautifully situated of any city in the United States? So it seems
to me, and I have been in most American cities. The poetry
of the inland seas of Puget Sound and the Gulf of Georgia finds
its most perfect expression in Commencement Bay. The high bluff
on which Tacoma stands was covered by a most majestic forest be-
fore the city rose on the ashes of the giant trees, and it commanded

THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG.

307

MOUNT TACOMA.

the most glorious scenery of the places of the Sound. Here Mount
Tacoma, like a bride from heaven, stands radiant before the eye,
burning with jewels.
Here flowers fill the
winter, and Christmas
roses bloom in the airs
of Japanese seas. Here
the woods are all pil-
lared cathedrals, and
the country all a won-
derful park. Wherever
one goes, Mount Ta-
coma glimmers on his
vision. In fact, it is
so for a hundred miles. Mount Tacoma is everywhere a white
mountain of snow set on the imperial purple of the sky.
Says Joaquin Miller, in an article on Tacoma: —

14 Sit, in fancy at least, with me here on the high hill, with the roar of ham-
mers and the clatter of trowels at our backs. Let us turn our faces toward the
east. Under the steep stone wall at our feet, hugging the precipice, which is
hung with wild vines and countless wild flowers, steals the continuous car.
These stream's of cars pass so close under the precipice that you do not see
them. You look straight down into the deep blue waters that tide in from the
Japan seas. A common shot across, and a like precipice, with the ever crowd-
ing and ever crowning density of green. Then a little to the right the preci-
pice melts down, and the green fir-trees touch the silver sands. Then the sands
sweep in a crescent about the head of the sound; then sea-marsh; then the
trees, dense, deep, tall, and imperious, for ten, twenty, thirty, forty miles !
Up ! up ! up !

" You start to your feet, — you stand with your head uncovered ; for above
all this density of wood and out of and above all this blackness there gleam
and flash, face to face, the everlasting snows of Mount Tacoma.

" Be silent, as I should be silent. It is an insolent thing that I should dare
to dwell, even for a single paragraph, in the idle attempt to describe the
indescribable.

308 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

" Out of the blackness and above the smoke, above the touch of pollution,
above the clouds, companioned forever with the stars, Tacoma stands imperious
and alone.

" You may watch the boat sail by at your feet for a little time, but some-
how before you quite know it your head will turn to Tacoma.

" You may see a pretty woman pass by as you sit here on the high-built
balcony of the new red city on the strong right arm of the sea of seas ; but
somehow she becomes a part of Tacoma, melts into the mountain of snow, and
your face is again heavenward. You may hear a wise man speak of the actions
of great men as you sit here; but somehow his utterances seem far, far away;
your heart and your whole soul, — they have gone up into the mountains to pray.
And it is well. You will come down to the world a truer and a better man.
You will descend, but never entirely descend. Your soul will in some sort
remain high and white and glorious. You can never again come quite down
to the touch of that which is unworthy, for you have been companioned with
the Eternal.

" The mountains of Mexico, and California as well, are mountains on top of
mountains. Rather, I should say that the snow-peaks are set on the top of
mountain ranges. Not so here in the northwest of our Republic. Mount
Hood, or rather Mount Pat-twa, the true Indian name of Mount Hood, starts
up from the water's edge of the Oregon River, and springs almost perpendicu-
lar in the air to its full height. It looks as if it might blow over, so steep and
slim and lone and unsupported does it stand. The same might almost be said
of Mount St. Helen's, and most especially of Mount Tacoma.

" As I may have said in this paper on a former occasion, the higher peaks of
Mexico and California are merely the heads of well-raised families. But not so
with these sublime snow-peaks of the north. They stand entirely alone. The
foundation stones of Mount Tacoma are laid almost in the sea. And so you
onay write it down that the mountain scenery of Oregon and Washington sur-
passes that of either Mexico or California, so far as majesty and impressions
are concerned.

" Come, then, and see the new world, and look up and wonder what fearful
convulsions fashioned it. Sit with us in the wilderness, and get the balm and
the balsam of the fir-trees in your fibre. It is good for the body as well as the
soul to be here in the new red town with its girdle of good green wood."

One of the first questions that Charlie asked Mr. Lette, on landing
at Tacoma, was, " Where is the pine-tree tower ? "

THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG.

309

" I had not heard of it," said Mr. Lette.

" It is the oldest church-tower in America," said Charlie.

" But Tacoma is the youngest city in America,"
said Mr. Lette.

" Yet it has the oldest church-tower in the
States," said Charlie. "So I
have read. Let us try to
find it."

Charlie stopped a car.
" Where is the church of the
pine-tree tower ? " he asked
of the conductor.

"In old Tacoma. We
go there."

"Let us go," said
Charlie.

