The Great Lone Land Part 12

As we journeyed on towards Edmonton the country maintained its rich and beautiful appearance, and the weather continued fine and mild. Every where nature had written in unmistakable characters the story of the fertility of the soil over which we rode--every where the eye looked upon panoramas filled with the beauty of lake and winding river, and gra.s.sy slope and undulating woodland. The whole face of the country was indeed one vast park. For two days we pa.s.sed through this beautiful land,-and on the evening of the 28th November drew near to Edmonton. My party had been increased by the presence of two gentlemen from Victoria, a Wesleyan minister and the Hudson Bay official in charge of the Company's post at that place. Both of these gentlemen had resided long in the Upper Saskatchewan, and were intimately acquainted with the tribes who inhabit The vast territory from the Rocky Mountains to Carlton House. It was late in the evening, just one month after I had started from the banks of the Red River, that I approached the high palisades of Edmonton. As one who looks back at evening from the summit of some lofty ridge over the long track which he has followed since the morning, so now did my mind travel back over the immense distance through which I had ridden in twenty-two days of actual travel and in thirty-three of the entire journey-that distance could not have been less than 1000 miles; and as each camp scene rose again before me, with its surrounding of snow and storm-swept prairie and lonely clump of aspens, it seemed as though something like infinite s.p.a.ce stretched between me and that far-away land which one word alone can picture, that one word in which so many others centre--Home.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Edmonton--The Ruffian Tahakooch--French Missionaries--Westward still--A beautiful Land--The Blackfeet-Horses--A "Bellox" Soldier--A Blackfoot Speech--The Indian Land--First Sight of the Rocky Mountains--The Mountain House--The Mountain a.s.sineboines--An Indian Trade--M. la Combe--Fire-water--A Night a.s.sault.

EDMONTON, the head-quarters of the Hudson Bay Company's Saskatchewan trade, and the residence of a chief factor of the corporation, is a large five-sided fort with the usual flanking bastions and high stockades. It has within these stockades many commodious and well-built wooden houses, and differs in the cleanliness and order of its arrangements from the general run of trading forts in the Indian country. It stands on a high level bank 100 feet above the Saskatchewan River, which rolls below in a broad majestic stream, 300 yards in width. Farming operations, boat-building, and flour-milling are carried on extensively at the fort, and a blacksmith's forge is also kept going. My business with the officer in charge of Edmonton was soon concluded. It princ.i.p.ally consisted in conferring upon him, by commission, the same high judicial functions which I have already observed had been entrusted to me before setting out for the Indian territories. There was one very serious drawback, however, to the possession of magisterial or other authority in the Saskatchewan, in as much as there existed no means whatever of putting that authority into force.

The Lord High Chancellor of England, together with the Master of the Rolls and the twenty-four judges of different degrees, would be perfectly useless if placed in the Saskatchewan to put in execution the authority of the law. The Crees, Blackfeet, Peagins, and Sircies would doubtless have come to the conclusion that these high judicial functionaries were "very great medicines;" but beyond that conclusion, which they would have drawn more from the remarkable costume and head-gear worn by those exponents of the law than from the possession of any legal ac.u.men, much would not have been attained. These considerations somewhat mollified the feelings of disappointment with which I now found myself face to face with the most desperate set of criminals, while I was utterly unable to enforce against them the majesty of my commission.

First, there was the notorious Tahakooch-murderer, robber, and general scoundrel of deepest dye; then there was the sister of the above, a maiden of some twenty summers, who had also perpetrated the murder of two Black foot children close to Edmonton; then there was a youthful French half-breed who had killed his uncle at the settlement of Grand Lac, nine miles to the north-west; and, finally, there was my dinner companion at Saddle Lake, whose crime I only became aware of after I had left that locality. But this Tahakooch was a ruffian too desperate. Here was one of his murderous acts. A short time previous to my arrival two Sircies came to Edmonton. Tahakooch and two of his brothers were camped near the fort.

Tahakooch professed friends.h.i.+p for the Sircies, and they went to his lodge. After a few days had pa.s.sed the Sircies thought it was time to return to their tribe. Rumour said that the charms of the sister of Tahakooch had captivated either one or both of them, and that she had not been insensible to their admiration. Be this as it may, it was time to go; and so they prepared for the journey. An Indian will travel by night as readily as by day, and it was night when these men left the tent of Tahakooch.

"We will go to the fort," said the host, "in order to get provisions for your journey."

The party, three in number, went to the fort, and knocked at the gate for admittance. The man on watch at the gate, before unharring, looked from the bastion over the stockades, to see who might be the three men who sought an entrance. It was bright moonlight, and he noticed the s.h.i.+mmer of a gun-barrel under the blanket of Tahakooch. The Sircies were provided with some dried meat, and the party went away. The Sircies marched first in single file, then followed Tahakooch close behind them; the three formed one line. Suddenly, Tahakooch drew from beneath his blanket a short double-barrelled gun, and discharged both barrels into the back of the nearest Sircie. The bullets pa.s.sed through one man into the body of the other, killing the nearest one instantly. The leading Sircie, though desperately wounded, ran fleetly along the moonlit path until, faint and bleeding, he fell. Tahakooch was close behind; but the villain's hand shook, and four times his shots missed the wounded wretch upon the ground. Summoning up all his strength, the Sircie sprung upon his a.s.sailant; a hand-to-hand struggle ensued; but the desperate wound was too much for him, he grew faint in his efforts, and the villain Tahakooch pa.s.sed his knife into his victim's body. All this took place in the same year during which I reached Edmonton, and within sight of the walls of the fort. Tahakooch lived only a short distance away, and was a daily visitor at the fort.

