North Minnesota--A beautiful Land--Rival Savages-Abercrombie--News from
the North-Plans--A Lonely Shanty--The Red River--Prairies--Sunset--
Mosquitoes--Going North--A Mosquito Night--A Thunder-storm--A Prussian--
Dakota--I ride for it--The Steamer "International"--Pembina.
The stage-coach takes three days to run from St. Cloud to Fort
Abercrombie, about 180 miles. The road was tolerably good, and many
portions of the country were very beautiful to look at. On the second day
one reaches the height of land between the Mississippi and Red Rivers, a
region abounding in clear crystal lakes of every size and shape, the old
home of the great Sioux nation, the true Minnesota of their dreams.
Minnesota ("sky-coloured water"), how aptly did it describe that home
which was no longer theirs! They have left it for ever; the Norwegian and
the Swede now call it theirs, and nothing remains of the red man save
these sounding names of lake and river which long years ago he gave them.
Along the margins of these lakes many comfortable dwellings nestle
amongst oak openings and glades, and hill and valley are golden in
summer with fields of wheat and corn, and little towns are springing up
where twenty years ago the Sioux lodge-poles were the only signs of
habitation; but one cannot look on this transformation without feeling,
with Longfellow, the terrible surge of the white man, "whose breath, like
the blast of the east wind, drifts evermore to the west the scanty smoke
of the wigwams." What savages, too, are they, the successors of the old
race--savages! not less barbarous because they do not scalp, or
war-dance, or go out to meet the Ojibbeway in the woods or the
Assineboine in the plains.
We had passed a beautiful sheet of water called Lake Osakis, and reached
another lake not less lovely, the name of which I did not know.
"What is the name of this place?" I asked the driver who had stopped to
water his horses.
"I don't know," he answered, lifting a bucket of water to his thirsty
steeds; "some God-dam Italian name, I guess." This high rolling land
which divides the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from those of
Hudson Bay lies at an elevation of 1600 feet above the sea level. It is
rich in every thing that can make a country prosperous; and that portion
of the "down-trodden millions," who "starve in the garrets of Europe,"
and have made their homes along that height of land, have no reason to
regret their choice.
On the evening of the second day we stopped for the night at the old
stockaded post of Pomme-de-Terre, not far from the Ottertail River. The
place was foul beyond the power of words to paint it, but a "shake down"
amidst the hay in a cow-house was far preferable to the society of man
close by.
At eleven o'clock on the following morning we reached and crossed the
Ottertail River, the main branch of the Red River, and I beheld with joy
the stream upon whose banks, still many hundred miles distant, stood Fort
Garry. Later in the day, having passed the great level expanse known as
The Breckenridge Flats, the stage drew up at Fort Abercrombie, and I saw
for the first time the yellow, muddy waters of the Red River of the
North. Mr. Nolan, express agent, stage agent, and hotel keeper in the
town of McAulyville, put me up for that night, and although the room
which I occupied was shared by no less than five other individuals, he
nevertheless most kindly provided me with a bed to myself. I can't say
that I enjoyed the diggings very much. A person lately returned from Fort
Garry detailed his experiences of that place and his interview with the
President at some length. A large band of the Sioux Indians was ready to
support the Dictator against all comers, and a vigilant watch was
maintained upon the Pembina frontier for the purpose of excluding
strangers who might attempt to enter from the United States; and
altogether M. Riel was as securely established in Fort Garry as if there
had not existed a red-coat in the universe. As for the Expedition, its
failure was looked upon as a foregone conclusion; nothing had been heard
of it excepting a single rumour, and that was one of disaster. An Indian
coming from beyond Fort Francis, somewhere in the wilderness north of
Lake Superior, had brought tidings to the Lake of the Woods, that forty
Canadian soldiers had already been lost in one of the boiling rapids of
the route. "Not a man will get through!" was the general verdict of
society, as that body was represented at Mr. Nolan's hotel, and, truth'
to say, society seemed elated at its verdict. All this, told to a roomful
of Americans, had no very exhilarating effect upon me as I sat, unknown
and unnoticed, on my portmanteau, a stranger to every one. When our luck
seems at its lowest there is only one thing to be done, and that is to go
on and try again. Things certainly looked badly, obstacles grew bigger as
I got nearer to them--but that is a way they have, and they never grow
smaller merely by being looked at; so I laid my plans for rapid
movement. There was no horse or conveyance of any kind to be had from
Abercrombie; but I discovered in the course of questions that the captain
of the "International" steamboat on the Red River had gone to St. Paul a
week before, and was expected to return to Abercrombie by the next stage,
two days from this time; he had left a horse and Red River cart at
Abercrombie, and it was his intention to start with this horse and cart
for his steamboat immediately upon his arrival by stage from St. Paul.
