The Sky Pilot

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THE SKY PILOT

A TALE OF THE FOOTHILLS


By Ralph Connor




PREFACE


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

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

The waving skyline of the Foothills was the boundary of their lookout
upon life. Here they dwelt safe from the scanning of the world, freed
from all restraints of social law, denied the gentler influences of home
and the sweet uplift of a good woman's face. What wonder if, with the
new freedom beating in their hearts and ears, some rode fierce and hard
the wild trail to the cut-bank of destruction!

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



CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I. The Foothills Country

II. The Company of the Noble Seven

III. The Coming of the Pilot

IV. The Pilot's Measure

V. First Blood

VI. His Second Wind

VII. The Last of the Permit Sundays

VIII. The Pilot's Grip

IX. Gwen

X. Gwen's First Prayers

XI. Gwen's Challenge

XII. Gwen's Canyon

XIII. The Canyon Flowers

XIV. Bill's Bluff

XV. Bill's Partner

XVI. Bill's Financing

XVII. How the Pinto Sold

XVIII. The Lady Charlotte

XIX. Through Gwen's Window

XX. How Bill Favored "Home-Grown Industries"

XXI. How Bill Hit the Trail

XXII. How the Swan Creek Church was Opened

XXIII. The Pilot's Last Port




THE SKY PILOT



CHAPTER I

THE FOOTHILLS COUNTRY


Beyond the great prairies and in the shadow of the Rockies lie the
Foothills. For nine hundred miles the prairies spread themselves out in
vast level reaches, and then begin to climb over softly rounded mounds
that ever grow higher and sharper till, here and there, they break
into jagged points and at last rest upon the great bases of the mighty
mountains. These rounded hills that join the prairies to the mountains
form the Foothill Country. They extend for about a hundred miles only,
but no other hundred miles of the great West are so full of interest
and romance. The natural features of the country combine the beauties
of prairie and of mountain scenery. There are valleys so wide that the
farther side melts into the horizon, and uplands so vast as to suggest
the unbroken prairie. Nearer the mountains the valleys dip deep and ever
deeper till they narrow into canyons through which mountain torrents
pour their blue-gray waters from glaciers that lie glistening between
the white peaks far away. Here are the great ranges on which feed herds
of cattle and horses. Here are the homes of the ranchmen, in whose wild,
free, lonely existence there mingles much of the tragedy and comedy, the
humor and pathos, that go to make up the romance of life. Among them are
to be found the most enterprising, the most daring, of the peoples of
the old lands. The broken, the outcast, the disappointed, these too
have found their way to the ranches among the Foothills. A country it is
whose sunlit hills and shaded valleys reflect themselves in the lives
of its people; for nowhere are the contrasts of light and shade more
vividly seen than in the homes of the ranchmen of the Albertas.

The experiences of my life have confirmed in me the orthodox conviction
that Providence sends his rain upon the evil as upon the good; else I
should never have set my eyes upon the Foothill country, nor touched its
strangely fascinating life, nor come to know and love the most striking
man of all that group of striking men of the Foothill country--the dear
old Pilot, as we came to call him long afterwards. My first year in
college closed in gloom. My guardian was in despair. From this distance
of years I pity him. Then I considered him unnecessarily concerned about
me--"a fussy old hen," as one of the boys suggested. The invitation from
Jack Dale, a distant cousin, to spend a summer with him on his ranch in
South Alberta came in the nick of time. I was wild to go. My guardian
hesitated long; but no other solution of the problem of my disposal
offering, he finally agreed that I could not well get into more trouble
by going than by staying. Hence it was that, in the early summer of
one of the eighties, I found myself attached to a Hudson's Bay Company
freight train, making our way from a little railway town in Montana
towards the Canadian boundary. Our train consisted of six wagons
and fourteen yoke of oxen, with three cayuses, in charge of a French
half-breed and his son, a lad of about sixteen. We made slow enough
progress, but every hour of the long day, from the dim, gray, misty
light of dawn to the soft glow of shadowy evening, was full of new
delights to me. On the evening of the third day we reached the Line
Stopping Place, where Jack Dale met us. I remember well how my heart
beat with admiration of the easy grace with which he sailed down upon
us in the loose-jointed cowboy style, swinging his own bronco and the
little cayuse he was leading for me into the circle of the wagons,
careless of ropes and freight and other impedimenta. He flung himself
off before his bronco had come to a stop, and gave me a grip that made
me sure of my welcome. It was years since he had seen a man from home,
and the eager joy in his eyes told of long days and nights of lonely
yearning for the old days and the old faces. I came to understand this
better after my two years' stay among these hills that have a strange
power on some days to waken in a man longings that make his heart grow
sick. When supper was over we gathered about the little fire, while Jack
and the half-breed smoked and talked. I lay on my back looking up at the
pale, steady stars in the deep blue of the cloudless sky, and listened
in fullness of contented delight to the chat between Jack and the
driver. Now and then I asked a question, but not too often. It is
a listening silence that draws tales from a western man, not vexing
questions. This much I had learned already from my three days' travel.
So I lay and listened, and the tales of that night are mingled with the
warm evening lights and the pale stars and the thoughts of home that
Jack's coming seemed to bring.