But to recount the deeds of blood enacted around the wooden walls of Edmonton Would be to fill a volume. Edmonton and Fort Pitt both stand within the war country of the Crees and Blackfeet, and are consequently the scenes of many conflicts between these fierce and implacable enemies.

Hitherto my route has led through the Cree country, hitherto we have seen only the prairies and woods through which the Crees hunt and camp; but my wanderings are yet far from their end. To the south-west, for many and many a mile, lie the wide regions of the Blackfeet and the mountain a.s.sineboines; and into these regions I am about to push my way. It is a wild, lone land guarded by the giant peaks of mountains whose snow-capped summits lift themselves 17,000 feet above the sea level. It is the birth-place of waters which seek in four mighty streams the four distant oceans--the Polar Sea, the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific.

A few miles north-west of Edmonton a settlement composed exclusively of French half-breeds is situated on the sh.o.r.es of a rather extensive lake which bears the name of the Grand Lac, or St. Albert. This settlement is presided over by a mission of French Roman Catholic clergymen of the order of Oblates, headed by a bishop of the same order and nationality.

It is a curious contrast to find in this distant and strange land men of culture and high mental excellence devoting their lives to the task of civilizing the wild Indians of the forest and the prairie--going far in advance of the settler, whose advent they have but too much cause to dread. I care not what may be the form of belief which the on-looker may hold--whether it be in unison or in antagonism with that faith preached by these men; but he is only a poor semblance of a man who can behold such a sight through the narrow gla.s.s of sectarian feeling, holding'

opinions foreign to his own. He who has travelled through the vast colonial empire of Britain--that empire which covers one third of the entire habitable surface of the globe and probably half of the lone lands of the world must often have met with men dwelling in the midst of wild, savage peoples whom they tended with a strange and mother-like devotion.

If you asked who was this stranger who dwelt thus among wild men in these Lone places, you were told he was the French missionary; and if you sought him in his lonely hut, you found ever the same surroundings, the same simple evidences of a faith which seemed more than human. I do not speak from hearsay or book-knowledge. I have myself witnessed the scenes I now try to recall. And it has ever been the same, East and West, far in advance of trader or merchant, of sailor or soldier, has gone this dark-haired, fragile man, whose earliest memories are thick with sunny scenes by bank of Loire or vine-clad slope of Rhone or Garonne, and whose vision in this life, at least, is never destined to rest again upon these oft-remembered places. Glancing through a pamphlet one day at Edmonton, a pamphlet which recorded the progress of a Canadian Wesleyan Missionary Society, I read the following extract from the letter of a Western missionary:--"These representatives of the Man of Sin, these priests, are hard-workers; summer and winter they follow the camps, suffering great privations. They are indefatigable in their efforts to make converts, but their converts," he adds, "have never heard of the Holy Ghost." "The man of sin "--which of us is without it? To these French missionaries at Grand Lac I was the bearer of terrible tidings. I carried to them the story of Sedan, the overwhelming rush of armed Germany into the heart of France, the closing of the high-schooled hordes of Teuton savagery around Paris; all that was hard home news to: hear. Fate had leant heavily upon their little congregation; out of 900 souls more than 300 had perished of small-pox up to the date of my arrival, and others were still sick in the huts along the lake. Well might the bishop and his priests bow their heads in the midst of such manifold tribulations of death and disaster.

By the last day of November my preparations for further travel into the regions lying west of Edmonton were completed, and at midday on the 1st December I set out for the Rocky Mountain House. This station, the most Western and southern held by the Hudson Bay Company in the Saskatchewan, is distant from Edmonton about 180 miles by horse trail, and 211 miles by river. I was provided with five fresh horses, two good guides, and I carried letters to merchants in the United States, should fortune permit me to push through the great stretch of Blackfoot country lying on the northern borders of the American territory; for it was my intention to leave the Mountain House as soon as possible, and to endeavour to cross by rapid marches the 400 miles of plains to some of the mining cities of Montana or Idaho; the princ.i.p.al difficulty lay, however, in the reluctance of men to come with me into the country of the Blackfeet. At Edmonton only one man spoke the Blackfoot tongue, and the offer of high wages failed to induce him to attempt the journey. He was a splendid specimen of a half-breed; he had married a Blackfoot squaw, and spoke the difficult language with fluency; but he had lost nearly all his relations in the fatal plague, and his answer was full of quiet thought when asked to be my guide.

"It is a work of peril," he said, "to pa.s.s the Blackfoot country all'

pitching along the foot of the mountains; they will see our trail in the snow, follow it, and steal our horses, or perhaps worse still. At another time I would attempt it, but death has been too heavy upon my friends, and I don't feel that I can go."

