Winter comfort――Snowshoe-making――Snow and storm――The moose
woods――A night camp――Memories――A midnight visitor――Maskeypeton the
Iroquois――Danger――A moose hunt――Indian stalking――The red man’s happy
hunting-grounds――Plans――Raft-building.
All was well in the hut; the Cree had kept watch and ward. No Indians
had found the place. Everything promised a quiet, peaceful winter, with
ample time to mature plans for the spring. The stage which had been
built soon after our first arrival at the spot was now filled with
prime buffalo meat; the flour, blankets, and other stores taken from
the trader, were stored carefully away on shelves in the hut. The Cree
and the scout dried and rough-tanned the wolf, carcajou, and buffalo
skins; rude bedsteads were put up along the walls, and upon them dried
grass, skins, and blankets made most comfortable beds. A large store of
fuel was chopped, and piled outside the door; and harness, guns, skins,
axes, &c., gave a furnished appearance to the interior, which, when
lighted up by the pine-logs in the evening presented a look of comfort,
in striking contrast with the savage desolation of the wilderness
without when the mid-winter rigour came full upon it.
As the end of the year drew nigh the storms increased in intensity. The
snow deepened over all the land, but the meadow chosen for the horses
held such an abundance of food that the animals stood the cold well.
When the vetch and wild peas were exhausted, a swamp, which in summer
grew a thick sedge-like grass, gave excellent sustenance to them. The
snow was easily pawed away by the horses’ fore-feet, and the coarse
grass, sweetened by the frost, was laid bare beneath. Day after day
the Sioux, with myself, or the scout, or Donogh, set out on a hunt for
venison, and many a buck fell to our rifles in the valleys and thickets
of the surrounding hills.
[Illustration: Day after day the Sioux, with myself, or the scout, or
Donogh, set out on a hunt for venison.]
As the snow deepened over the land, the use of the snow-shoe became a
necessity in walking. Before the want had arisen the Indians had taken
measures to supply it. Birchwood had been cut and seasoned, the gut
of the jumping moose dried and prepared, and the rough framework put
together, afterwards to be strung, and turned into the required shape.
As I watched the clever manner with which the wood was pared down
and shaped, and with what beautiful accuracy the cross-pieces, the
toes and heels, were fitted, turned, and made ready for the sinew
strings――all done too with only a small knife and an awl, and done with
such apparent ease, I felt tempted to say, “I too will make a pair of
snowshoes;” but it was only to find how futile was the effort to
imitate the handicraft of the wild man in the work of the wilderness.
[Illustration: Making snowshoes.]
By the time the snowshoes were finished the snow was deep enough on the
river and the plains to fully test their capabilities. I determined
to accustom myself early to the use of the shoes, so that I might be
able to keep pace with my friends, whose power of snowshoe-walking had
grown from infancy. With this object I was out every morning as soon as
breakfast was over, tramping along the frozen and snow-covered expanse
of the rivers, or forcing my way through the thicket-lined shores, and
up the hills and slopes of the surrounding country. At first I found
it no easy matter to tread my way over soft and deep snow, or through
places where the brambles and weeds lay half-buried in the drifts and
dazzling banks; but in a few days my step grew more firm, my stride
became longer and more rapid, and after a week I was not ashamed to
join Red Cloud for a hunt after game.
Thus we four denizens of this wild and lonely spot ranged over the
land surrounding our solitary dwelling; and ere the new year had come
there was not a pine-bluff or a thicket of aspens――there was not a bend
on the rivers, or a glade among the hills, which was not known and
explored. It was a strange, wild life, this winter roving over the
great untamed wilderness of snow.
At times the days were bright and calm――the sun shone with dazzling
lustre upon the unspotted surface of the earth. The branches of the
trees glistened in the white rime of the morning, the dry powdery snow
sounded hard as sand under the shoe.
Again the scene would change, and wild storms swept sky and earth; the
bitter blast howled through the thickets, the pine-trees rocked and
waved, and the short daylight closed into a night of wrack and tempest.
