The Sky Pilot: A Tale of the Foothills
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CHAPTER III
THE COMING OF THE PILOT
He was the first missionary ever seen in the country, and it was the OldTimer who named him. The Old Timer's advent to the Foothill countrywas prehistoric, and his influence was, in consequence, immense. No oneventured to disagree with him, for to disagree with the Old Timer was towrite yourself down a tenderfoot, which no one, of course, cared to do.It was a misfortune which only time could repair to be a new-comer, andit was every new-comer's aim to assume with all possible speed the styleand customs of the aristocratic Old Timers, and to forget as soon aspossible the date of his own arrival. So it was as "The Sky Pilot,"familiarly "The Pilot," that the missionary went for many a day in theSwan Creek country.
I had become schoolmaster of Swan Creek. For in the spring a kindProvidence sent in the Muirs and the Bremans with housefuls ofchildren, to the ranchers' disgust, for they foresaw ploughed fieldsand barbed-wire fences cramping their unlimited ranges. A schoolbecame necessary. A little log building was erected and I was appointedschoolmaster. It was as schoolmaster that I first came to touch ThePilot, for the letter which the Hudson Bay freighters brought me earlyone summer evening bore the inscription:
The Schoolmaster, Public School, Swan Creek, Alberta.
There was altogether a fine air about the letter; the writing was infine, small hand, the tone was fine, and there was something fine in thesignature--"Arthur Wellington Moore." He was glad to know that there wasa school and a teacher in Swan Creek, for a school meant children, inwhom his soul delighted; and in the teacher he would find a friend,and without a friend he could not live. He took me into his confidence,telling me that though he had volunteered for this far-away missionfield he was not much of a preacher and he was not at all sure that hewould succeed. But he meant to try, and he was charmed at the prospectof having one sympathizer at least. Would I be kind enough to put up insome conspicuous place the enclosed notice, filling in the blanks as Ithought best?
"Divine service will be held at Swan creek in ---- ----- at ---- o'clock. All are cordially invited. Arthur Wellington Moore."
On the whole I liked his letter. I liked its modest self-depreciationand I liked its cool assumption of my sympathy and co-operation. But Iwas perplexed. I remembered that Sunday was the day fixed for the greatbaseball match, when those from "Home," as they fondly called the landacross the sea from which they had come, were to "wipe the earth" withall comers. Besides, "Divine service" was an innovation in Swan Creekand I felt sure that, like all innovations that suggested the approachof the East, it would be by no means welcome.
However, immediately under the notice of the "Grand Baseball Match for'The Pain Killer' a week from Sunday, at 2:30, Home vs. the World," Ipinned on the door of the Stopping Place the announcement:
"Divine service will be held at Swan Creek, in the Stopping PlaceParlor, a week from Sunday, immediately upon the conclusion of thebaseball match.
"Arthur Wellington Moore."
There was a strange incongruity in the two, and an unconscious challengeas well.
All next day, which was Saturday, and, indeed, during the followingweek, I stood guard over my notice, enjoying the excitement it producedand the comments it called forth. It was the advance wave of thegreat ocean of civilization which many of them had been glad to leavebehind--some could have wished forever.
To Robert Muir, one of the farmers newly arrived, the notice was aharbinger of good. It stood for progress, markets and a higher pricefor land; albeit he wondered "hoo he wad be keepit up." But hishard-wrought, quick-spoken little wife at his elbow "hooted" hisscruples and, thinking of her growing lads, welcomed with unmixedsatisfaction the coming of "the meenister." Her satisfaction was sharedby all the mothers and most of the fathers in the settlement; but by theothers, and especially by that rollicking, roistering crew, the Companyof the Noble Seven, the missionary's coming was viewed with varyingdegrees of animosity. It meant a limitation of freedom in their wildlyreckless living. The "Permit" nights would now, to say the least, besubject to criticism; the Sunday wolf-hunts and horse-races, with theirattendant delights, would now be pursued under the eye of the Church,and this would not add to the enjoyment of them. One great charm of thecountry, which Bruce, himself the son of an Edinburgh minister, and nowSecretary of the Noble Seven, described as "letting a fellow do as heblanked pleased," would be gone. None resented more bitterly than he themissionary's intrusion, which he declared to be an attempt "toreimpose upon their freedom the trammels of an antiquated and bigotedconventionality." But the rest of the Company, while not takingso decided a stand, were agreed that the establishment of a churchinstitution was an objectionable and impertinent as well as unnecessaryproceeding.
Of course, Hi Kendal and his friend Bronco Bill had no opinion one wayor the other. The Church could hardly affect them even remotely. A dozenyears' stay in Montana had proved with sufficient clearness to them thata church was a luxury of civilization the West might well do without.
Outside the Company of the Noble Seven there was only one whose opinionhad value in Swan Creek, and that was the Old Timer. The Company hadsought to bring him in by making him an honorary member, but he refusedto be drawn from his home far up among the hills, where he lived withhis little girl Gwen and her old half-breed nurse, Ponka. The approachof the church he seemed to resent as a personal injury. It representedto him that civilization from which he had fled fifteen years ago withhis wife and baby girl, and when five years later he laid his wife inthe lonely grave that could be seen on the shaded knoll just frontinghis cabin door, the last link to his past was broken. From all thatsuggested the great world beyond the run of the Prairie he shrank as oneshrinks from a sudden touch upon an old wound.
"I guess I'll have to move back," he said to me gloomily.
"Why?" I said in surprise, thinking of his grazing range, which wasample for his herd.
"This blank Sky Pilot." He never swore except when unusually moved.
"Sky Pilot?" I inquired.
He nodded and silently pointed to the notice.
"Oh, well, he won't hurt you, will he?"
"Can't stand it," he answered savagely, "must get away."
"What about Gwen?" I ventured, for she was the light of his eyes. "Pityto stop her studies." I was giving her weekly lessons at the old man'sranch.
"Dunno. Ain't figgered out yet about that baby." She was still his baby."Guess she's all she wants for the Foothills, anyway. What's the use?"he added, bitterly, talking to himself after the manner of men who livemuch alone.
I waited for a moment, then said: "Well, I wouldn't hurry about doinganything," knowing well that the one thing an old-timer hates to do isto make any change in his mode of life. "Maybe he won't stay."
He caught at this eagerly. "That's so! There ain't much to keep him,anyway," and he rode off to his lonely ranch far up in the hills.
I looked after the swaying figure and tried to picture his past with itstragedy; then I found myself wondering how he would end and what wouldcome to his little girl. And I made up my mind that if the missionarywere the right sort his coming might not be a bad thing for the OldTimer and perhaps for more than him.