It was still possible, however, that at the Mountain House I might find a guide ready to attempt the journey, and my kind host at Edmonton provided me with letters to facilitate my procuring all supplies from his subordinate officer at that station. Thus fully accoutred and prepared to meet the now rapidly increasing severity of the winter, I started on the 1st December for the mountains. It-was a bright, beautiful day. I was alone with my two retainers; before me lay an uncertain future, but so many curious scenes had been pa.s.sed in safety during the last six months of my life, that I recked little of what was before me, drawing a kind of blind confidence from the thought that so much could not have been in vain. Crossing the now fast-frozen Saskatchewan, we ascended the southern bank and entered upon a rich country watered with many streams and wooded with park-like clumps of aspen and pine. My two retainers were first-rate fellows. One spoke English very fairly: he was a brother of the bright-eyed little beauty at Fort Pitt. The other, Paul Foyale, was a thick, stout-set man, a good voyageur, and excellent-in camp. Both were noted travellers, and both had suffered severely in the epidemic of the small-pox. Paul had lost his wife and child, and Rowland's children had all had the disease, but had recovered. As for any idea about taking infection from men coming out of places where that infection existed, that would have been the merest foolishness; at least, Paul and Rowland thought so, and as they were destined to be my close companions for some days, cooking for me, tying up my blankets, and sleeping beside me, it was just as well to put a good face upon the matter and trust once more to the glorious doctrine of chance. Besides, they were really such good fellows, princes among voyayeurs, that, small-pox or no small-pox, they were first-rate company for any ordinary mortal. For two days we jogged merrily along. The Musquas.h.i.+s or Bears Hill rose before us and faded away into blue distance behind us. After sundown on the 2nd we camped in a thicket of large aspens by the high bank of the Battle River, the same stream at whose mouth nearly 400 miles away I had found the Crees a fortnight before. On the 3rd December we crossed this river, and, quitting the Blackfeet trail, struck in a south-westerly direction through a succession of gra.s.sy hills with partially wooded valleys and small frozen lakes. A glorious country to ride over--a country in which the eye ranged across miles and miles of fair-lying hill and long-stretching valley; a silent, beautiful land upon which summer had stamped so many traces, that December had so far been powerless to efface their beauty. Close by to the south lay the country of the great Blackfeet nation--that wild, restless tribe whose name has been a terror to other tribes and to trader and trapper for many and many a year. Who and what are these wild dusky men who have held their own against all comers, sweeping like a whirlwind over the sand deserts of the central continent? They speak a tongue distinct from all other Indian tribes; they have ceremonies and feasts wholly different, too, from the feasts and ceremonies of other nations; they are at war with every nation that touches the wide circle of their boundaries; the Crows, the Flatheads, the Kootenies, the Rocky Mountain a.s.sineboines, the Crees, the Plain a.s.sineboines, the Minnitarrees, all are and have been the inveterate enemies of the five confederate nations which form together the great Blackfeet tribe. Long years ago, when their great forefather crossed the Mountains of the Setting Sun and settled along the sources of the Missouri and the South Saskatchewan, so runs the legend of their old chiefs, it came to pa.s.s that a chief had three sons, Kenna, or The Blood, Peaginou, or The Wealth, and a third who was nameless. The two first were great hunters, they brought to their father's lodge rich store of moose and elk meat, and the buffalo fell before their unerring arrows; but the third, or nameless one, ever returned empty-handed from the chase, until his brothers mocked him for his want of skill. One day the old chief said to this unsuccessful hunter, "My son, you cannot kill the moose, your arrows shun the buffalo, the elk is too fleet for your footsteps, and your brothers mock you because you bring no meat into the lodge; but see, I will make you a great hunter." And the old chief took from the lodge-fire a piece of burnt stick, and, wetting it, he rubbed the feet of his son with the blackened charcoal, and he named him Sat-Sia-qua, or The Blackfeet, and evermore Sat-Sia-qua was a mighty hunter, and his arrows flew straight to the buffalo, and his feet moved swift in the chase. From these three sons are descended the three tribes of Blood, Peaginou, and Blackfeet, but in addition, for many generations, two other tribes or portions of tribes have been admitted into the confederacy; These are the Sircies, on the north, a branch, or offshoot from the Chipwayans of the Athabasca; and the Gros Ventres, or Atsinas, on the southeast, a branch from the Arrapahoe nation who dwelt along the sources of the Platte. How these branches became detached from the parent stocks has never been determined, but to this day they speak the languages of their original tribe in addition to that of the adopted one. The parent tongue of the Sircies is harsh and guttural, that of the Blackfeet is rich and musical; and while the Sircies always speak Blackfeet in addition to their own tongue, the Blackfeet rarely master the language of the Sircies.

War, as we have already said, is the sole toil and thought of the red man's life. He has three great causes of fight: to steal a horse, take a scalp, or get a wife. I regret to have to write that the possession of a horse is valued before that of a wife-and this has been the case for many years. "A horse," writes McKenzie, "is valued at ten guns, a woman is only worth one gun;" but at that time horses were scarcer than at present. Horses have been a late importation, comparatively speaking, into the Indian country. They travelled rapidly north from Mexico, and the prairies soon became covered with the Spanish mustang, for whose possession the red man killed his brother with singular pertinacity. The Indian to-day believes that the horse has ever dwelt with him on the Western deserts, but that such is not the case his own language undoubtedly tells. It is curious to compare the different names which the wild men gave the new-comer who was destined to work such evil among them. In Cree, a dog is called "Atim," and a horse, "Mistatim," or the "Big Dog." In the a.s.sineboine tongue the horse is called "Sho-a-th-in-ga,"

"Thongatch shonga," a great dog. In Blackfeet, "Po-no-ka-mi-taa" signifies the horse; and "Po-no-ko" means red deer, and "Emita," a dog--the "Red-deer Dog." But the Sircies made the best name of all for the new-comer; they called him the "Chistli" "Chis," seven, "Li," dogs "Seven Dogs." Thus we have him called the big dog, the great dog, the red-deer dog, the seven dogs, and the red dog, or "It-shou-ma-shungu," by the Gros Ventres.

The dog was their universal beast of burthen, and so they multiplied the name in many ways to enable it to define the Superior powers of the new beast.

