THE IROQUOIS PLAYS HIS LAST CARD
The _Bois-Brulés_ and Indian marauders, who gathered to our camp, were
drunk with the most intoxicating of all stimulants--human blood. This
flush of victory excited the redskins' vanity to a boastful frenzy.
There was wild talk of wiping the pale-face out of existence; and if a
weaker man than Grant had been at the head of the forces, not a white in
the settlement would have escaped massacre. In spite of the bitterness
to which the slaughter at Seven Oaks gave rise, I think all fair-minded
people have acknowledged that the settlers owed their lives to the
warden's efforts.
That night pandemonium itself could not have presented a more hideous
scene than our encampment. The lust of blood is abhorrent enough in
civilized races, but in Indian tribes, whose unrestrained, hard life
abnormally develops the instincts of the tiger, it is a thing that may
not be portrayed. Let us not, with the depreciatory hypocrisy,
characteristic of our age, befool ourselves into any belief that
barbaric practices were more humane than customs which are the flower of
civilized centuries. Let us be truthful. Scientific cruelty may do its
worst with intricate armaments; but the blood-thirst of the Indian
assumed the ghastly earnest of victors drinking the warm life-blood of
dying enemies and of torturers laving hands in a stream yet hot from
pulsing hearts.
Decked out in red-stained trophies with scalps dangling from their
waists, the natives darted about like blood-whetted beasts; and the
half-breeds were little better, except that they thirsted more for booty
than life. There was loud vaunting over the triumph, the ignorant rabble
imagining their warriors heroes of a great battle, instead of the
murderous plunderers they were. Pierre, the rhymester, according to his
wont, broke out in jubilant celebration of the half-breeds' feat:[A]
Ho-ho! List you now to a tale of truth
Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, proudly sing,
Of the _Bois-Brulés_, whose deeds dismay
The hearts of the soldiers serving the king!
Swift o'er the plain rode our warriors brave
To meet the gay voyageurs come from the sea.
Out came the bold band that had pillaged our land,
And we taught them the plain is the home of the free.
We were passing along to the landing-place,
Three hostile whites we bound on the trail.
The enemy came with a shout of acclaim,
We flung back their taunts with the shriek of a gale.
"They have come to attack us," our people cry.
Our cohorts spread out in a crescent horn,
Their path we bar in a steel scimitar,
And their empty threats we flout with scorn.
They halt in the face of a dauntless foe,
They spit out their venom of baffled rage!
Honor, our breath to the very death!
So we proffer them peace, or a battle-gage.
The governor shouts to his soldiers, "Draw!"
'Tis the enemy strikes the first, fateful blow!
Our men break from line, for the battle-wine
Of a fighting race has a fiery glow.
The governor thought himself mighty in power.
The shock of his strength--Ha-ha!--should be known
From the land of the sea to the prairie free
And all free men should be overthrown![B]
But naked and dead on the plain lies he,
Where the carrion hawk, and the sly coyote
Greedily feast on the great and the least,
Without respect for a lord of note.
The governor thought himself mighty in power.
He thought to enslave the _Bois-Brulés_,
"Ha-ha," laughed the hawk. Ho-ho! Let him mock.
"Plain rangers ride forth to slay, to slay."
Whose cry outpierces the night-bird's note?
Whose voice mourns sadly through sighing trees?
What spirits wail to the prairie gale?
Who tells his woes to the evening breeze?
Ha-ha! We know, though we tell it not.
We fought with them till none remained.
The coyote knew, and his hungry crew
Licked clean the grass where the turf was stained.
Ho-ho! List you all to my tale of truth.
'Tis I, Pierre, the rhymester, this glory tell
Of freedom saved and brave hands laved
In the blood of tyrants who fought and fell!
The whole scene was repugnant beyond endurance. My ears were so filled
with the death cries heard in the afternoon, I had no relish for
Pierre's crude recital of what seemed to him a glorious conquest. I
could not rid my mind of that dying boy's sad face. Many half-breeds
were preparing to pillage the settlement. Intending to protect the
Sutherland home and seek the dead lad's body, I borrowed a fresh horse
and left the tumult of the camp.
I made a detour of the battle-field in order to reach the Sutherland
homestead before night. I might have saved myself the trouble; for every
movable object--to the doors and window sashes--had been taken from the
little house, whether by father and daughter before going to the fort,
or by the marauders, I did not know.
It was unsafe to return by the wooded river trail after dark and I
struck directly to the clearing and followed the path parallel to the
bush. When I reached Seven Oaks, I was first apprised of my whereabouts
by my horse pricking forward his ears and sniffing the air uncannily. I
tightened rein and touched him with the spur, but he snorted and jumped
sideways with a suddenness that almost unseated me, then came to a
stand, shaking as if with chill. Something skulked across the trail and
gained cover in the woods. With a reassuring pat, I urged my horse back
towards the road, for the prairie was pitted with badger and gopher
holes; but the beast reared, baulked and absolutely refused to be either
driven, or coaxed.
"Wise when men are fools!" said I, dismounting. Bringing the reins over
his head, I tried to pull him forward; but he planted all fours and
jerked back, almost dragging me off my feet.
"Are you possessed?" I exclaimed, for if ever horror were plainly
expressed by an animal, it was by that horse. Legs rigid, head bent
down, eyes starting forward and nostrils blowing in and out, he was a
picture of terror.
Something wriggled in the thicket. The horse rose on his hind legs,
wrenched the rein from my hand and scampered across the plain. I sent a
shot into the bush. There was a snarl and a scurrying through the
underbrush.