Such days and nights would run their courses, and again the scene would
change; the wild wind would sink away, the snow would cease to fall or
to drift, a death-like stillness would ensue, and with a brilliancy
of untold beauty the moon would be seen above the still and tapering
pine-tops, and the white light of frosted silver, set with myriad
sparkling gems, would overlay all the land.
The new year came; January drew to a close. Colder and colder the iron
hand of winter seemed to grasp the forest and the ridge, the silent
frozen rivers, and the lonely hills.
One day the Sioux set out with me to visit a large wood of pines and
poplars, the tops of which could be discerned from a ridge lying a few
miles away from the hut. It was a long tramp, and the dogs were taken
to carry kettle, blankets, and food, in preparation for camping during
the night in the wood in order to continue the hunt on the following
day.
As the morning was fine, the sun shone brightly on the snow, and the
dogs followed closely in the footsteps of the Sioux, as with rapid
strides he passed over the white ridges and intervening gullies drifted
deep in snow. I walked behind the sled that carried the supplies for
the camp.
The day passed away, varied by nothing save exercise, broken only by
the mid-day halt for food. It was the middle of the afternoon when we
drew near the broad belt of wood which was to be our home for the night.
For some miles we had followed a tract of low meadow-land along the
river; but now the Sioux led across the frozen stream, and slipping his
feet from the snowshoe-strings as he gained the farther shore, he began
to ascend a very steep ridge that rose directly from the opposite bank.
The dogs worked might and main to follow their leader. I urged them
with voice and whip from behind; and up the slippery ridge we scrambled
until the top was gained. Here a halt was made, to recover breath and
take a survey of the scene.
Beneath, spreading away for many a mile, lay a broken and wooded
region, over which patches of dark green pine-trees stood in marked
contrast to the snowy surface of level and ridge. Here and there the
eye caught glimpses of unbroken sheets of snow, telling the presence
of frozen lakelets beneath. Indeed, the pine-trees were themselves
sufficient to indicate the fact of water in abundance being there, for
it was water alone that had protected them in the dry autumn days from
the wild ravage of the prairie fire.
The Sioux scanned with careful sweep of vision all the wide scene from
east to west. Then seemingly satisfied with his scrutiny, he resumed
his snowshoes, and struck down a long gradual incline towards the belt
of woodland.
It wanted but an hour of sunset when the first pine-trees were reached;
and shortly after, the small grey owl’s hoot sounding through the vast
solitude bade us select a thick clump of firs, in the midst of which a
cosey camp was quickly made.
Few who have not experienced it can realize the full measure of
comfort which the wilderness, even in the depth of winter, can hold
forth to its denizens. It seems difficult to believe that a camp,
made in the open snow, amid a clump of fir-trees, with nought save
the branches between the traveller and the sky, with only the frozen
earth swept clear of snow for his floor, and with blankets and a skin
for bed and covering, could be anything save the most miserable of
lodging-places. But it is marvellous how quickly the wild hunter will
change these unpromising materials into a spot where genial warmth can
be felt, where rest can come to weary limbs, where food can fill hungry
stomachs, and the pipe of peace can be smoked in pleasant repose.
At first the night was still and fine; but as the midnight hour drew on
the wind arose, and the tree-tops began to bend their heads, and the
melancholy cadence of the swaying branches fell upon our ears as we
slept.
Long habit had given the Sioux the faculty of consciousness in sleep;
the senses, all save that of sight, still carried to his brain their
various messages.
The swaying of the branches soon roused him to wakefulness, and
throwing aside his robe he looked out at the night. The fire had burned
down to ashes, which the night-wind, when its gusts came strongly now
and again, blew into dull red embers. The snow-light made visible the
tree-trunks around. Overhead he could mark the clouds moving rapidly
from the east; the storm was rising.
He got up, raked the ashes together, threw some wood upon the embers,
and sat down to watch the flickering flames and to wait for the dawn.
The noise awoke me, and I watched him from where I lay. Oftentimes it
was his wont thus to sit watching in those hours of the late night.