But a far more formidable enemy than Crow or Cree has lately come in contact with the Blackfeet--an enemy before whom all his stratagem, all his skill with lance or arrow, all his dexterity of horsemans.h.i.+p is of no avail. The "Moka-ma.n.u.s" (the Big-knives), the white men, have pushed up the great Missouri River into the heart of the Blackfeet country, the fire-canoes have forced their way along the muddy waters, and behind them a long chain of armed posts have arisen to hold in check the wild roving races of Dakota and the Montana. It is a useless struggle that which these Indians wage against their latest and most deadly enemy, but nevertheless it is one in which the sympathy of any brave heart must lie on the side of the savage. Here, at the head-waters of the great River Missouri which finds its outlet into the Gulf of Mexico-here, pent up against the barriers of the "Mountains of the Setting Sun," the Blackfeet offer a last despairing struggle to the ever-increasing tide that hems them in. It is not yet two years since a certain citizen soldier of the United States made a famous raid against a portion of this tribe at the head-waters of the Missouri. It so happened that I had the opportunity of hearing this raid described from the rival points of view of the Indian and the white man, and, if possible, the brutality of the latter--brutality which was gloried in--exceeded the relation of the former. Here is the story of the raid as told me by a miner whose "pal" was present in the scene. "It was a little afore day when the boys came upon two redskins in a gulch near-away to the Sun River" (the Sun River flows into the Missouri, and the forks lie below Benton). "They caught the darned red devils and strapped them on a horse, and swore that if they didn't just lead the way to their camp that they'd blow their b---- brains out; and Jim Baker wasn't the c.o.o.n to go under if he said he'd do it--no, you bet he wasn't. So the red devils showed the trail, and soon the boys came out on a wide gulch, and saw down below the lodges of the Pagans. Baker just says, 'Now, boys, says he, 'thar's the devils, and just you go in and clear them out. No darned prisoners, you know; Uncle Sam ain't agoin'

to keep prisoners, I guess. No darned squaws or young uns, but just kill'em all, squaws and all; it's them squaws what breeds'em, and them young uns will only be horse-thieves or hair-lifters when they grows up; so just make a clean shave of the hull brood. Wall, mister, ye see, the boys jist rode in among the lodges afore daylight, and they killed every thing that was able to come out of the tents, for, you see, the redskins had the small-pox bad, they had, and a heap of them couldn't come out nohow; so the boys jist turned over the lodges and fixed them as they lay on the ground. Thar was up to 170 of them Pagans wiped out that mornin', and thar was only one of the boys sent under by a redskin firing out at him from inside a lodge. I say, mister, that Baker's a bell-ox among sodgers, you bet."

One month after this slaughter on the Sun River a band of Peagins were met on the Bow River by a French missionary priest, the only missionary whose daring spirit has carried him into the country of these redoubled tribes. They told him of the cruel loss their tribe had suffered at the hands of the "Long-knives;" but they spoke of it as the fortune of war, as a thing to be deplored, but to be also revenged: it was after the manner of their own war, and it did not strike them as brutal or cowardly; for, alas! they knew no better. But what shall be said of these heroes--the outscourings of Europe--who, under the congenial guidance of that "bell-ox" soldier Jim Baker, "wiped out them Pagan redskins"? This meeting of the missionary with the Indians was in: its way singular. The priest, thinking that the loss of so many lives would teach the tribe how useless must be a war carried on against-the Americans, and how its end must inevitably be the complete destruction of the Indians, asked the chief to a.s.semble his band to listen to his counsel and advice. They met together in the council-tent, and then the priest began. He told them that "their recent loss was only the beginning of their destruction, that the Long knives had countless braves, guns and rifles beyond number, fleet steeds, and huge war-canoes, and that it was useless for the poor wild man to attempt to stop their progress through the great Western solitudes." He asked them "why were their faces black and their hearts heavy? was it not for their relatives and friends so lately killed, and would it not be better to make peace while yet they could do it, and thus save the lives of their remaining friends?"

While thus he spoke there reigned a deep silence through the council-tent, each one looked fixedly at the ground before him; but when the address was over the chief rose quietly, and, casting around a look full of dignity, he asked, "My brother, have you done, or is there aught you would like yet to say to us?"

To this the priest made answer that he had no more to say.

"It is well," answered the Indian; "and listen now to what I say to you; but first," he said, turning to his men, "you, my brethren, you, my sons, who sit around me, if there should be aught in my words from which you differ, if I say one word that you would not say yourselves, stop me, and say to this black-robe I speak with a forked tongue." Then, turning again to the priest, he continued, "You have spoken true, your words come straight; the Long-knives are too many and too strong for us; their guns shoot farther than ours, their big guns shoot twice" (alluding to sh.e.l.ls which exploded after they fell); "their numbers are as the buffalo were in the days of our fathers. But what of all that? do you want us to starve on the land which is ours? to lie down as slaves to the white man, to die away one by one in misery and hunger? It is true that the long-knives must kill us, but I say still, to my children and to my tribe, fight on, fight on, fight on! go on fighting to the very last man; and let that last man go on fighting too, for it is better to die thus, as a brave man should die, than to live a little time and then die like a coward. So now, my brethren, I tell you, as I have told you before, keep fighting still. When you see these men coming along the river, digging holes in the ground and looking for the little bright sand" (gold), "kill them, for they mean to kill you; fight, and if it must be, die, for you can only die once, and it is better to die than to starve."

He ceased, and a universal hum of approval running through the dusky warriors told how truly the chief had spoken the thoughts of his followers; Again he said, "What does the white man want in our land? You tell us he is rich and strong, and has plenty of food to eat; for what then does he come to our land? We have only the buffalo, and he takes that from us. See the buffalo, how they dwell with us; they care not for the closeness of our lodges, the smoke of our camp-fires does not fright them, the shouts of our young men will not drive them away; but behold how they flee from the sight, the sound, and the smell of the white man!

