Freezing Up: A Canadian Sketch.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 149, 20 December 1902, Page 4 (Supplement)

Freezing Up : A Canadian Sketch.

The horses are stamping and fidgeting outside the station in the' keen November air. , .The country lies outspread like a Brobdingnagian chessboard, with sections one mile square, and a road allowance running round each section. On one side of our particular road is a limitless expanse of sere, yellow prairie grass; on the other, barley and oats in stooks, and white whorls of smoke from distant threshing machines. The trail is cut into deep black furrows by the heavy traffic, and the clods crumble like biscuits under the wheels. A mob of snowbirds flutters up in front of us, their white breasts gleaming' momentarily in the sun, till they settle again a hundred yards or so further on, and promptly vanish from sight, for their backs^ still retain the dingy brown pf their summer plumage. There is a wrinkling skin forming on the' still surface of the water in the broad ditch that runs parallel to us, and far away to the north are flying wedges of wild geese acio^s the clear blue sky. The leaves are all off tks oaks in the little grove behind tie house, and the pigs are rooting among Uhem for acorns/, while a. wrathful' jay is scolding furiously from a bare bough overhead. A month or zo ago thb suuiiowers were breast high, a forest of gold, from the wire fence to the building itsielf, and beyond them to the edge of tho marsh, a quarter of a mile away, was a sea ot blue a. id mauve and yellow. To-day everything is scorched into a dull monochrome of withered reeds and bleached stubble and towny sedge, and the ice in che cattle tracks gleams fitfully here and there like shattered glass ; the very hues of the sunset arc laid on in hard, remorseless streaks of vivid colour. You wake in the night, warm and comfortable under a pile of blankets, and smell the cold. There is no expression that quite conveys that subtle sensation of falling temperature when winter sels in, dry and sharp, near the gteat Northern lakes. The wails of the . shooting-lodge are built oi ■wood, for it is only inhabited j for a few months iv the year. The i water in the bedrooms is solid when we | rise and '-light our lamps before dawn,, and our brftith curls away in o.ouds of wreathing smuk3 as we emerge into the twilight outside, and plod in single file, silent and ghostlike, down to the edge of the swamp. The slaty-grey canoes have beer, hauled half-way up a narrow j gutter, dug out through the maskeg, down which we mave in a- constant panic, for cvoiy step crashes through a coating of sharp-edged ice, that may slip through o.uv thin waders at any niomgul. The decoyo lying between the thwarts are powder-ed o-;er with hoar-frost, so that we can hardly distinguish" between' mallard and redhead ; tucked away under the bows of the nearest boat is a forgfltten golf-cape; "and, snuggled up .in that, a snow-white ermine, who uncurls himself and' gazes up at us with bright, indignant eyes. Then he climbs sinuously over the gunwale, and trots off through the thin crepitating reeds, secure in ' his beauty and fearlessness, for it would be a .sheer breach of hospitality ,. to shoot him. • ; , The ice is thicker than we expected, and the first shimmer of dawn finds one of us still poling desperately in the stern, and the other smashing a way through with a broken oar from the bows, while the startled mallaid are getting up in disconcerting numbers on all sides. Against the luminous gold of the rising sun the geese are cutting swiftly in black triangles, winging their clangorous way from the lake to the distant grain-fields. The wind blows colder and colder from the north-west, and when we emerge. at last into open water the paddles are sheathed in coats of mail 1 , and t£e drops splashed on to the gun-barrels have congealed like jelly. We force the pace for our shooting ground, and lose no time in throwing out our decoys, threading out their tiny cables through frozen fingers, and leaving them to ride at anchor, curtseying up and down just outside the tide where we crouch close down among the reeds, almost more eager for shelter than concealment. For half-an-hour or so there is a continuous stream of great mallards, swinging by in splendid plumage, dropping under the shots with a mighty splash, for they have been fattening for weeks on the , wheat-fields ; of redheads, the snub-nosed cousins of the stately canvasbacks ; of vicious little blue-bills, that whiz past like feathered projectiles and, too often, slip ahead of the tardy pellets ; and then there is a pause while we paddle out and collect our spoil. And still it grows colder and colder and the wind blows harder, till we begin to fear that unless we start homeward <at once we shall find ourselves frozen in altogether, a fear that is not unjustified, as the path we forced open in the morning is all sealed up again, solid and unyielding, and the task of breaking a way through means two hours of vigorous toil. We pile the oak logs unsparingly into the stove in the sitting-room, and hold our guns over the blaze to thaw jout^ before packing them away till next year, for even the oil is thickened into the consistency of butter in the bottles; and we bid a regretful farewell to the prairie chickens huddled up on the bare branches of the distant trees. In the morning we tramp back through the crisp, crackling sedge, and hack the canoes out of their frozen beds with ringing axe-strokes, for the water has risen during the night, and the ice has formed in new layers, one above the other. Between two of these we catch sight of a grand old mallard, dropped from yesterday's bag, his emerald neck gleaming through a casing of crystal, and a drop of blood on his white breast lying like a ruby set in snow. There he might have tarried, like the Siberian mammoth, till next spring, but tbs.t * paddle wai

embedded close to him, and that must not be left behind. Then we hoist our little fleet of five on to the big wagon, and creak slowly back to the shed where they will be housed for the winter, the cart being again loaded with gun-cases, bicycles, portmanteaus, everything that cannot be stored in the empty house, which is to be nailed vp — windowo and ■all — till the season opens. Here and there between our various effects we leave little oases into 'which we stow ourselves, swathed in buffalo robes and blankets, for the eight-mile drive to the station. The long Tuts on the road gleam like polished iron ; the lustre of the ice in the distant pools blanches into turbid soapsuds as we draw near, and the sky is the pale blue and green of discoloured turquoise. We can count fourteen 'busy threshing machines from where we sit, and see the dun clouds of flying chaff beneath the white steam of the engines ; the report of a half-breed's gun near the lake shore sounds like blasting in the frosty air ; and the farmer driving by in his light buggy is muffled to the eyes in black fur. It is dusk before we reach the railway line, and away to the south wo see the pulsating glow of a great wall of fhe from burning straw ; the platform is empty save for a pile of flour-sacka unloaded from a freight train that has just passed, but the little waiting-room is crowded to the door. Round the stove is a group of dark-eyed girls in cowboy hats and red knitted caps, with high storm-collars turned up round their ears ; under the gaudy pictures of red-and-white-futmelled steamers churning through the Atlantic waves are brown-faced, black-bearded half-breeds in buckskin coats, , moccasins, and shabby fur caps ; and we ran hear the rumble of the train miles away on the distant prairie. The bunches of ducks fall with a resounding thwack on the boards as we pitch them out of the wagon, their necks stretched stiff and unyielding as iron bars. The snow is beginning to drift down lazily in fine, powdery flakes that tickle the skin, and spnrkle in the glare of the lamps ; and we know that to-morrow the sleigh bells will toll the knell of the dead summer.— C.H.W., in the Spectator.