They rode out of the
new city looking down on
the islanded bay, and came
to a quiet suburb, which
was the original town.

" There it is," said the
conductor. " Six hundred
years old, they say. There,
don't you see it, with lad-
der, bell, and cross ? "

A little chapel half cov-
ered with ivy rose before
them, attached to a leaning
tower, on which was a bell

and cross. This tower had been a colossal pine or fir tree. It had
been sawed off high in the air, and the chapel attached to it, and the

THE OLDEST CHURCH-TOWER IN AMERICA.

310 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

bell hung upon it. The base was green with the most luxurious
English ivy that Mr. Lette had ever seen. The altar also was cov-
ered with living ivy that had grown through the side of the building.

THE FOREST GIANTS.

Tacoma was once the seat of the great giants of the forest. One
could hardly believe that these armies of trees had been overthrown,
did not the stumps remain. A recent writer says of these giants of
the Sound country: —

" Plying on Puget Sound is a boat one hundred and twenty-two feet long.
The timbers of which the hull is built run from stem to stern, and not one
is spliced. As a specimen product, a Washington lumberman sent to San
Francisco last year a beam twenty-four inches thick and one hundred and fifty-
two feet long, writes a correspondent of the St. Louis ' Globt-Democrat.' He
explained that his intention was to make it one hundred and ninety feet long,
but the end ran into a bank and the log had to be cut. Spars for ship-yards on
the Clyde, in Scotland, are shipped from Puget Sound.

" At a mill in Portland you may see the timbers, sawed, mortised, painted,
and numbered, for bridges to be put together in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana.
Puget Sound cedar shingles are used in New York State. Four ships are load-
ing at a Sound wharf, all with lumber. One goes to London, the second to
Melbourne, the third to Valparaiso, the fourth to San Francisco, A test was
made not long ago of four-inch sticks of Washington fir, Michigan pine, and
good white oak. The pine broke at seventeen hundred pounds, the white oak
at thirty-five hundred pounds, and the Washington fir at forty-three hundred
pounds. Engineers say the straining force and endurance of this fir lumber is
greater than that of any other.

" When one of these monarchs of the coast forest goes down, it shakes the
ground like an earthquake. Let it fall across a canon, and it doesn't snap
under the tremendous shock, but lies intact and rigid. There is a bridge in
Oregon across a ravine sixty feet deep, made by spiking a plank on a tree
where it fell by accident. Where a windfall in the forest has occurred, these
great timbers lie so thick that the only way to cross is to walk on the trunks
from ten to thirty feet .above the ground.

" Lumbermen tell of travelling for miles and not once putting their foot on
the soil."

FOREST GIANTS.

THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG.

THE SURPRISE OF MOUNT HOOD.

313

The beautiful river of America is the Columbia, and no stream can
bring to the traveller a greater surprise. Leaving Portland, Oregon,
in an early morning boat, one is borne along past Vancouver, and the
historic places of the old Hudson Bay Company and early United
States trading-posts, into the calm waters of the salmon fisheries, and
under bluffs of crumbling and ruined rock mountains. We will sup-
pose the time to be June ; for the Columbia River in June is in its
glory. The beauty is continuous, and it becomes monotonous when
one settles down to read or to doze in the sun. The boat halts anon
to give bait to the fishermen. Suddenly the tourist starts. What is
it that confronts him ? Has a mountain come down to the shore to
meet him ? He might say, " There is God," half believing it. In
a moment a mountain is brought to his vision, — a dead volcano,
twelve thousand feet high, mantled with snow, and gleaming with
glaciers. It is Mount Hood.

It is said that a State takes the character of its early settlers. The
founders of Washington and Oregon were heroes, both the Protes-
tant missionaries and the Jesuit fathers. The story of Whitman, the
frontier missionary, is one of the grandest in the pioneer history of
America. He crossed the Rocky Mountains with his young bride, —
this one man who in himself was an army ; Rev. Dr. Spaulding and
his bride came with him. When they looked down from the Rockies
and saw the valley of the Columbia, they opened the Bible, and raised
over it the United States flag, and took formal possession of the whole
land for liberty and God. Years passed. There was danger that the
great region would become lost to the States by the diplomacy of the
Hudson Bay Company. Whitman resolved to leave his mission sta-
tion at Walla Walla, and make a circuitous route out of the way of
hostile Indians to Washington, to tell the statesmen there how glo-
rious this territory was. He made the ride alone. He was at first

314 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

coolly received at the Capitol, but his famous ride saved to the States
the vast empire. Whitman went back to Walla Walla, and was there
killed by the Indians. A noble monument is to be erected over his
remains, or near the old mission post.