Why does he take the land from us? who sent him here? He puts up sticks, and he calls the land his land, the river his river, the trees his trees.

Who gave him the ground, and the water, and the trees? was it the Great Spirit? No; for the Great Spirit gave to us the beasts and the fish, and the white man comes to take the waters and the ground where these fishes and these beasts live--why does he not take the sky as well as the ground? We who have dwelt on these prairies ever since the stars fell"

(an epoch from which the Blackfeet are fond of dating, their antiquity) "do not put sticks over the land and say, Between these sticks this land is mine; you shall not come here or go there."

Fortunate is it for these Blackfeet tribes that their hunting grounds lie partly on British territory--from where our midday camp was made on the 2nd December to the boundary-line at the 49th parallel, fully 180 miles of plain knows only the domination of the Blackfeet tribes. Here, around this midday camp, lies spread a fair and fertile land; but close by, scarce half a day's journey to the south, the sandy plains begin to supplant the rich gra.s.s-covered hills, and that immense central desert commences to spread out those ocean-like expanses which find their southern limits far down by the waters of the Canadian River,1200 miles due south of the Saskatchewan. This immense central sandy plateau is the true home of the bison. Here were raised for countless ages these huge herds whose hollow tramp shook the solid roof of America during the countless cycles which it remained unknown to man. Here, too, was the true home of the Indian: the Commanche, the Apache, the Kio-wa, the Arapahoe, the s.h.i.+enne, the Crow, the Sioux, the p.a.w.nee, the Omahaw, the Mandan, the Manatarree, the Blackfeet, the Cree, and the a.s.sineboine divided between them the immense region, warring and wandering through the vast expanses until the white race from the East pushed their way into the land, and carved out states and territories from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. How it came to pa.s.s in the building of the world that to the north of that great region of sand and waste should spread out suddenly the fair country of the Saskatchewan, I must leave to the guess-work of other and more scientific writers; but the fact remains, that alone, from Texas to the sub-Arctic forest, the Saskatchewan Valley lays its fair length for 800 miles in mixed fertility.

But we must resume our Western way. The evening of the 3rd December found us crossing a succession of wooded hills which divide the water system of the North from that of the South Saskatchewan. These systems come so close together at this region, that while my midday kettle was filled with water which finds its way through Battle River into the North Saskatchewan, that of my evening meal was taken from the ice of the Pas-co-pee, or Blindman's; River, whose waters seek through Red Deer River the South Saskatchewan.

It was near sunset when we rode by the lonely sh.o.r.es of the Gull Lake, whose frozen surface stretched beyond the horizon to the north. Before us, at a distance of some ten miles, lay the abrupt line of the Three Medicine Hills, from whose gorges the first view of the great range of the Rocky Mountains was destined to burst upon my sight; But not on this day was I to behold that long-looked-for vision. Night came quickly down upon the silent wilderness; and it was long after dark when we made our camps by the bank of the Pas-co-pee, or Blindman's River, and turned adrift the weary horses to graze in a well-gra.s.sed meadow lying in one of the curves of the river. We had ridden more than sixty miles that day.

About midnight a heavy storm of snow burst upon us, and daybreak revealed the whole camp buried deep in snow. As I threw back the blankets from my head (one always lies covered up completely), the wet, cold ma.s.s struck chillily upon my face. The snow was wet and sticky, and therefore things were much more wretched than if the temperature had been lower; but the hot tea made matters seem brighter, and about breakfast-time the snow ceased to fall and the clouds began to clear away. Packing our wet blankets together, we set out for the three Medicine Hills, through whose defiles our course lay; the snow was deep in the narrow valleys, making travelling slower and more laborious than before. It was midday when, having rounded the highest of the three hills, we entered a narrow gorge fringed with a fire-ravaged forest. This gorge wound through the hills, preventing a far-reaching view ahead; but at length its western termination was reached, and there lay before me a sight to be long remembered. The great chain of the Rocky Mountains rose their snow-clad sierras in endless succession. Climbing one of the eminences, I gained a vantage-point on the summit from which some by-gone fire had swept the trees. Then, looking west, I beheld the great range in unclouded glory.

The snow had cleared the atmosphere, the sky was coldly bright. An immense plain stretched from my feet to the mountain--a plain so vast that every object of hill and wood and lake lay dwarfed into one continuous level, and at the back of this level, beyond the pines and the lakes and the river-courses, rose the giant range, solid, impa.s.sable, silent--a mighty barrier rising-midst an immense land, standing sentinel over the plains and prairies of America, over the measureless solitudes of this Great Lone Land. Here, at last, lay the Rocky Mountains.