"Pretty bold wolf! Never saw a broncho act that way over a coyote
before!"
I might as well find the body of the English lad before trying to catch
my horse, so I walked on. Suddenly, in the silver-white of a starry sky,
I saw what had terrified the animal. Close to the shrubbery lay the
stark form of a white man, knees drawn upwards and arms spread out like
the bars of a cross. Was that the lad I had known? I rushed towards the
corpse--but as quickly turned away. From downright lack of courage, I
could not look at it; for the body was mutilated beyond semblance to
humanity. Would that I had strength and skill to paint that dead figure
as it was! Then would those, who glory in the shedding of blood, glory
to their shame; and the pageant of war be stripped of all its false
toggery revealing carnage and slaughter in their revolting nakedness.
I could not look back to know if that were the lad, but ran aimlessly
towards the scene of the Seven Oaks fray. As I approached, there was a
great flapping of wings. Up rose buzzards, scolding in angry discord at
my interruption. A pack of wolves skulked a few feet off and eyed me
impatiently, boldly waiting to return when I left. The impudence of the
brutes enraged me and I let go half a dozen charges, which sent them to
a more respectful distance. Here were more bodies like the first. I
counted eight within a stone's throw, and there were twice as many
between Seven Oaks and the fort. Where they lay, I could tell very well;
for hawks wheeled with harsh cries overhead and there was a vague
movement of wolfish shapes along the ground.
What possessed me to hover about that dreadful scene, I cannot imagine,
unless the fear of those creatures returning; but I did not carry a
thing with which I could bury the dead. Involuntarily, I sought out
Rogers and Governor Semple; for I had seen the death of each. It was
when seeking these, that I thought I distinguished the faintest motion
of one figure still clothed and lying apart from the others.
The sight riveted me to the spot.
Surely it was a mistake! The form could not have moved! It must have
been some error of vision, or trick of the shadowy starlight; but I
could not take my eyes from the prostrate form. Again the body
moved--distinctly moved--beyond possibility of fancy, the chest heaving
up and sinking like a man struggling but unable to rise. With the
ghastly dead and the ravening wolves all about, the movement of that
wounded man was strangely terrifying and my knees knocked with fear, as
I ran to his aid.
The man was an Indian, but his face I could not see; for one hand
staunched a wound in his head and the other gripped a knife with which
he had been defending himself. My first thought was that he must be a
Nor'-Wester, or his body would not have escaped the common fate; but if
a Nor'-Wester, why had he been left on the field? So I concluded he was
one of the camp-followers, who had joined our forces for plunder and
come to a merited end. Still he was a man; and I stooped to examine him
with a view to getting him on my horse and taking him back to the camp.
At first he was unconscious of my presence. Gently I tried to remove the
left hand from his forehead, but at the touch, out struck the right
hand in vicious thrusts of the hunting-knife, one blind cut barely
missing my arm.
"Hold, man!" I cried, "I'm no foe, but a friend!" and I caught the right
arm tightly.
At the sound of my voice, the left hand swung out revealing a frightful
gash; and the next thing I knew, his left arm had encircled my neck like
the coil of a strangler, five fingers were digging into the flesh of my
throat and Le Grand Diable was making frantic efforts to free his right
hand and plunge that dagger into me. The shock of the discovery threw me
off guard, and for a moment there was a struggle, but only for a moment.
Then the wounded man fell back, writhing in pain, his face contorted
with agony and hate. I do not think he could see me. He must have been
blind from that wound. I stood back, but his knife still cut the air.
"Le Grand Diable! Fool!" I said, "I will not harm you! I give you the
white man's word, I will not hurt you!"
The right arm fell limp and still. Had I, by some strange irony, been
led to this spot that I might witness the death of my foe? Was this the
end of that long career of evil?
"Le Grand Diable!" I cried, going a pace nearer, which seemed to bring
back the ebbing life. "Le Grand Diable! You cannot stay here among the
wolves. Tell me whereto find Miriam and I'll take you back to the camp!
Tell me and no one shall harm you! I will save you!"
The thin lips moved. He was saying, or trying to say, something.
"Speak louder!" and I bent over him. "Speak the truth and I take you to
the camp!"
The lips were still moving, but I could not hear a sound.
"Speak louder!" I shouted. "Where is Miriam? Where is the white woman?"
I put my ear to his lips, fearful that life might slip away before I
could hear.
There was a snarl through the glistening set teeth. The prostrate body
gave an upward lurch. With one swift, treacherous thrust, he drove his
knife into my coat-sleeve, grazing my forearm. The effort cost him his
life. He sank down with a groan. The sightless, bloodshot eyes opened.
Le Grand Diable would never more feign death.
I jerked the knife from my coat, hurled it from me, sprang up and fled
from the field as if it had been infected with a pest, or I pursued by
gends. Never looking back and with superstitious dread of the dead
Indian's evil spirit, I tore on and on till, breath-spent and exhausted,
I threw myself down with the North-West camp-fires in sight.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] It should scarcely be necessary for the author to state that these
are the sentiments of the Indian poet expressing the views of the savage
towards the white man, and not the white man towards the savage. The
poem is as close a translation of the original ballad sung by Pierre in
Metis dialect the night of the massacre, as could be given. The Indian
nature is more in harmony with the hawk and the coyote than with the
white man; hence the references. Other thoughts embodied in this crude
lay are taken directly from the refrains of the trappers chanted at that
time.
[B] Governor Semple unadvisedly boasted that the shock of his power
would be felt from Montreal to Athabasca.