ANIMALS OF THE WILDERNESS--THE SIOUX AGAIN--AN ENCAMPMENT OF CREE
INDIANS--BUFFALO POUNDS--TO THE RED RIVER.
We remained here a couple of days to rest our cattle and put our carts
in order, and then pushed on by the back trail due west across the
prairie towards Fort Ellis. We encountered wonderfully few difficulties
in our progress, though we met with not a few adventures. Everywhere
rabbits were plentiful, as were all sorts of wild fowl, so that we fared
sumptuously. We noticed hamming birds and locusts or grasshoppers, as
they are here called, innumerable. Vast flights passed over our heads,
appearing like silvery clouds in the sky. So voracious are they that
they destroyed every article of clothing left on the grass. Saddles,
girths, leather bags, and clothes were devoured without distinction.
Ten minutes sufficed them, as some of our men found to their cost, to
destroy several garments which had been carelessly left on the ground.
Looking upwards at the sun as near as the light would permit, we saw the
sky continually changing colour, according to the numbers in the passing
clouds of insects. Opposite the sun the prevailing hue was a silver
white, continually flashing. The hum produced by so many millions of
wings is indescribable, sounding something like a singing in our ears.
These locusts are, as may be supposed, the great enemies to the farmers
of these regions--their greatest, even before early and late frosts.
Fortunately they do not come every year. We fell in with a few black
bears and wolves, and with red deer and elks, buffaloes, and other wild
animals, so that we had plenty of fresh meat for the table, besides wild
fowl and fish, amongst which is a delicious variety of pike, named by
the original French Canadians, from the peculiar formation of its mouth
and head, _Masque-alonge_, Long-face. Beavers have become almost
extinct, and so have panthers; but in our fishing expeditions we found
that otters were still plentiful. Our plan of encamping was somewhat
different from that we adopted when voyaging in canoes. At night, our
fires being lit, we assembled round them, to cook our provisions, and to
escape the breeze-fly and mosquitoes and other insects which the smoke
keeps away. Sending out scouts to ascertain that no Redskins were in
the neighbourhood, who would steal our animals if they could, we turned
them loose, knowing that they would not stray far. One night, however,
one of our scouts reported that he had seen something approach the brow
of the hill about two hundred yards off, and that after gazing at the
encampment it had disappeared; but whether it was a two-legged or
four-legged creature he could not say.
The next night, as I was going my rounds, I distinctly heard a horse
neigh. This, when I reported it, with the occurrence of the previous
night, made our guides sure that we were watched by Sioux, and that they
would attempt to steal our horses. Our camp-fires were therefore put
out, the carts placed close together, the animals brought in and
tethered, and a watch set. The general opinion was, however, that no
attack would be made till near dawn. Still, it would be unwise to trust
to that. The horses, after a time, became restless. Ready also showed,
by his low growls, that he fancied enemies were in the neighbourhood.
Our half-breeds, accordingly, crawling through the grass, arranged
themselves in a half-circle about seventy yards from the carts, each
with his gun loaded with buck-shot. The night was dark, and not a word
was spoken above a whisper. Towards morning a scout came in to report
that he had heard a person or animal crossing the river--that it came
near him and then passed on near the camp. On this he judged it time to
follow--that it had come within thirty yards of the tents, when Ready
had growled, and that then turning off it had recrossed the river. On
hearing this, we became still more anxious than ever, expecting every
moment an attack. When morning dawned we discovered that we had been
completely surrounded by Indians; who, however, perceiving that we were
on the alert and that the horses were tethered, abandoned the attempt to
steal them.
This circumstance taught us the necessity for constant caution, at the
same time it showed us that the Redskins could not be very desperate or
blood-thirsty characters, or they would have attacked us in a far bolder
manner. Some days after this our leading scout galloped in, announcing
that he had come upon a large encampment of Crees near which we must
pass. We closed up immediately and stood to our arms, not knowing
whether the strangers would prove to be friends or foes. In the
meantime we sent Stalker forward as an ambassador to announce our
arrival, and to express a wish on our part to have an interview with
their chief. Our envoy had not been long absent when a band of sixty
Cree horsemen appeared in sight, galloping rapidly towards us--
wild-looking fellows, many of them naked with the exception of the cloth
and belts, and armed with bows and spears, while a few with more
garments had firearms. They were headed by a gaily-dressed youth, with
a spangled coat, and feathers in his hair, who announced himself as the
son of the chief, and stated that he was sent forward to conduct us to
their camp.