Leaving behind the Medicine Hills, we descended into the plain and held our way until sunset towards the west. It was a calm and beautiful evening; far away objects stood out sharp and distinct in the pure atmosphere of these elevated regions. For some hours we had lost sight of the mountains, but shortly before sunset the summit of a long ridge was gained, and they burst suddenly into view in greater magnificence than at midday. Telling my men to go on and make the camp at the Medicine River, I rode through some fire-wasted forest to a lofty gra.s.s-covered height which the declining sun was bathing in floods of glory. I cannot hope to put into the compa.s.s of words the scene which lay rolled beneath from this sunset-lighted eminence; for, as I looked over the immense plain and watched the slow descent of the evening sun upon the frosted crest of these lone mountains, it seemed as if the varied scenes of my long journey had woven themselves into the landscape, filling with the music of memory the earth, the sky, and the mighty panorama of mountains. Here at length lay the barrier to my onward wanderings, here lay the boundary to that 4000 miles of unceasing travel which had carried me by so many varied scenes so far into the lone-land; and other thoughts were not wanting. The peaks on which I gazed were no pigmies; they stood the culminating monarchs of the mighty range of the Rocky Mountains. From the estuary of the Mackenzie to the Lake of Mexico no point of the American continent reaches higher to the skies. That eternal crust of snow seeks in summer widely-severed oceans. The Mackenzie, the Columbia, and the Saskatchewan spring from the peaks whose teeth-like summits lie grouped from this spot into the compa.s.s of a single glance. The clouds that cast their moisture upon this long line of upheaven rocks seek again the ocean which gave them birth in its far-separated divisions of Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. The sun sank slowly behind the range and darkness began to fall on the immense plain, but aloft on the topmost edge the pure white of the jagged crest-line glowed for an instant in many-coloured silver, and then the lonely peaks grew dark and dim.

As thus I watched from the silent hill-top this great mountain-chain, whose summits slept in the glory of the sunset, it seemed no stretch of fancy which made the red man place his paradise beyond their golden peaks. The "Mountains of the Setting Sun," the "Bridge of the World,"

Thus he has named them, and beyond them the soul first catches a glimpse of that mystical land where the tents are pitched midst everlasting verdure and countless herds and the music of ceaseless streams.

That night there came a frost, the first of real severity that had fallen upon us. At daybreak next morning, the 5th December, my thermometer showed 22 degrees below zero, and, in spite of buffalo boots and moose "mittaines," the saddle proved a freezing affair; many a time I got down and trotted on in front of my horse until feet and hands, cased as they were, began to be felt again. But the morning, though piercingly cold, was bright with suns.h.i.+ne, and the snowy range was lighted up in many a fair hue, and the contrasts of pine wood and snow and towering wind-swept cliff showed in rich beauty. As the day wore on we entered the pine forest which stretches to the base of the mountains, and emerged suddenly upon the high banks of the Saskatchewan. The river here ran in a deep, wooded valley, over the western extremity of which rose the Rocky Mountains; the windings of the river showed distinctly from the height on which we stood; and in mid-distance the light blue smoke of the Mountain House curled in fair contrast from amidst a ma.s.s of dark green pines.

Leaving my little party to get my baggage across the Clear Water River, I rode on ahead to the fort. While yet a long way off we had been descried by the watchful eyes of some Rocky Mountain a.s.sineboines, and our arrival had been duly telegraphed to the officer in charge. As usual, the excitement was intense to know what the strange party could mean. The denizens of the place looked upon themselves as closed up for the winter, and the arrival of a party with a baggage-cart at such a time betokened something unusual. Nor was this excitement at all lessened when in answer to a summons from the opposite bank of the Saskatchewan I announced my name and place of departure. The river was still open, its rus.h.i.+ng waters had resisted so far the efforts of the winter to cover them up, but the ice projected a considerable distance from either sh.o.r.e; the open water in the centre was, however, shallow, and when the rotten ice had been cut away on each side I was able to force my horse into it.

In he went with a great splash, but he kept his feet nevertheless; then at the other side the people of the fort had cut away the ice too, and again the horse scrambled safely up. The long ride to the West was over; exactly forty-one days earlier I had left Red River, and in twenty-seven days of actual travel I had ridden 1180 miles.

The Rocky Mountain House of the Hudson Bay Company stands in a level meadow which is clear of trees, although dense forest lies around it at some little distance. It is indifferently situated with regard to the Indian trade, being too far from the Plain Indians, who seek in the American posts along the Missouri a nearer and more profitable exchange for their goods; while the wooded district in which it lies produces furs of a second-cla.s.s quality, and has for years been deficient in game. The neighbouring forest, however, supplies a rich store of the white spruce for boat-building, and several full-sized Hudson Bay boats are built annually at the fort. Coal of very fair quality is also plentiful along the river banks, and the forge glows with the ruddy light of a real coal fire--a friendly sight when one has not seen it during many months. The Mountain House stands within the limits of the Rocky Mountain a.s.sineboines, a branch of-the once famous a.s.sineboines of the Plains whose wars in times not very remote made them the terror of the prairies which lie between the middle Missouri and the Saskatchewan. The a.s.sineboines derive their name, which signifies "stone-heaters," from a custom in vogue among them before the advent of the traders into their country. Their manner of boiling meat was as follows: a round hole was scooped in the earth, and into the hole was sunk a piece of raw hide; this was filled with water, and the buffalo meat placed in it, then a fire was lighted close by and a number of round stones made red hot; in this state they were dropped into, or held in, the water, which was thus raised to boiling temperature and the meat cooked. When the white man came he sold his kettle to the stone-heaters, and henceforth the practice disappeared, while the name it had given rise to remained--a name which long after the final extinction of the tribe will still exist in the River a.s.sineboine and its surroundings. Nothing testifies more conclusively to the varied changes and vicissitude's Indian tribes than the presence of this branch of the a.s.sineboine nation in the pine forests of the Rocky Mountains. It is not yet a hundred years since the "Ossinepoilles" were found by one of the earliest traders inhabiting the country between the head of the Pasquayah or Saskatchewan and the country of the Sioux, a stretch of territory fully 900 miles in length.

Twenty years later they still were numerous along the whole line of the North Saskatchewan, and their lodges were at intervals seen along a river line of 800 miles in length, but even then a great change had come upon them. In 1780 the first epidemic of small-pox swept over the Western plains, and almost annihilated the powerful a.s.sineboines. The whole central portion of the tribe was destroyed, but the outskirting portions drew together and again made themselves a terror to trapper and trader.

