The Man From Glengarry | Page 6

and danger. Remote from the restraints of law
and of society, and living in wild surroundings and in hourly touch with
danger, small wonder that often the shanty-men were wild and reckless.
So that many a poor fellow in a single wild carouse in Quebec, or more
frequently in some river town, would fling into the hands of sharks and
harlots and tavern-keepers, with whom the bosses were sometimes in
league, the earnings of his long winter's work, and would wake to find
himself sick and penniless, far from home and broken in spirit.
Of all the shanty-men of the Ottawa the men of Glengarry, and of
Glengarry men Macdonald's gang were easily first, and of the gang
Donald Bhain Macdonald, or Macdonald More, or the Big Macdonald,
for he was variously known, was not only the "boss" but best and chief.
There was none like him. A giant in size and strength, a prince of
broad-axe men, at home in the woods, sure-footed and daring on the
water, free with his wages, and always ready to drink with friend or
fight with foe, the whole river admired, feared, or hated him, while his
own men followed him into the woods, on to a jam, or into a fight with
equal joyousness and devotion. Fighting was like wine to him, when
the fight was worth while, and he went into the fights his admirers were
always arranging for him with the easiest good humor and with a smile
on his face. But Macdonald Bhain's carousing, fighting days came to an
abrupt stop about three years before the opening of this tale, for on one
of his summer visits to his home, "The word of the Lord in the mouth
of his servant Alexander Murray," as he was wont to say, "found him
and he was a new man." He went into his new life with the same
whole- souled joyousness as had marked the old, and he announced that
with the shanty and the river he was "done for ever more." But after the
summer's work was done, and the logging over, and when the snap of
the first frost nipped the leaves from the trees, Macdonald became
restless. He took down his broad-axe and spent hours polishing it and
bringing it to an edge, then he put it in its wooden sheath and laid it
away. But the fever was upon him, ten thousand voices from the forest

were shouting for him. He went away troubled to his minister. In an
hour he came back with the old good humor in his face, took down the
broad-axe again, and retouched it, lovingly, humming the while the old
river song of the Glengarry men--
Ho ro mo nighean, etc.
He was going back to the bush and to the biggest fight of his life. No
wonder he was glad. Then his good little wife began to get ready his
long, heavy stockings, his thick mits, his homespun smock, and other
gear, for she knew well that soon she would be alone for another winter.
Before long the word went round that Macdonald Bhain was for the
shanties again, and his men came to him for their orders.
But it was not to the old life that Macdonald was going, and he gravely
told those that came to him that he would take no man who could not
handle his axe and hand-spike, and who could not behave himself.
"Behaving himself" meant taking no more whiskey than a man could
carry, and refusing all invitations to fight unless "necessity was laid
upon him." The only man to object was his own brother, Macdonald
Dubh, whose temper was swift to blaze, and with whom the blow was
quicker than the word. But after the second year of the new order even
Black Hugh fell into line. Macdonald soon became famous on the
Ottawa. He picked only the best men, he fed them well, paid them the
highest wages, and cared for their comfort, but held them in strictest
discipline. They would drink but kept sober, they would spend money
but knew how much was coming to them. They feared no men even of
"twice their own heavy and big," but would never fight except under
necessity. Contracts began to come their way. They made money, and
what was better, they brought it home. The best men sought to join
them, but by rival gangs and by men rejected from their ranks they
were hated with deepest heart hatred. But the men from Glengarry
knew no fear and sought no favor. They asked only a good belt of pine
and an open river. As a rule they got both, and it was peculiarly
maddening to Black Hugh to find two or three miles of