We start for home--A stubborn cow--Difficulties of
transport--Indignant travellers--Novel method of breaking a
horse--Secure provisions at Fort Ellice--Lose one of our cows--I turn
detective--Dried meat and fresh cream as a delicacy.
I think it was about the last of June or the first of July that we
rolled out of Mr. Gowler's farmyard on the trail leading across the
plains. The first day or two we had considerable trouble with our
cattle. One cow was determined to go back, so I caught her and tied
her behind a cart to which was attached a ponderous ox. She rebelled
at this, and threw herself down, but the ox kept on as if the weight
dragging behind was a small matter. Coming to a shallow creek in
which there were some sharp stones on the bottom, the cow, finding
the action of being dragged over these too much, jumped to her feet,
and after that led on as we wished. Very soon all broke in to the
routine of the journey in good shape, and we had very little trouble
after the first week with any of our loose stock. Let one of those
ironless carts squeak, and the cows were up and alongside with all
the alacrity of a soldier answering the bugle note.
There had been considerable rain, and for the first three weeks after
we started it rained very heavily at times. As there was not a tent
in the party, we each got under a cart, and while the rain came
perpendicularly we were passably dry; but the mosquitoes were
sometimes awfully annoying. The copious rains made the roads very
heavy in places, but we came along as far as the second crossing of
the White Mud without having to move loads. Here we were forced to
raft everything, which means a long delay, as also a great amount of
labor. I made a raft of cart wheels, and pulling this to and fro
with ropes we ferried our goods and chattels over. Having let the
Indians go on, my party as now constituted was altogether
"tenderfoot" in its make up, though with me my two years on the
Saskatchewan modified this. As it was, I had all the planning and
also a large portion of the work to do. To unload your carts and
make your rafts, and ferry over by piecemeal your loads and harness
and cart-boxes and whole travelling outfit; to watch your stock in
the meantime, and that closely, or else lose hours or even days in
hunting for them; to keep your stuff from the wet from above as well
as beneath, and in doing so get more or less wet yourself; to make
smudges to save your cattle and horses from being eaten alive by
"bull-dogs"* and mosquitoes; to fight these exceedingly energetic
denizens of the air the while you are trying to do this work I have
just enumerated,--I say that if you have ever been, or ever will be,
in such a case, you will have an idea of summer transport across
bridgeless and ferryless streams in a new country.
* A name given to a species of black fly common on the prairies, and
significant of their ferocity and persistency in attack.
Having passed the second, we went on to the third crossing of the
"White Mud," and like the man with the two daughters whom he called
Kate and Duplicate, we simply duplicated the last crossing here, only
that it was "the same and more of it." The creeks had been very
small on our way down, but now seeing them so full after the heavy
rains, and giving us so much trouble to cross, I began to apprehend
some difficulty at the Little Saskatchewan, for this was a river, and
rapid at that. However, we stopped short of this one morning for
breakfast, and while the boys were making a fire I walked on to the
river, and was delighted to note that while it was muddy and swift,
it was still fordable. This I knew without trying, as I had taken
its measure on my way down. Just then, as I stood for a moment on
its bank before returning to my camp, two travellers on horseback,
with a pack-horse, came down the hill on the other side. They looked
at the stream, and at once pronounced it unfordable; then, without
stopping to ask me, got off their horses, and unsaddling and
unpacking, took out their axe and went for some timber to make a
raft. I thought I would have some fun with them, so waited until
they had carried up some logs for the raft. Then as they stood on
the bank resting for a little, I walked down into the stream and
across to them. As I had estimated at first glance, there was no
more than twenty or twenty-four inches of water. These travellers
looked astonished, and seemed indignant that I had not told them.
"Why did you not tell us the river was fordable?" said one. "Why did
you not ask me?" I answered. Then one blamed the other who was
acting as guide, and told him he ought to have known better than to
let them make such fools of themselves. Here I spoke up and said,
"Well, as it is fordable, you had better saddle up and come across
and have some breakfast with us." But right here my reader will note
the difference in men. One takes notice of the country he passes
through, and hopes to recognize it when next he comes this way;
another says he knows it all, and acts as this guide did.
[Illustration: "I headed her out again into the lake."]
Fording the Little Saskatchewan, we continued our journey. One day
we stopped for noon on the shore of Shoal Lake, and here while our
stock were resting I made an experiment. We had brought with us from
the mission a fine strong mare about seven years of age, which had
never been broken to either drive or ride, and was very wild. She
would follow the carts and stay with our horses, that was all. My
plan was to take her out into the lake and break her there. We made
a corral with the carts, and I lassoed the mare, and haltering her,
stripped off my clothes and swam out into the lake with her, then
quietly slipped on her back. She gave a plunge or two, but only
succeeded in ducking herself, and then settled down to straight
swimming. After a while I headed her for the shore, but as soon as
she got squarely on the bottom she began to buck, so I headed her out
again into the lake, and presently I could take her out on the beach
and canter up and down as nicely as with an old saddle-horse. Then I
dressed, and putting a saddle-pad on, rode her all the afternoon.
