Our caravan moves on--Difficulties of packing--Oliver's adventure
with a buffalo--Novel method of "blazing" a path--Arrival at Pigeon
Lake--House-building--Abundance of fish--Indians camp about the
Mission--I form many enduring friendships--Indians taught fishing
with nets.
Now that our people were convalescing we began to make ready for a
fresh start, this time without carts. Everything had to be packed on
the backs of our oxen and horses, entailing no small amount of work
on the part of Paul and myself. As the ground was everywhere wet, I
was afraid to run the risk of a relapse with any of our patients, and
would not let them step off the brush flooring we had placed to keep
them out of the water. The distance we had to travel to bring us to
the lake was about twenty-five miles, and we purposed making it in
two days. Our sick folk would find twelve miles far enough for one
day, and our thin and weak horses would also find the distance
sufficient.
Paul and I had two oxen and eight horses to saddle and pack with sick
folk and tent and bedding and all our household stuff, and while we
did not seem to be possessed of much of anything, yet it was quite a
problem to arrange all on the backs of those ten animals. Sometimes
while we were fastening the one pack on, three or four of our horses
would lie down with their loads, and in thus getting down and up
disorganize the whole work.
We put our wives on the strongest and quietest horses, and placed
Oliver on a quiet but very hungry Blackfoot cayuse, giving him our
guns to carry in addition to his own. Thus we set out along the
almost obliterated bridle-path which I had gone over but once and
that in the winter time when the snow was deep, and which neither
Paul nor Oliver had as yet seen. My memory was sorely taxed to make
out the trail where there was open country to pass through. In
single file and with slow and solemn steps our sick people rode their
steeds, while our horses labored under the burdens of their weak
packs. Paul and I were kept busy arranging these packs, for as our
saddles were crude and our binding material rawhide, this would
stretch, and the saddles or packs become loose, so that we were kept
rushing from one to the other of our transports. This made progress
so slow that it did seem as if even the twelve miles we hoped to
cover would prove too much for the long spring day. But
notwithstanding all the worrying and the work we had some fun as
well. During the afternoon, while we were behind the rest fixing up
a pack on one of the horses, I heard Oliver in a greatly excited
voice shouting, "John! John! Hurry--come quick!" I sprang away to
the front, and found that our train was crossing a small bit of
prairie, and from one end of it, and coming out of the woods, there
was a buffalo bull charging right straight for Oliver.
My dogs were worrying the big fellow, but it was Oliver who demanded
my attention. He had our three guns on the saddle before him, but
seemingly never thinking of them, he kept shouting to me to "shoot
the bull." In his excitement he had let go his bridle, and this had
fallen on the ground, while his hungry horse was intent on cropping
grass and would not budge from the spot. In vain Oliver kicked and
shouted; what cared that Blackfoot pony for the charge of a buffalo?
He was accustomed to this, and moreover was hungry, and here was
grass, and so far as he was concerned all else might "go to grass."
Not so philosophic, however, was his rider. He was all excitement.
With a big muffler wrapped around his face, a blanket around his body
and legs, and our three guns in his arms, he kept shouting vehemently
for "John." As I ran, not even the possibility of the bull hurting
some of us could keep me from laughing.
Oliver dared not jump from his horse into the water that surrounded
us, for I had threatened him all manner of punishment if he got wet
and ran the risk of a relapse, and he was in mortal fear of the huge
bull that was now coming quite close to him. But as I ran up, and
before I could reach for my gun from Oliver, the brute took away in
another direction, thus happily relieving the situation. He
evidently was, as Paul put it, "a good-hearted fellow," and as we had
all we could very well manage, we did not fire any shots after him.
But this excitement and fun helped to break the monotony of our
journey.
It was late when we reached a point that I thought would be half way
to the lake, and we hurriedly cut brush for our patients to alight
on, and unsaddled the oxen and horses. I had put the whole of our
seed potatoes on my saddle horse, "Scarred Thigh," and he had behaved
extremely well all the day, carrying his load without a jar or
disarrangement, as if he instinctively knew we had enough trouble
with the rest. But now he insisted on my taking the load from him
before I should relieve the others. As soon as I went to a horse to
unpack him the little fellow would step in between me and the other
horse, and plainly say by his actions that his was the first claim,
so all our party said, "Help him first, he deserves it." To unsaddle
the ten animals and unpack seven of them, to cut lodge-poles and
erect the lodge and floor it with brush, to chop firewood and cook
supper kept Paul and I on the jump until late, but our patients
though tired were gaining strength and appetite, and we were thankful.
The next day was a repetition of the one just described, only more
so--water deeper, timber denser, and creeks multiplying. My wife and
I each had an old-fashioned Hudson's Bay trunk. One was painted blue
and the other red, and we packed these on the biggest of the oxen,
firmly securing them by the handles before and behind, with collar
straps and breeching of harness; and now as these boxes rubbed
alternately on the trees on either side of the narrow path, one could
track them by the paint, this side red and the other blue, which
often was a source of wonder to travellers who came later along this
path.
When we came nearer the lake we were glad to find that the land
around the lake, being higher than that over which we had come, was
comparatively dry, and that spring was further advanced than anywhere
else along our route. Thankful for this, we put up our skin lodge
near the place where we proposed to build our house.