Now the boat "International" was lying at a part of the Red River known
as Frog Point, distant by land 100 miles north from Abercrombie, and as I
had no means of getting over this 100 miles, except through the agency of
this horse and cart of the captain's, it became a question of the very
greatest importance to secure a place in it, for, be it understood, that
a Red River cart is a very limited conveyance, and a Red River horse, as
we shall hereafter know, an animal capable of wonders, but not of
impossibilities. To pen a brief letter to the captain asking for
conveyance in his cart to Frog Point, and to despatch it-by the stage
back towards St. Cloud, was the work of the following morning, and as two
days had to elapse before the return stage could bring the captain, I set
out to pass that time in a solitary house in the centre of the
Breckenridge Prairie, ten miles back on the stage-road towards St. Cloud.
This move withdrew me from the society of Fort Abercrombie, which for
many reasons was a matter for congratulation, and put me in a position to
intercept the captain on his way to Abercrombie. So-on the 13th of July I
left Nolan's hotel, and, with dog and gun, arrived at the solitary house
which was situated not very far from the junction of the Ottertail and
Bois-des-Sioux River on the Minnesota shore, a small, rough settler's
log-hut which stood out upon the level sea of grass and was visible miles
and miles before one reached it. Here had rested one of those unquiet
birds whose flight is ever westward, building himself a rude nest of such
material as the oak-wooded "bays" of the Red River afforded, and
multiplying--in spite of much opposition to the contrary. His eldest had
been struck dead in his house only a few months before by the
thunderbolt, which so frequently hurls destruction upon the valley of the
Red River. The settler had seen many lands since his old home in Cavan
had been left behind, and but for his name it would have been difficult
to tell his Irish nationality. He had wandered up to Red River Settlement
and wandered back again, had squatted in Iowa, and finally, like some
bird which long wheels in circles ere it settles upon the earth, had
pitched his tent on the Red River.
The Red River--let us trace it while we wait the coming captain who is to
navigate us down its tortuous channel. Close to the Lake Ithaska, in
which the great river Mississippi takes its rise, there is a small sheet
of water known as Elbow Lake. Here, at an elevation of 1689 feet above
the sea level, nine feet higher than the source of the Mississippi, the
Red River has its birth. It is curious that the primary direction of both
rivers should be in courses diametrically opposite to their afterlines;
the Mississippi first running to the north, and the Red River first
bending towards the south; in fact, it is only when it gets down here,
near the Breckenridge Prairies, that it finally determines to seek a
northern outlet to the ocean. Meeting the current of the Bois-des-Sioux,
which has its source in Lac Travers, in which the Minnesota River, a
tributary of the Mississippi, also takes its rise, the Red River hurries
on into the level prairie and soon commences its immense windings. This
Lac Travers discharges in wet seasons north and south, and is the only
sheet of water on the Continent which sheds its waters into the tropics
of the Gulf of Mexico and into the polar ocean of the Hudson Bay. In
former times the whole system of rivers bore the name of the great Dakota
nation the Sioux River and the title of Red River was only borne by that
portion of the stream which flows from Red Lake to the forks of the
Assineboine. Now, however, the whole stream, from its source in Elbow
Lake to its estuary in Lake Winnipeg fully 900 miles by water, is called
the Red River: people say that the name is derived from a bloody Indian
battle which once took place upon its banks, tinging the waters with
crimson dye. It certainly cannot be called red from the hue of the water,
which is of a dirty-white colour. Flowing towards the north with
innumerable twists and sudden turnings, the Red River divides the State
of Minnesota, which it has upon its right, from the great territory of
Dakota, receiving from each side many tributary streams which take their
source in the Leaf Hills of Minnesota and in the Coteau of the Missouri.
