THE WINTER IN CAMP--OUR LOG-HOUSE AND HUTS--HUNTING AND FISHING--BUFFALO
STALKING--SUPPER AND A DANCE, AND SUPPER AGAIN--HOW WE FARED IN CAMP--
INDIAN STALKING--WINTER PASTIME.
We found that although the weather was still very warm in the day-time,
that the comparatively short summer of those regions was already too far
advanced to allow of our pushing our way across the Rocky Mountains in
the present wild state of the country; a feat, however, which my friend
Paul Kane performed some years ago; but then boats were in waiting on
the upper branch of the Columbia to convey him and his party to the
south. We therefore agreed to employ ourselves in hunting, and in
preparing our winter quarters till it was time to go into them. As I
have already described a summer buffalo hunt, I will pass over those we
at this time engaged in, and proceed to an account of our life in the
winter.
Our canoes and such articles as we no longer required we exchanged for
horses--such as were likely to prove of value to us in our onward
journey in the spring. We had selected a beautiful spot near a lake and
in the neighbourhood of a tribe of peaceably-disposed Indians, for the
erection of our residence, about fifty miles from the forts; and we now
set out for it, with our carts, horses, stores, and cattle in the true
patriarchal style, only the women and children were fortunately wanting.
Having reached our location we pitched our tents, and having unpacked
such provisions and goods as we required for our immediate use, placed
the carts together, and covered the whole with tarpaulins. Our horses
we turned out, as they would be able to exist through the whole winter,
sheltered by the woods, and feeding on the rich grass which they could
get at by digging with their noses under the snow. Our first business
was then to cut down the trees necessary for the erection of our abodes.
We all took axes in our hands, and in the course of a couple of days
had trees enough felled for our purpose. There they lay around in all
directions, but it puzzled Trevor and Peter not a little to say how they
were to be made to answer the purpose of sheltering us during a winter
of almost arctic severity. John Stalker was the chief builder, and I
was architect; that is to say, I designed the plan of the buildings, and
he directed the way in which they were to be put up, while the rest of
the party lopped off the branches and dragged the logs up to the spot.
I had studied the way to construct a log-house while recovering from the
wounds I received in our skirmish with the Comanches, and now I found an
opportunity of turning my knowledge to account. The chief residence was
to be oblong; so we cut two long and two short trunks, making deep
scores at each end that they might fit into each other. Above these
were placed others also scored at the ends, till four thick walls had
been erected about seven feet high, without a roof and without doors and
windows. Trevor looked at it with astonishment, and Peter walked round
and round it till, stopping short near the builder, he remarked--
"Well, Master Stalker, that's a rum house! I'll be bold to ask, are we
to be shut up all winter, so that we don't want a door to go in and out
at? And is it so dark that we don't want a window to see out of?"
"Wait a bit, and you'll see what we'll do, lad," answered Stalker,
laughing. "Light enough, day and night, when the snow's on the ground;
and you'll be as much out of doors as in doors when the sky's clear."
Peter waited and wondered, for Stalker insisted on getting up all the
walls of the huts before proceeding to other portions of the work.
Besides ours, in which were to be deposited the stores for greater
safety, there were to be two of smaller size for the men. The walls,
when only thus far completed, looked in no way fitted to keep out the
cold, as we could see through the interstices on every side. "Wait a
bit," was Stalker's remark. "Now, lads, some on you go and dig the
stiffest clay you can find, and others chop up some grass." This order
was speedily obeyed, and, with a mixture formed of the two, every cranny
was completely stopped up; and in the inside the walls were made so
perfectly smooth that the logs were almost concealed. "There!"
exclaimed Stalker, as he surveyed his work; "I doubt if Jack Frost,
though he is pretty sharp in these parts, will ever get through that."
With their hatchets, he and two of the other men literally chopped out a
doorway and a window in each hut. The doors were formed from some
boards taken from the carts, and the windows with sheets of parchment
nailed tightly over the aperture, so that they served the double purpose
of drums and windows. As yet there were no roofs; but the men had been
set to work to cut a number of tall, thin young pine-trees, which served
as rafters placed close together, while a quantity of marsh grass, over
which was spread a heavy layer of clay, formed a thatch which no storm
could remove.