Rolling on as well as we could, heeding but little the mud and
mosquitoes and pelting rains, in good time we reached the
Assiniboine. We were two days rafting that stream, and the large
part of another in doubling and portaging up the big sand hill which
forms the north bank of the Assiniboine at this point.
Leaving my party in camp on the bank of the Qu'Appelle, I forded this
stream and rode over to Fort Ellice, hoping to secure some dried meat
or pemmican, as we were living now entirely on flour and milk, and I
wanted to use the flour as little as possible. On my way through the
woods which thickly covered the hill between the Qu'Appelle and Fort
Ellice, I met four white men on foot, carrying new flint-lock guns.
The guns and their appearance branded them as belonging to the
Hudson's Bay Company, and being "green hands," as all the newly
received employees were called, I enquired of them where they were
going. One of them answered, "The Lord knows, for we don't." My
next question was, "What are you looking for?" and they answered in
chorus, "Our supper." "Why," said I, "are there no provisions in the
Fort?" "None," they answered; "we were given these guns and some shot
and powder, and told to hunt for our suppers." This was poor
encouragement for me in my quest for provisions. I had noticed that
the leader, while he had a new gun on his shoulder, did not have any
flint in the dog-head. "Well, my friend," I said, "you will never
kill your supper with that gun you carry." "Why," he asked, "what is
the matter?" I pointed out to him what the matter was, and then all
began to look at their guns, and I went on, for about the most
dangerous place you can be in is where a number of tenderfeet are
handling guns.
I confess I was disappointed about the provisions, and felt that it
would be too bad to have to use up the little flour I was taking
home, for it was three hundred miles to the next Fort on our way.
However, being young and of a sanguine turn of mind, I galloped on to
the Fort, and again called on Mrs. McKay, who corroborated what the
men said, telling me that the Fort was in sore straits for food; but
that she expected soon to hear from Mr. McKay, who had gone on to the
plains. Fortunately for me, while we were talking a party drove into
the Fort with several cartloads of provisions, and thus I secured
both pemmican and dried meat, and those, poor "green hands" did not
go supperless to bed that night. My two men and I went breadless to
bed instead, and for many subsequent nights also, for I was
determined to save the flour for mother and the others at home.
Steadily we pushed our way westward, some days, when cool and cloudy,
making good time, then, when it was hot, going more leisurely.
Travelling early and late, we would keep at the long trail. Then an
axle would break, and this would bring us up standing. Sometimes a
dowel-pin snapped, or a felloe split, and mending and lashing still
we rolled toward the setting sun. Once we lost one of our cows, and
I had to retrace our way some miles in looking for her. The country
we were passing through was dotted with dense brush, and as the
"bull-dogs" were bad, the cow had gone into a clump of trees to rid
herself, if possible, of her enemies, whose name truly was legion.
Now, to gallop back farther on the trail would in all probability be
futile in finding the cow. So I went to work on the detective plan,
and first sought for a clue. This I got from Oliver and Jim, my men,
who were positive as to when they had seen the cow last. So I went
back on one side of the road, carefully watching for the track, and
coming to the spot where the boys had seen the truant last, I then
crossed the road, and keenly looked for a track on the back trail,
but found none. I was now pretty sure that the cow was between me
and the carts, and on the other side of the road from that I had come
on. So, keeping a little way out from the road, I followed up the
carts, and by-and-bye came to the track of the cow. She had turned
out from the trail and gone into a thicket, and I had to leave my
horse at its edge to follow her track into it; but keeping on the
trail, I at last found her, almost enveloped in the foliage, and in
the shadiest spot she could find.
The next morning, while the others were supping their tea or drinking
the new milk, I took some dried meat, and with this skimmed and ate
the cream on the milk in the pail I had hung under the cart the night
before. Dried meat and fresh cream might not be a "dainty dish" for
an epicure, but then one must not forget the exquisite relish we had
around us in our perfect freedom of out-door life; in our solid beds,
wet or dry, on the bosom of "mother earth," under the carts; the pure
atmosphere, the beautiful sunrise and sunset, the lovely undulating,
park-like country we were travelling through, giving us constant
change of scene; the many gems of lakes and lakelets we skirted, the
superb health we generally enjoyed--each and all of these were the
best of tonics, and under such conditions even hard grease pemmican
was good.