More than once I had, on other occasions, looked out from my robe, to
see thus seated before a few embers the figure of my friend. Who can
tell the thoughts that at such moments passed through the mind of this
strange man? Memories of that great wilderness he loved so well――of
these vast solitudes, which to him had nothing awful. Glimpses of
far-stretching prairies――of rivers flowing in wide curves through
endless distances――of trees sinking beneath waves of meadow-land. Such
were the scenes he saw in the pine-fire embers. Then too he would
listen to the voice of the tempest in far-off forests; and as the sound
swept through the lone hours of the night, there came to him many a
thought of boyhood in the land lost to his tribe. But always, as he
has often told me, his mind running along those grooves found the same
resting-place――the spot where, in the island of the mountains, lay the
bones of his murdered father. And then, with all the bitter wrath of
his heart fanned into flame, he would rise to his feet, and stalk away
into the dark forest or the silent prairie, and looking up at the cold
stars he would cry, “Father, thy son does not sleep. He wanders over
the earth only to revenge thy fate.”
As now he sat, with head sunken on his hands, and eyes fixed on the
embers, there sounded close by a noise as of human steps upon the snow.
The Sioux turned towards the side from whence the sound proceeded,
and saw in the dim light of the snow the figure of a man. Calm as he
habitually was――accustomed to regard the sudden indications of danger
with the outward semblance of repose, he nevertheless on this occasion
felt creep upon him the sensation of fear. Weird and ghostly, the
figure seemed to have risen out of the white ground. Instinctively the
Sioux grasped the rifle that lay near him. The strange figure seemed
to catch the movement: he spoke.
“As a friend I have sought your camp,” he said. “Had I come as an
enemy, you would not have seen me.”
Red Cloud relinquished his half-grasped rifle, and rose to meet the
stranger.
“Who are you?”
“I am Maskeypeton the Iroquois.”
The wind still rising, now blew a strong gust, which swept the camp,
causing the flames to flare for a moment through the dry wood of the
fire. The light fell full upon the face of the stranger, revealing
features well known to the Sioux.
“Maskeypeton the Iroquois,” he said, “no matter what has brought your
steps at this hour to my camp, you are welcome. Sit down and share my
fire.”
The stranger answered, “There was a day, years ago, when you turned
your horse’s head to take a wounded Iroquois from under the guns of
the Long-knives by the banks of the Yellowstone. Maskeypeton is here
to-night because of that day. Last evening,” he said, “I struck your
trail on the ice of the Pascopee. I was then bound for where I had
heard your hut lay. I followed your trail while daylight lasted, rested
until the moon rose, and then kept the track that led me hither.”
The Sioux listened in silence.
“I have not come,” went on the Iroquois, “without a reason; that reason
is a warning. Enemies watch for you. They have found the spot where you
have built your winter hut; and when the snow leaves the prairies, and
the ice breaks in the rivers, the Sircies will seek your life.”
“But I have no quarrel with the Sircies,” answered the Sioux. “No man
of the tribe has ever known injury at my hand. Why should they now try
to harm me?”
“Because there is another enemy hidden behind them,” said the Iroquois.
“The white trader finds many weapons with which he strikes his blows.”
The eyes of the Sioux reflected with a strange wild glare, the fitful
light of the fire, but he said nothing. After a while he asked,――
“Is the trader with the Sircies?”
“No, he is living at the white man’s fort by the river of the Gros
Ventres.”
The Sioux thought in silence over the tidings the Iroquois had unfolded
to him, and already his mind had formed its plan, but he did not even
thank his informant for the timely warning.
Looking towards the northern sky, he saw by the position of the Great
Bear that morning was drawing near, and that it was time to prepare
for the work of the coming day. The conversation with the new comer
had been carried on in a low tone. To me it was unintelligible at the
time, but later on I became aware of its meaning.