We accordingly begged him and his followers to dismount, and made them
welcome with the never-failing calumet. He informed us that his tribe
was engaged in buffalo hunting or rather trapping, and that they were
about to construct a new pound, having filled the present one with
buffalo, but had been compelled to abandon it on account of the stench
which arose from the putrefying bodies; and he expressed a wish that we
would watch them filling the new pound. After the young chief, whose
name sounded and might I believe have been literally rendered Fistycuff,
had sat smoking an hour he proposed setting out for the camp. We
accordingly ordered an advance, and rode on talking pleasantly without
the slightest fear of treachery. As we neared the Cree camp we saw the
women employed in moving their goods, being assisted in this operation
by large numbers of dogs, each dog having two poles harnessed to him, on
which a load of meat, pemmican, or camp furniture was laid.
Having pitched our camp and enjoyed another official smoke, young
Fistycuff invited us to see the old buffalo pound, in which during the
past week they had been entrapping buffalo. We accepted the offer, and
with as much dignity as if he was about to show us some delightful
pleasure-grounds, he led us to a little valley, through a lane of
branches of trees which are called "dead men," to the gate or trap of
the pound. The branches are called "dead," or "silent men" rather, from
the office they perform of keeping the buffalo in a straight line as
they are driven towards the pound. A most horrible and disgusting sight
broke upon us as we ascended the hill overlooking the pound. Within a
circular fence of a hundred and twenty feet in diameter, constructed of
the trunks of trees laced together with withies, and braced by outside
supports, lay, tossed in every conceivable position, upwards of two
hundred dead buffaloes. From old bulls to calves, animals of every
description were huddled together in all the forced attitudes of a
violent death. Some lay on their backs with their eyes starting from
their heads, and their tongues thrust out through clotted gore. Others
were impaled on the horns of the old and strong bulls, others again
which had been tossed were lying with broken backs, two and three deep.
The young chief and his people looked upon the dreadful and sickening
scene with evident delight, and described how such and such a bull or
cow had exhibited feats of wonderful strength in the death-struggle.
The flesh of many of the cows had been taken off, and was drying in the
sun on stages near the tents to make pemmican. The odour was almost
overpowering, and millions of large blue flesh-flies were humming and
buzzing over the putrefying bodies.
After we had refreshed ourselves--as Fistycuff expressed a hope that we
had done--with this spectacle, he begged that we would ride on to the
new pound. It was formed in the same way. From it two lines of trees
were placed, extending to a distance of four miles into the prairie,
each tree being about fifty feet from the others, forming a road about
two miles wide, all the mouths gradually narrowing towards the pound.
Men had concealed themselves behind the trees, and the hunters having
succeeded in driving a herd into the road, they rose and shook their
robes on any attempt being made to break away from it. Now on came the
herd rushing forward at headlong speed. Now an Indian would dart out
from behind a tree and shake his robe as an animal showed an inclination
to break out of the line, and as quietly again retreat. At the entrance
of the pound there was a strong trunk of a tree about a foot from the
ground, and on the inner side an excavation sufficiently deep to prevent
the buffalo from leaping back when once in the pound. The buffaloes
closed in one on the other, the space they occupied narrowing till they
became one dense mass, and then, ignorant of the trap prepared for them,
they leaped madly over the horizontal trunk. As soon as they had taken
the fatal spring, they began to gallop round and round the ring fence,
looking for a chance of escape; but with the utmost silence, the men,
women, and children who stood close together surrounding the fence, held
out their robes before every orifice until the whole herd was brought
in. They then climbed to the top of the fence, and joined by the
hunters who had closely followed the helpless buffalo, darted their
spears or shot with bows or firearms at the bewildered animals, now
frantic with rage and terror on finding themselves unable to escape from
the narrow limits of the pound.
A great number had thus been driven in and killed, and we were about
retiring from the horrid spectacle, at the risk of bringing on ourselves
the contempt of our hosts, when one wary old bull espying a narrow
crevice which had not been closed by the robes of those on the outside,
made a furious dash and broke through the fence. In spite of the
frantic efforts of the Indians to close it up again, the half-maddened
survivors followed their leader, and before their impetuous career could
be stopped they were galloping helter-skelter among the sand hills, with
the exception of a dozen or so which were shot down by arrows or bullets
as they passed along in their furious course.
In consequence of the wholesale and wanton destruction of the buffalo,
an example of which we witnessed, they have greatly diminished. We were
not surprised afterwards to hear the old chief say, that he remembered
the time when his people were as numerous as the buffalo now are, and
the buffalo were as thick as the trees of the forest. We spent two very
interesting days with him, and then turned our horses' heads towards the
Red River, that we might prepare for a canoe voyage on the lakes and up
the Saskatchewan, which we had resolved to make.