Its tributaries from the east flow through dense forests, those from the
west wind through the vast sandy wastes of the Dakota Prairie, where
trees are almost unknown. The plain through which Red River flows is
fertile beyond description. At a little distance it looks one vast level
plain through which the windings of the river are marked by a dark line
of woods fringing the whole length of the stream--each tributary has also
its line of forest--a line visible many miles away over the great sea of
grass. As one travels on, there first rise above the prairie the summits
of the trees; these gradually'! grow larger, until finally, after many
hours, the river is reached. Nothing else breaks the uniform level.
Standing upon the ground the eye ranges over many miles of grass,
standing on a waggon, one doubles the area of vision, and to look over
the plains from an elevation of twelve feet above the earth is to survey
at a glance a space so vast that distance alone seems to bound its
limits. The effect of sunset over these oceans of verdure is very
beautiful; a thousand hues spread themselves upon the grassy plains; a
thousand tints of gold are cast along the heavens, and the two oceans of
the sky and of the earth intermingle in one great blaze of glory at the
very gates of the setting sun. But to speak of sunsets now is only to
anticipate. Here at the Red River we are only at the threshold of the
sunset, its true home yet lies many days journey to the west: there,
where the long shadows of the vast herds of bison trail slowly over the
immense plains, huge and dark against the golden west; there, where the
red man still sees in the glory of the setting sun the realization of his
dream of heaven.
Shooting the prairie plover, which were numerous around the solitary
shanty, gossipping with Mr. Connelly on Western life and Red River
experiences--I passed the long July day until evening came to a close.
Then came the time of the mosquito; he swarmed around the shanty, he came
out from blade of grass and up from river sedge, from the wooded bay and
the dusky prairie, in clouds and clouds, until the air hummed with his
presence. My host "made a smoke," and the cattle came close around and
stood into the very fire itself, scorching their hides in attempting to
escape the stings of their ruthless tormentors. My friend's house was not
a large one, but he managed to make me a shake-down on the loft overhead,
and to it he led the way. To live in a country infested by mosquitoes
ought to insure to a person the possession of health, wisdom, and riches,
for assuredly I know of nothing so conducive to early turning in and
early turning out as that most pitiless pest. On the present occasion I
had not long turned in before I became aware of the presence of at least
two other persons within the limits of the little loft, for only a few
feet distant soft whispers became fintly audible. Listening attentively,
I gathered the following dialogue:
"Do you think he has got it about him?"
"Maybe he has," replied the first speaker with the voice of a woman.
"Are you shure he has it at all at all?"
"Didn't I see it in his own hand?"
Here was a fearful position! The dark loft, the lonely shanty miles away
from any other habitation, the mysterious allusions to the possession of
property, all naturally combined to raise the most dreadful suspicions in
the mind of the solitary traveller. Strange to say, this conversation had
not the terrible effect upon me which might be supposed. It was evident
that my old friends, father and mother of Mrs. C----, occupied the loft in
company with me, and the mention of that most suggestive word,
"crathure," was sufficient to neutralize all suspicions connected with
the lonely surroundings of the place. It was, in fact, a drop of that
much-desired "crathure" that the old couple were so anxious to obtain.
