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THE Indians, both Wood and
Plain, pagan and Christian, were now flocking into Victoria in such numbers
that the Hudson's Bay Company saw the necessity of establishing a trading
post there. I was offered the charge of this, but father did not seem to
relish the idea, so it dropped, and a Mr. Flett was sent to put up buildings
and open trade with the Indians. Mr. Flett was a native of the Red River
settlement, and thoroughly understood the Indians and their language. He was
a warm friend of our mission, later on himself becoming an honored
missionary of the Presbyterian Church to the Indians in another part of the
country.
Victoria had now (in 1864)
the beginning of a Christian mission and the starting of a Hudson's Bay
post, and was becoming known as a place on the Saskatchewan. For the month
or six weeks that the large camps were there, spring and fall, it was a busy
point. Travellers, traders, hunters and freighters were coming and going
every little while all through the year. Already this new place had become
the nucleus of a Christian civilization. I One Hudson's Bay packet once in
the year, and an occasional budget of mail by some unexpected traveller,
were our sole means of communication with the outside world. In this matter
we were farther away than Hong Kong or Bombay.
As autumn merged into winter,
the larger number of the Indians recrossed the Saskatchewan and struck for
the buffalo. In the meantime some of us were busy getting out more timber
and lumber. One night, when most of the Indians had gone, Peter, Oliver and
I were coming down the river on a raft of timber. We had left early the
previous morning, expecting to be back by evening, and therefore had not
taken bedding with us. The carrying, rolling and handspiking of the timber
to the water's edge, and the making of our raft, had kept us late, so before
starting we put some earth on the raft, and throwing dry wood on this, as
soon as (he night grew cold we made a fire. When about half way home, while
passing through a ripple, our raft grounded on the rocks, and do what we
would in the night we could not get it off. Having neither provisions nor
bedding, and our supply of wood on the raft but small, we concluded to wade
or swim ashore. The river was broad, the distance to the shore long, and the
depth uncertain.
Undressing, and tying our
clothes in bundles above our heads, we started into the ice-cold current.
Slowly we felt our way, for the bottom was full of boulders and stones, and
irregular in depth. As I was the shortest of our party I came near having to
swim. Down I went, and deeper still, until all but my head was submerged.
Stepping slowly and carefully on my toes I made my way, longing for the
shore. Many a river have I swam and waded in all kinds of weather, but that
long, slow trip from raft to shore in the dark night, made darker still by
the sombre shadows of the high wooded banks, I shall never forget. After an
interminable time, as it seemed, we reached the shore and stepped out with
bare feet and naked bodies on to the rough, stony beach, and into the keen,
frosty air. But what a glow we were in when we did have our clothes on once
more! We were in prime condition for a sharp run, and it did not take us
long, inured as we were, to climb the steep bank and run the three or four
miles to the mission house. The next day we towed a skiff to where our raft
was, worked it off the rocks, and brought it down home.
As the cold weather set in,
it became necessary to organize for the "fresh meat hunt." In an isolated
interior place like Victoria, where there are neither waggon nor cart
makers, nor yet harness makers; where your wheels are wooden and your axles
ironless, and wood grinds on wood; where your harness is of the skins of the
wild animals around you, crudely and roughly home-made, it means something
to get ready for a trip where you expect to find heavy loads and frozen
ground, with winter perhaps setting in before you again reach home. To mend
carts and harness, to hunt up horses and oxen, to transport your vehicles
and equipment over a wide river in a small skiff, to swim your stock through
the cold water—all of this takes some time and causes a great deal of hard
work. But we must have the meat, and so in good time we are rolling south,
hunters, running horses and cart drivers, all eager for the first glimpse of
the buffalo.
This time our course was more
westerly, and on the third day we had our first run, near the "cross woods,"
on the plain which stretches from within a few miles of Victoria to the
Battle River. Our chief hunters were "Muddy Bull" and Peter. The rest of us
were kept busy butchering and hauling into camp, moving camp, guarding
stock, providing wood, etc. From before daylight until late at night we were
all on the jump, Sunday being our only rest, and then we took turns in
guarding our stock. To work hard all day, and then guard stock and camp all
night, those long fall nights, made one very "gapish" the next day, and gave
him sound sleep the following night. In all this father took his share, and
upon him rested the chief responsibility of the expedition. On these trips
as much haste as was consistent with the success of the object in view was
made in order to be as short a period as possible away from the mission,
which was during this time almost without any human protection.
My man Oliver, though a
native of the Red River Settlement, and thus born in the great North-West,
had never until now seen buffalo. In fact, all the experiences of this last
summer had been new to him. We left him in charge of camp one morning, and
went out some miles after buffalo. When towards evening I came in on a
cart-load of meat, he exclaimed: "What kept you so long? I have been waiting
to go for my buffalo."
"Where are your buffalo?" I
asked.
"Oh! just over yon hill," he
answered.
"How many have you 1" was my
next question.
"I don't know," was the
answer.
"How is that?" I queried.
"Well," said Oliver, "a big
band of buffalo came down to the creek near camp, and I jumped on the bay
colt and charged them up yonder slope. There were hundreds of them, and just
as they went over the ridge I fired into them, and I am sure there must be
five or six dead buffalo lying over there."
"Did you see any dead ones?"
I asked.
"No," said he, "for I hurried
back to look after things, and have been anxiously waiting for some one to
relieve me, so I might go and bring in my buffalo."
As it was only a little way,
I told Oliver to jump on one of the horses and see if there were any dead
buffalo over the ridge. Presently he came back, quietly wondering how he
could have missed the big herd. Many a man has had a similar experience.
