The Buffalo--His Limits and favourite Grounds--Modes of Hunting--A Fight
--His inevitable End--I become a Medicine-man--Great Cold-Carlton--Family
Responsibilities.
WHEN the early Spanish adventurers penetrated from the sea-board of
America into the great central prairie region, they beheld for the first
time a strange animal whose countless numbers covered the face of the
country. When De Soto had been buried in the dark waters of the
Mississippi, the remnant of his band, pursuing their western way, entered
the "Country of the Wild Cows." When in the same year explorers pushed
their way northward from Mexico into the region of the Rio-del-Norte,
they looked over immense plains black with moving beasts. Nearly 100
years later settlers on the coasts of New England heard from
westward-hailing Indians of huge beasts on the shores of a great lake not
many days journey to the north-west. Naturalists in Europe, hearing of
the new animal, named it the bison; but the colonists united in calling
it the buffalo, and, as is usual in such cases, although science clearly
demonstrated that it was a bison, and was not a buffalo, scientific
knowledge had not a chance against practical ignorance, and "buffalo"
carried the day. The true home of this animal lay in the great prairie
region between the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi, the Texan forest,
and the Saskatchewan River and although undoubted evidence exists to show
that at some period the buffalo reached in his vast migrations the shores
of the Pacific and the Atlantic; yet since the party of De Soto only
entered the Country of the Wild Cows after they had crossed the
Mississippi, it may fairly be inferred that the Ohio River and the lower
Mississippi formed the eastern boundaries to the wanderings of the herds
since the New World has been known to the white man. Still even within
this immense region, a region not less than 1,000,000 of square miles in
area, the havoc worked by the European has been terrible. Faster even
than the decay of the Indian has gone on the destruction-of the bison and
only a few years must elapse before this noble beast, hunted down in the
last recesses of his breeding-grounds, will have taken his place in the
long list of those extinct giants which once dwelt in our world. Many
favourite spots had this huge animal throughout the great domain over
which he roamed-many beautiful scenes where, along river meadows, the
grass in winter was still succulent and the wooded "bays" gave food and
shelter, but-no more favourite ground than this valley of the
Saskatchewan; thither he wended his way from the bleak plains of the
Missouri in herds that passed and passed for days and nights in seemingly
never-ending numbers. Along the countless creeks and rivers that add
their tribute to the great stream, along the banks of the Battle River
and the Vermilion River, along the many White Earth Rivers and Sturgeon
Creeks of the upper and middle Saskatchewan, down through the willow
copses and aspen thickets of the Touchwood Hills and the Assineboine, the
great beasts dwelt in all the happiness of calf-rearing and connubial
felicity. The Indians who then occupied these regions killed only what
was required for the supply of the camps-a mere speck in the dense herds
that roamed up to the very doors of the wigwams; but when the trader
pushed his adventurous way into the fur regions of the North, the herds
of the Saskatchewan plains began to experience a change in their
surroundings. The meat, pounded down` and mixed with fat into "pemmican,"
was found to supply a most excellent food for transport service, and
accordingly vast numbers of buffalo were destroyed to supply the demand
of the fur traders. In the border-land between the wooded country and the
plains, the Crees, not satisfied with the ordinary methods of destroying
the buffalo, devised a plan by which great multitudes could be easily
annihilated. This method of hunting, consists in the erection of strong
wooden enclosures called pounds, into which the buffalo are guided by the
supposed magic power of a medicine-man. Sometimes for two days the
medicine-man will live with the herd, which he half guides and half
drives into the enclosures; sometimes he is on the right, sometimes on
the left, and sometimes, again, in rear of the herd, but never to
windward of them. At last they approach the pound, which is usually
concealed in a thicket of wood. For many miles from the entrance to this
pound two gradually diverging lines of tree-stumps and heaps of snow lead
out into the plains. Within these lines the buffalo are led by the
medicine-man, and as the lines narrow towards the entrance, the herd,
finding itself hemmed in on both sides, becomes more and more alarmed,
until at length the great beasts plunge on into the pound itself, across
the mouth of which ropes are quickly thrown and barriers raised. Then
commences the slaughter. From the wooded fence around arrows and bullets
are poured into the dense plunging mass of buffalo careering wildly round
the ring. Always going in one direction, with the sun, the poor beasts
race on until not a living thing is left; then, when there is nothing
more to kill, the cutting-up commences, and pemmican-making goes on.
