第11章

THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

The Superintendent had come from the West on his spring round-up.

New settlements in anticipation of and following the new Railway, old settlements in British Columbia valleys, formed twenty years ago and forgotten, ranches of the foot-hill country, the mining camps to the north and south of the new line--these were beginning to fire the imagination of older Canada.Fresh from the new and wonderful land lying west of the Great Lakes, with its spell upon him, its miseries, its infamies, its loneliness aching in his heart, but with the starlight of its promise burning in his eyes, he came to tell the men of the Colleges of their duty, their privilege, their opportunity waiting in the West.For the most part his was a voice crying in the wilderness.Not yet had Canadians come to their faith in their Western Empire.Among the great leaders were still found those who poured contempt upon the project of the trans-continental railway, and even those who favoured the scheme based their support upon political rather than upon economic grounds.It was all so far away and all so unreal that men who prided themselves upon being governed by shrewd business sense held aloof from western enterprises, waiting in calm assurance for their certain collapse.

Still, here and there men like Bompas, McLean, McDougall, and Robertson were holding high the light that fell upon prairie and foothill, mountain peak and canyon, where speculators, adventurers, broken men, men with shamed names seeking hiding, and human wolves seeking their prey were pouring in.

Discouraged with the results of his work in the Eastern Colleges, the Superintendent arrived at Knox, and to-night he stood facing the crowd of students and their friends that filled the long Dining Hall to overflowing.With heart hot from disappointment and voice strident with intensity of emotion, he told of the things he had seen and heard in that great new land.Descriptions of scenery, statistics, tales humorous and pathetic, patriotic appeal, and prophetic vision came pouring forth in an overwhelming flood from the great man, whose tall, sinewy form swayed and rocked in his passion, and whose Scotch voice burred through his sonorous periods.

"For your Church, for your fellowmen, for Canada," rang out his last appeal, and the men passed out into the corridor toward the Entrance Hall, silent or conversing in low, earnest tones.There was none of the usual chaffing or larking.They had been thinking great thoughts and seeing great visions.

"I want to thank you for asking me in to-night, Lloyd," said The Don.His voice was quiet and his fine eyes were lustrous with light.

"That man ought to be in Parliament.I shall see that country soon, I hope.What a master he is! What a grasp! What handling of facts!

There's a great Canadian, I say, and he ought to be in Parliament."The men gathered round, for the great 'Varsity half back was well known and well liked in that company; but they all knew him as one of the gay 'Varsity set, and some of the older men knew, too, that in his early college career were passages that neither he nor his friends cared to remember.Hence all of them, but especially Shock, whom he loved, and Lloyd, whom he greatly admired, listened with surprise to The Don's enthusiastic words, for they both had stood beside him in those dark days, and had played toward him the brother's part.The men waited in silence for Lloyd's reply.They knew him to be by far the strongest man in the college, the readiest in debate, as well as the most popular in the pulpit; but, with the sure instinct of college men, they had come to recognise his ambitious spirit, and, indeed, to be more influenced by it than they would have cared to acknowledge.

"Yes," said Lloyd, "it was certainly a statesman-like address.It contained all the elements of a great speech.But he--of course--well--he sees only one thing--The West."

"That's right," said little Brown, who had come in at Shock's earnest invitation, and because he was anxious to hear about the new country from one who was coming to be recognised as an authority, "he sees one thing sure enough.I say, what a drummer he'd make!