MORE DAYS IN CAMP
Spring came on apace; the days grew warm. About the camp raced the
boys, the younger nude, shooting with bow and arrows at gophers and
marks or rolling in the dust with wolfish puppies. Here gambols a
youngster with bare legs, about whose brown little body is wrapped a
mounted policeman’s brass-buttoned scarlet tunic, secured at Pitt.
Outside this, hanging about his hips, is hooked a pair of ladies’
corsets, got by his father at the same place and time. He is a quaint
picture as he frisks about with a ready bow, the envy of his playmates.
An ancient redskin passes near them. He wears a very dark, ragged and
dirty blanket folded about his stooped shoulders, and on his head a
nice clean freshly-pipe-clayed military helmet. He feels that he is
elegantly attired and as is befitting his gait is stately and solemn.
He and the youngsters are on the same intellectual plane.
As time passed and we grew perhaps in the general esteem of the
Indians, they were ready to provide both Stanley Simpson and myself
with wives. Lone Man, with whom Simpson lived, was particularly
anxious that he should marry his young daughter. Simpson got round the
difficulty I believe by telling him he already had a wife and being
a white man, his principles would not allow him to take another. My
defence was poverty—one of the most dependable, year-round, hardworking
defences of which I have any knowledge.
When a dog-feast was held and there was a likelihood of the prisoners
being invited to partake, I tried to keep out of sight. It is a grave
affront to refuse to eat when an Indian places food of whatever kind
before one. After Big Bear had spoken, urging that some of our clothing
be returned to us, the camp one day gave a dog-feast and asked the
prisoners to attend. The Indians’ commendable purpose was to give them
bedding and clothing. I saw Kahneepotaytayo coming to ask the whites,
but I had rather get along with the rags I wore and the one cowskin
I slept on than receive all the blankets and wearing apparel in the
world at the price of eating stewed dog. It is probably delicious,
but I imagine one has to cultivate a taste for it. Nursing this idea,
I kept carefully out of the way of the head dancer, slipping from
lodge to lodge and finally doubling back and eluding him altogether.
However, the Indians were good enough to set apart a blanket for me,
notwithstanding my studied avoidance of their intended hospitality. It
came useful a little later when I had to guard Louis Patenaude’s horses
at night.
A few weeks after coming into camp Stanley Simpson had an attack of
quinsy. His throat was so swollen and inflamed that he could eat
no solid food and for several days had almost starved. Then Lone
Man’s wife came to him one evening with a bowl of broth. Simpson was
ravenous; intense yearning filled his eyes as he sniffed at it. The
aroma was most intriguing. Still, he hesitated. He wished most ardently
to drink it, yet he feared to ask questions and he did not dare touch
it without. And he might not care for it when he got an answer.
“What’s it made of?” he said at length desperately.
“Meat,” said Mrs. Lone Man, non-committally.
“That must mean beef,” Simpson observed thoughtfully.
“Smells nice—looks all right,” I remarked encouragingly. I was glad to
see one of the dearest friends I ever had want to take something, no
matter what. And he drank—drank it with relish. A moment later Mrs.
Lone Man said with a grin:
“I suppose you don’t know what it was?”
Simpson looked up in alarm. He shook his head.
“Well,” said the warm-hearted lady; “dog soup.”
And Simpson went out with a rush and parted with his broth in much
mental and physical anguish.
We were moving camp. Stanley Simpson and I had been walking near
the tail of the procession and arriving at the new camp-ground we
found some lodges already pitched. Occasionally an Indian lacking
transportation left his lodge poles at one camp and cut others when he
reached the next.
We crossed a poplar bluff near the new camp. Some of the Indians were
cutting poles and Catfish, a Chippewyan, made a feint of slashing at
my legs as we passed him. The axe swung uncomfortably near. The move
was quite unexpected and naturally I jumped. This amused Catfish—and
pleased him also; I was easily scared, he said. It was a great thing
to scare a white man. I said nothing, but I made a mental note of the
incident. Some day I hoped to repay Catfish in a way he mightn’t like.