About three o'clock on the afternoon of Sunday the 17th July I left the
house of Mr. Connelly, and journeyed back to Abercrombie in the stage
waggon from St. Cloud. I had as a fellow-passenger the captain of the
"International" steamboat, whose acquaintance was quickly made. He had
received my letter at Pomme-de-Terre, and most kindly offered his pony
and cart for our joint conveyance to George town that evening; so, having
waited only long enough at Abercrombie to satisfy hunger and get ready
the Red River cart, we left Mr. Nolan's door some little time before
sunset, and turning north along the river held our way towards
Georgetown. The evening was beautifully fine and clear; the plug trotted
steadily on, and darkness soon wrapped its mantle around the prairie. My
new acquaintance had many questions to ask and much information to
impart, and although a Red River cart is not the easiest mode of
conveyance to one who sits amidships between the wheels, still when I
looked to the northern skies and saw the old pointers marking our course
almost due north, and thought that at last I was launched fair on a road
whose termination was the goal for which I had longed so earnestly, I
little recked the rough jolting of the wheels whose revolutions brought
me closer to my journey's end. Shortly after leaving Abercrombie we
passed a small creek in whose leaves and stagnant waters mosquitoes were
numerous.
"If the mosquitoes let us travel," said my companion, as we emerged upon
the prairie again, "we should reach Georgetown to breakfast."
"If the mosquitoes let us travel?" thought I. "Surely he must be
joking!"
I little knew then the significance of the captain's words. I thought
that my experiences of mosquitoes in Indian jungles and Irrawaddy swamps,
to say nothing of my recent wanderings by Mississippi forests, had taught
me something about these pests; but I was doomed to learn a lesson that
night and the following which will cause me never to doubt the
possibility of anything, no matter how formidable or how unlikely it may
appear, connected with mosquitoes. It was about ten o'clock at night when
there rose close to the south-west a small dark cloud scarcely visible
above the horizon. The wind, which was very light, was blowing from the
north-east; so when my attention had been called to the speck of cloud by
my companion I naturally concluded that it could in no way concern us,
but in this I was grievously mistaken. In a very short space of time the
little cloud grew bigger, the wind died away altogether, and the stars
began to look mistily from a sky no longer blue. Every now and again my
companion looked towards this increasing cloud, and each time his opinion
seemed to be less favourable. But another change also occurred of a
character altogether different. There came upon us, brought apparently by
the cloud, dense swarms of mosquitoes, humming and buzzing along with us
as we journeyed on, and covering our faces and heads with their sharp
stinging bites. They seemed to come with us, after us, and against us,
from above and from below, in volumes that ever increased. It soon began
to dawn upon me that this might mean something akin to the "mosquitoes
allowing us to travel," of which my friend had spoken some three hours
earlier. Meantime the cloud had increased to large proportions; it was no
longer in the south-west; it occupied the whole west, and was moving on
towards the north. Presently, from out of the dark heavens, streamed
liquid fire, and long peals of thunder rolled far away over the gloomy
prairies. So sudden appeared the change that one could scarce realize
that only a little while before the stars had been shining so brightly
upon the ocean of grass. At length the bright flashes came nearer and
nearer, the thunder rolled louder and louder, and the mosquitoes seemed
to have made up their minds that to achieve the maximum of torture in the
minimum of time was the sole end and aim of their existence. The
captain's pony showed many signs of agony; my dog howled with pain, and
rolled himself amongst the baggage in useless writhings.
"I thought it would come to this," said the captain. "We must unhitch
and lie down."
It was now midnight. To loose the horse from the shafts, to put the
oil-cloth over the cart, and to creep underneath the wheels did-not take
my friend long. I followed his movements, crept in and drew a blanket over
my head. Then came the crash; the fire seemed to pour out of the clouds.
It was impossible to keep the blanket on, so raising it every now and
again I. looked out from between the spokes of the wheel. During three
hours the lightning seemed to run like a river of flame out of the
clouds. Sometimes a stream would descend, then, dividing into two
branches, would pour down on the prairie two distinct channels of fire.
The thunder rang sharply, as though the metallic clash of steel was about
it, and the rain descended in torrents upon the level prairies. At about
three o'clock in the morning the storm seemed to lull a little. My
companion crept out from underneath the cart; I followed. The plug, who
had managed to improve the occasion by stuffing himself with grass, was
soon in the shafts again, and just as dawn began to streak the dense
low-lying clouds towards the east we were once more in motion. Still for
a couple of hours more the rain came down in drenching torrents and the
lightning flashed with angry fury over the long corn-like grass beaten
flat by the rain-torrent. What a dreary prospect lay stretched around us
when the light grew strong enough to show it! rain and cloud lying low
upon the dank prairie.