Over a rough country, with horse at full jump, inexperienced men have fired
many a shot, and never even hit the carcase of a big bull. Then, as to
killing more than one at a shot, this was seldom done. I have heard of an
Indian in the Beaver Hills killing two bulls at one shot, and when his
comrade came over the hill, and saw the two dead animals, he asked, "How is
this? you fired but one shot." "Yes," said the other, "I did wait for some
time to get three in a line, but finally had to be satisfied with two." This
same fellow was possessed of some dry wit, for his friend asked him, as he
was leaving the fire for a little, to turn his roast, if it needed turning;
and when he came back the bare spit was over the fire, and the meat at the
other end on the ground. "What is this?" he asked, with a touch of
indignation in his voice. "What is the matter?" responded the wag. You
requested me to turn your roast, and I did so," and the victim had to
swallow the joke. But it was harder to make Oliver understand how he could
miss hundreds of buffalo bunched up as these were, and he could not but
refer to this strange event ever and anon all the evening. Many a banter did
he get from the rest of our party about his dead buffalo. "Where are you
going?" one would shout to another, and the answer would come back, "After
Oliver's buffalo."
I had quite an experience the
same afternoon in coming back to camp with my load of meat. The rather wild
horse I was driving somehow or other shook off his bridle and started across
the prairie at a gallop on his own course. So long as the plain was only
slightly undulating this did not very much disturb me, but presently we came
to buffalo trails and badger holes, and thump, bump, thump went the wooden
cart, and piece by piece out tumbled the meat, and I began to speculate how
long the cart would hold together. Then I saw we were making straight for
the banks of a creek, where a decided smash would be inevitable.
I could have jumped out
behind, and let the whole thing go, but I was loath to do this, so I finally
mustered up courage to climb out on the brute's back. This only made him the
more frantic for a while, but presently I got a line over his nose, and,
slapping his head, turned his course to smooth ground, and finally stopped
the excited animal. I then got things fixed up, drove back along the course
of our wild race, gathered up my meat, and thus brought horse and cart, meat
and self, without much damage, to camp.
In those days we seldom
bothered with the hides. Now and then we took some specially good ones and
used them on the way home to cover the meat, and later on had them dressed;
but generally, with the exception of what we used to mend carts or harness,
we left the hides on the plain. Our need was meat, and for this we required
the utmost capacity of our transport.
On the third evening, after
we got fairly among the buffalo, our carts were loaded, and we felt that we
had been successful indeed. No lives lost, no limbs broken, no horses
stolen. Our hunters had ridden without hurt over thousands of badger holes,
across many miles of rough country, and amongst hundreds of wild, strong
buffalo. Our cart drivers had gone in every direction, across country, to
and fro, butchering the slain, and hauling in the meat to camp. Hundreds of
great grey wolves, and— to judge by the yelping—thousands of coyotes, had
howled and snarled and fought all about us both day and night. Yet in a very
short time we were loaded, all safe and sound; and feelingly we sang our
praise, and father voiced our thanksgiving ere we retired to rest that
night.
It was on this hunt that
Peter woke up to the fact that I had been born with the natural gift of a
large "bump of locality." Three of us -" Muddy Bull," Peter and
myself—charged a bunch of buffalo. Peter had a long flint-lock gun and a big
percussion six-shooting revolver. I happened to be riding alongside of him
when he fired his gun, and now that he pulled the revolver, the gun was in
the way; so he handed it to me. Presently in the rush we were separated, and
here I was with two guns. Not caring to be so hampered, as gently as I could
I flung Peter's gun to the ground; but in doing so noticed the locality.
Fortunately, also, I saw "Muddy Bull" directly opposite, about two hundred
yards distant, knock a cow down. She could not get up, for I could see that
he had broken her back. This was another mark to me, and I charged my memory
with it as on we rushed in the mad race. By-and-bye I came across Peter some
two miles from there, and the first question was, "Where is my gun?" "I
threw it away, back yonder," I answered, and Peter blessed me warmly,
declaring we would never find that gun again; and it did look like it, for
here was all out doors and a thousand places looking alike. However, I took
him straight back to his gun. He could hardly believe his own eyes, but as
he picked it up lie said, "You will do for the North-West."
The next day our carts were
creaking and squealing with their heavy loads on the home stretch. In the
meantime winter was steadily creeping on. The ground was frozen, the ice on
the lakes becoming thick and strong, and the nights were cold. If you were
on guard, you felt the necessity of quick action to keep warm. If you were
asleep under the carts, you very reluctantly turned out at four o'clock a.m.
to gather up bedding, etc., hitch up your share of the brigade, and trudge
on through the cold until near daylight, when you stopped for breakfast;
but, as this was the regular thing, you soon came to the conclusion that the
chicken-hearted and weak-willed had no place in this keenly new land—so new
that the polish of nature was still bright and thick all over it.
In a little more than two
weeks from our start on the hunt, we are again letting our loads down the
steep southern bank of the Saskatchewan, and yonder the smoke from the
mission house chimneys and the ear-flaps of a few buffalo skin lodges meets
our eyes, curling heavenward. I say "curling heavenward" because I have been
bred to do so, but who knows where heaven is, especially when one thinks
that what was up a little while ago, is down now? This time we ford our
stock through a ripple, about half a mile below the mission, which is
infinitely better than swimming them through the floating ice-cakes which
are being hurried eastward by the rapid current. Then comes the hard and
cold work of crossing carts and loads in the skiff; but finally the whole
thing is done, and the product of our fall hunt is on the stage, and will
become a prominent factor in the working of the mission for the next two
months, unless an extra lot of starving people come upon us. |
