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While we were building our
house, and during the stay of the Stonies with us, a small war party of
Crees came to our little settlement on their way (so they said) to the
Blackfoot country. As they knew me they came to our lodge, and all went well
the first day and night; but during the second night they stole out of our
lodge, took a bunch of the Stonies' horses and put for home. Awakened by
their retreating footsteps, I roused Paul and we struck a light and found
our guests were gone. Then we ran down to the path leading eastward, and
lighting some matches found the tracks of the horses. Immediately we aroused
the Stonies, and presently one after another of these started on foot after
the thieves. Fortunately for the Crees most of these men were still weak
from disease and not at all up to their normal condition, or it is
altogether probable not one of the horse stealers would have reached home
again. In heart and sympathy I went with the Stonies, but prudence and
policy dictated that I should stay at the camp.
Knowing the road for the
first thirty miles as we did, we knew that the footmen had the best of it,
and it was just a question of how much start the men with the horses had. It
was a time of great anxiety to me because of our having sheltered these
treacherous thieves. And the more I worried over the matter the more I felt
that the onus of blame would be placed upon me. Thus the long hours passed
away until about noon, when some young Stonies came back thoroughly played
out and discouraged and sullen. Then others began to come in, also
exhausted. Measles and scarlet-fever had taken the wind and muscle from
them, or else it would have been child's play, they felt sure, to catch up
to those horses on that miry brushy trail, where they could-go only single
file.
In the meantime all of the
stock had been hunted up, and when they found that twelve of the best horses
in the Stony camp were stolen, there was lamentation on the part of the
women and children. Only my new friend Jacob and Little "William were still
away of the whole number that started in pursuit last night. There were five
Crees in the party that had visited us, and there may have been more who did
not come into our camp. Many anxious people gathered around our lodge that
afternoon, but I think I myself felt most anxiety. Presently, though, out of
the thick woods to the east of our small clearing Jacob rode in sight,
astride of the big white mare which was was as the apple of old Adam's eye.
And behind him one after another trotted the rest of the horses, one, two,
three, and we counted carefully until Little William came in view on the
twelfth. Nine- tenths Indian as I was, I gave way to the one- tenth white
man in me and cheered. All were rejoiced except some of the wilder young
men, who would have delighted in slaying those Crees.
Jacob told me that after
running about twenty miles he played out, and the only one near him was
Little William, who was "all there," so he told William to go on, and he
would come after him at a slower step. This he was doing when by and by he
met William with the horses, he having received every one, and, said Jacob,
"William will tell you the rest." So to William I went, and got his story,
which was as follows: "After leaving Jacob I ran on at a good footstep. I
knew that the horses were not far ahead of me; but I also knew that if the
thieves got out into more open country, which was now close, I could not
catch them; so I pushed ahead, and sure enough I saw them driving as fast as
they could. Sometimes I took sight on one, and again on two in a line. I
felt like pulling the trigger, but what you told us last Sunday about Jesus
and His loving all men would come to my mind, and I would drop my gun, and
again sight it on those Indians. I was not afraid of them. It was something
else that kept me from shooting. Then I thought of a plan, so I waited until
they would come where the brush is very thick and the path very narrow;
there I ran around to one side, and when nearly opposite the leader I came
in close, rushed at them, and gave the "war-whoop" as loud and as fast as I
could. They were so startled that they threw themselves off the horses and
fled, and I rushed in between them and the horses, and turned them around,
and then I shouted to the Crees, 'Flee for your lives! Those behind me will
not be as merciful as I have been.' They thought when I came at them with
the war-whoop that all the Stonies were on them."
Our public service that
evening was one of praise and thanksgiving, on my part at any rate, and
there were others who felt the same. A collision between the two tribes just
at the beginning of our effort, and for which we would have been largely
blamed, would have very much prejudiced our cause.
In good time we furnished our
one-roomed house. The chimney was a success, the floor was solid, and the
parchment windows were in place. We had even gone to the length of putting
bark on the roof, and had made a canoe and kept ourselves and dogs in fish,
besides feeding a multitude of others. We had ploughed and fenced a small
field and partly planted it, for the seed we had was distributed to so many
Indians, and went into so many little fields, that our own share was a small
one. However, the beginning of such a life was made up by all who came to
us. A few potato cuttings and a thimbleful of turnip seed, those were the
commencement of another kind of evolution. How many generations of
persistent effort to make farmers of these men we did not then take time to
estimate—"sufficient unto the day," etc. We had made a beginning.
We had held daily meetings
with few or many, as these came about us, and all but the conjurers came to
our services. Good lasting work had been accomplished (for even now in our
testimony meetings I hear evidence of this), and now the Indians had moved
away and we were left to ourselves.
