A COUNCIL OF WAR
A week later the camp-crier one morning went up and down among the
lodges to call the warriors, and Simpson, Fitzpatrick, Halpin—who had
arrived from Cold Lake—and myself, to a council. They were going, he
said, to Fort Pitt on the following morning to take it and wanted to
talk over and decide on the best plans for accomplishing their object
before they left.
We found the old chief and his men forming a large double circle in the
dancing tent, a big lodge formed of several smaller ones. Big Bear sat
in state at one side within the circle. Beside him on the right sat
Wandering Spirit, wearing his war bonnet with the five glistening eagle
plumes. He was filling an old stone pipe belonging to the chief with
tobacco and red willow bark.
Big Bear was in an amiable mood. He grew reminiscent as the pipe was
handed to him.
“This pipe is very dear to me,” he said. “It was smoked by all my wives
in turn. One by one they have gone to the Sand Hills, and this is all I
have to remember them by.”
Followed the ceremony of lighting the Peace Pipe in council. Taking the
stem between his lips, Big Bear applied the lighted match handed to
him by Wandering Spirit to the bowl. He took a long pull and tightly
closing his lips so that none of the smoke should escape, turned the
stem in succession to the four cardinal points of the compass, then
toward the ground; finally, bowing his head, he raised it straight up
before him, so that the Great Spirit might be first to smoke. After
this he blew the first draught of smoke from his own lips, muttered a
prayer and after taking a few draws himself, passed the pipe to the
man on his left. It then travelled from mouth to mouth, each warrior
in turn taking a few pulls, around the circle. The purpose of this
ceremony is to propitiate the Kitse Manito and ask his guidance in the
matter before the council. It will be noticed that the pipe follows the
course of the sun, indicating the association of his deity in the mind
of the red man with the most powerful visible celestial body in his
simple and beautiful religion.
When all, ourselves included, had smoked, Big Bear rose and spoke,
making a strong plea for the course urged upon him by Simpson and
myself and asking those present to state their views, we white men
first as having a knowledge of the usages of our nations in war.
Fitzpatrick—an American ex-soldier—Simpson and myself, in turn, begged
the warriors to be guided by their chief, assuring them they would
never regret sparing the lives of the comparatively defenceless people
at Pitt, among them many women and children. It was customary, we said,
for a superior force to allow a small body of the enemy to surrender
and march off unharmed, rather than to attack them.
Several Indians followed and supported our plan. One man thanked us
for the suggestion. It would be much simpler to lure the police out of
the fort by fair promises and then surround and kill them in the open
than to attack them under cover of the buildings. Wandering Spirit said
they had not spared our lives thus far to have us dictate to them what
they should do in time of war. Imasees said Riel’s orders were to kill
the police. As for the Plain Crees, they meant to fight. They had men
enough to capture and burn the fort and kill everyone in it. If the
police went they would take with them their guns and ammunition, things
the Indians most needed.
The council broke up and we went back to our tents, saddened and
discouraged. Our efforts had come to nothing, apparently. There was
slight chance the suggestions we had made would serve any purpose,
except to further a plot to wipe out the garrison at Pitt by treachery
instead of in open attack. Big Bear, however, promised if possible to
get the police away in safety and the sequel shows that the old chief
was not unmindful of his word.
Early next morning the crier again went through the camp. The warriors
were to prepare to go to Pitt. Missa Jim and his young men (Halpin and
myself) must accompany them. Simpson and I were sitting in his tent
when these commands reached our ears.
“The swine!” exploded the old man. “They want to use us—make us write
letters to decoy the police out of the fort, so that they can kill them
like sheep. I’ll see them damned first! They won’t get me to go.”
“Or me,” I said. “Life is sweet, but I don’t value mine as against
those of thirty of my fellows.”
Simpson called his stepsons, Louis and Benjamin Patenaude, and they
came with their guns. A moment later Wandering Spirit, with Imasees
and two of the murderers, entered. The war chief expressed surprise
that we were not preparing to go to Pitt. He ordered us to get ready at
once.