Of the purport of the stranger’s visit; Red Cloud now said nothing, he
simply explained the presence of the Iroquois, by remarking that he
had struck and followed our trail of the previous day, that he was an
old friend, and would join them in hunting the moose during the next
few days. The morning already gave every indication of being followed
by a day well suited to the pursuit of the moose; the trees rocked and
swung under the gusts of storm, and the moan of the wind through the
stretch of pine forest promised the hunters the best guarantee of a
noiseless approach to the resting-place of that most suspicious and
far-hearing denizen of the waste. Breakfast over, we set out from the
camp, leaving the sled and harness suspended in the fork of a tree to
save the leather fastenings from the attacks of the dogs. Red Cloud
led the way, plunging directly into a labyrinth of wood, which soon
opened upon a frozen and snow-covered lakelet. At the farther side
of this open, a profusion of willow bushes were seen; along these we
bent our steps, and soon, in the deep snow that had drifted around the
willow stems, a series of large hoof-prints became visible, now leading
around the edge of the thickets, now into the midst of them, while the
tops in many places hung down, bruised and broken, as though some tall
animal had been browsing upon them as he travelled along. The Indians
looked at the tracks intently, and then pushed their way through the
thicket to the edge of the forest at the farther side; here a perfect
network of footmarks seemed to lead in every direction, crossing each
other in apparently hopeless confusion. But the Sioux did not appear
to have any doubt as to the line he should follow. Passing again
into the forest, he held his way without pause through tangled brake
and thicket. I, however, noticed that we were now following a double
track, that is to say, a track made by an animal which had gone to and
returned from the willows by the same line, but the double marks were
not always distinctly defined. On the contrary, it required the most
careful scrutiny to discover the existence of a double footprint in the
holes, so exactly had the animal appeared to place one footstep in the
impression already made by him in the snow. I noted that the Sioux,
when he did bend down to examine the holes, paid particular attention
to the edge of the snow at the point where the hoof of the moose had
last quitted the track. At this edge a few fine grains of snow lay on
the surface of the older fallen mass, and these light particles seemed
to give to the tracker his test of proximity to his game. Sometimes he
would blow gently upon them, sometimes he would content himself with
pushing the muzzle of his leather-covered gun into the footmarks.
All at once a change passed over his mode of pursuit. His pace
slackened; his step was more carefully planted, and his eye scanned
more closely the surroundings of copse, brake, and thicket. He now
motioned the Iroquois to stay in one spot, and whispering me to keep
close behind him, and to tread as much as possible in his footsteps,
he turned aside at a right angle and bore away deep into the forest,
apparently following no track of any kind.
Following closely behind, I noticed that the course was not straight――it
bent inwards in a wide circle, so that if continued it must again strike
the trail of the moose. It was so; with long drawn steps the Sioux came
back again upon his old line at a point some quarter of a mile from
where he had quitted it. Arrived near the line of tracks he made a most
careful study of the ground, and noted each footprint with great care;
then he bent his steps back again in the way he had come, and again bent
round so as to make another half circle, this time a considerably
shorter one. His course I can but illustrate by the following diagram――
[Illustration]
The straight lines representing the original track of the moose,
and the curved ones the course which we followed, in lessening
half-circles, that ended and began again some few yards short of the
trail.
The object of these curious tactics was not at once apparent to me;
but I noted two points that threw some light upon them. One was the
fact that the circles were always made to the side away from the wind;
and the other was, that the Sioux on arriving near the line of trail
invariably directed his scrutiny of bush and thicket to the space lying
between us and the line, little care being taken to examine the forest
directly along the trail to the front.
Three circles had thus been made without any result, and we had once
more drawn nigh the line of trail. A few steps, more carefully taken
than any that had gone before, brought us to their limit, some few
yards short of the line.
To the left front as we looked towards the trail there stood a small
clump of broken and tangled wood, lying within twenty paces of the
trail. The Sioux looked long and steadfastly, then he advanced
half-a-dozen paces to his front, noiseless as the footfall of a hare in
a thicket; all at once he stopped. As yet the gun-cloth had not been
taken from his gun, but now I noticed that the barrel was uncovered;
still the hammer remained upon half-cock. I had not gone forward the
last ten paces, for I instinctively realized from the manner of my
companion that the final moment of the stalk was at hand.
Without changing his position Red Cloud now beckoned me to his side,
with a gesture impressing the utmost caution. Both of us had long
since taken off our snowshoes, and our moccasined feet scarcely sounded
in the snow. When we were close together Red Cloud said, in a low
whisper,――
“Look in the centre of yonder thicket.”
