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HERE I was to remain till
father came across the plains, which might be any day now, as we had taken a
long time to come up the river.
My surroundings were now
entirely different from anything heretofore in my life. The country was
different, the food was different, and the Indians were distinctly different
from all I had previously met. Their costume, or rather lack of any often,
their highly painted faces and feathered and gew-gaw bedecked heads, their
long plaits or loosely flowing hair, their gaudy blankets or fantastically
painted buffalo robes, their ponies and saddles and buffalo hide and hair
lines, their sinew-mounted and snakeskin- covered bows and shod arrows,
their lodges and travois, both for horses and dogs—all these things were new
to me. I was among a new people, and in a new land I had plenty to do in
taking in my new surroundings.
Previously canoe and
dog-train had been our means of transport; now horses took the place of
canoes. This was a big grass country. Horses and ponies were at a premium
here.
The gentlemen of the Hudson's
Bay Company were exceedingly kind to Inc. Mr. P. Tait, who was in charge of
the fort, lent me horses, and I took glorious rides out on the prairie.
Some of us arranged a party
to go and meet those we expected to be now near by on the long trail from
Red River to this point. Some Hudson's Bay clerks and myself formed the
party. Several horses had been driven into the yard, but I was not on the
ground when they came, and when I got there all were taken but one, which
seemed to me unfit to ride any distance. Just then Mr. Tait came along and
whispered, "Take him, and when you reach the horse-guard, who is not far
from here on your road, tell him to catch my horse Badger for you." I
thanked him, and saddled the "old plug," and off we rode. Many a joke I took
because of my sorry steed; but I could very well stand it all, for I had
quietly asked the Indian boy if he knew the horse "Badger," and his eyes
glistened as he said, "I think I do; he is one of the best saddle horses
around here." So I was patiently waiting my turn; and it came, for we soon
reached the horse-guard, and I told him what Mr. Tait had said. He took his
lariat and went and caught a beautiful bay, "fat and slick," and handsome as
a picture. I saddled him and came up to my companions on the jump, and
astonished them with the magnificence of my mount. Now I was the envied of
the party, and proud I was as my horse frisked and jumped and played under
me.
Ah, those first gallops on
the plains! I will never forget them. They seemed to put new blood in me,
and I felt even then how easy it would be for me to cast in my lot with such
a life in such a land as this. We galloped past Duck Lake, which long years
after became the scene of the first actual outbreak in the rebellion in
1885. We rode down to the north bank of the south Saskatchewan, and camped
there without any bedding; and waiting part of the next day, finally turned
back without any sign of our friends, and went into a grand duck hunt on the
way back to Canton, which we reached late in the evening.
At this time the old fort and
the plain around was a busy scene—our crews from the boats, hunters from the
plains, parties of Indians in to trade, the air full of stories about the
southern Indians and the tribal wars to and fro, scalps taken and horses
stolen, the herds of buffalo said to be within a hundred miles from the
fort, or less than two days out. Buffalo-skin lodges and canvas tents dotted
the plain in every direction. Horse-races and foot-races were common
occurrences. I championed older Canada against Indians, half-breeds and
Hudson's Bay officials and employees, and in the foot-racing and
jumping—high, long, and hop, step and jump —"cleaned out the crowd" and made
a name for myself and country, and amid such doings spent fifteen days, when
father and his party came up and we moved on.
Father told me that the first
two days in the saddle had been trying times with him. The everlasting jog
of the all-day journey made him feel so stiff and sore the first night that
he was hardly able to mount his horse the next day. But after three or four
days this wore off, and the trip had been to him not only a pleasant one,
but a revelation as to the resources and beauty of our own country. "Why,"
said father, "every mile we came is abundantly fit for settlement, and the
day will come when it will be taken up and developed."
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