Home occupations--A course of lectures--Mark and Jimmie as
raconteurs--Mark's success as a deer-killer--A buffalo chase on a
dog-sled--Our first child is born--Chickens at eight shillings apiece!
The big open fire-places in the Mission house were delightful spots
beside which to spend a few hours after a trip such as we had just
concluded; but such was the extent of our moving circuit, and such
our circumstances, that we could spare but very few hours at home.
Many camps must be visited and many mouths must be fed. Mark and I
and a lad named Jimmie Horn were kept pretty constantly on the move,
now bringing in loads of fresh meat, and the next trip loads of dried
provisions wherewith to make pemmican for summer use. We generally
managed to keep Sunday in some Indian camp or at the Mission. If the
former, the whole day was one continuous series of meetings. I would
go from one chief's tent to that of another, and the respective
followers would crowd the lodges while I did my best to tell the
pagan and barbarous people the old, old story of Jesus and His love.
Many a night, at the close of a long day's run, I would give informal
lectures on civilization and education, telling my eager listeners
what Christianity was doing for man in other parts of the world; and
all this time I was learning the language and studying the people.
Old men and painted and feathered warriors and the youth of these
camps crowded the lodges in which I made my temporary home. There
was no rest while in Indian camps, and not until we were in our own
seven-by-eight-foot hole in the snow, with wood cut and carried and
piled at hand and dogs fed, would I sit down to rest both mind and
body, and be free for a time from the inquisitive and eager listening
and questionings of these people to whom we were sent. Then Mark and
Jimmie would take their turn. Jimmie was a lad of nimble legs, but
of much nimbler tongue. Had he not come from the famous Red River?
He had even visited old Fort Garry, and he would fairly take Mark's
breath as he drew from the range of his wide experience.
Mark would tell of the mountains, and grizzlies and panthers and
avalanches, and encounters with the enemy, till Jimmie's eyes would
bulge with excitement. I would look on and listen and rest. Then
before retiring Mark would lead in prayer in his mother-tongue, which
neither Jimmie nor myself could understand, though we always said
"Amen."
During short intervals at the Mission Mark made several hunting
excursions, and killed some moose and deer. One night he came home
and reported one moose killed and another wounded. Early next
morning we went out and killed the wounded moose and brought the meat
of both home. Another time he killed two deer, and brought back word
that the forest was so dense the meat would have to be packed to the
river some miles above. Accordingly he and I took our dogs and drove
up the river opposite to where the deer lay. Fastening the dogs, we
struck into the forest, and coming across fresh tracks of more deer,
we went after these and killed two more. It was midnight before we
had packed the meat of the four deer to the place where our dogs and
sleds were. Hard work it was, but the venison was good, and our
larder was handsomely replenished.
All that winter the wood Cree camps were from one hundred to one
hundred and fifty miles distant from the Mission. The buffalo kept
out south of these camps, and sometimes were a long distance from
them. But now that there was a regularly established post beside the
Mission, trading parties and settlers and Indians kept passing to and
fro, giving us comparatively good roads, and thus enabling us to
travel quickly. Once well loaded with either dried provisions or
fresh meat, we lost no time on the road.
It was on one of the trips we made at this time that we were stopping
for the day in Ka-kake's camp, which was situated beside a pound for
catching buffalo, when, hearing of another cluster of lodges some ten
or twelve miles distant, I made a run over to see the people, and
while coming back the same afternoon I ran across a fine herd of
buffalo. As my leader was obedient to the word, I thought "now is my
chance to run that herd over to the pound." I had no load whatever
on the sled, so I gripped the ground-lashing with both hands and
feet, and sent the dogs after the herd, or rather to one side of it.
My dogs went into the hunt most heartily, and sometimes brought me
dangerously near to the flying mass. Then I would get them under
control again, and on we went from side to side, but always nearing
the point of timber where the pound was. Presently we came within
the lines of "dumb-watchers," and now these helped us, and I kept
looking, when I could spare a glance, to see some move in camp. But
as the lodges were behind the bluff, and the Indians did not look for
buffalo at the time, no one saw us until it was too late to prepare
and run the herd into the pound; so, after bringing the buffalo close
up to camp, I had the bitterness of seeing them break through the
"head sentinels" and dash away.
But what a ride I had that afternoon, my big dogs jumping together,
and with long leaps making the sled leap also. It required a firm
grip to stay on that narrow sled, and also dexterous poising to keep
right side up. Down hills, across valleys, over knolls, jumping the
rough frozen snow where thousands of buffalo had rooted and tramped
only a few days before, certainly that was a toboggan ride with a
race against a herd of buffalo thrown in; and the only disappointment
was that after bringing the bunch to the pound, the Indians were not
there to receive them.
When Ka-kake came in that evening he loudly lamented that we had not
been seen in time, for, said he, "It would have given a name to this
part of the country and to my camp, and men would have pointed to
this as the place where John brought buffalo into the pound with his
dog-train."
One day in February, 1866, while I was at home, my mother, coming
down stairs, congratulated me on the birth of a daughter, and when I
knew that mother and child were well I mentally and consciously made
a step forward in being. It was as God would have it. We gave our
first-born the good old Scotch name of Flora, which also belonged to
my youngest sister.
About the middle of March father made another pastoral visit to
Edmonton, and as we remained over for Monday, I went out to St.
Albert, the Roman Catholic Mission north of Edmonton, to find, if I
could, some domestic chickens, as mother had often expressed a strong
desire for some. It took me all day to drive about twenty-five miles
and find the chickens and buy them, the latter two enterprises being
the most difficult of the three. At last I purchased three birds,
two hens and a cock, paying for them eight shillings each--six
dollars to start a poultry farm in our part of the country!
Wild-duck eggs were very good in their place, but unfortunately for
cooking purposes these were generally some way on in the process of
incubation before we obtained them, and mother with her eastern ideas
did long for a few fresh eggs occasionally.
I was quite proud of my purchase, but was rather taken aback when at
the supper table that evening the august Chief Factor inquired of me
what I had paid for those chickens, and when I told him eight
shillings each, he pooh-poohed the whole thing; and while I was not
prepared for such criticism, I could but answer that this was largely
a matter of sentiment, that I had often been where if I had it I
would have given all that to hear a cock crow. The old gentleman
gave me up as incorrigible. However, to the credit of humanity it
must be said that we are not all Peters. The crow of a cock or the
tinkling of a cow-bell often have been as sweetest music in the ear
of a poor lost traveller.