In 1821 they were noted for their desperate forays, and for many years later a fierce conflict raged between them and the Blackfeet; under the leaders.h.i.+p of a chief still famous in Indian story--Tehatka, or the "Left-handed;" they for a long time more than held their own against these redoubtable warriors. Tehatka was a medicine-man of the first order, and by the exercise of his superior cunning and dream power he was implicitly relied on by his followers; at length fortune deserted him, and he fell in a b.l.o.o.d.y battle with the Gros Ventres near the Knife River, a branch of the Missouri, in 1837. About the same date small-pox again swept the tribe, and they almost disappeared from the prairies. The Crees too pressed down from the North and East, and occupied a great-portion of their territory; the Blackfeet smote them hard on the south-west frontier; and thus, between foes and disease, the a.s.sineboines of to-day have dwindled down into far-scattered remnants of tribes.

Warned by the tradition of the frightful losses of earlier times from the ravages of small-pox, the a.s.sineboines this year kept far out in the great central prairie along the coteau, and escaped the infection altogether, but their cousins, the Rocky Mountain Stonies, were not so fortunate, they lost some of their bravest men during the pre ceding summer and autumn. Even under the changed circ.u.mstances of their present lives, dwelling amidst the forests and rocks instead of in the plains and open country, these a.s.sineboines of the Mountains retain many of the better characteristics of their race; they are brave and skilful men, good hunters of red deer, moose, and big horn, and are still held in dread by the Blackfeet, who rarely venture into their country. They are well acquainted with the valleys and pa.s.ses through the mountains, and will probably take a horse over as rough ground as any men in the creation.

At the ford on the Clear Water River, half a mile from the Mountain House, a small clump of old pine-trees stands on the north side of the stream. A few years ago a large band of Blood Indians camped round this clump of pines during a trading expedition to the Mountain House. They were under the leaders.h.i.+p of two young chiefs, brothers. One evening a dispute about some trifling matter arose, words ran high, there was a flash of a scalping-knife, a plunge, and one brother reeled back with a fearful gash in his side, the other stalked slowly to his tent, and sat down silent and impa.s.sive. The wounded man loaded his gun, and keeping the fatal wound closed together with one hand walked steadily to his brothers tent; pulling back the door-casing, he placed the muzzle of his gun to the heart of the man who sat immovable all the time, and shot him dead, then, removing his hand from his own mortal wound, he fell lifeless beside his brother's body. They buried the two brothers in the same grave by the shadow of the dark pine-trees. The band to which the chiefs belonged broke up and moved away into the great plains--the reckoning of blood had been paid, and the account was closed. Many tales of Indian war and revenge could I tell--tales gleaned from trader and missionary and voyageur, and told by camp-fire or distant trading post, but there is no time to recount them now, a long period of travel lies before me and I must away to enter upon it; the scattered thread must be gathered up and tied together too quickly, perhaps, for the success of this wandering story, but not an hour too soon for the success of another expedition into a still farther and more friendless region. Eight days pa.s.sed pleasantly at the Mountain House; rambles by day into the neighbouring hills, stories of Indian life and prairie scenes at the evening fire filled up the time, and it was near mid-December before I thought of moving my quarters.

The Mountain House is perhaps the most singular specimen of an Indian trading post to be found in the wide territory of the Hudson Bay Company.

Every precaution known to the traders has been put in force to prevent the possibility of surprise during "a trade." Bars and bolts and places to fire down at the Indians who are trading abound in every direction; so dreaded is the name borne by the Black feet, that it is thus their trading post has been constructed. Some fifty years ago the Company had a post far south on the Bow River in the very heart of the Blackfeet country. Despite of all precautions it was frequently plundered And at last burnt down by the Blackfeet, and since that date no attempt has ever been made to erect another fort in their country.

Still, I believe the Blackfeet and their confederates are not nearly so bad as they have been painted, those among the Hudson Bay Company who are best acquainted with them are of the same opinion, and, to use the words of Pe to-pee, or the Perched Eagle, to Dr. Hector in 1857, "We see but little of the white man," he said, "and our young men do not know how to behave; but if you come among us, the chiefs will restrain the young men, for we have power over them. But look at the Crees, they have long lived in the company of white men, and nevertheless they are just like dogs, they try to bite when your head is turned--they have no manners; but the Blackfeet have large hearts and they love to show hospitality." Without going the length of Pe-to-pee in this estimate of the virtues of his tribe, I am still of opinion that under proper management these wild wandering men might be made trusty friends. We have been too much inclined to believe all the bad things said of them by other tribes, and, as they are at war with every nation around them, the wickedness of the Blackfeet'has grown into a proverb among men. But to go back to the trading house. When the Blackfeet arrive on a trading visit to the Mountain House they usually come in large numbers, prepared for a brush with either Crees or Stonies. The camp is formed at some distance from the fort, and the braves, having piled their robes, leather, and provisions on the backs of their wives or their horses, approach in long cavalcade. The officer goes out to meet them, and the gates are closed.

Many speeches are made, and the chief, to show his "big heart," usually piles on top of a horse a heterogeneous ma.s.s of buffalo robes, pemmican, and dried meat, and hands horse and all he carries over to the trader.

After such a present no man can possibly enter tain for a moment a doubt upon the subject of the big-heartedness of the donor, but if, in the trade which ensues: after this present has been made, it should happen that fifty horses are bought by the Company, not one of all the band will cost so dear as that which demonstrates the large heartedness of the brave.