We began to talk of putting up our bedsteads, and making ourselves
comfortable inside our huts.
"Not much comfort you'll get by-and-by, gentlemen, if you was not to do
something more than you have done," observed Stalker.
"What can that be?" asked Trevor.
"I'm sure I don't know," muttered Peter. "To my mind the houses are
pretty comfortable for poor men, though not much for gentlemen like
master and Mr Trevor."
"I guess Jack Frost would pretty soon remind you when he comes,"
observed Stalker, with a grin.
"_Ma foi_!" exclaimed Pierre Garoupe. "Monsieur Jaque Frost make his
way through de key-hole."
"Oh, how stupid--a fire-place!" I cried out.
"That's it," cried Stalker. "And now let's set about it."
I suggested that, instead of the ordinary clay of which fire-places are
built, that ours should be constructed of stone of which there was no
lack, in the shape of boulders, near the lake. These we collected in
the carts, and by cementing them by mortar supported by a frame of wood
outside, we formed a substantial fire-place and chimney suited for such
a fire as we expected to require. By Stalker's advice we sunk the floor
three feet deep, and piled the earth we dug up outside; thus adding much
to the warmth of our abode. A trench was also dug outside, at some
little distance, to take off any water which, during a casual thaw,
might be inclined to run in. Then, to keep off the wind--the primary
object--any grizzlies which might be wandering our way, or any Indians
who might prove hostile, we surrounded our whole station with a strong
palisade, so that it was almost as strong as one of the Company's Posts.
Never sleep on the ground. To obviate that necessity we stuck some
short posts into the ground, and on them formed a framework, over which
we stretched some buffalo hides, and so got first-rate bedsteads.
Trevor laughed at me for what he called my effeminacy, but I suggested
that, after a hunting tramp of thirty or forty miles, we might not be
sorry to turn into a comfortable bed. Our lads' labour was stacking all
the wood we had cut for burning, and then storing our goods and
provisions. We put off making the furniture for our huts till we should
be kept in by bad weather. A further supply of firewood could also be
procured at any time after the snow covered the ground. Writers of
romances make their heroes and heroines wonderfully independent of food
and rest; but we, being ordinary mortals, were aware that we could not
exist in comfort without a good supply of provisions, and Trevor and I
therefore formed two parties of the men--one to remain in charge of the
huts to fish, and to cure what they caught, besides trapping or shooting
any animals; while the other was to accompany us in search of buffalo
and any other game to be found.
Scarcely were our arrangements completed when the snow fell, and all
nature assumed her wintry garb, not to be put off till the following
spring.
Trevor and I, with John Stalker, Swiftfoot, and two other Indians,
formed the hunting party. We first constructed four horse-sleighs to
carry the flesh of the buffaloes we intended to kill, each dragged by a
single horse. We were all mounted, also, on small, but active and hardy
steeds, with our blankets, cloaks, tin-cups, pemmican, tea and sugar,
and a few other articles, strapped to our saddles. We each had our
rifles, axes, and hunting-knives, while an iron pot and a frying-pan
were the only articles in our camp equipage. The snow, however thick,
was no impediment to our horses in finding their food, for, without
difficulty, they dug down through it with their noses till they reached
the rich dry grass beneath, which seems, thus, in this apparently
inhospitable region, to be preserved for their especial use. We found
that horses, cattle, and pigs lived out through the winter without any
charge being taken of them, except towards the end of spring, when an
occasional thaw melts the surface of the snow, which, freezing again at
night, forms so hard a crust that even their tough mouths cannot break
through it.
We had no tents or covering beyond our cloaks and blankets. As night
approached we camped near some copse of willow or birch, which would
afford us wood for our fires--rarely even putting up a screen of
birch-bark which would shelter us from the icy blast. With a fire in
the centre, as large as we could keep up, we lay in a circle, our feet
towards it, and our bodies, like the spokes of a wheel, wrapped in our
blankets, and our heads on our saddles. This was our most luxurious
style of camping. At other times we were not nearly so well off, as I
shall have to recount.