I looked, and saw nothing beyond the maze of tangled branch half-sunken
in soft snow. Red Cloud now raised his gun, but it still remained at
the half-cock. I looked, and looked again, but could make out nothing.
All at once the sharp click of the hammer, drawn to full cock with
somewhat unusual strength, and therefore noise, struck the ear; a
second later and there rose up in the thicket centre, fifty yards from
where he stood, a huge, dusky animal. The Sioux seemed in no hurry, he
took matters as coolly as though the moose was working in obedience to
his own movements; the moose stared blankly at us, the Sioux looked
quietly at the moose. The pause was only for four seconds, but to me
it seemed an age. All at once the spell was broken. Quick as lightning
the gun was raised to the shoulder, the shot rang out, and the moose
bounded like a ball from a cannon, crashing out of the thicket.
“Missed,” thought I――no; not a bit of it. Thirty paces were not covered
ere the great beast plunged forward in the snow, a struggling mass amid
the spotless white.
We drew near the quarry. He was a noble animal. The Sioux regarded him
with looks of pride. It was a stalk well done; it had been a triumph
fairly gained over an animal remarkable over all the wild animals of
the North American forest for cunning and sagacity.
And now as we waited for the Iroquois, I had fully explained to me
the tactics I had just witnessed. When the time for lying down comes,
in the early dawn, the moose selects a safe spot to the leeward side
of the trail he has followed; in fact, he retraces his trail for some
distance before deviating from it. He takes up his resting-place
for the day, guided by instinct to select a spot from which he can
catch the wind of any person following his footsteps. To defeat this
excessive caution was the object of those curious lines of approach
taken by the Sioux; each time he came out within sight of the line on
which he knew that the moose was to be looked for in some adjoining
thicket. Thus each brake had been scanned. To have followed the trail
would have been to have given the animal warning of our approach. It
was only by cautiously examining all possible lurking-places from
behind them, _i. e._ to leeward of them, that the result we have seen
could be attained.
The work of skinning and cutting up the moose was now proceeded with.
The distance from the camp was not far, and while the Sioux made ready
the carcase, I went back along our track to bring the dogs for the
meat. When I got back from the camp with the sleds all was ready. Skin,
marrow-bones, and meat were all packed away, and before the low-set sun
had touched the pine-tops in the west we were back again in our camp.
It was a grand feast that evening for both dogs and men. We sat long
in the red light of the fire, frying the delicious marrow-bones, and
toasting rich bits of meat. The Iroquois looked the picture of content.
He had had a hard time of it for some weeks he told us; his gun had not
shot straight; the moose had been wild, the days calm; but now plenty
had come, and he seemed determined to make up for past misfortunes. He
spoke English fairly well.
“White Brother,” he said to me, amid one of the pauses in our repast,
“these are the happy moments in our lives; these are the moments which,
when we think of them in civilization, draw us out again into the
wilds. Months of hunger and cold are forgotten in a day such as we have
spent to-day.”
“But,” said I, “you are a stranger here; your people dwelt far away
beyond the great lakes, where the white man’s cities now cover
the land, and where the rivers are furrowed by the wheels of his
fire-boats.”
“Yes,” he answered, “that was my home, and a remnant of my race still
dwell by the shores, of the St. Lawrence; but for me it would not do. I
came here twenty years ago, a youth, in the canoe of a trader. I have
lived in these woods and prairies ever since. In my own land I was a
stranger, in this strange land I found myself at home.”
Next morning the return march to the hut was begun. The Iroquois formed
one of our party. We moved over the snow-clad wilderness in silence.
Red Cloud was busily engaged in forming plans by which we might hope
to elude the designs of his enemies. The Iroquois, always reserved and
taciturn, moved along wrapped in his blanket, silent and impassive; and
I felt in no humour to break in upon the plans or meditations of my
companions.
Darkness had quite fallen when the dogs, tired by the weight of the
moose meat which they were hauling, came in sight of the hollow in
which the hut lay. Then the weary load grew light in anticipation of
home, and, pulling vigorously at the traces, the fire-lit doorway of
the little hut was soon reached.
