help."
He pushed his way through the throng and dived down below. A stewardess followed him, and others came bustling after her. Officials now were engaged in inspecting the tickets of the passengers, while a summons brought the emigrants in a long waiting queue to a table set in the dining-hall, where one of the doctors with an assistant took careful stock of them, particularly to observe whether or no each person had been recently vaccinated.
Joe was glad to creep into his comfortable bunk that night, as it had been a day of movement; but a good sleep did wonders for him, and when he rose on the following morning he was as fresh as paint.
"How do yer like it?" asked the pleasant fellow, close to whom he had sat on the previous day when he descended for a meal; for, following a habit on emigrant steamers, he took the same place at table.
"There's something interesting all the time," said Joe. "This sea air gives one an appetite."
"Then peg in, lad," came the hearty advice. "Here's tea; help yerself. Here's eggs and bacon, or will you have sausages?"
The meal was an eye opener. No doubt there were many poor fellows aboard who had not sat down to such a breakfast for many a long day, for we must recollect that emigrants are not always prosperous when they set out from the shores of Old England. It made Joe wonder of what size was the storeroom on this ship, and how it was that the purser or his assistants managed to gauge what would be required en route.
"Now you jest come along on deck with me and the missus and have a yarn while I smoke. Do yer smoke?" asked the man who had been so friendly.
"Not yet," was Joe's blushing answer.
"And a good thing too. Not that I'm against it, seeing that I smoke hard, and most of the day. What's yer name?"
"Joe Bradley."
"Mine's Sam Fennick. Sam's enough, and Joe'll do fer you. You ain't been out before, you say. Who's sent you?"
Joe was a confiding fellow, and told him his story; for Sam seemed an excellent friend and listened with interest.
"What'll you do?" he asked. "You'll land up in seven days, or perhaps eight, at Quebec. There you'll go before the emigration authorities, and will be examined again by the doctor. If all's well, you can start right off on your own, providing you've sufficient dollars in your pocket to make 'em sure you won't be a pauper. Paupers ain't what Canada wants. She wants men with a little cash, not much – just enough to keep the wolf away for a few days. But above everything, they must be workers. And the Government over there won't have slackers. She deports 'em double quick. Well, what'll you do?"
"Look out for a farm," said Joe; "but where, beats me."
"Then jest you think of New Ontario. It's the coming country. Now, see here, mate; I'll give yer a piece of advice. You get along down from Montreal. Accept a job on a farm, and stay there till the winter. Then have a turn with the forest rangers. They don't do much in the winter, it's true; but a few are kept going. Or you might go along with a gang to a lumber camp. It'll keep you from rusting. Next spring you could work again on a farm, and come the following cold weather you ought to be able to look to yourself. We're off to seek a location in this here New Ontario."
"Then why couldn't I come with you?" asked Joe, for he liked the look of this Sam Fennick.
"And so you shall, but not at first. It'll take us best part of two months to find a likely location. Then we've to make a heap of arrangements, so I doubt our getting to at the job till late in the year. So you'd better fix elsewhere; you can come along when we're ready."
It may be imagined that Joe spent many an hour discussing matters with Sam, and soon began to long for Canada to heave in sight. However, there were many miles of sea stretching between the ship and the Gulf of St. Laurence, and they were not passed before he was involved in another adventure.
CHAPTER III
Volunteers called for
It was rather late on the third morning of the voyage when Joe had his attention attracted to one particular portion of the huge ship in which he had taken passage to Canada. Not that this one particular portion had escaped his notice; for, like the majority of young fellows nowadays, our hero was certainly quick at observation.
"Them things hum and squeak and flicker most of the day," said Sam Fennick, withdrawing a somewhat dilapidated brier pipe from his mouth and pointing the bowl at a deck house situated on the upper deck. "What's it all about, youngster?"
"Marconigrams coming and going," answered Joe; for the little house alluded to was given up to that recent wonderful invention which allows of messages being sent across space, without the aid and intervention of the customary wires. "The young officer there used to live in our neighbourhood. I once thought of becoming an operator myself, and, in fact, had many lessons from him."
"You had?" asked Sam, staring at Joe; for every hour that the two conversed revealed to Sam that Joe was a little better than the ordinary. Indeed, it is only reasonable that we should be fair, and admit that in coming to such a conclusion Sam was strictly right. After all, emigrants are not made up of the most intelligent or of the highest educated of our population. Too often they are men and women seeking a new life because of the failure of that which they had previously followed; or they are young people with a fair education, and with little else. In Joe's case, thanks to his own restless ambition, and to the fact that his father had devoted many an hour to him, the lad was acquainted with much unknown to the average emigrant. And here was something. To Sam a marconigram was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl; he didn't precisely know what it was, whether it had actual shape, nor what was its colour.
"Eh?" he asked. "You know the chap as works up there? And you've had lessons? What's a marconigram, anyhow?"
Joe explained with enthusiastic lucidity.
"I've sent 'em, too," he said. "There was a station not so far from us, and that's where I met Franc. It's nice having him aboard the same ship. But he is busy, isn't he? There must be something happening out of the ordinary. Wish I could go up there and join him; but it's forbidden. He told me that particularly."
It was only natural that our young hero should wish to see something of a chum associated with former days. But Franc, the young Marconi operator, was never get-at-able when on duty. It was only between the spells of work in his office that he met Joe down on the emigrant deck for'ard. Now, at the time when Sam and Joe were together, Franc was undoubtedly busily engaged. Moreover, there was a subdued air of mystery, if not of anxiety, about the officers who occasionally passed amongst the emigrants.
"What's up?" demanded Sam bluntly of one as he passed. "That thing yonder" – and he again withdrew his pipe and pointed the bowl at the Marconi office – "that thing's busy, I guess. Sending messages as fast as the air'll take 'em. What's up, mister? Revolution back in the Old Country, eh? What?"
He received merely a curt answer; the officer hurried on, leaving Sam none the wiser.
"All the same, there's a ruction stirring somewhere," he said; "I can see it with half an eye. The captain's walking up and down his bridge as if there was lions after him. What's it all mean?"
It became clearer, as the hours passed, that there was something seriously wrong in some direction, though where or what the trouble might be none could guess. Joe descended with his friend to dinner, and it was not till he mounted to the deck again that he gained tidings of what was happening. A huge column of pungent smoke was rising from the fore hold of the ship as he gained the deck, while sailors were moving about with wet cloths tied round their