We had travelled about a hundred miles south of our station over a
hilly, well-watered, and well-wooded country, which must, in summer, be
highly picturesque, when Stalker announced, from the traces he had seen
in the snow, that buffalo were near. We, therefore, immediately camped,
but dared not light a fire for fear of frightening the animals, so we
had to make a meal off dry pemmican and biscuit, washed down with rum
and water--very sustaining food, at all events. In winter the buffalo
must be stalked like deer, and cannot be ridden down as in summer, when
the hard ground allows the horses to approach at full gallop. We
consequently left our horses and rugs and cooking utensils--and, indeed,
everything that would encumber us--in camp, under charge of the two
Indians, and advanced on foot. We had to keep to leeward and to conceal
ourselves behind any bush or inequality of ground we could find. "Too
many cooks spoil the broth"--too many sportsmen do the same thing, or
rather lose it altogether. We advanced cautiously enough, when once we
got sight of the herd, for about two miles or more, each man taking up
his station properly; but it had not been arranged who should fire
first, or when each person should fire. There appeared directly before
me a dozen or more fine bulls, rather too far for a certain aim. I was
creeping on slowly and cautiously to get a better aim, when one of the
party, in his eagerness, showed himself. We all said it was Peter, and
scolded him accordingly, for off set the buffaloes at full gallop. Then
we all let fly at the ends they exposed to us; but not a shot took
effect, and we soon afterwards met in the open space, where they had
been, looking very foolish at each other. Peter bore his scolding
without complaining, and our good humour was restored when Stalker
assured us that we were sure to come up with the animals if we did not
mind a good walk. Were we not bold hunters? so of course we did not,
and off we set.
We trudged on for many a long mile, when Stalker called a halt, and told
us that we were again close to the herd, on their leeside, and that if
we were cautious we should certainly bag some game. We had spent two or
three hours gaining our present position; evening was coming on, and if
we did not kill some beasts now, we might miss them altogether. This
made us more than usually anxious, as we crept on towards the
unconscious animals, which kept busily cropping their afternoon meal.
Now I saw one of them look up. Something had startled him. He
communicated his fears to the rest. I was certain that in another
moment they would be off. One of them, a fine bull, turned his shoulder
towards me. The opportunity was not to be lost. I fired. The animal
dashed on with the rest. I thought that I must have missed him; but in
a few seconds he stopped, rolled over, and his life-blood stained the
pure snow. Three other shots were fired in quick succession, two of
them followed by the fall of an animal; at considerable distances,
however, from each other. We pursued the rest, eager for more. We were
hunting for the pot--indeed, our very existence might depend on what we
should kill; but, after a hard run of a mile or more, the rest of the
buffaloes broke from us and scampered off into the boundless prairie.
We now called a bait, and came to the conclusion that, if we did not
hurry back, we should find but a Flemish account of the animals we had
already killed, as that moment the howl of wolves struck on our ear,
telling us that they had scented out the carcasses. Though they are
much less ferocious than are those of Siberia and Russia, they have
equally large appetites, and we knew that they would have no respect for
our requirements of winter provender. We therefore divided parties.
One half to remain by the animals last killed, while the others, that is
to say, Peter and I, went back to the spot where I had killed the bull.
We ran as fast as we could over the snow, and were only just in time to
scare away a whole herd which was about to make an onslaught on our
property; for so, in that region, the hunter considers every animal he
kills, a point disputed only by the wolves, who believe themselves to
possess an equal right to it.
