Chapter 1
FRED MORRISH: How does it feel to get back to the old hum-drum ?
ALEX STEWART: Just fine
FRED MORRISH: It sure looks natural to see you around.
ALEX STEWART: There are so many people here I don't know. Some I recognize their faces but I can't put a name to them.
FRED MORRISH: We're all getting the same way
MURRAY GIBSON: Warren Crow said to say "Hello" to you. What did they call him? He had a nick name.
ALEX STEWART: Quad Crow. He was a great boy.
FRED MORRISH: He's still going strong. He's got mines all over the country. How is your family Alex, are they all well ?
ALEX STEWART: Fine. My family's never been ill.
FRED MORRISH: I met your girls here during the election.
ALEX STEWART: Do you folks know Ethel and Eddy.
BILL WADESON: Yes I know them well. I used to know you well too. Do you remember drunken Jimmy Graham - the carpenter boss from the Reno Gold Mine? You picked us up out of the gutter one night after we'd been thrown out of the Queen's Hotel. You remember George Harlow, the prize fighter who used to tend bar there? I guess Jimmy had given him too much lip and George threw him out. Of course I wouldn't permit him to do that to a friend of mine, so he threw me out too and you picked us up and took us back to our hotel.
ALEX STEWART: George Harlow was in town only last week. You ought to see his family - you know I didn't think he'd ever get a real wife - but. he's got one of the finest women - as tall as he is - a good-looking woman - and he's got four sons. Anybody would be proud of them. But George weighs about 250 pounds.
BILL WADESON: I guess he would now - he was always a big man.
ALEX STEWART: Yes, but he's awful fat now.
MURRAY GIBSON: Fred was telling us some stories on the way over of the early days in Rossland.
ALEX STEWART: They were great days.
FRED MORRISH: They were great days, Alex.
ALEX STEWART: From 1897 to 1903 it was great.
FRED MORRISH: A lot of funny things happened in those times all right.
ALEX STEWART: Did Fred tell you the story of Mrs Allen having dinner with her four husbands. She sat down to dinner in her hotel (You know she ran the Allen Hotel) and she sat down to dinner with four husbands - two on each side of her. All friendly and happy. And after dinner was over she walks out in the middle of the floor and turns a hand-spring.
MURRAY GIBSON: How did you get into this race with Billy Esling?
ALEX STEWART: He ran to Trail every morning. He was a foot-racer when he was a kid, you know, and he thought he was getting in good shape. So I was running around there and he started kidding me, you see. He said " you know I'd just like to race you to Trail - I'd give you a go for your life."
ALEX STEWART: I said " I'd. be delighted." Of course it was the old road then, you know , it would be about a mile or mile and a half further than it is now. So we arranged it. One of the fellows went to Billy and said " Stewart's got a horse cached about half way down and he's going to get ahead of you a little bit and jump on that horse and ride in." So Billy hired David Houde ( you remember David Houde ) to ride behind me. We didn't start together, you see. He wouldn't run with me. I had a start - well we tossed up to see who would go ahead. The toss picked me so I started five minutes ahead of him - or ten ( I forget which). But there was no horse waiting for me.
MURRAY GIBSON: Well who won the race ?
ALEX STEWART: I did. I don't like saying it and I don't like taking the credit away from Old Billy but I beat him by ten minutes.
MURRAY GIBSON: You must have been in pretty good condition because you were telling me something about going up Roberts.
ALEX STEWART: Yes I was always in training - trained all my life. Before I got to be chief when I would come off shift at twelve o 'clock I would run up to the mountain station along the Great Northern track a mile or two and come back home and go to bed.
FRED MORRISH: Yes, I can remember that
MURRAY GIBSON: Well how did it come about this Mount Roberts thing.
ALEX STEWART: Well it was an argument between two men. They wanted a road up to the top of Mount Roberts. One party who was very much against it said " What a foolish idea - a man couldn't go up there and back in a day. So they got to arguing and. the other said " A man could go up there in four hours and back." " No man living could go up there and back in four hours." So they made a bet and he came up to me on the street and said "Alec will you help me out - I'm in a tight spot. I have bet that a man could go to the top of Mount Roberts and back in four hours and you're the only man who would have a chance. Will you go?" I said I'd be delighted. So I went and I made it in three hours and forty minutes. I had to take a little box of .22 shells - something that was light and that I would have to carry and lay them at the bottom of the flag pole. So when a party went up they would find the shells there - so I couldn't renege. I had to go all the way. Two or three times on the way up I almost decided to quit but after I started down I travelled pretty fast.
MURRAY GIBSON: Well did you go up the trail up Jumbo Creek and up the draw? You didn't go up the face of it did you ?
ALEX STEWART: Yes, up the face and I was very glad because you know the whole side-hill is sand and coming down I bet I made jumps of twenty feet at a time. In the sand. That's where I gained so much time.
FRED MORRISH: Gosh. What they would do in those days for a dollar and a half bet.
BILL WADESON: How big a bet was it ?
ALEX STEWART: Fifty dollars. I don't just remember - yes I'm sure it was fifty dollars. Yes because he had said to me " If you win it the fifty's yours."
BILL WADESON: Well how much money was up the night that you fought Bob Fitzsimmons ?
ALEX STEWART: Well there was no money. You see the way it was Bob was getting 60% I think and the 40% was going to some organization - I thought it was for the returned soldiers, but I'm. not sure on that.
FRED MORRISH: No!
ALEX STEWART: Well 40% anyway and they liked to fight a local man because it drew a larger crowd. He fought, I think in Fernie and Cranbrook - I think he knocked out two fellows in Cranbrook. All along his route.
MURRAY GIBSON: Fred said he was at the fight.
FRED MORRISH: Yeah, I snuck in.