Soaked through and through, cold, shivering, and sleepy, glad indeed was
I when a house appeared in view and we drew up at the door of a shanty
for Food and fire. The house belonged to a Prussian subject of the name
of Probsfeld, a terribly self-opinionated North German, with all the
bumptious proclivities of that thriving nation most fully developed.'
Herr Probsfeld appeared to be a man who regretted that men in general
should be persons of a very inferior order of intellect, but who accepted
the fact as a thing not to be avoided under the existing arrangements of
limitation regarding Prussia in general and Probsfelds in particular.
While the Herr was thus engaged in illuminating our minds, the Frau was
much more agreeably employed in preparing something for our bodily
comfort. I noticed with pleasure that there appeared some hope for the
future of the human race, in the fact that the generation of the
Probsfelds seemed to be progressing satisfactorily. Many youthful
Probsfelds were visible around, and matters appeared to promise a
continuation of the line, so that the State of Minnesota and that portion
of Dakota lying adjacent to it may still look confidently to the future.
It is more than probable that Herr Probsfeld realized the fact, that just
at that moment, when the sun was breaking out through the eastern clouds
over the distant outline of the Leaf Hills, 700,000 of his countrymen
were moving hastily toward the French frontier for the special
furtherance of those ideas so dear to his mind-it is most probable, I
say, that his self-laudation and cock-like conceit would have been in no
ways lessened.
Our arrival at Georgetown had been delayed by the night storm on the
prairie, and it was midday on the 18th when we reached the Hudson Bay
Company Post which stood at the confluence of the Buffalo and Red
Rivers. Food and fresh horses were all we required, and after these
requisites had been obtained the journey was prosecuted with renewed
vigour. Forty miles had yet to be traversed before the point at which
the Steamboat lay could be reached, and for that distance the track ran
on the left or Dakota side of the Red River. As we journeyed along the
Dakota prairies the last hour of daylight overtook us, bringing with it
a Scene of magical beauty. The sun resting on the rim of the prairie
cast over the vast expanse of grass a flood of light. On the east lay
the darker green of the trees of the Red River. The whole western sky
was full of wild-looking thunder-clouds, through which the rays of
sunlight shot upward in great trembling shafts of glory. Being on
horseback and alone, for my companion had trotted on in his waggon, I
had time to watch and note this brilliant spectacle; but as soon as the
sun had dipped beneath the sea of verdure an ominous sound caused me
to gallop on with increasing haste. The pony seemed to know the
significance of that sound much better than its rider. He no longer
lagged, nor needed the spur or whip to urge him to faster exertion, for
darker and denser than on the previous night there rose around us vast
numbers of mosquitoes--choking masses of biting insects, no mere cloud
thicker and denser in one place than in another, but one huge wall of
never-ending insects filling nostrils, ears, and eyes. Where they came
from I cannot tell; the prairie seemed too small to hold them; the air
too limited to yield them space. I had seen many vast accumulations of
insect life in lands old and new, but never any thing that approached to
this mountain of mosquitoes on the prairies of Dakota. To say that they
covered the coat of the horse I rode would be to give but a faint idea
of their numbers; they were literally six or eight deep upon his skin,
and with a single sweep of the hand one could crush myriads from his
neck. Their hum seemed to be in all things around. To ride for it was
the sole resource. Darkness came quickly down, but the track knew no
turn, and for seven miles I kept the pony at a gallop; my face, neck,
and hands cut and bleeding.
At last in the gloom I saw, down in what appeared to be the bottom of a
valley, a long white wooden building, with lights showing out through
the windows. Riding quickly down this valley we reached, followed by
hosts of winged pursuers, the edge of some water lying amidst
tree-covered banks-the water was the Red River, and the white wooden
building the steamboat "International."
