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FATHER had been much
disappointed at not seeing the Mountain Stoneys on his previous trip west,
as time did not permit of his going any farther than Edmonton; but now with
temporary house finished, hay made, and other work well on, and as it was
still too early to strike for the fresh meat hunt, he determined, with Peter
as guide, to make a trip into the Stoney Indian country. Mr. Woolsey's
descriptions of his visits to these children of the mountains and forests,
of their manly pluck, and the many traits that distinguished them from the
other Indians, had made father very anxious to visit them and see what could
be done for their present and future good.
Accordingly, one Friday
morning early in September, father, Peter and I left the new mission, and
taking the bridle trail on the north side, began our journey in search of
the Stoneys. We had hardly started when an autumn rainstorm set in, and as
our path often led through thick woods, we were soon well soaked and were
glad to stop at noon and make a fire to warm and dry ourselves. Continuing
our journey, about the middle of the afternoon we came upon a solitary
Indian in a dense forest warming himself over a fire, for the rain was cold
and had the chill of winter in it.
This Indian proved to be a
Plain Cree from Fort Pitt, on the trail of another man who had stolen his
wife. He }ad tracked the guilty pair up the south side to Edmonton, and
found that they had gone eastward from there. I told him that a couple had
come to Victoria the day before, and he very significantly pointed to his
gun and said: "I have that' for the man you saw." We left him still warming
himself over his fire, and, pushing on, reached Edmonton Saturday evening.
Father held two services on Sunday in the officers' mess-room, both well
attended.
Monday morning we swam our
horses across the Saskatchewan, and crossing ourselves in a small skiff,
saddled and packed up, and struck south on what was termed the Blackfoot
Trail." Within ten minutes from leaving the bank of the river we were in a
country entirely new to both father and me. We passed Drunken Lake, which
Peter told us had been the usual camping- ground of the large trading
parties of Indians who periodically came to Edmonton. They would send into
the Fort to apprise the officer In charge of their coming to trade. He would
then send out to them rum and tobacco, upon which followed a big carousal;
then, when through trading, being supplied with more rum, they would come
out to this spot, and again go on a big drunk, during which many stabbing
and killing scenes were enacted. Thus this lake, on the sloping shores of
which these disgraceful orgies had gone on for so long, came to be called
Drunken Lake. Fortunately at the time we passed there the Hudson's Bay
Company had already given up the liquor traffic in this country among
Indians. We passed the spot where Mr. Woolsey and Peter had been held up by
a party of Blackfoot, and where for a time things looked very squally, until
finally better feelings predominated and the wild fellows concluded to let
the "God white man" go with his life and property.
Early in the second day from
Edmonton, we left the Blackfoot trail, and started across country, our
course being due south. That night we camped at the extreme point of Bear's
Hill, and the next evening found us at the Red Deer, near the present
crossing, where we found the first signs of Stoneys. The Stoneys made an
entirely different trail from that of the Plain Indians. The latter left a
broad road because of the travois on both dogs and horses, and because of
their dragging their lodge poles with them wherever they went. The Stoneys
had neither lodge poles nor travois, and generally kept in single file, thus
making a small, narrow trail, sometimes, according to the nature of the
ground, very difficult to trace.
The signs we found indicated
that these Indians had gone up the north side of the Red Deer River, so we
concluded to follow them, which we did, through a densely wooded country,
until they again turned to the river, and crossing it made eastward into a
range of hills which stretches from the 'Red Deer south. In vain we came to
camping places one after another. The Indians were gone, and the tracks did
not seem to freshen. It was late in the afternoon that the trail brought us
down into the canyon of the Red Deer, perhaps twenty miles east of where the
railroad now crosses this river. The banks were high, and in some places the
view was magnificent. In the long ages past, the then mighty river had burst
its way through these hills, and had in time worn its course down to the
bed-rock, and in doing so left valleys and flats and canyons to mark its
work. In the evolution of things these had become grown over with rich grass
and forest timber, and now as we looked, the foliage was changing color, and
power and majesty and beauty were before us.
Presently we were at the foot
of the long hill, or rather series of hills, and found ourselves on the
beach of the river. Peter at once went to try the ford. Father and I sat on
our horses side by side, watching him as he struck the current of the
stream. Flocks of ducks were flying up and down temptingly near, so father
shot at them as he sat on horse-back. I attempted to do the same, but the
cap of my gun snapped. I was about to put on another cap when my horse
jerked his head down suddenly, and as I had both bridle-lines and gun in the
one hand, he jerked them out, and my gun fell on the stones, and, hitting
the clog-head, went off- As there was a big rock between my horse and
father's, slanting upwards, the discharge of shot bounding from this struck
both father and his horse.
