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Updated: June 4, 2025
The prairie was almost done with, only patches of it now like fields; poplar and willow and birch growing everywhere; and beyond the Sturgeon River, tiny forests of gnarled, stunted jack-pine, creeping wearily from a soft carpet of silver and emerald moss which lay thick upon the white sand hills.
They sat on the bowlder for a few minutes, then scrambled downhill to the jack-pine flat, and built their evening fire. And for the first time in many days Roaring Bill whistled and lightly burst into snatches of song in the deep, bellowing voice that had given him his name back in the Cariboo country. His humor was infectious.
Outside, through the clearing with its stumps of jack-pine, ran a path, a short cut, connecting the station at Laggan with a section-house further up the line. As McEwen's eyes followed it, he began to be aware of a group of men emerging from the trees on the Laggan side, and walking in single file along the path. Navvies apparently carrying bundles and picks.
The cries of the cowboys cut high above the chorus of yelling applause as the furious outlaw tried every known trick to unseat the rider. High in the air he bucked, swapping ends like a flash, and landing with all four feet "on a dollar," his legs stiff as jack-pine posts.
He already had a cellar-door and a chicken coop which did not belong to him, while a "wash" he did not recognize was lodged in his woodpile of jack-pine and ground-cedar in the backyard. The Homeseekers' Excursion arrived at last hours late delayed by the worst dust-storm in months. The committee of prominent citizens met it where the cinder platform had been before it blew off.
Hazel felt the gods of high adventure smiling broadly upon them once more. Before daybreak they were up and packed. In the dim light of dawn Bill picked his way up through the jack-pine flat.
We marched westerly 7 miles through fine, dry, jack-pine wood, then, 3 miles through mixed poplar, pine, and spruce, And came to the Slave River opposite Point Gravois. Thence we went a mile or so into similar woods, and after another stretch of muskegs. We camped for lunch at 11.45, having covered 12 miles. At two we set out, and reached Salt River at three, but did not cross there.
It was as if those wonderful hours of sleep had wrested some deadly obstruction out of his veins. The fire crackled. It roared up the big chimney. The jack-pine knots, heavy with pitch, gave to the top of the stove a rosy glow.
The common jack-pine of the Middle States hillsides wears symmetrical and handsome cones with dignity. Cones are, of course, the fruits or seed-holders of the pine, but the seeds themselves are found at the base of the scales, or parts of the cones, attached in pairs.
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