THE MISHAPS OF RALSON.
Among the many young apprentice officers who have been under my
orders in the Hudson's Bay Company, none was so conspicuously
unfortunate as Ralson. His bungling into trouble became so frequent
that it got to be a byword amongst the other clerks and employes and
at last they came to me and said, "Mr. Hunter, you ought really to
forbid Ralson's going outside the stockades unless some one is along
to take care of him."
For the short while he was in our service (three years) he had, as
far as I know, the record for varied mishaps. These were of so
frequent occurrence that at the end of his contract he was allowed to
leave and, by my advice, he returned to his people in England. Good
luck appeared to go hand in hand with his misadventures, for somehow
he came out alive, still, to say the least, the uncertainty every
time he left the post as to whether he would return, kept one's
nerves forever on the ragged edge and notwithstanding, he quickly
became an adept at most work connected with the service. I was glad
to see him leave the service because, being under my orders and not
yet to man's estate, I considered myself in a great measure
responsible for his safety.
I call to memory his having almost cut off the index finger of his
left hand, putting the axe right thru the knuckle joint. This bled
profusely and he was on the sick list for a long while. I think the
next accident very shortly after his hand healed, was to put the
corner of his axe into the cap of his knee. This was more serious
than the other and took weeks to get well. On the whole he was very
fortunate not to have a stiff leg for the remainder of his life.
Another time he undertook to look for a man who was over-due at the
post and was expected to come by a trail near the lake shore. This
was a case of the biter being bitten, for the man turned up all right
and had to join a party to hunt Ralson. As he told us afterwards he
thought to improve on the trail by cutting curves. Dusk coming on he
became hopelessly lost himself, neither being able to find the trail
nor his way out of the forest. The search party only found him the
following afternoon, tattered, hungry and generally woe-begone. A
picture of him taken as he entered the square that day would have
been interesting.
The chances are that he might never have been found and thus have
perished, had a quieting effect on him for some days but the old
restlessness got hold of him again, and he had to be away hunting up
fresh trouble. This time he had a companion and they went in a canoe
to hunt ducks. His companion (a half-breed) debarked on the river
bank to crawl up to some birds and placed an injunction on Ralson to
remain quietly seated in the canoe. When the half-breed returned to
the river bank it was to find the canoe upset and Ralson sitting on
the shore dripping wet. On comparing notes it was found a rifle I had
lent him was at that precise moment at the bottom of the river in
about ten feet of water.
It would never do to return to the post and report this mishap and
the loss of the gun, so Ralson undressed and began to dive for its
recovery. Robert, the man, told me, when describing the adventure,
that he never laughed so much in his life as when sitting on the bank
and watching Ralson making desperate and repeated efforts to recover
the weapon. He was finally successful and exacted a cast iron promise
from Robert not to inform the people at the post. A promise which
Robert promptly broke.
An accident, however, which almost cost him his life, altho after he
was safe at the post, caused us considerable merriment, came about in
this way, and I expect he will remember it as long as he lives, if
yet alive. We were sending an express canoe from the post to the
nearest point on the frontier to mail dispatches to headquarters. The
distance is about fifty miles over lakes, rivers and portages. The
usual time for such a trip was three days for the round trip. Ralson
begged to accompany the men, partly for an outing and partly to see
the frontier village of Luqueville.
Their route lay thru a chain of small lakes on which I had a couple
of bear traps set. To save me a trip to visit these traps I told
Robert, the guide, to kill any bear he found caught and reset the
traps, cache the meat and skin and bring it with them on their return
journey. These instructions were simple enough and I was not anxious
about Ralson. Ralson, however, changed all these plans for, when they
reached the first trap, in which they found a bear caught and Robert
had killed it, Ralson proposed he should stay behind, skin and cut up
the meat and visit the second trap which was a short distance off the
canoe route, and then he was to come home on foot by skirting the
lakes along a sometimes used trail, taking the skin with him.
Robert thought this plan a good one as it would expedite matters for
he and his companion to make a quick trip. When, however, he got back
to the place after an absence of about forty hours and found the skin
and meat lying where he had left them and no sign of Ralson, he was
quick to understand that something had happened. What that something
was, however, he was at a loss to settle in his mind. All at once,
while standing there considering, the thought struck him that
possibly Ralson was caught in the other trap. Such things had
happened to men accustomed to trapping and how much more likely to a
careless fellow like the missing man.
Giving expression to his thought Robert and his companion both
hurried off towards the other trap, which was about a mile up the
creek. When they came to a soft place on the trail and saw only the
footprints of a man going and none returning, Robert was convinced
the poor fellow was in the trap, whether alive or dead they refrained
from contemplating. What a sight met their gaze when coming in sight
of the bear pen! There was poor Ralson lying prone on his back
motionless and to all appearances dead, the great, heavy mass of
metal fast to his leg and his pocket knife with broken blade lying
near at hand, evidently thrown there as useless. They saw how he had
hacked at the strong birch drag to which the chain was fastened until
his knife became useless and then given up in despair.
Ralson, upon examination, was found to be yet alive, but unconscious
and covered with blue flies, his hands and face were swollen from the
mosquito poison and covered with dirt he had scratched while trying
to dig for water. He looked a frightful and pitiful object. Luckily
the men who had found him were quick to think and in a remarkably
short space of time they had the leg freed from its iron clasp. One
ran for a pannikin of cold water while the other twisted a piece of
birch bark into the shape of a horn, with the small end open just
enough to allow the water to trickle thru gently into his throat.
Next they bathed and washed his face and hands and shortly had the
satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes. Robert now held up his head
and placed the remaining water in the pannikin to his lips. This he
managed to drink and blessed, blessed water, it revived him
completely. The other man was then sent back to the canoe for the tea
kettle and provisions, Robert starting a fire during his absence. Tea
and partridge broth made and administered in small quantities at
first helped him to regain his strength. His youthful vitality soon
asserted itself and after he was propped up and made comfortable he
managed to feed himself with some of the shredded meat.
After partaking of this food and drink the boot was cut off, the poor
swollen foot bathed and bound up and then they carried him on an
improvised stretcher very carefully and tenderly out to the canoe.
Excepting two short portages it was all water way to the post at
which place they arrived just at dusk. Souder, our cook, when he saw
them helping Ralson out of the canoe said, "Mein Gott! Vich end of
Ralson is sick dis time? Can't you tole me, eh?" and it was pretty
hard to tell from his limp appearance.
After he had recovered sufficiently to be questioned as to how he got
into the trap he said he had reached into the back of the house to
affix the bait and forgot the trap and stepped into it. The meat that
he had cut up was, of course, spoiled, but the skin after being
washed and scraped, proved to have sustained no damage.
Ralson had no further mishaps in this country for when his foot was
healed he took his discharge and returned to a well-off mother in
London who could afford to have a keeper to care for him if so
inclined. This happened years ago and as I never heard from him he
may have joined the English Yeomanry and gone to South Africa and
been killed on the firing line. If so, his mishaps are finished and
so is my story.
END OF CANADIAN WILDS