The Black Creek Stopping-House | Page 3

the Souris and the valley of the Assiniboine there ran, at this time, three trails. There was the deeply-rutted old Hudson Bay trail, over which went the fabulously heavy loads of fur long ago--grass-grown now and broken with badger holes; there was "the trail," hard and firm, in the full pride of present patronage, defying the invasion of the boldest blade of grass; and by the side of it, faint and shadowy, like a rainbow's understudy, ran "the new trail," strong in the certainty of being the trail in time.
For miles across the plain the men who follow the trail watch the steep outlying shoulder of the Brandon Hills for a landmark. When they leave the Souris valley the hills are blue with distance and seem to promise wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of stunted poplar at the base.
After rounding the shoulder of the hill, the thick line of poplars and elms which fringe the banks of Black Creek comes into view, and many a man and horse have suddenly brightened at the sight, for in the shelter of the trees there stands the Black Creek Stopping-House, which is the half-way house on the way to Brandon. Hungry men have smelled the bacon frying when more than a mile away, and it is only the men who follow the trail who know what a heartsome smell that is. The horses, too, tired with the long day, point their ears ahead and step livelier when they see the whitewashed walls gleaming through the trees.
The Black Creek Stopping-House gave not only food and shelter to the men who teamed the wheat to market--it gave them good fellowship and companionship. In the absence of newspapers it kept its guests abreast with the times; events great and small were discussed there with impartial deliberation, and often with surprising results. Actions and events which seemed quite harmless, and even heroic, when discussed along the trail, often changed their complexion entirely when Mrs. Maggie Corbett let in the clear light of conscience on them, for even on the very edge of civilization there are still to be found finger- posts on the way to right living.
Mrs. Maggie Corbett was a finger-post, and more, for a finger-post merely points the way with its wooden finger, and then, figuratively, retires from the scene to let you think it over; but Maggie Corbett continued to take an interest in the case until it was decided to her entire satisfaction.
Black Creek, on whose wooded bank the Stopping-House stands, is a deep black stream which makes its way leisurely across the prairie between steep banks. Here and there throughout its length are little shallow stretches which show a golden braid down the centre like any peaceful meadow brook where children may with safety float their little boats, but Black Creek, with its precipitous holes, is no safe companion for any living creature that has not webbed toes or a guardian angel.
The banks, which are of a spongy black loam, grow a heavy crop of coarse meadow grass, interspersed in the late summer with the umbrella- like white clusters of water hemlock.
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About a mile from the Stopping-House there stood a strange log structure, the present abode of Reginald and Randolph Brydon, late of H.M. Navy, but now farmers and homesteaders. The house was built in that form of architecture known as a "Red River frame," and the corners were finished in the fashion called "saddle and notch."
Whatever can be done to a house to spoil its appearance had been done to this one. There was a "join" in each side, which was intended, and a bulge which was accidental, and when the sailor brothers were unable to make a log lie comfortably beside its neighbor by using the axe, they resorted to long iron spikes, and when these split the logs, as was usually the case, they overcame the difficulty by using ropes.
What had brought the Brydon brothers to Manitoba was a matter of conjecture in the Black Creek neighborhood. Some said they probably were not wanted at home; others, with deeper meaning, said they probably were wanted at home; and, indeed, their bushy eyebrows, their fierce black eyes, the knives which they carried in their belts, and their general manner of living, gave some ground to this insinuation.
The Brydon brothers did not work with that vigor and zeal which brings success to the farmer. They began late and quit early, with numerous rests in between. They showed a delightfully child-like trust in Nature and her methods,