Widely different from this indiscriminate slaughter is the fair hunt on
horseback in the great open plains. The approach, the cautious survey
over some hill-top, the wild charge on the herd, the headlong flight, the
turn to bay, the flight and fall--all this contains a large share of that
excitement which we call by the much abused term sport. It is possible,
however, that many of those who delight in killing placid pheasants and
stoical partridges might enjoy the huge battue of an Indian "pound" in
preference to the wild charge over the sky bound prairie, but, for my
part, not being of the privileged few who breed pheasants at the expense
of peasants (what a difference the "h" makes in Malthusian theories!), I
have been compelled to seek my sport in hot climates instead of in hot
corners, and in the sandy bluffs of Nebraska and the Missouri have drawn
many an hour of keen enjoyment from the long chase of the buffalo. One
evening, shortly before sunset, I was steering my way through the sandy
hills of the Platte Valley, in the State of Nebraska, slowly towards Fort
Kearney; both horse and rider were tired after a long day over sand-bluff
and meadow-land, for buffalo were plenty, and five tongues dangling to
the saddle told that horse, man, and rifle had not been idle. Crossing a
grassy ridge, I suddenly came in sight of three buffalo just emerging
from the broken bluff. Tired as was my horse, the sight of one of these
three animals urged me to one last chase. He was a very large bull,
whose black shaggy mane and dewlaps nearly brushed the short prairie grass
beneath him. I dismounted behind the hill, tightened the saddle-girths,
looked to rifle and cartridge touch, and then remounting rode slowly
over the intervening ridge. As I came in view of the three beasts
thus majestically stalking their way towards the Platte for the luxury of
an evening drink, the three shaggy heads were thrown up--one steady look
given, then round went the animals and away for the bluffs again. With a
whoop and a cheer I gave chase, and the mustang, answering gamely to my
call, launched himself well over the prairie. Singling out the large
bull, I urged the horse with spur and voice, then, rising in the stirrups
I took a snap-shot at my quarry. The bullet struck him in the flanks, and
quick as lightning he wheeled down upon me. It was now my turn to run. I
had urged the horse with voice and spur to close with the buffalo, but
still more vigorously did I endeavour, under the altered position of
affairs, to make him increase the distance lying between us. Down the
sandy incline thundered the huge beast, gaining on us at every stride.
Looking back over my shoulder, I saw him close to my horse's tail, with
head lowered and eyes flashing furiously-under their shaggy covering. The
horse was tired; the buffalo was fresh, and it seemed as though another
instant must bring pursuer and pursued into wild collision. Throwing back
my rifle over the crupper; I laid it at arm's length, with muzzle full
upon the buffalo's head. The shot struck the centre of his forehead, but
he only shook his head when he received it; still it seemed to check his
pace a little, and as we had now reached level ground the horse began to
gain something upon his pursuer. Quite as suddenly as he had charged the
bull now changed his tactics. Wheeling off he followed his companions,
who by this time had vanished into the bluffs. It never would have done
to lose him after such a fight, so Ii brought the mustang round again,
and gave chase. This time a shot fired low behind the shoulder brought my
fierce friend to bay. Proudly he turned upon me, but now his rage was
calm and stately, he pawed the ground, and blew with short angry snorts
the sand in clouds from the plain; moving thus slowly towards me, he
looked the incarnation of strength and angry pride. But his doom was
sealed. I remember so vividly all the wild surroundings of the scene--the
great silent waste, the two buffalo watching from a hill-top the fight of
their leader, the noble beast himself stricken but defiant, and beyond,
the thousand glories of the prairie sunset. It was only to last an
instant, for the giant bull, still with low-bent head and angry snorts,
advancing slowly towards his puny enemy, sank quietly to the plain and
stretched his limbs in death. Late that night I reached the American
fort with six tongues hanging to my saddle, but never since that hour,
though often but a two days ride from buffalo, have I sought to take the
life of one of these noble animals. Too soon will the last of them have
vanished from the great central prairie land; never again will those
countless herds roam from the Platte to the Missouri, from the Missouri
to the Saskatchewan; chased for his robe, for his beef, for sport, for
the very pastime of his death, he is rapidly vanishing from the land. Far
in the northern forests of the Athabasca a few buffaloes may for a time
bid defiance to man, but they, too, must disappear and nothing be left of
this giant beast save the bones that for many an age will whiten the
prairies over which the great herds roamed at will in times before the
white man came.