In connection with these short accounts of the cities of the"
Pacific Coast we must not forget that early explorer of the Pacific
Ocean and circumnavigator of the world, Sir Francis Drake, whose
name recalls an interesting incident which occurred just before
his defeat of the Spanish Armada,

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.

Sir Francis Drake, the famous English explorer of the Eliza-
bethan period, obtained a view of the Pacific Ocean from the Isth-
mus of Darien. Being imbued with the spirit of adventure, he
returned to the Atlantic and there embarked in December, 1577,
in five small vessels, on a buccaneering expedition to the Pacific.
He sailed through the Straits of Magellan and obtained immense
treasures by plundering along the coast of Chili and Peru. Sail-
ing northward along the coast of California, he was overcome with
the desire to discover a northwest passage to the Atlantic Ocean ;
but on arriving at the Island of Vancouver he retraced his way
to San Francisco, and thence steered across the Pacific to the
Moluccas, returning to England by the Cape of Good Hope in
1579, having circumnavigated the globe.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, who in 1587 appointed
him commander of a fleet and sent him to "singe the King of
Spain's beard," — meaning to burn his ships in the Spanish harbors.

The name of Vice-Admiral Drake is popularly associated with
the splendid victory of the English fleet over the flower of Spain,
the Invincible Armada. The opening incident of the short and

THE NEW STAR ON THE FLAG. 317

decisive struggle when the ships of the enemy were first sighted
has always had a romantic interest so far as it applies to the courage
and coolness of England's gallant defenders. The story is that
the High Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, and his captains
were playing a match on the bowling-green, on the well-known
Hoe at Plymouth. One Fleming, the master of a Scotch priva-
teer,— for the seamen of the land of John Knox were concerned
in the coming conflict, — running before the wind, entered Plymouth
Harbor, and learning where the Admiral was, hastened to announce
that he had seen the Spanish fleet off the Cornish coast. Some
of the captains, at this exciting information, were for ending the
game, and a shouting for the boats was heard. Drake, however,
did not show any excitement whatever, remarking, as he continued
his play, " There is time enough to finish the game and beat the
Spaniards too."

Such courage as this in the face of one of the greatest dangers
that ever overshadowed good old England is indeed heroic, showing
of what material the famous sea-king was made.

Charlie Hampden left Mr. Lette at Walla Walla. He crossed
Montana, stopped awhile at the ranch-home of Helena, and then
returned over the Northern Pacific to Rhode Island, visiting the
National Park before taking the direct route home. He returned
with the resolution to make a home for himself in the new empire.

" The next great American emigration," he said to Mr. Lette
as they parted, "will be to Montana. I think I will go there."

His visit to the great inland empire, and the study of its pros-
pects, confirmed the opinion that he had formed and the resolution
that he had made. He assured Helena that he would return. She
looked very happy at the declaration he had made, and her father
seemed pleased.

" When you come again — " said Helena.

31 8 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

44 1 would like to stay," answered Charlie to the half sentence.
"May I?"

"Yes," said Helena.

44 Yes," said the ranchman.

It was a quiet fall evening in old Pokanoket. Aunt Mar and
Helen were sitting by the rekindled fire, and Charlie was with them.

44 1 have a secret to tell you," said Aunt Mar. 44 1 have found it.
John Hampden did come to America."

44 How do you know ? " asked Charlie.

44 I have found it so in Baylies' • History of New Plymouth.' Let
me read it to you."

Aunt Mar read : —

" When wandering about the woods of Pokanoket, or along the
banks of Taunton River, or sleeping in Indian huts, little did Hamp-
den dream of the fate which awaited him ; little did he think that
it was reserved for him to commence the overthrow of the British
monarchy, and to shed his blood in the first daring attempt for a
free constitution in England."

"Where did you find the History?"

44 In my own library."

"Who was Baylies?"

44 A Congressman and historian, who lived in the very place of
the old tradition. He was born at Dighton, Mass., and was a Taun-
ton lawyer."

a But he may have been misinformed."

44 It is not likely ; for his father, Dr. Baylies, lived to a great age,
and he must have been familiar with the old settler's views and actual
knowledge of the subject." Aunt Mar added, 44 And now I am
happy."

44 And so am I," said Charlie.

" You, why, — because the tradition is true ? "

THE 2\EW STAR ON THE FLAG.

319

" No ; because I am engaged."

" Engaged! To whom ? "

" To Helena ; and I am going to the Northwest next year."

" Well, well," said Aunt Mar, "you are rather young yet; but I do
not object; it is a great country, and I think that you have great
reason to be proud of your name and ancestry. I rather liked that
Montana girl and her mother; and when you go, I think Helen and
I will go too."

NATURE'S MONUMENT, CANADIAN PACIFIC COAST.

University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

SLflrm^

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

Butterworth, Hezekiah

Zigzag journeys in the
great Northwest

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