THE COMING OF THE PILOT


He was the first missionary ever seen in the country, and it was the Old
Timer who named him. The Old Timer's advent to the Foothill country
was prehistoric, and his influence was, in consequence, immense. No one
ventured to disagree with him, for to disagree with the Old Timer was to
write yourself down a tenderfoot, which no one, of course, cared to do.
It was a misfortune which only time could repair to be a new-comer, and
it was every new-comer's aim to assume with all possible speed the style
and customs of the aristocratic Old Timers, and to forget as soon as
possible the date of his own arrival. So it was as "The Sky Pilot,"
familiarly "The Pilot," that the missionary went for many a day in the
Swan Creek country.

I had become schoolmaster of Swan Creek. For in the spring a kind
Providence sent in the Muirs and the Bremans with housefuls of
children, to the ranchers' disgust, for they foresaw ploughed fields
and barbed-wire fences cramping their unlimited ranges. A school
became necessary. A little log building was erected and I was appointed
schoolmaster. It was as schoolmaster that I first came to touch The
Pilot, for the letter which the Hudson Bay freighters brought me early
one summer evening bore the inscription:


The Schoolmaster,
Public School,
Swan Creek,
Alberta.