You have hit me, my son!"
cried my father.
"Where?" I asked anxiously,
as I sprang from my horse to my father's side, and as he pointed to his
breast, I tore his shirt open, and saw that several pellets had entered his
breast.
"Are you hit anywhere else?"
I asked; and then he began to feel pain in his leg, and turning up his
trousers I found that a number of shot had lodged around the bone in the
fleshy part of his leg below the knee.
In the meantime the horse he
was riding seemed as if he would bleed to death. His whole breast was like a
sieve, and the blood poured in streams from him. Peter saw that something
was up and came on the jump through the rapid current, and we bound up
father's wounds, turned his horse loose to die—as we thought—and then
saddling up another horse for father we crossed the river in order to secure
a better place to camp than where we then were. To our astonishment, the
horse followed us across, and went to feeding as though nothing had
happened.
We at once set to work taking
out the pellets of shot. This was of a large size and made quite a wound. We
took all out of his chest, and some from his leg, but the rest we could not
extract, and father carried them for the rest of his life. We bandaged him
with cold water and kept at this, more or less, all next day.
During the intervals of
waiting on father, we burned out our frying-pan, and prospected for gold. We
found quite a quantity of colors, but as this was a dangerous country, it
being the theatre of constant tribal war, a small party would not be safe to
work here very long; so it will be some time before this gold is• washed
out.
No one can tell how thankful
I was that the accident was not worse. The gun was mine; the fault, if any
there were, was mine. With mingled feelings of sorrow and gladness, I passed
the long hours of that first night after the accident. Father was in great
pain at times, but cold water was our remedy, and by the morning of the
second day we moved camp out of the canyon up to near the mouth of the Blind
Man's River.
The next morning we were up
early, and while I brought the horses in, father and Peter had determined
our course. I modestly enquired where we were going, and they told me their
plan was to come out at a place on our outbound trail, which we had named
Goose Lakes, because of having dined on goose at that place. I ventured to
give my opinion that the course they pointed out would not take us there,
but in an altogether different direction. However, as it turned out, Peter
was astray that morning, and got turned around, as will sometimes happen
with the best of guides. After travelling for some time in the wrong
direction, as we were about to enter a range of thickly-wooded hills, the
brush of which hurt father very much, I ventured to again suggest we were
out of our way. Peter then acknowledged he was temporarily "rattled," and
asked me to go ahead, which I did, retracing our track out of the timber,
and then striking straight for the Goose Lakes, where we came out upon our
own trail about noon. After that both father and Peter began to appreciate
my pioneering instincts as not formerly.
Most of this time we had been
living on our guns. In starting we had a small quantity of flour, about two
pounds of which was now left in the little sack in which we carried it.
Saturday afternoon we crossed
Battle River, and arranging to camp at the "Leavings," that is, at a point
where the trail which in after years was made between Edmonton and Southern
Alberta, touched and left the Battle River, Peter followed down the river to
look for game, while father and I went straight to the place where we
intended to camp. Our intention was to not travel on Sunday, if we could in
the meantime obtain a supply of food. Reaching this place, father said to
me, "Never mind the horses, but start at once and see what you can do for
our larder." I exchanged guns with father, as his was a double barrel and
mine a single, and ran off to the river, where I saw a fine flock of stock
ducks. Firing into them, I brought down two. Almost immediately I heard the
report of a gun away down the river, and father called to me, "Did you hear
that?" I said "Yes." Then he said, "Fire off the second barrel in answer,"
which I did, and there came over the hill the sound of another shot. Then we
knew that people were near, but who they were was the question which
interested us very much. By this time I had my gun loaded, and the ducks got
out of the river, and had run back to father. Peter came up greatly excited,
asking us if we had heard the shots. We explained that two came from us, and
the others from parties as yet unknown to us. "Then," said he, "we will tie
our horses, and be ready for either friends or foes."
Presently we were hailed from
the other bank of the river, and looking over we saw, peering from out the
bush, two Indians, who proved to be Stoneys. When Peter told them who we
were, there was mutual joy, and they at once plunged into the river, and
came across to us. Their camp, they informed us, was near, and when we told
them we were camped for Sunday, they said they would go back and bring up
their lodges and people to where we were. They told us, moreover, that there
were plenty of provisions in their camp, that they had been fortunate in
killing several elk and deer very recently—all of which we were delighted to
hear.
If these had been the days of
the "kodak," I would have delighted in catching the picture of those young
Indians as they stood before us, exactly fitting into the scene which in its
immensity and isolation lay all around us. Both were fine looking men. Their
long black hair, in two neat braids, hung pendant down their breasts. The
middle tuft was tied up off the forehead by small strings of ermine skin.