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

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

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

"Stick to him!" yelled Jack, through his shouts of laughter. "You'll
make him sick before long."

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

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

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

"You bet!" said the half-breed. "Dat's make pretty beeg fun, eh?"

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

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

I shall never forget the summer evening when Jack and I rode into
Swan Creek. I say into--but the village was almost entirely one of
imagination, in that it consisted of the Stopping Place, a long log
building, a story and a half high, with stables behind, and the store in
which the post-office was kept and over which the owner dwelt. But the
situation was one of great beauty. On one side the prairie rambled down
from the hills and then stretched away in tawny levels into the misty
purple at the horizon; on the other it clambered over the round, sunny
tops to the dim blue of the mountains beyond.

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

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

"And who are they?" I asked.

"Oh," he replied, with a shrug, "they are the elite Of Swan Creek; and
by Jove," he added, "this must be a Permit Night."

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

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

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



CHAPTER II

THE COMPANY OF THE NOBLE SEVEN


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

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

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

The Company of the Noble Seven was the dominant social force in the Swan
Creek country. Indeed, it was the only social force Swan Creek knew.
Originally consisting of seven young fellows of the best blood of
Britain, "banded together for purposes of mutual improvement and social
enjoyment," it had changed its character during the years, but not
its name. First, its membership was extended to include "approved
colonials," such as Jack Dale and "others of kindred spirit," under
which head, I suppose, the two cowboys from the Ashley Ranch, Hi Keadal
and "Bronco" Bill--no one knew and no one asked his other name--were
admitted. Then its purposes gradually limited themselves to those of a
social nature, chiefly in the line of poker-playing and whisky-drinking.
Well born and delicately bred in that atmosphere of culture mingled with
a sturdy common sense and a certain high chivalry which surrounds the
stately homes of Britain, these young lads, freed from the restraints
of custom and surrounding, soon shed all that was superficial in their
make-up and stood forth in the naked simplicity of their native manhood.
The West discovered and revealed the man in them, sometimes to their
honor, often to their shame. The Chief of the Company was the Hon. Fred
Ashley, of the Ashley Ranch, sometime of Ashley Court, England--a big,
good-natured man with a magnificent physique, a good income from home,
and a beautiful wife, the Lady Charlotte, daughter of a noble English
family. At the Ashley Ranch the traditions of Ashley Court were
preserved as far as possible. The Hon. Fred appeared at the wolf-hunts
in riding-breeches and top boots, with hunting crop and English saddle,
while in all the appointments of the house the customs of the English
home were observed. It was characteristic, however, of western life that
his two cowboys, Hi Kendal and Bronco Bill, felt themselves quite his
social equals, though in the presence of his beautiful, stately wife
they confessed that they "rather weakened." Ashley was a thoroughly good
fellow, well up to his work as a cattle-man, and too much of a gentleman
to feel, much less assert, any superiority of station. He had the
largest ranch in the country and was one of the few men making money.