It was the 5th of January before the return of the dogs from an Indian
trade enabled me to get away from Fort Pitt. During the days I had
remained in the fort the snow covering had deepened on the plains and
winter had got a still firmer grasp upon the river and meadow. In two
days travel we ran the length of the river between Fort Pitt and Battle
River, travelling rapidly over the ice down the centre of the stream. The
dogs were good ones, the drivers well versed in their work, and although
the thermometer stood at 20 degrees below zero on the evening of the 6th,
the whole run tended in no small degree to improve the general opinion
which I had previously formed upon the delights of dog-travel. Arrived at
Battle River, I found that the Crees had disappeared since my former
visit; the place was now tenanted only by a few Indians and half-breeds.
It seemed to be my fate to encounter cases of sickness at every post on
my return journey. Here a woman was lying in a state of complete
unconsciousness with intervals of convulsion and spitting of blood. It
was in vain that I represented my total inability to deal with such a
case. The friends of the lady all declared that it was necessary that I
should see her, and accordingly I was introduced into the miserable hut
in which she lay. She was stretched upon a low bed in one corner of a
room about seven feet square; the roof approached so near the ground that
I was unable to stand straight in any part of the place; the rough floor
was crowded with women squatted thickly upon it, and a huge fire blazed
in a corner, making the heat something terrible. Having gone through the
ordinary medical programme of pulse feeling, I put some general
questions to the surrounding bevy of women which, being duly interpreted
into Cree, elicited the fact that the sick woman had been engaged in
carrying a very heavy load of wood on her back for the use of her lord
and master, and that while she had been thus employed she was seized with
convulsions and became senseless. "What is it?" said the Hudson Bay man,
looking at me in a manner which seemed to indicate complete confidence in
my professional sagacity. "Do you think it's small-pox?" Some
acquaintance with this disease enabled me to state my deliberate
conviction that it was not small-pox, but as to what particular form of
the many "ills that flesh is heir to" it really was, I could not for the
life of me determine. I had not even that clue which the Yankee
practitioner is said to have established for his guidance in the case of
his infant patient, whose puzzling ailment he endeavoured to
diagnosticate by administering what he termed "a convulsion powder,"
being a whale at the treatment of convulsions. In the case now before me
convulsions were unfortunately of frequent occurrence, and I could not
lay claim to the high powers of pathology which the Yankee had asserted
himself to be the possessor of. Under all the circumstances I judged it
expedient to forego any direct opinion upon the case, and to administer a
compound quite as innocuous in its nature as the "soothing syrup" of
infantile notoriety. It was, how ever, a gratifying fact to learn next
morning that--whether owing to the syrup or not, I am not prepared to
state the patient had shown decided symptoms of rallying, and took my
departure from Battle River with the reputation of being a "medicine-man"
of the very first order.
I now began to experience the full toil and labour of a winter journey.