Money-values are entirely unknown in these trades. The values of articles are computed by "skins;" for instance, a horse will be reckoned at 60 skins; and these 60 skins will be given thus: a gun, 15 skins; a capote, 10 skins; a blanket, 10 skins; ball and powder, 10 skins; tobacco, 15 skins total, 60 skins. The Bull Ermine, or the Four Bears, or the Red Daybreak, or whatever may be the brave's name, hands over the horse, and gets in return a blanket, a gun, a capote, ball and powder, and tobacco.

The term "skin" is a very old one in the fur trade; the original standard, the beaver skin or, as it was called, "the made beaver" was the medium of exchange, and every other skin and article of trade was graduated upon the scale of the beaver; thus a beaver, or a skin, was reckoned equivalent to 1 mink skin, one marten was equal to 2 skins, one black fox 20 skins, and so on; in the same manner, a blanket, a capote, a gun, or a kettle had their different values in skins. This being explained, we will now proceed with the trade.

Sapoomaxica, or the Big Crow's Foot, having demonstrated the bigness of his heart, and received in return a tangible proof of the corresponding size of the trader's, addresses his braves, cautioning them against violence or rough behaviour. The braves, standing ready with their peltries, are in a high state of excitement to begin the trade. Within the fort all the preparations have been completed, communication cut off between the Indian room and the rest of the buildings, guns placed up in the loft overhead, and men all get ready for any thing that might turn up; then the outer gate is thrown open, and a large throng enters the Indian room. Three or four of the first-comers are now admitted through a narrow pa.s.sage into the trading-shop, from the shelves of which most of the blankets, red cloth, and beads have been removed, for the red man brought into the presence of so much finery would unfortunately behave very much after the manner of a hungry boy put in immediate juxtaposition to bath-buns, cream-cakes, and jam-fritters, to the complete collapse of profit upon the trade to the Hudson Bay Company.

The first Indians admitted hand in their peltries through a wooden grating, and receive in exchange so many blankets, beads, or strouds.

Out they go to the large hall where their comrades are anxiously awaiting their turn, and in rush another batch, and the doors are locked again. The reappearance of the fortunate braves with the much-coveted articles of finery adds immensely to the excitement. What did they see inside? "Oh, not much, only a few dozen blankets and a few guns, and a little tea and sugar;" this is terrible news for the outsiders, and the crush to getin increases tenfold, under the belief that the good things will all be gone. So the trade progresses, until at last all the peltries and provisions have changed hands, and there is nothing more to be traded; but some times things do not run quite so smoothly.

Sometimes, when the stock of pemmican or robes is small, the braves object to see their "pile" go for a little parcel of tea or sugar. The steelyard and weighing-balance are their especial objects of dislike.

"What for you put on one side tea or sugar, and on the other a little bit of iron?" they say; "we don't know what that medicine is-but, look here, put on one side of that thing that swings a bag of pemmican, and put on the other side blankets and tea and sugar, and then, when the two sides stop swinging, you take the bag of pemmican and we will take the blankets and the tea: that would be fair, for one side will be as big as the other." This is a very bright idea on the part of the Four Bears, and elicits universal satisfaction all round. Four Bears and his brethren are, however, a little bit put out of conceit when the trader observes, "Well, let be as you say. We will make the balance swing level between the bag of pemmican and the blankets, but we will carry out the idea still further. You will put your marten skins and your otter and fisher skins on one side, I will put against them on the other my blankets, and my gun and ball and powder; then, when both sides are level, you will take the ball and powder and the blankets, and I will take the marten and the rest of the fine furs." This proposition throws a new light upon the question of weighing-machines and steelyards, and, after some little deliberation, it is resolved to abide by the old plan of letting the white trader decide the weight himself in his own way, for it is clear that the steelyard is a great medicine which no brave can understand, and which can only be manipulated by a white medicine-man.

This white medicine-man was in olden times a terrible demon in the eyes'

of the Indian. His power reached far into the plains; he possessed three medicines of the very highest order: his heart could sing, demons sprung from the light of his candle, and he had a little box stronger than the strongest Indian. When a large band of the Blackfeet would a.s.semble at Edmonton, years ago, the Chief Factor would-win-dup his musical box, get his magic lantern ready, and take out his galvanic battery. Imparting with the last-named article a terrific shock to the frame of the Indian chief, he would warn him that far out in the plains he could at will inflict the same medicine upon him if he ever behaved badly. "Look," he would say, "now my heart beats for you," then the spring of the little musical box concealed under his coat would be touched, and lo! the heart of the white trader would sing with the strength of his love for the Blackfeet. "To-morrow I start to cross the mountains against the Nez Perces," a chief would say, "what says my white brother, don't he dream that my arm will be strong in battle, and that the scalps and horses of the Nez Perces will be ours?" "I have dreamt that you are to draw one of these two little sticks which I hold in my hand. If you draw the right one, your arm will be strong, your eye keen, the horses of the Nez Perces will be yours; but, listen, the fleetest horse must come to me; you will have to give me the best steed in the band of the Nez Perces. Woe betide you if you should draw the wrong stick!" Trembling with fear, the Blackfoot would approach and draw the bit of wood. "My brother, you are a great chief, you have drawn the right stick--your fortune is a.s.sured, go." Three weeks later a magnificent horse, the pride of some Nez Perce chief on the lower Columbia, would be led into the fort on the Saskatchewan, and when next the Blackfoot chief came to visit the white medicine-man a couple of freshly taken scalps would dangle from his spear shaft.