For a little time the room was packed, then some of the more restless
spirits, their thirst assuaged, sallied forth to taste the lager and old
rye elsewhere, and "raise Cain" in the streets. When they went, it
became possible to move about more freely in the big bar-room, at the end
of which was a billiard-table. It was notable, however, that the more
sullen elements stayed. Some of them were strangers to each other.
Manitou was a distributing point for all radiations of the compass, and
men were thrown together in its streets who only saw one another once or
twice a year-when they went to the woods in the Fall or worked the rivers
in the Summer. Some were Mennonites, Doukhobors and Finlanders, some
Swedes, Norwegians and Icelanders. Others again were birds of passage
who would probably never see Manitou in the future, but they were mostly
French, and mostly Catholic, and enemies of the Orange Lodges wherever
they were, east or west or north or south. They all had a common ground
of unity--half-savage coureurs-de-bois, river-drivers, railway-men,
factory hands, cattlemen, farmers, labourers; they had a gift for
prejudice, and taking sides on something or other was as the breath
of the nostrils to them.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90