The Sky Pilot | Page 9

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?
"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- depreciation and
I liked its cool assumption of my sympathy and co- operation. But I
was perplexed. I remembered that Sunday was the day fixed for the
great baseball match, when those from "Home," as they fondly called
the land across the sea from which they had come, were to "wipe the
earth" with all comers. Besides, "Divine service" was an innovation in
Swan Creek and I felt sure that, like all innovations that suggested the
approach of 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," I pinned on the door of the Stopping Place the announcement:

"Divine service will be held at Swan Creek, in the Stopping Place
Parlor, a week from Sunday, immediately upon the conclusion of the
baseball match. "Arthur Wellington Moore."
There was a strange incongruity in the two, and an unconscious
challenge as well.
All next day, which was Saturday, and, indeed, during the following
week, I stood guard over my notice, enjoying the excitement it
produced and the comments it called forth. It was the advance wave of
the great ocean of civilization which many of them had been glad to
leave behind--some could have wished forever.
To Robert Muir, one of the farmers newly arrived, the notice was a
harbinger of good. It stood for progress, markets and a higher price for
land; albeit he wondered "hoo he wad be keepit up." But his
hard-wrought, quick-spoken little wife at his elbow "hooted" his
scruples and, thinking of her growing lads, welcomed with unmixed
satisfaction the coming of "the meenister." Her satisfaction was shared
by all the mothers and most of the fathers in the settlement; but by the
others, and especially by that rollicking, roistering crew, the Company
of the Noble Seven, the missionary's coming was viewed with varying
degrees of animosity. It meant a limitation of freedom in their wildly
reckless