54-40 or Fight

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XIII

  ON SECRET SERVICE

  If the world was lost through woman, she alone can save it.--_Louis de Beaufort._

  In the days of which I write, our civilization was, as I may say, soembryonic, that it is difficult for us now to realize the conditionswhich then obtained. We had great men in those days, and great deedswere done; but to-day, as one reflects upon life as it then was, itseems almost impossible that they and their deeds could have existed ina time so crude and immature.

  The means of travel in its best form was at that time at least curious.We had several broken railway systems north and south, but there werenot then more than five thousand miles of railway built in America. Allthings considered, I felt lucky when we reached New York less thantwenty-four hours out from Washington.

  From New York northward to Montreal one's journey involved a choice ofroutes. One might go up the Hudson River by steamer to Albany, andthence work up the Champlain Lake system, above which one might employa short stretch of rails between St. John and La Prairie, on the banksof the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal. Or, one might go from Albany westby rail as far as Syracuse, up the Mohawk Valley, and so to Oswego,where on Lake Ontario one might find steam or sailing craft.

  Up the Hudson I took the crack steamer _Swallow_, the same which justone year later was sunk while trying to beat her own record of ninehours and two minutes from New York to Albany. She required eleven hourson our trip. Under conditions then obtaining, it took me a day and ahalf more to reach Lake Ontario. Here, happily, I picked up a frailsteam craft, owned by an adventurous soul who was not unwilling to riskhis life and that of others on the uncertain and ice-filled waters ofOntario. With him I negotiated to carry me with others down the St.Lawrence. At that time, of course, the Lachine Canal was not completed,and the Victoria Bridge was not even conceived as a possibility. Onedelay after another with broken machinery, lack of fuel, running ice andwhat not, required five days more of my time ere I reached Montreal.

  I could not be called either officer or spy, yet none the less I did notcare to be recognized here in the capacity of one over-curious. I madeup my costume as that of an innocent free trader from the Western furcountry of the states, and was able, from my earlier experiences, toanswer any questions as to beaver at Fort Hall or buffalo on theYellowstone or the Red. Thus I passed freely in and about all the publicplaces of the town, and inspected with a certain personal interest allits points of interest, from the Gray Nunneries to the new cathedrals,the Place d'Armes, the Champ de Mars, the barracks, the vaunted brewery,the historic mountain, and the village lying between the arms of the tworivers--a point where history for a great country had been made, andwhere history for our own now was planning.

  As I moved about from day to day, making such acquaintance as I could, Ifound in the air a feeling of excitement and expectation. The hotels,bad as they were, were packed. The public places were noisy, the privatehouses crowded. Gradually the town became half-military and half-savage.Persons of importance arrived by steamers up the river, on whose expanselay boats which might be bound for England--or for some of England'scolonies. The Government--not yet removed to Ottawa, later capital ofOntario--was then housed in the old Chateau Ramezay, built so longbefore for the French governor, Vaudreuil.

  Here, I had reason to believe, was now established no less a personagethan Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company. Rumor hadit at the time that Lord Aberdeen of England himself was at Montreal.That was not true, but I established without doubt that his brotherreally was there, as well as Lieutenant William Peel of the Navy, son ofSir Robert Peel, England's prime minister. The latter, with hiscompanion, Captain Parke, was one time pointed out to me proudly by myinn-keeper--two young gentlemen, clad in the ultra fashion of theircountry, with very wide and tall bell beavers, narrow trousers, andstrange long sack-coats unknown to us in the States--of little shape orelegance, it seemed to me.

  There was expectancy in the air, that was sure. It was open secretenough in England, as well as in Montreal and in Washington, that asmall army of American settlers had set out the foregoing summer for thevalley of the Columbia, some said under leadership of the missionaryWhitman. Britain was this year awakening to the truth that these men hadgone thither for a purpose. Here now was a congress of Great Britain'sstatesmen, leaders of Great Britain's greatest monopoly, the Hudson BayCompany, to weigh this act of the audacious American Republic. I was nota week in Montreal before I learned that my master's guess, or hisinformation, had been correct. The race was on for Oregon!

  All these things, I say, I saw go on about me. Yet in truth as to theinner workings of this I could gain but little actual information. Isaw England's ships, but it was not for me to know whether they were toturn Cape Hope or the Horn. I saw Canada's _voyageurs_, but they mightbe only on their annual journey, and might go no farther than theiraccustomed posts in the West. In French town and English town, amongcommon soldiers, _voyageurs_, inn-keepers and merchants, I wandered formore than one day and felt myself still helpless.

  That is to say, such was the case until there came to my aid thatgreatest of all allies, Chance.