Chapter IV. The Unbidden Guest

The northbound train on the Northern Pacific Line was running away behind her time. A Dakota blizzard had held her up for five hours, and there was little chance of making time against a heavy wind and a drifted rail. The train was crowded with passengers, all impatient at the delay, as is usual with passengers. The most restless, if not the most impatient, of those in the first-class car was a foreign-looking gentleman, tall, dark, and with military carriage. A grizzled moustache with ends waxed to a needle point and an imperial accentuated his foreign military appearance. At every pause the train made at the little wayside stations, this gentleman became visibly more impatient, pulling out his watch, consulting his time table, and cursing the delay.

Occasionally he glanced out through the window across the white plain that stretched level to the horizon, specked here and there by infrequent little black shacks and by huge stacks of straw half buried in snow. Suddenly his attention was arrested by a trim line of small buildings cosily ensconced behind a plantation of poplars and Manitoba maples.

"What are those structures?" he enquired of his neighbour in careful book English, and with slightly foreign accent.

"What? That bunch of buildings. That is a Mennonite village," was the reply.

"Mennonite! Ah!"

"Yes," replied his neighbour. "Dutch, or Russian, or something."

"Yes, Russian," answered the stranger quickly. "That is Russian, surely," he continued, pointing eagerly to the trim and cosy group of buildings. "These Mennonites, are they prosperous--ah-- citizens--ah--settlers?"

"You bet! They make money where other folks would starve. They know what they're doing. They picked out this land that everybody else was passing over--the very best in the country--and they are making money hand over fist. Mighty poor spenders, though. They won't buy nothing; eat what they can't sell off the farm."

"Aha," ejaculated the stranger, with a smile.

"Yes, they sell everything, grain, hogs, eggs, butter, and live on cabbages, cheese, bread."

"Aha," repeated the stranger, again with evident approval.

"They are honest, though," continued his neighbour judicially; "we sell them implements."

"Ah, implements?" enquired the stranger.

"Yes, ploughs, drills, binders, you know."

"Ah, so, implements," said the stranger, evidently making a mental note of the word. "And they pay you?"

"Yes, they are good pay, mighty good pay. They are good settlers, too."

"Not good for soldiers, eh?" laughed the stranger.

"Soldiers? No, I guess not. But we don't want soldiers."