Ashley's chief friend, or, at least, most frequent companion, was a man
whom they called "The Duke." No one knew his name, but every one said
he was "the son of a lord," and certainly from his style and bearing
he might be the son of almost anything that was high enough in rank. He
drew "a remittance," but, as that was paid through Ashley, no one knew
whence it came nor how much it was. He was a perfect picture of a man,
and in all western virtues was easily first. He could rope a steer,
bunch cattle, play poker or drink whisky to the admiration of his
friends and the confusion of his foes, of whom he had a few; while as to
"bronco busting," the virtue par excellence of western cattle-men, even
Bronco Bill was heard to acknowledge that "he wasn't in it with the
Dook, for it was his opinion that he could ride anythin' that had legs
in under it, even if it was a blanked centipede." And this, coming from
one who made a profession of "bronco busting," was unquestionably high
praise. The Duke lived alone, except when he deigned to pay a visit
to some lonely rancher who, for the marvellous charm of his talk, was
delighted to have him as guest, even at the expense of the loss of a few
games at poker. He made a friend of no one, though some men could tell
of times when he stood between them and their last dollar, exacting only
the promise that no mention should be made of his deed. He had an easy,
lazy manner and a slow cynical smile that rarely left his face, and the
only sign of deepening passion in him was a little broadening of his
smile. Old Latour, who kept the Stopping Place, told me how once The
Duke had broken into a gentle laugh. A French half-breed freighter on
his way north had entered into a game of poker with The Duke, with the
result that his six months' pay stood in a little heap at his enemy's
left hand. The enraged freighter accused his smiling opponent of being a
cheat, and was proceeding to demolish him with one mighty blow. But
The Duke, still smiling, and without moving from his chair, caught the
descending fist, slowly crushed the fingers open, and steadily drew the
Frenchman to his knees, gripping him so cruelly in the meantime that he
was forced to cry aloud in agony for mercy. Then it was that The Duke
broke into a light laugh and, touching the kneeling Frenchman on his
cheek with his finger-tips, said: "Look here, my man, you shouldn't
play the game till you know how to do it and with whom you play." Then,
handing him back the money, he added: "I want money, but not yours."
Then, as he sat looking at the unfortunate wretch dividing his attention
between his money and his bleeding fingers, he once more broke into a
gentle laugh that was not good to hear.

The Duke was by all odds the most striking figure in the Company of
the Noble Seven, and his word went farther than that of any other.
His shadow was Bruce, an Edinburgh University man, metaphysical,
argumentative, persistent, devoted to The Duke. Indeed, his chief
ambition was to attain to The Duke's high and lordly manner; but,
inasmuch as he was rather squat in figure and had an open, good-natured
face and a Scotch voice of the hard and rasping kind, his attempts at
imitation were not conspicuously successful. Every mail that reached
Swan Creek brought him a letter from home. At first, after I had got
to know him, he would give me now and then a letter to read, but as the
tone became more and more anxious he ceased to let me read them, and I
was glad enough of this. How he could read those letters and go the pace
of the Noble Seven I could not see. Poor Bruce! He had good impulses, a
generous heart, but the "Permit" nights and the hunts and the "roundups"
and the poker and all the wild excesses of the Company were more than he
could stand.

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

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

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



CHAPTER III

THE COMING OF THE PILOT


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

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


The Schoolmaster,
Public School,
Swan Creek,
Alberta.


There was altogether a fine air about the letter; the writing was in
fine, small hand, the tone was fine, and there was something fine in the
signature--"Arthur Wellington Moore." He was glad to know that there was
a school and a teacher in Swan Creek, for a school meant children, in
whom his soul delighted; and in the teacher he would find a friend,
and without a friend he could not live. He took me into his confidence,
telling me that though he had volunteered for this far-away mission
field he was not much of a preacher and he was not at all sure that he
would succeed. But he meant to try, and he was charmed at the prospect
of having one sympathizer at least. Would I be kind enough to put up in
some conspicuous place the enclosed notice, filling in the blanks as I
thought best?