Our course lay across a bare, open region on which for distances of
thirty to forty miles not one tree or bush was visible; the cold was very
great, and the snow, lying loosely as it had fallen, was so soft that the
dogs sank through the drifts as they pulled slowly at their loads. On the
evening of the 10th January we reached a little clump of poplars on the
edge of a large plain on which no tree was visible. It was piercingly
cold, a bitter wind swept across the snow, making us glad to find even
this poor shelter against the coming night. Two hours after dark the
thermometer stood at minus 38 degrees, or 70 degrees of frost. The wood
was small and poor; the wind howled through the scanty thicket, driving
the smoke into our eyes as we cowered over the fire. Oh, what misery it
was! and how blank seemed the prospect before me! 900 miles still to
travel, and to-day I had only made about twenty miles, toiling from dawn
to dark through blinding drift and intense cold. On again next morning
over the trackless plain, thermometer at minus 20 in morning, and minus
12 at midday, with high wind, snow, and heavy drift. One of my men, a
half-breed in name, an Indian in reality, became utterly done up from
cold and exposure-the others would have left him behind to make his own
way through the snow, or most likely to lie down and die, but I stopped
the doggs until he came up, and then let him lie on one of the sleds for
the remainder of the day. He was a miserable-looking wretch, but he ate
enormous quantities of pemmican at every meal. After four days of very
arduous travel we reached Carlton at sunset on the 12th January. The
thermometer had kept varying between 20 and 38 degrees below zero every
night, but on the night of the 12th surpassed any thing I had yet
experienced. I spent that night in a room at Carlton, a room in which a
fire had been burning until midnight, nevertheless at daybreak on the 13th
the thermometer showed -20 degrees on the table close to my bed. At
half-past ten o'clock, when placed outside, facing north, it fell to -44
degrees, and I afterwards ascertained that an instrument kept at the
mission of Prince Albert, 60 miles east from Carlton, showed the enormous
amount of 51 degrees below zero at daybreak that morning, 83 degrees of
frost. This was the coldest night during the winter, but it was clear,
calm, and fine. I now determined to leave the usual winter route from
Carlton to Red River, and to strike out a new line of travel, which,
though very much longer than the trail via Fort Pelly, had several
advantages to recommend it to my choice. In the first place, it promised a
new line of country down the great valley of the Saskatchewan River to its
expansion into the sheet of water called Cedar Lake, and from thence
across the dividing ridge into the Lake Winnipegosis, down the length of
that water and its southern neighbour, the Lake Manitoba, until the
boundary of the new province would be again reached, fully 700 miles from
Carlton. It was a long, cold travel, but it promised the novelty of
tracing to its delta in the vast marshes of Cumberland and the Pasquia,
the great river whose foaming torrent I had forded at the Rocky Mountains,
and whose middle course I had followed for more than a month of wintry
travel.
Great as Were the hardships and privations of this Winter journey, it had
nevertheless many moments of keen pleasure, moments filled with those
instincts of that long-ago time before our civilization and its servitude
had commenced--that time when, like the Arab and the Indian, we were all
rovers over the earth; as a dog on a drawing-room carpet twists himself
round and round before he lies down to sleep--the instinct bred in him in
that time when bhis ancestors thus trampled smooth their beds in the
long grasses of the primeval prairies--so man, in the midst of his
civilization, instinctively goes back to some half-hidden reminiscence of
the forest and the wilderness in which his savage forefathers dwelt. My
lord seeks his highland moor, Norvegian salmon river, or more homely
coverside; the retired grocer, in his snug retreat at Tooting, builds
himself an arbour of rocks and mosses, and, by dint of strong imagination
and stronger tobacco, becomes a very Kalmuck in his back-garden; and it
is by no means improbable that the grocer in his rockery and the grandee
at his rocketers draw their instincts of pleasure from the same long-ago
time "When wild in woods the noble savage ran." But be this as it may,
-this long journey of mine, despite its excessive cold, its nights under
the wintry heavens, its days of ceaseless travel, had not as yet grown
monotonous or devoid of pleasure, and although there were moments long
before daylight when the shivering scene around the camp-fire froze one
to the marrow, and I half feared to ask myself how many more mornings
like this will I have to endure? how many more miles have been taken from
that long total of travel? still, as the day wore on and the hour of
the midday meal came round, and, warmed and hungry by exercise, I would
relish with keen appetite the plate of moose steaks and the hot delicious
tea, as camped amidst the snow, with buffalo robe spread out before the
fire, and the dogs watching the feast with perspective ideas of bones and
pan-licking, then the balance would veer back again to the side of
enjoyment; and I could look forward to twice 600 miles of ice and snow
without one feeling of despondency. These icy nights, too, were often
filled with the strange meteors of the north. Hour by hour have I watched
the many-hued shafts of the aurora trembling from their northern home
across the starlight of the zenith, till their lustre lighted up the
silent landscape of the frozen river with that weird light which the
Indians name "the dance of the dead spirits." At times, too, the "sun
dogs" hung about the sun so close, that it was not always easy to tell
which was the real sun and which the mock one; but wild weather usually
followed the track of the sun dogs; and whenever I saw them in the
heavens I looked for deeper snow and colder bivouacs.