I would have gone with one of
the larger camps, taking my whole party with me, as this was true
evangelistic work, but father had promised that, if possible, either himself
or Mr. Steinhauer would visit us in order to administer the ordinances; but
while the Indians and ourselves waited, neither came. Then after. the
Indians were gone Mr. Steinhauer arrived, bringing a letter from father
instructing me to come back to Victoria to accompany Maskepetoon's large
camp to the plains for a season.
So I arranged to have Mrs.
McDougall and the rest of the party go out to the mountain trail and wait
while Mr. Steinhauer and myself followed the largest camp on their hunt, as
there were several baptisms and marriages I very much desired to have
solemnized. Accordingly we separated. Mr. Steinhauer and I struck around the
north end of Pigeon Lake, then westward to Battle Lake, and on down the
Battle River on the trail of the camp, which we reached the second night
out. As the next day was Saturday we travelled with the Indians that day,
holding services morning and evening, and then spent Sunday with them,
greatly to their delight.
• It was a beautiful valley
that we were camped in. The newness and beauty of the young summer were
richly apparent on every hand. The people were eager and hungry for the Word
of God, and there seemed to come a hallowing blessedness upon the day's
experiences, making such an impression on my own mind that this has remained
with me as a pleasant memory all through the years. Several were married
according to Christian rites. Quite a number were baptized and many souls
quickened, and with thankful hearts we rolled into our blankets that Sabbath
night and slept the sleep of the weary. Another service Monday morning, then
a general handshake, and we started for our return journey, this time by
another route, making as straight as we could to the place appointed as our
rendezvous with my party.
The first day out, as I was
leading the way, a huge buffalo bull sprang suddenly from some "bush" close
to me, and quite startled both my horse and myself. Then I saw him, and as
he took across an open stretch, I carefully threw in a ball on the top of
the shot in my gun (for we had been shooting ducks that morning), and
(lashed after the brute. "Scarred Thigh" seemed to think that this was now
his turn to be the pursuer, and very soon carried me up to the big fellow. I
blazed away at him, and saw I had hit him in a good place; but as he did not
stop at once, I threw in a charge of powder, put a ball on top of it, fixed
on a cap, and was going to fire at him again, when in grasping the gun I
felt a big rent down the barrel! Looking at it I saw that it was burst
badly, and that I had great reason to be thankful that my hand was not hurt.
But one does not at such a time think so much about what might have been as
about what has actually occurred. Here was my gun burst, and though it was
originally only an old flint-lock, and pot metal at that, still I mourned
over its loss. But the bull was mortally hit, and soon tumbled over. We cut
up the carcase, packed the greater part of the meat, and reached our friends
the second day from the Indian camp. Then all moved on together down the
country, keeping on the south side, scouting across the roads leading into
Edmonton, and coming out on the Saskatchewan at Victoria.
We swam our stock, crossed
our passengers and stuff in a small skiff, and found mother and the children
with Larsen, the carpenter, holding the fort. The Indians had gone out on
the plains, and father was off on the long trail to Red River or Fort Garry
for supplies, also trusting to meet at that point with my brother David and
sister Eliza, whom we had left in Ontario in 1860.
The large camp of Indians,
and the fearful amount of sickness and death, had wearied mother and the
rest of our Mission party, so that our coming brought them a glad respite
from the constant worry and excitement of having as close neighbors a people
who were as excitable as these, and who were still in the condition of
active war with the other tribes. Several war parties had arrived during our
absence bringing in scalps and horses and also the tidings of the death of
some of their companions. These occurrences would cause a furor of intense
excitement in the large camp, and lamentations and scalp-dances resounded
all around the Mission house. Moreover, to help the sick and sometimes to
pacify the unruly had drained the resources of our storehouse and larder,
until I found mother and family with very little provisions. At the time we
arrived they were making meal after meal on wild duck eggs. Mother had
neither tea nor coffee, the sugar was all gone, and she was obliged to fare
as the children did, on water and milk. Neither bread nor vegetables were
forthcoming. But the heroic woman was thankful for life, and did not seem to
mind the lack of even the simplest luxuries. The little church was finished,
and Larsen was getting on well with the interior of the Mission house and
the necessary furniture belonging to it.
It is perhaps hard for people
who have always had the opportunity of buying factory-made furniture to
understand how tedious the hand- making of such is from the tree right to
the finish, and, after all, your articles of furniture crude and sometimes
very awkward in appearance. Larsen was a Norwegian, and he gave us the style
of his native land in his hand-made furniture. |
