The Government at Ottawa awoke, stretched, yawned, then printed
some flaring posters and stuck them around the border villages. The
posters were headed by a big print of the British Coat of Arms,
and some large type beneath announced terrible fines and heavy
imprisonments for anyone caught hauling Indian timber off the
Reserve, or hauling whiskey on to it. Then the Government rubbed
its fat palms together, settled itself in its easy chair, and
snored again.
I? Oh, I went on with my operations.
And at Christmas time Tom Barrett arrived on the scene. Not much of
an event, you'd say if you saw him, still less if you heard him.
According to himself, he knew everything and could do everything in
the known world; he was just twenty-two and as obnoxiously fresh a
thing as ever boasted itself before older men.
He was the old missionary's son and had come up from college at
Montreal to help his father preach salvation to the Indians on
Sundays, and to swagger around week-days in his brand new
clerical-cut coat and white tie.
He enjoyed what is called, I believe, "deacon's orders." They tell
me he was recently "priested," to use their straight English Church
term, and is now parson of a swell city church.
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