We now began to reflect seriously how we were to pass the night. We had
left our blankets and cloaks at our camp, and the thermometer, if we had
possessed one, would have sunk below zero. Wood was scarce, and shelter
of any sort there was none, as the snow was not deep enough to dig a
hole in it, cold comfort even as that would have been. We espied a
copse of arbor-vitae, the close foliage covered pretty well with snow,
at a distance, near a small pond, and from it we collected dry sticks
sufficient only for a small fire. Having lighted it, we commenced
skinning the buffalo, taking his hump and tongue for our supper,
intending to broil the one and bake the other in a coat of clay. I had
a little tea in my pocket, and Peter had a tin mug, in which we managed
to melt some snow and boil it sufficiently to infuse the fragrant herb;
but, in spite of the warm beverage and hot meat, which we relished, we
felt the cold bitterly. To keep off the chilling blast we scraped the
snow up into a circular wall. I then bethought me of the buffalo skin,
of which we soon denuded the beast, dragged it to our fire, and crept
under it. How warm and cozy we found it! and all our fears for our
comfort during the night vanished. Having made up the fire, with our
rifles by our sides, we went to sleep. I was awoke by a sensation of
cold, and hearing Peter exclaim--
"Oh, sir, I wonder what has come over the buffalo skin?"
On sitting up I found that the lately soft and warm hide had formed a
frozen arch over us, as hard as iron, and that our fire was nearly out.
We could do nothing but spring to our feet, make up the fire, and then
jump about before it to restore the circulation. Though this employment
was satisfactory for a time we began, at length, to find it very irksome
and fatiguing, and it seemed impossible to keep it up the whole night,
yet I could think of no other way of escaping being frozen to death.
Peter proposed, as a variety, that we should eat some more beef and
drink some more tea, a bright idea, to which I acceded; and when that
midnight meal was over, we took to dancing again. We knew that Trevor
and his party would be as badly off, and we only hoped that they would
have thought of similar means of keeping body and soul together. Peter
diversified the amusement by singing and playing all sorts of antics,
while I contemplated the stars overhead; but instead of rest we only
became more and more fatigued, and I was truly glad when at length the
wolves set up a hideous chorus, announcing the approach of dawn. A
superstitious man, unaccustomed to the sound, might have supposed them
to be a band of evil spirits, compelled at the return of the bright
luminary of the day to revisit their abodes of darkness.
Having eaten so many suppers we had no appetite for breakfast, and
instead of taking any we cut up the carcasses ready for the sleighs
which Trevor was to send Swiftfoot to fetch. They arrived at length,
when we found that our friends had passed the night exactly as we had
done. The beef being sufficient only partly to fill the sleighs, Trevor
and Stalker set off in search of more buffalo, while we followed slowly,
intending to return to the camp in the evening. The result was that we
killed four more bulls, and found ourselves, as night approached, far
away from our camp. As, however, we had no desire to spend another
night like the previous one, we set forth in search of it. We have
heard of looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and ours seemed a very
similar undertaking; still both Stalker and Swiftfoot asserted that they
could guide us to the camp by the stars; so on we travelled hour after
hour, till they called a halt, and owned that we ought to be there, but
that they were at fault as to the exact spot. Some thought that it was
farther on, some to the right, and some to the left. The only point in
which we were all agreed was that we were not at it, and that we must
make up our minds to spend as disagreeable a night as the last.
There was a crescent moon, but that was about to set; by its faint light
we discovered a small copse not far off. On the leeside of it we
lighted our fire, round which we tramped for the remainder of the night,
the trees not allowing us sufficient shelter to enable us to lie down
without a great risk of being frozen to death. It was a weary and
uninteresting employment after a hard day's work, and while I went round
and round the fire I began to consider whether I might not have been
more pleasantly occupied in shooting pheasants and partridges at home,
with a good night's rest in a comfortable bed at the end of each day.
"Begone such lazy thoughts," I, however, exclaimed; "I left home in
search of adventures, and I am finding them."
When daylight came, it was, I confess, rather provoking to find that the
camp was only three or four hundred yards off, where we had our supply
of blankets and other creature comforts. As we had now our sleighs
loaded to the utmost, and three buffaloes besides _en cache_, or hidden,
that is from the wolves, we turned our faces homewards. The ground was
hilly, and as the sun had still considerable power the surface of the
snow had been melted, and when frozen again was exceedingly slippery.
The consequence of this was that, one of the horses slipping on the side
of a hill, the sleigh broke away and rolled over and over to the bottom.