The chance came sooner than I had looked for. Catfish was a tireless
braggart, so I knew him to be a coward. However, policy still demanded
that we treat such pleasantries on the part of our captors as jokes.
Later, the demands of policy were less exacting. We began to know our
men.
We were camped on the bank of the Pipestone. A group of Indians one
morning were amusing themselves “pulling sticks.” I was resting on my
back in the grass near them with my knees drawn up. Other prisoners
lounged about.
The game is a simple one. Two men sit on the ground, facing, their
knees bent and the soles of their feet opposed. Their arms rest on
their knees and their hands grasp a round stick two feet long, held
fairly between them above their feet. At a signal both pull, until one
is lifted or hauled over by the other. It is a simple test of strength
though there is a knack to it.
Catfish came over, leaned across my legs and pushing me with the stick,
invited me to try my back against his. I did not care for the game
and told him so. He persisted. I jolted him slightly with a foot. He
flared up and grabbed me round the knees. Then I, too, became earnest.
I drew my feet back suddenly and planted them in the Chippewyan’s
chest. I happened to be wearing boots that morning. Catfish described
a complete parabola off the back of his neck, and I rose and looked at
him smilingly as he got up, sputtering and coughing, some distance away.
Halpin expostulated in an undertone. He said I was indiscreet and I
expect he was right; anyway, I told him some things I might better
have left unsaid. Catfish looked displeased. He mumbled several
uncomplimentary epithets and concluded by remarking that he might
very likely kill me. I told him to come and I would save him the
trouble by reversing the programme. He did not come, and I reminded
him that he had once told me I was easily scared. The Wood Crees
laughed—humiliation of humiliations! And the prestige and pride of
Catfish, chief brave of the Chippewyans, were irretrievably damaged.
Later, I took occasion to impress upon General Strange and a board
of inquiry what a good Indian Catfish was. I do not think Catfish
appreciated my interest.
I was standing one day outside Patenaude’s lodge when an Indian came
up and taking my arm, led me to an open space between the lodges. He
pointed to some animals grazing a short way off.
“You see that white horse?” he asked. I nodded. “That’s the one I was
riding when I told you to go on, I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not likely to forget him,” I replied.
He was the Indian I had seen chasing the half-breed Goulet with a gun
during the massacre; Goulet had given him the horse to spare his life.
Later, in dread of what seemed imminent death at his hands, I had come
face to face with this Indian riding the horse, and for some reason
which I am unable even to-day to guess at, he had permitted me to
continue walking instead of stretching me lifeless at his feet. So I
expressed my sense of deep gratitude for his unquestioned magnanimity.
As the days grew long, Stanley Simpson and myself obtained permission
to leave camp and hunt in the woods and lakes abounding everywhere
along the Saskatchewan. We borrowed guns from our keepers and were put
on our parole not to attempt escape. For that matter, and for reasons
already stated, we had no thought of making such an attempt. Many a
long afternoon we tramped about together, as we had done often before
in happier times, enjoying the glorious spring of the North-west and
escaping for a few hours the unrelished society of our savage hosts.
The ducks, prairie chickens, rabbits and occasional eggs we brought
home gave us a welcome change from our usual bill of fare.
Simpson was the most enthusiastic sportsman I ever knew. He would wade
into the cold water of a slough to his neck, holding his gun high, and
stand like a post, only his head showing, for half an hour, on the
chance of getting a shot at a duck that had had the perversity to keep
beyond range of the shore. I had always considered my love of sport
above the average, but it never carried me to such lengths as did that
of that prince of good fellows, Stanley Simpson.
We had been out a mile or two from camp one afternoon and were
strolling leisurely homeward. Nearing the lodges we met a number of
Indians riding furiously toward the Saskatchewan River, the north bank
of which lay not far distant. We saw at once that something unusual was
in the wind. Could the troops we were expecting have been reported?
At the camp a few minutes later we quickly learned the reason for the
excitement. Henry Quinn and Pierre Blondin were missing—it was believed
they were attempting to escape! The situation looked dark for them
should they be caught. It also looked dark for us who remained, for
the Indians had repeatedly declared that if one prisoner escaped they
would kill all the others.