Their necks were encircled with a string of beads, with a sea-shell
immediately under the chin. A small thin, neatly made and neatly fitting
leather shirt, reaching a little below the waist; a breech cloth, fringed
leather leggings, and moccasins, would make up the costume; but these were
now thrown over their shoulders as they crossed the river. Strong and
well-built, with immense muscular development in the lower limbs, showing
that they spent most of the time on their feet, and had climbed many a
mountain and hill, as they stood there with their animated and joyous faces
fairly beaming with satisfaction because of this 'glad meeting, and that the
missionary and his party were going to stay some time with them and their
people, they looked true specimens of the aboriginal man, and almost, or
altogether (it seemed to me) just where the Great Spirit intended them to
be. I could not help but think of the fearful strain, the terrible wrenching
out of the very roots of being of the old life, Were must take place before
these men would become what the world calls civilized.
Away bounded our visitors,
and in a very short time our camp was a busy scene. Men, women, and
children, dogs and horses! We were no more isolate and alone. Provisions
poured in on us, and our commissariat was secure for that trip. To hold
meetings, to ask and answer questions, to sit up late around the open
camp-fire in the business of the Master, to get up early Sunday morning and
hold services and catechize and instruct all the day until bedtime again
came, was the constant occupation and joy of the missionary, and no man I
ever travelled with seemed to enter into such work and be better fitted for
it than my father. Though he never attempted to speak in the language of the
Indian, yet few men knew how to use an interpreter as he did, and Peter was
then and is now no ordinary interpreter.
These Indians told us that
the Mountain Stoneys were away south at the time, and that there would be no
chance of our seeing them on the trip; that in all probability they would
see the Mountain Indians during the coming winter, and would gladly carry to
them any messages father might have to send. Father told them to tell their
people that (God willing) he would visit their camps next summer; that they
might be gathered and on the look-out for himself and party sometime during
the "Egg Moon." He discussed with them the best site for a mission, if one
should be established for them and their people. There being two classes of
Stoneys, the Mountain and the Wood, it was desirable to have the location
central. The oldest man in the party suggested Battle River Lake, the head
of the stream on which we were encamped, and father determined to take this
man as guide and explore the lake.
Monday morning found us early
away, after public prayer with the camp, to follow up the river to its
source. Thomas, our guide for the trip to the lake, was one of those men who
are instinctively religious. He had listened to the first missionary with
profound interest, and presently, ending in this new faith that which
satisfied his hungry soul, embraced it with all his heart. Thus we found him
in his camp when first we met, and thus I have always found the faithful
fellow, during thirty-two years of intimate knowledge and acquaintance with
him.
We saw the lake, and stood on
the spot where some of Rundle's neophytes were slaughtered by their enemies.
This bloody act had nipped in the bud the attempt of Benjamin Sinclair,
under Mr. Rundle, to establish a mission on the shore of Pigeon Lake, only
some ten miles from the scene of the massacre, and drove Ben and his party
over two hundred miles farther into the northern country. We were three days
of steady travelling on this side trip, and reached our camp late the
evening of the third day.
Two more services with this
interesting people, and bidding them good-bye, we started for home by a
different route from that by which we had come. Going down Battle River, we
passed outside the Beaver Hills, skirted Beaver Lake, and passing through
great herds of buffalo without firing a shot—because we had provisions given
us by the Indians—we found ourselves, at dusk Saturday night, about
thirty-five miles from Victoria. Continuing our journey until after
midnight, we unsaddled, and waited for the Sabbath morning light to go on
into the mission.
Early in the morning, as we
were now about ten miles from home, we came upon a solitary lodge, and found
there, with his family, "Old Stephen," another of the early converts of our
missionaries. I had often heard Mr. Woolsey speak of the old man, but had
never met him before. As he stood in the door of his tent, leaning on his
staff, with his long white hair floating in the breeze, he looked a
patriarch indeed. We alighted from our horses, and after singing a hymn
father led in prayer. Old Stephen was profoundly affected at meeting with
father. He welcomed him to the plains and the big Saskatchewan country, and
prayed that his coming might result in great good.
As we were mounting our
horses to leave him, the old man said: "Yes, with you it is different; you
have God's Word, can read it, and understand it. I cannot read, nor do I
understand very much, but I am told that God said, 'Keep the praying day
holy,' and, therefore, wherever the evening of the day before the praying
day finds me, I camp until the light of the day after the praying day
comes," and fully appreciating the old man's consistency, we also could not
help but feel rebuked, though we were in time for morning service at the
mission, and home again once more. |
