PERILOUS MOMENTS
The new prisoners were distributed among various members of the
different Indian bands. My friend Stanley Simpson was taken in charge
by Lone Man, the intrepid savage who had ridden down and shot Loasby.
A day or two after he arrived in camp, Simpson called on me one
afternoon. He stayed until dark; then, being a stranger in the camp he
did not fancy returning alone to Lone Man’s lodge and I accompanied
him. I sat for a few minutes talking with Lone Man before starting to
return to Patenaude’s lodge.
The trail led through the camp. I had no sooner emerged than I saw in
the vague light cast over the camp by the lodge fires a profile I could
not mistake. It was the head of Wandering Spirit, framed in its dark
setting of curly hair—the profile of the one man I frankly dreaded in
that camp of dreadful men and the sight of whom always set a faster
pace for my heart. He had seen me go through the camp with Simpson and
had stolen out to intercept me on my road back.
He bent forward beside the trail, his arms folded on his chest and his
head inclined in my direction. The muzzle of his rifle protruded above
the blanket drawn round his shoulders. It was the first time I had met
him alone and at night since the massacre, and with my heart beating
rapidly, though outwardly calm, I walked down the trail toward him. He
halted me.
“Where have you been?” he asked. I explained. What did Simpson and
McLean think about the rising, he wanted to know? I had not heard them
say, I equivocated; did they really themselves know? I doubted it. I
brushed past him—walked on to Patenaude’s lodge. I did not look behind,
but queer ripples were chasing up and down my spine as I went along.
Even now, as I write, I fall to wondering why he never took advantage
of the frequent opportunities and finished me, as I never doubted he
wished to do.
A week later five Cree runners from Poundmaker’s reservation, near
Battleford, arrived with messages from Riel. The half-breed rebel chief
complimented Big Bear for his help at Frog Lake, asked him to effect a
junction with Poundmaker and then attack and capture Battleford.
The stories told by the runners differed somewhat in detail. They
had brought no direct message from Poundmaker and Big Bear’s band
apparently distrusted them. A council was called. The messengers were
shown to the open space in its centre. The white men were summoned to
attend and with the half-breeds they formed a segment of the circle.
Imasees was first to speak. He adjured the messengers, as they valued
their lives, to tell the truth, the whole truth; referring to their
conflicting stories. Dressy Man argued that they should be received as
friends, without suspicion.
Wandering Spirit, seated apart from the others at the lower end of
the circle, listened with illdisguised impatience to Dressy Man’s
pacific harangue. His rifle rested against his shoulder and he stabbed
viciously in the sod before him with the long hunting-knife in his
left hand. As usual my gaze was drawn to him, and, as he glanced up
frequently and our eyes met, a black scowl settled upon his face.
As Dressy Man finished, the war chief sprang to his feet. He threw
doubt on the professions of the messengers. Who knew but that they were
emissaries of the whites and wished to lead the band into a trap? Why
had no message come from Poundmaker? For his part, he preferred to go
to Duck Lake direct and join Riel.
“There’s another thing I want to talk about,” he went on, his soft
voice rising into its ominous ring—and here the real purport of his
speech revealed itself: “When I began this war, over there”—he raised
an arm and pointed in the direction of Frog Lake—“I made a vow that
I would never again look on a white man but to kill him!” He strode
rapidly up and down before the council, his rifle on his arm. “Now I
look about me in the camp and see white faces everywhere. They begin to
get together in groups and talk and the next thing we know one of them
will get away and bring trouble on us all. The blood in me boils when I
remember that I have not kept that vow!”
He beat with his hand upon his chest.
“It’s not the half-breeds I mean. They’re our friends, our relations.”
He stopped, bent over and swept his arm in the faces of our little
group.
“_It’s these white people I’m talking about!_”
The half-breeds seated among us edged quietly away; soon not one
remained within six feet of us. A look that aroused in me a sense of
grave peril came into the eyes of the young men banded at the head
of the circle as the war chief spoke. Some who had left their guns
disappeared and returned with them. Tall Pine, one of Big Bear’s
band whom I had befriended frequently during the winter, came round,
stretched himself on the grass behind me, seized my hand and pressed it.
“_N’Chawamis!_ (My brother!)” he murmured in Cree.
I was touched. It meant that I had at least one friend among this
cut-throat band, one champion who would defend me while breath lingered
in his worn old body.
Wandering Spirit went on: “There’s the Company’s chief!” He pointed at
McLean. “When we wanted to get him out of the fort, him and his family,
to save their lives, he was not willing to come. But when we offered to
let the police, our enemies, off, he was not long in getting them out
of the way. And they say he has heaps of ammunition hidden, too, and he
won’t give it to us!”
Wandering Spirit when he said this knew that he lied, but he was trying
to rouse the savage instincts of his followers to commit a second
butchery. Those were moments, indeed, when, in the language of the
Indians, “our hearts were on the ground.”
But when the war chief finished and sat down, Big Bear rose and
stretched out his hands over our heads.
“I pity every white man we have saved!” he cried, his voice tremulous
with emotion. “Instead of speaking bad about them, give back to them
some of the things you have taken. See; they are poor! Naked! And they
are not, like us, often hungry; they do not know how the teeth of the
cold bites! They have always worn warm clothes. Have pity!”
Little Poplar followed the chief. With his arms folded and his head
bent over them in a posture of endearment, he said, smiling, in his
high-pitched voice: “I look upon the children of the Company’s chief as
my own. Do them no harm!”
To our intense relief, the council in another few minutes dissolved and
we returned in safety to our tents. But had Wandering Spirit found one
or two to support him in fanning the incendiary spark, we should never
have quitted our seats alive.