Now one word about mosquitoes in the valley of the Red River. People will
be inclined to say, "We know well what a mosquito is--very troublesome
and annoying, no doubt, but you needn't make so much of what every one
understands." People reading what I have written about this insect will
probably say this. I would have said so myself before the occurrences of
the last two nights, but I will never say so again, nor perhaps will my
readers when they have read the following: It is no unusual event during
a wet summer in that portion of Minnesota and Dakota to which I refer for
oxen and horses to perish from the bites of mosquitoes. An exposure of a
very few hours duration is sufficient to cause death to these animals.
It is said, too, that not many years ago the Sioux were in the habit of
sometimes killing their captives by exposing them at night to the attacks
of the mosquitoes; and any person who has experienced the full intensity
of a mosquito night along the American portion of the Red River will not
have any difficulty in realizing how short a period would be necessary to
cause death.
Our arrival at the "International" was the cause of no small amount of
discomfort to the persons already on board that vessel. It took us but
little time to rush over the gangway and seek safety from our pursuers
within the precincts of the steamboat: but they were not to be baffled
easily; they came in after us in millions; like Bishop Haddo's rats, they
came "in at the windows and in at the doors," until in a very short space
of time the interior of the boat became perfectly black with insects.
Attracted by the light they flocked into the saloon, covering walls and
ceiling in one dark mass. We attempted supper, but had to give it up.
They got into the coffee, they stuck fast in the soft, melting butter,
until at length, feverish, bitten, bleeding, and hungry, I sought refuge
beneath the gauze curtains in my cabin, and fell asleep from sheer
exhaustion.
And in truth there was reason enough for sleep independently of
mosquitoes bites. By dint of hard travel we had accomplished 104 miles
in twenty-seven hours. The midnight storm had lost us three hours and
added in no small degree to discomfort. Mosquitoes had certainly caused
but little thought to be bestowed upon fatigue during the last two hours;
but I much doubt if the spur-goaded horse, when he stretches himself at
night to rest his weary limbs, feels the less tired because the miles
flew behind him all unheeded under the influence of the spur-rowel. When
morning broke we were in motion. The air was fresh and cool; not a
mosquito was visible. The green banks of Red River looked pleasant to the
eye as the "International" puffed along between them, rolling the
tranquil water before her in a great muddy wave, which broke amidst the
red and grey willows on the shore. Now and then the eye caught glimpses
of the prairies through the skirting of oak woods on the left, but to the
right there lay an unbroken line of forest fringing deeply the Minnesota
shore. The "International" was a curious craft; she measured about 130
feet in length, drew only two feet of water, and was propelled by an
enormous wheel placed over her stern. Eight summers of varied success and
as many winters of total inaction had told heavily against her river
worthiness; the sun had cracked her roof and sides, the rigour of the
Winnipeg winter left its trace on bows and hull. Her engines were a
perfect marvel of patchwork--pieces of rope seemed twisted around crank
and shaft, mud was laid thickly on boiler and pipes, little jets and
spurts of steam had a disagreeable way of coming out from places not
supposed to be capable of such outpourings. Her capacity for going on
fire seemed to be very great; each gust of wind sent showers of sparks
from the furnaces flying along the lower deck, the charred beams of which
attested the frequency of the occurrence. Alarmed at the prospect of
seeing my conveyance wrapped in flames, I shouted vigorously for
assistance, and will long remember the look of surprise and pity with
which the native regarded me as he leisurely approached with the
water-bucket and cast its contents along the smoking deck.
I have already mentioned the tortuous course which the Red River has
wound for itself through these level northern prairies. The windings of
the river more than double the length of its general direction, and the
turns are so sharp that after steaming a mile the traveller will often
arrive at a spot not one hundred yards distant from where he started.
Steaming thus for one day and one night down the Red River of the North,
enjoying no variation of scene or change of prospect, but nevertheless
enjoying beyond expression a profound sense of mingled rest and
progression, I reached at eight o'clock on the morning of the-20th of
July the frontier post of Pembina.
And here, at the verge of my destination, on the boundary of the Red
River Settlement, although making but short delay myself, I must ask my
readers to pause awhile and to go back through long years into earlier
times. For it would ill suit the purpose of writer or of reader if the
latter were to be thus hastily introduced to the isolated colony of
Assineboine without any preliminary-acquaintance with its history or its
inhabitants.