But long before the journey was over, Red Cloud had fully matured
in his brain a plan which promised him escape from the toils that
encompassed him. That plan he briefly explained to me as follows,――
On the ice-covered little indentation, or mimic bay, close beneath the
east wall of the hut, we would construct a large and solid raft of dry
pine-trees. The raft when finished would be lashed to the trees on the
shore to await the disruption of the frozen river. The ice once gone
and the structure afloat, the work of loading goods and chattels, guns
and ammunition, would begin; then, at the first signal of assault from
hostile Sircies, the hut and its fixtures would be fired, and down
the swift-rolling flood of the loosened rivers would glide the ark,
bearing to realms of safety our little party from the ruined site of
our winter home. Such were the means by which he hoped to defeat once
more the machinations of his foes.
The next morning saw the beginning of the refuge raft. The pine bluff
echoed with the ringing strokes of well-wielded axes, and soon a dozen
dead and dry pine-trees had fallen, and their trunks were rapidly being
cleared of branches and cut into even lengths of fourteen feet, and
others of ten and twelve. The dry trees were the only ones fit for the
work; the green ones, heavy with sap, would have floated too low in the
water to allow of weights being placed on them.
When a sufficient number of dry trees had been felled and cut into
lengths, the work of drawing them to the little bay began. Every
one worked with a will; but many of the trees had been cut at a
considerable distance from the hut, and it was laborious work to get
the larger pieces into position upon the ice. Then was done the work
of notching and shaping the various parts of the raft, and forming the
outer framework upon which the higher platform was to be built. The two
longest and thickest trunks were placed as outside pieces, these two
were connected together by cross sticks at either end, and all formed
a massive frame twenty feet in length by eight feet across; over these
in turn were placed eight pieces of lesser bulk and size, crossed and
held together by transverse sticks.
While these preparations were going on, the Cree was busily engaged
in cutting up and stretching into pliable lengths long strips of
“Shahanappi,” or buffalo and moose skin; these, when fully stretched,
were passed around the trunks, lacing the entire structure into a most
compact and powerful raft.
In three days’ time the raft was finished, and as it had been in the
first instance laid upon the exact spot on the ice which it was meant
to occupy when afloat, no further labour was necessary to drag the
ponderous mass into position, and nothing remained but to complete the
arranging and sorting of the stores, and many minor details, and to
make everything ready for rapid embarkation when the hour of movement
would have arrived.
The first object aimed at by Red Cloud was to avoid leaving in the
hands of his enemies any token of his defeat. He was determined that,
if he could help it, not a gun or trophy should be shown as things
that had been taken from the wandering Sioux. Nothing in fact save
the possession of a barren site should be left to his enemies. The
chief difficulty lay in the horses. How were they to be removed? There
could be no reason to expect that the Sircies would allow a day of
practicable weather to elapse after the melting of the snow before
their scouts would be on the alert, around a wide circle of the banks,
to prevent the escape of the party by land. It looked as if all the
horses must be sacrificed. The idea of killing his favourite horse, his
long-tried, faithful friend, was a thought that Red Cloud could not
endure. He spent many hours in thinking out some method of escape. At
last he hit upon what seemed to promise success. He would build another
raft, and putting himself upon it, and his steed swimming behind it, he
would run the river alone; the others would go on the first raft. He
told me his plan. I proposed that the raft should be made large enough
to carry two people, and that I should also take my horse, and still
continue to share the fortunes of my friend.
The Sioux consented to this arrangement, and the work of building
soon began. Some changes were made in the shape and construction of
the second raft, to enable it to bear the unequal strain likely to
be put on it. In the course of a few days it was declared finished,
and, moored side by side with the one first built, was in readiness
to receive its cargo whenever the moment would arrive. Thus we found
ourselves ere the close of winter preparing to meet as best we could a
formidable attack from powerful enemies. The forewarning given by the
Iroquois had enabled us to forearm, and it now only remained to await
the attack when the breaking up of the ice would let loose the passions
of our enemies, and the flood-gates of our friends――the Pascopee and
the Red Deer rivers.