We ran down, expecting to see the horse killed or seriously injured,
and the sleigh broken to pieces, but neither was the worse for the
occurrence, and the horse being set on his legs, trotted on as bravely
as before. We were not sorry to get back to our winter quarters, which
appeared absolutely luxurious after the nights we had spent out in the
snow without shelter. How we did sleep, and how we did eat! Hunter's
fare, indeed, is not to be despised. We had for breakfast fried fish,
buffalo tongues, tea, sugar, dampers, and _galettes_--cakes of simple
water and flour, baked under the ashes, and which are very light and
nice. For dinner we had, say a dish of boiled buffalo hump, a smoked
and boiled buffalo calf whole, a mouffle or dry moose nose, fish,
browned in buffalo marrow, loons or other wild ducks, and goose,
potatoes, turnips, and abundance of bread.
We had no necessity to dry the meat we had brought, as it would keep
frozen through the winter. Near the forts the flesh of the buffaloes
killed in winter is preserved through the summer in the following way:--
An ice-pit is made, capable of containing the carcasses of six or seven
hundred buffaloes. Ice, from a neighbouring river, is cut into square
blocks of a uniform size with saws, like the blocks sent over to England
from Wenham Lake. With these the floor and sides of the pit are lined,
and cemented together with water thrown on them, which freezes hard.
Each carcass, without being skinned, is divided into four quarters, and
they are piled in layers in the pit till it is filled up. It is then
covered with a thick coating of straw, which is again protected from the
sun and rain by a shed. In this way the meat is kept perfectly good
through the summer, and is more tender and of better flavour than when
fresh.
We entered into friendly relations with a tribe of Indians, who had
taken up their winter quarters in a wood five or six miles off, and from
them we learned many devices for catching game, which our own people
were not accustomed to practise. We had won their hearts by supplying
them with meat, and as they discovered that we could kill buffalo with
our rifles with more certainty than they could with their old firearms,
or bows and arrows, they were anxious to get us to accompany them in any
hunting expedition, knowing that their share of game would be larger
than any amount they could catch alone.
The three chief men were called by us, Eagle-eye, Quick-ear, and
Wide-awake. Eagle-eye came to us one day to say that some buffalo had
been seen very near the station, and invited us to go out and shoot
them. The Indians undertook to shoot too, if we would go to a distance
and kill the rest as they ran off. Our party was quickly ready, and off
we set--the Indians carrying some skins, the object of which we did not
understand. After walking eight or ten miles, Eagle-eye called a halt.
Quick-ear produced the skin of a buffalo calf, and Wide-awake that of a
wolf, into which they respectively got; while Eagle-eye, telling us to
imitate him, led away to the right.
"There, you see, we make one big snake," he observed, as we prepared to
follow his footsteps. "The buffalo see us long way off; think we snake
among grass."
What the buffalo thought I do not know, but certainly they took no
notice of us--indeed we were a long way off, and perhaps they were
engaged in watching the proceedings of Quick-ear, who was representing
the antics of an innocent little buffalo calf. Nearer and nearer the
little calf they drew; now they stopped, rather doubtful; then they
advanced a little and stopped again. Suddenly a wolf, represented by
Wide-awake, appeared on the scene, and the calf bellowed piteously; the
wolf sprang savagely on him; the kind-hearted buffaloes could stand it
no longer, but rushed forward to rescue their young fellow-creature,
when Quick-ear and Wide-awake, jumping up with their rifles, which had
been lying by their sides, in their hands, let fly, and brought down two
of them. The rest scampered off towards where we were posted, nor did
they appear to notice us till four more of their number had fallen, when
the survivors turned, and were soon out of reach of our rifles.
The Indians, on seeing the success of their stratagem, sprang forward,
shouting and leaping with joy, and soon had the animals cut up and ready
for transportation to their lodges and our huts. Our horse-sleighs soon
after appeared, followed by theirs, dragged by dogs, and guided by their
squaws. Before moving, a feast was held by our Red friends; the men
eating first, and enjoying the tit bits, then the hard-worked women were
fed, and lastly the dogs came in for their share. When the variety of
ways employed to kill buffalo is remembered, it will not appear
surprising that their numbers are rapidly decreasing.