We were not the first in the same line on this spot. Nearly twenty
years before Benjamin Sinclair, a native lay agent, under the
direction of the Rev. R. Rundle, began a Mission, but the coming into
the vicinity of a party of Blackfeet, and their killing of some of
the people, had created a stampede from here to Lac la Biche, some
two hundred miles north-east, and this place was abandoned.
The little clearing had well-nigh grown up again, and with the
exception of the lake in front we were surrounded with dense forests.
The surrounding country was altogether more like my native land than
any other spot I had seen in the North-West. The lake was
approximately some five by eighteen miles in size, and full of
fish--too full of the whitefish for these to be of good quality. But
just now we could not test them, as the ice was in such condition
that it was not safe to attempt to set a net under it. There was
nothing to do but to wait until it melted before attempting any
fishing.
Our first work was to put up a house. Humble though it might be, we
hoped to make it better than the "smoking skin lodge." As we had
most of the logs on the ground, we were not long in raising the
shanty. It was another thing, however, to whip-saw the lumber for
flooring, etc. The building of the chimney, too, was altogether a
new experience to me; and when I had built this to the proper height,
I was terribly disgusted to have it smoke worse than the lodge did.
But I soon saw my mistake, and pulling the greater portion down began
anew on a different plan, which proved a great success.
One morning bright and early Providence sent us a deer. Paul took
his gun and went towards the lake to get, as I thought, a shot at
some ducks. But it was a deer he had seen, and soon he had it
secured, for which we were very thankful, as our stock of fresh meat
was now low. But what is the meat of a small deer to the eating
capacity of five healthy people--especially those of our party who
were now fairly over the epidemic? When you are on the one diet, and
that wild meat, the consumption thereof is rather startling. In the
meantime the ice melted, and we made a raft, set a net and caught
some poor whitefish. We caught plenty of pike and suckers, too, and
to ourselves and dogs these were a wholesome change.
The first Indians to come to us were some pagans, having with them
two genuine old conjurers, whose drums and rattles and medicine songs
were thum-thumming and yah-yahing almost all the time they stayed
with us. As some of the older members of this camp, and nearly all
the younger ones, came to our services, which we held every evening
and three times on Sunday, these "high priests of this old faith"
renewed their efforts, if one might judge by the noise they made; but
do what they would they could not keep their young people from our
meetings. After a time a larger camp came to us, nearly all of whom
were Mountain Stonies and mostly Christian or semi-Christian in
adherence, and our gatherings became very much more interesting. But
as all of these people had the measles or were convalescing from the
epidemic, and had lost many friends because of the fearful mortality
which this caused, we were hard worked in attending to the sick and
in comforting the bereaved. As to the former, Providence smiled upon
us, and all of our patients, young and old, recovered, which helped
us in our first acquaintance and gave us the beginning of an
influence which grew with the years.
Here I first met many who became my warm friends and bosom companions
around many a camp-fire and on many a hunting field, when danger and
darkness and hunger and storm alternated with peace and sunlight and
plenty and calm. Here was great big Adam, who from being a
first-class Pharisee, with demeanor a voicing of "Lord, I thank
Thee," etc., became, through the instrumentality of a hymn I taught
him to sing, humbled and penitent, and sought forgiveness and light.
He found it; and oh, how changed he became! And there was his son
Jacob, one of the grandest men I have known, for whom both nature and
grace had done great things. When I first saw him he was recovering
from the prevailing scourge. A noble fellow he was in form and
feature. He had a big record as a moose-hunter, and was famed as a
long distance runner. As he spoke both Stony and Cree fluently, I
very soon saw he was a man to be cultivated and made useful for God
and country.
Then there was "Little Beaver," a Southern Mountain Stony, who very
soon let me know that while he was glad to see me, he could never
make up his mind to live down here in the woods and lowlands, but was
always sighing for the mountains and foot-hills of his own section of
the country, and who by his descriptions made me wish to start west
with him and view for myself the land he loved. Another genuine
character was "Has-no-hole-in-his-ear," an old man with a large
family of boys who became my allies and faithful friends. The father
was an ardent Christian in his way, and thoroughly loyal to the new
Mission and the young missionary.
Later there came in a camp of Crees, amongst whom was Samson, then in
his prime as a hunter, and who afterwards became the successor of
Maskepetoon as chief of the wood Crees. Samson and I soon found that
we were congenial spirits, and our warm friendship continues to this
day. There was also Paul Chian, a French mixed blood, who had grown
up amongst the Indians, and was one of them in everything but
appearance. He had been a noted gambler and warrior, and the blood
of men was on his hands; but he had found that the blood of Christ is
efficacious to the cleansing from sin, and he became a splendid
character, a solid man, a class leader and a local preacher, always
in his place, and a "genuine stand-by." And there were many good
women in these camps who became our staunch friends, and in whose
lodges we received true hospitality and many real evidences of a
solid appreciation of our work and message.
These various people came and went at short intervals. I suppose
during our stay at Pigeon Lake for about two months that spring of
1865 no camp of Indians remained longer than two weeks at a time.
Until I provided them with nets they had none. Indeed, some of the
plain and wood Indians did not know how to set a net, much less how
to make or mend one. To provide twine and teach them to make nets
was an undertaking that took time to accomplish. Then to live in one
place very long was a hardship in itself to these nomads of wood and
plain, while to live on fish alone would be foolish to them so long
as buffalo were on the plains or moose and elk in the woods. No
matter as to time in the obtaining of these animals. The days and
months might come and go--these men did not value time; that
appreciation is an evolution belonging to a permanent or settled life.