Then Louis Patenaude got up—and there was in his black eyes that deadly
gleam that I—and the war chief—had seen in them when he held the knife
over Wandering Spirit’s heart.
“My stepfather,” he said, “is not strong. He is an old man. He has
lived among you since he was a boy and has always used you well. But
how have you used him? Why are you persecuting him? You have taken his
horses, you have looted and burned his house. Isn’t that enough, that
you should wish to drag him after you around the country? He will not
go!”
The four were armed and painted, but the war chief did not care again
to provoke Louis.
“But the young man?” he said, indicating me.
“Tell him I’m staying with Mr. Simpson,” I said. “He is my chief and my
place is with him.”
The war chief submitted, but his anger was evident. They got up and
went out. As Imasees reached the door, he turned and said over his
shoulder:
“Remember, if any of our people are hurt at Pitt, it will be hard to
keep the young men from doing harm when they get back.”
It was his parting shot. For our refusal to assist in their treacherous
scheme, we were to be held accountable should any of them suffer. Under
these circumstances, it may be imagined that our feelings were not the
cheerfulest during the next few days.
Only a few old men, women and children were left at Frog Lake. The
warriors, mounted, assembled at the lower end of the camp. They, as
well as their ponies, were decked in all their finery. With their paint
and feathers, their polished weapons, gaudy blankets, beaded leggings
and moccasins, they made a picturesque panorama against the setting of
green grass and delicate aspens, the distant hills, the glint of blue
waters in the lakes below, and immediately behind, the white-canvas
lodges with their smoke-browned tops and crossed poles. They came
riding slowly around the camp, their war-chant rising weirdly on the
fresh spring air, their ponies prancing under their flashy trappings.
They reached the far end again, broke into a gallop and with wild cries
and a crash from their guns, clattered away in the direction of Fort
Pitt.
Halpin was the only white man to accompany them; he had no option.
Simpson, Fitzpatrick and myself might easily have escaped in their
absence, but there were the two white women in the camp; we might yet
be able to do them some service. At all events they could not but have
felt that we had deserted them had they been left alone among these
savages and we could not have found it in our hearts to go. In any
case, almost all the bands for three hundred miles east along both
Saskatchewans we knew had risen and the whites in the country had
taken refuge in the police forts and towns which had been fortified;
the prospect of being able to bring relief to the other prisoners
could we have reached Battleford in safety was slight, and Battleford,
the nearest fort or settlement, was more than a hundred miles away,
surrounded by hostiles who had murdered and pillaged just as had those
in whose hands we were. Moreover, Big Bear’s band had asserted that
should one escape they would kill all other prisoners. This threat
alone was sufficient to hold us.
So we sat down to wait with what patience we might for the return of
the belligerents from Fort Pitt.
Henry Quinn arrived on the morning of April 3rd at Fort Pitt, after
his thirty-five mile tramp through the slush under the friendly cover
of a moonless night. Warned by Mondion, he had managed to slip away
unobserved from Frog Lake through the thicketed hollows shortly before
the massacre began. In fact he had gone only a mile or two and after
crossing a chain of low-lying lakes, was working his way stealthily
up through the hills on the other side, when the faint mutter of
rifle-fire reached his ear, mounted and died away. Quinn was a nephew
of the murdered Indian agent. He had no difficulty in accounting for
these sounds or in interpreting to Captain Dickens what had occurred
at the settlement—information confirming reports brought to Pitt by
George Mann, farming instructor at Onion Lake, who had arrived there
with his family the previous night. Mann had been told of the massacre
by friendly Indian runners who had witnessed it. Quinn was sworn in by
Captain Dickens as a special constable.
[Illustration:
TOM QUINN. CAPT. DICKENS. JAMES K. SIMPSON. STANLEY SIMPSON. ANGUS
MCKAY.
GROUP AT FORT PITT, 1884.
_Facing p. 110._
]