The winter seemed to pass far more speedily away than we could have
expected, with a very limited supply of books, and with no society
except such as our savage visitors afforded us. The fact was, however,
that we were never idle, though it must be confessed that we took a very
large share of sleep, and ate large amounts of meat and fat, for the
sake of generating heat in our system. Day after day we were out in the
woods trapping, and soon became very expert trappers. We caught the
fox, the wolverine, the pokan or fisher, marten, otter, and other
animals, for the sake of their skins, and occasionally fell in with the
loon and other wild fowl. Our equipment was very simple. Doubling up
our blankets, and uniting the four corners, we formed a pack to contain
our pemmican, frying-pan, tin kettle and cup, tea, sugar, and salt,
pepper, garlic, and any other small luxury. We had also brought with us
from Red River some steel traps; a rifle, ammunition, axe, knife, fire
bag and lucifer matches, completed the equipment of each man. Indeed,
these last should never be overlooked by those who have to traverse wild
countries; a single tin box is easily stowed away handy, and will last a
long while. We carried our blankets--as an Irish woman or a gipsy does
her child and other worldly goods, at our backs, with a strap across the
breast. Well secured from cold, with snow shoes on our feet, we sallied
forth into the pathless forest, trusting to our faithful pocket-compass
to find our way back again, or to the guidance of our Indians.
The plan was to set our traps as we went out, and to visit them on our
return. The steel traps made to catch wolves are of necessity heavy and
strong, so that we could only carry a few of them, and had therefore to
make others on a more primitive plan. When the beaver was less scarce
than now, the beaver-trap was the usual mode of taking the creature; but
beavers are now all but extinct, so we spared the few which got into the
traps, and let them loose again. The steel traps are like our rat
traps, but have no teeth, and require a strong man to set them. They
are secured by a chain to a long stick laid on the ground, and are
covered over with snow, pieces of meat being scattered about to tempt
the animals to the neighbourhood. The wolf, as he goes prowling about,
is nearly certain to get a foot into the trap. Off he goes with it, but
is soon brought up by the chain and log, and they seldom had got far
when we found them. The wooden trap is formed by driving a number of
stakes, so as to form a palisade, in the shape of a half oval. The
enclosure is large enough to allow an animal to push in half its body,
but not to turn round. A heavy log is supported by a perpendicular
stick, with another horizontal, having the bait at the end of it, much
as the brick is in a boy's bird-trap at home. The animal, if he touches
the bait--a piece of tough meat or a bird--brings the log down on his
shoulder and is crushed to death. We could, after a time, construct
thirty or forty of these in a morning, so there was ample interest and
excitement in ascertaining, as we walked back, whether our traps had
caught anything. Our greatest enemy was the glutton, or wolverine, or
as Garoupe called him, the _carcajou_. He is rather larger than an
English fox, with a shaggy coat and very broad feet, armed with sharp
claws. He is the most cunning and inquisitive of animals. Nothing
escapes his notice as he ranges his native wilds, and he can climb a
tree or dig a hole with his claws. He used to take the baits out of our
traps by digging through the back, and so getting at it. He was not to
be caught by poison, and he could select pieces without it, and bite in
two those he suspected contained any. Now and then, though, he is
caught by poison, but only when very severely pressed by hunger. When
he gets his foot in a steel trap he drags it off, though heavy enough to
catch a wolf, and instead of biting off the limb, as the mink and fox
will do, he retires to some secluded spot and there endeavours to
withdraw it, in which he often succeeds.
Hunting and trapping in winter, though very interesting and exciting,
are not to be followed without considerable hardships. Often the cold
was so intense that though sitting close to a blazing fire, and thickly
clothed, it was impassible to keep warm. Our usual dress was three
flannel shirts, one of duffel, and another of leather, over all; fur
caps, protecting our ears and necks, mittens of moose-skin without
fingers, easily pulled off; and secured by a string round the neck, and
large moccasins over numerous pairs of socks.