MURRAY GIBSON: Yes he was just a kid but I guess he snuck in.
FRED MORRISH: I sure did - I wouldn't have missed that. Just like the horse races we used to have out there after dark.
ALEX STEWART: Oh Golly - in the middle of the night.
FRED MORRISH: I remember Dave McLeod saying to me " Kid can you ride a horse?" " Oh," I said " I've rid one or two but not very well." "Come on " he said and boosted me up on that one from Nelson here.
ALEX STEWART: Kootenay Belle
FRED MORRISH: Yes, Kootenay Belle. I don't remember who was riding Rags - remember Rags?
ALEX STEWART: Yes - the boy who owned it. Rags was owned down at Patterson - down at Pagets.
FRED MORRISH: Yes the girls used to ride him all the time.
ALEX STEWART: Yes the girls used to ride him but not in a race.
FRED MORRISH: I don't know who he put on but he put on some kid there that was heavier than me and I beat him. You were betting on the little red horse at that time. That damned horse ran away from me - I couldn't stop him.
ALEX STEWART: You know I believe that I had the world's fastest quarter horse. This story is about an old horse by the name of Happy. This is when Dr. Frank was vet around here. And when he would come to Rossland he'd get this old horse to ride out around the places he'd want to go, you know, and the police used him too. You could just jump out of the saddle and he'd keep still until you came back. So one night I had him out and I came along and they were getting ready for the races, you see. Just as I got there they said " Go!" Well I gave old Happy a clinch with my knees and away we went and we led them for three parts of the way. I weighed 215 pounds and he had a big pack-saddle on. Well the poor old horse was all in and he saw that he couldn't run any further and he made a leap into a snow bank and stopped dead.
Well, I went right back to Barnes and I called up Dave McLeod and I said " Dave, do you want to sell that old Happy horse?" "Sure, just so's I get rid of the old curse," he said. " What'l you take for him?" "What do you think?" he said. I said " I'll give you fifty dollars." " Done " he says and I said " All right he's mine from now on and I'll bring you $50 in the morning."
I started training him right away and I thought right from the beginning that there was something good in this horse. He had the most beautiful head and hind legs that I ever saw on a race horse. And this great big stomach. Well I took him and started cutting down on his feed and exercising him at night and he developed into a picture. And there wasn't a horse around who could give him a race. But one came up from Colville and he beat him so easy.
Geo. Ferguson from Nelson Transfer heard about it and he called me up and said " How would you like a match race with Kootenay Belle?" I said " I'd be delighted George." He said " I'll run against you for $200.'' I said " O.K., I haven't got that much money, but I can raise it." When Doc Frank heard about it he made a special trip up to Rossland. He said "Alex, don't be crazy, betting $200 on that old Happy horse, against Kootenay Belle. There aint a horse in the Kootenays or anywheres near who could beat Kootenay Belle." I says " Doc, you don't know what you're talking about. How long since you've seen Happy." " Three Weeks." I says " Come on out to the stable and have a look at him." I led him out of the stall and he had a big rug on him. I took the rug off. Doc says " you can't pull that - that's not old Happy." I says '' Yes it is. I bought him for $50." " God, he looks wonderful " he says " But Alex, call off that bet because that Kootenay Belle is very fast." Well I didn't call it off and a whole bunch from Nelson came to see the race. Up from Trail, 104 people from Trail came up to see the race." He beat Kootenay Belle just one block in five blocks..
BILL WADESON: What year was that. Alee?
ALEX STEWART: " Oh Gosh."
FRED MORRISH: About the fall of 1908 wasn't it, or 09?
ALEX STEWART: Yes about 09
FRED MORRISH: I remember the race because in the race before that Dave McLeod says "There's the kid who can ride Kootenay Belle for you " and pointed to me. So I says " No I can't but my brother can." Dick was just a little older than I was and he was always after horses. So the day of the race he was sitting there and it was the first time he had ever had jockey pants on. He was sitting there like this, all raring to go and when the flag dropped, Kootenay Belle ran out from under him.
I'll tell you a horse up there - that grey one that Murdoch Henderson used to have. That crazy grey one that always liked to run on the sidewalk. Who was that who was riding it that day and it took off and ran up on the sidewalk?
ALEX STEWART: Do you remember the time that you wouldn't ride the horse and Murdoch said he'd ride it himself and the horse took off and ran about three hundred yards and Murdoch fell off? He was in the hospital for about three weeks. He pretty near passed out. In fact he never did get over it.
FRED MORRISH: No, that's right. It was always the back of his head and in his neck. Poor old Roy Stevens. Do you remember how he and old Murdoch used to fight and scrap? They'd argue by the hour. You know it was laughable to hear them.
ALEX STEWART: Were you there when Howarth and I rassled ?
FRED MORRISH: Yes. Who was it you rassled at that time?
ALEX STEWART: Howe - you remember the instructor from the YMCA. He guaranteed to throw me twice in 21 minutes, but I threw him twice in seven.
FRED MORRISH: When you mention those things I can still see you doing it.
MURRAY GIBSON: I was talking to Alec Smith, telling him what we were going to do and he wanted to be remembered to you.
ALEX STEWART: There was a great old timer.
MURRAY GIBSON: Was Alec in the Coeur d'Alenes? Did he come to Rossland from the Coeur d'Alenes.
ALEX STEWART: I couldn't say.
FRED MORRISH: No, I don't think so. It seems to me he was from up this way somewhere. He was telling me one day that he walked into Rossland. Said he walked for two days before he got to Rossland. It seemed to me he told me it was over in this direction somewhere.
MURRAY GIBSON: Well from something somebody said I though he came in after the Coeur d'Alene strike.
FRED MORRISH: He may have