NARRATIVES OF SASKATOON

1882-1912

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tered from the wind; one objection that some fastidious people complained of was the large population of mice that cavorted over you when you had retired to rest. After an early breakfast a start was made about six o'clock. The drive till noon is through a range of hills stopping at the "Iron Spring" for midday meal cooked in the open. This is a spring of very fine water, with just a tinge of iron taste. At night the stop is at Eagle Creek station. A shack built of rough lumber on a hillside, near a slough of good water, was the "house". At this station the mail contractors had their spare horses. The man in charge of the station was a character in his way. He was usually called Charlie the Swede, his correct name was August Meyer. He was very entertaining, a great talker, and it was amusing to listen to him telling in his broken English of his adventures and his experiences with the various passengers passing to and fro. Charlie was a good man for his employers, he could shoe the horses, mend wagons and harness and looked well after the stock. He was a great fellow to barter and trade. Many a story he had to tell of trades with Jew pedlars and others, in some of which he got left, too. He would just as soon laugh at his being done as how he got ahead of the other fellow. I had bought a horse from a man on the trail; I knew the horse well, he having been quite a trotter in his early days; the poor animal had been ill used and was about done. On Charlie's advice I bought him;, he kept him there for a while, brought him round into good shape again and many a good trip I made with "Jim" afterwards. On leaving this station there was a long descent to Eagle Creek; after crossing this a long ascent, then rolling land but, ascending gradually to the station called Sixty Mile Bush. At the noon stop about half way it was hard to get water some times; often enough water for our tea had to be carried in a jar. The Sixty Mile Bush station was kept by an elderly man, a French-Canadian. The house was quite a pretentious one, built of logs in the timber. Being so well sheltered amidst the trees, one did not know how cold it was in the winter time till one got out on the open prairie. Old Bernier was a queer old chap and was quite entertaining in his talk. He was always threatening to send for his family from "'Kebec"; he would tell us "I call for my wife come, but she no come." There was some at- tempt at observance of decency about the old man. He had curtained off a number of sleeping places screened off for the use of lady passengers. One time a terrible calamity fell on the poor old chap. A skunk had got under the floor and, as is usual after a visit from one of these gentry, a strong odor was in evidence. For a long time afterwards, when the door was opened, the air from the inside caught your breath; he would express his surprise at anyone noticing any unusual smell about the house. He told me once that one of the stage-drivers slept on the floor in that corner of the room and said he smelt skunk. "I tell him he smell himself!" He had a habit of yawning audibly. Long after we had all turned in for the night we could hear the old fellow hi-hi-hi-hi-ing in a loud voice. One time a party with a bunch of wild horses passed through and he was per- suaded to buy one. They tied the horse up to a tree, informing him it would be quiet in the morning. He said "Yess in the morning he be very quiet, he be dead; his neck be broke!" Leaving this station, the trail led down a long descent to an alkali flat, crosing on hard ground at the narrows between two salt lakes, then through rolling land, fine soil, covered with luxuriant grasses. It was a long spell to the Indian Reserve, about 18 miles from Battleford, where the stage remained for the night. When the Regina to Prince Albert line was opened the route was changed to Saskatoon to Battleford. The stage departed the morning after the train got in from Regina. This was twice a week. The incoming stage was timed to meet the train from Prince Albert. In those days, the train was a mixed one, carrying freight as well as passengers. I travelled several times on this train when I was the only through passenger to Regina! In the winter time a passage on this train was sometimes attended with considerable adventure. There being so few trains running, the line would be filled up with drifted snow. The passengers had to work their passage Page 49

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