We spent a bad quarter of an hour; then the Indians returned with
the fugitives. For they had been fugitives. They were taken into
Pritchard’s tent. Big Bear’s soldiers gathered at the door outside,
armed and in anything but a peaceful mood. It had grown dusk. I was
standing near, awaiting developments, when Patenaude came up to me, his
gun on his arm, and said roughly:
“Go to my tent and stay there!”
Never before had he spoken to me in such a fashion and I obeyed
immediately, for I knew he must have a reason. He came in an hour
later and explained: Big Bear’s band had been determined to kill the
fugitives but the Wood Crees once more stepped in and saved them.
Kahweechetwaymot entered Pritchard’s tent, sat down before Quinn and
began to polish his revolver with a silk handkerchief.
“Go outside to-night and I will shoot you!” he told Quinn. A moment
later, when things looked darkest, two Wood Crees of the Saddle Lake
band came with their guns and announced that they intended to protect
Quinn. “If you harm him it means war between the Wood and Plain Crees,”
was their ultimatum.
Big Bear’s men, for all their swagger, were not willing to risk war.
The Wood Indians stayed all night with Quinn. Louis explained to me
that I had been in danger outside. In case of trouble he wanted me out
of harm’s way.
Our amusements in camp were not sufficiently numerous or distracting
to keep us up late at night. In some way I do not now remember I had
managed to secure again the violin I had had at Frog Lake. It helped to
pass the time. Then Simpson and I visited the McLeans often in their
tents and passed many an hour pleasantly that would otherwise have
crawled, chatting with Mr. and Mrs. McLean and their daughters. Having
no books we could not read and so smoked the more. Four-Sky Thunder
kept me in tobacco. Lone Man had a beautiful meerschaum pipe that had
belonged to Father Marchand, the murdered priest, I owned a nice briar
which Lone Man coveted and we exchanged. The meerschaum I gave later to
Senator Girard, of Manitoba.
Lone Man was an unwavering friend of mine. He said that when the cruel
war was over he would take me and go across country to the Missouri
River, the land of the Kitchemokoman. I should take a position there
with a trading company and he would camp close by. I could live with
him and furnish the tea and provisions for the family. As Simpson had
refused his daughter, I might have her. The picture was an alluring one
and I did not think it necessary at the time to inform him that I was
too modest to think I might be able to fill such a prominent place in
it.
“_N’chawamis_,” said Lone Man one day, “when the soldiers come I will
give you a rifle and you will fight with us against them.”
I said my aim was poor. There were Indians in camp without rifles who
would be capable of much more effective work; he had better loan it to
them. I had a violin and while the fighting was in progress I would
furnish the music. Doubtless the troops would have a band and it
wouldn’t do to show that we were behind them in any way. I think Lone
Man accepted my views. At all events he did not offer to supply me with
a weapon when the troops under General Strange arrived.
Mrs. Delaney and Mrs. Gowanlock rode with Pritchard on his wagon when
camp was moved. The McLeans were allowed to borrow a team to pull
their belongings. Many of the children in their big family were very
young and it was not always possible for everybody to ride. Patenaude
sometimes gave me a seat on his wagon which I resigned to one of the
McLeans. When it became necessary to abandon the wagons after the
Frenchman’s Butte battle, the situation was made harder for Mrs. McLean
and the girls. They were obliged to walk and not infrequently to carry
the toddlers of the family on their backs.
Little Poplar, early in our captivity, wished to add the two eldest
girls to his seraglio. He had only six wives. It was amusing and
somewhat alarming. I do not know how the difficulty was got round but
he was in some manner induced to forgo his polygamous inclinations in
so far as white wives were concerned.
Hodson, a stocky, pockmarked, cross-eyed little Englishman who wore
glasses and had been the McLeans’ cook at Pitt, was an object of
special and peculiar interest to the Indians. They appeared to regard
him as some new variety of grub, and I know they would have liked to
kill him out of mere idle curiosity to see him squirm. I wonder they
did not do it, but he lived to hang some of them later.