Carlton stands on the edge of the great forest region whose shores, if we
may use the expression, are washed by the waves of the prairie ocean
lying south of it; but the waves are of fire, not of water. Year by year
the great torrent of flame moves on deeper and deeper into the dark ranks
of the solemn-standing pines; year by year a wider region is laid open to
the influences of sun and shower, and soon the traces of the conflict are
hidden beneath the waving grass, and clinging vetches, and the clumps of
tufted prairie roses. But another species of vegetation also springs up
in the track of the fire; groves of aspens and poplars grow out of the
burnt soil, giving to the country that park-like appearance already
spoken of. Nestling along the borders of the innumerable lakes that stud
the face of the Saskatchewan region, these poplar thickets sometimes
attain large growth, but the fire too frequently checks their progress,
and many of them stand bare and dry to delight the eye of the traveller
with the assurance of an ample store of bright and warm firewood for his
winter camp when the sunset bids him begin to make all cosy against the
night.
After my usual delay of one day, I set out from Carlton, bound for the
pine woods of the Lower Saskatchewan. My first stage was to be a short
one. Sixty miles east from Carlton lies the small Presbyterian mission
called Prince Albert. Carlton being destitute of dogs, I was obliged to
take horses again into use; but the distance was only a two days march,
and the track lay all the way upon the river. The wife of one of the
Hudson Bay officers, desirous of visiting the mission, took advantage of
my escort to travel to Prince Albert; and thus a lady, a nurse, and an
infant aged eight months, became suddenly added to my responsibilities,
with the thermometer varying between 70 and 80 degrees of frost I must
candidly admit to having entertained very grave feelings at the
contemplation of these family liabilities. A baby at any period of a
man's life is a very serious affair, but a baby below zero is something
appalling.
The first night passed over without accident.` I resigned my deerskin bag
to the lady and her infant, and Mrs. Winslow herself could not have
desired a more peaceful state of slumber than that enjoyed by the
youthful traveller. But the second night was a terror long to be
remembered; the cold was intense. Out of the inmost recesses of my
abandoned bag came those dire screams which result from infantile
disquietude. Shivering, under my blanket, I listened to the terrible
commotion going on in the interior of that cold-defying construction that
so long had stood my warmest friend.
At daybreak, chilled to the marrow, I rose, and gathered the fire together
in speechless agony: no wonder, the thermometer stood at 40 degrees
below zero; and yet, can it be believed? the baby seemed to be perfectly
oblivious to the benefits of the bag, and continued to howl unmercifully.
Such is the perversity of human nature even at that early age! Our
arrival at the mission put an end to my family responsibilities, and
restored me once more to the beloved bag; but the warm atmosphere of a
house soon revealed the cause of much of the commotion of the night.
"Wasn't-it-its-mother's-pet" displayed two round red marks upon its
chubby countenance! "Wasn't-it-its-mother's-pet" had, in fact, been
frost-bitten about the region of the nose and cheeks, and hence the
hubbub. After a delay of two days at the mission, during which the
thermometer always showed more than 60 degrees of frost in the early
morning, I continued my journey towards the east, crossing over from the
North to the South Branch of the Saskatchewan at a point some twenty
miles from the junction of the two rivers--a rich and fertile land, well
wooded and watered, a region destined in the near future to hear its
echoes wake to other sounds than those of moose-call or wolf-howl. It was
dusk in the evening of the 19th of January when we reached the high
ground which looks down upon the "forks" of the Saskatchewan River. On
some low ground at the farther side of the North Branch a camp-fire
glimmered in the twilight. On the ridges beyond stood the dark pines of
the Great Sub-Arctic Forest, and below lay the two broad converging
rivers whose immense currents; hushed beneath the weight of ice, here
merged into the single channel of the Lower Saskatchewan--a wild, weird
scene it looked as the shadows closed around it. We descended with
difficulty the steep bank and crossed the river to the camp-fire on the
north shore. Three red-deer hunters were around it; they had some freshly
killed elk meat, and potatoes from Fort-à-la-Corne, eighteen miles below
the forks; and with so many delicacies our supper à-la-fourchette,
despite a snow-storm, was a decided success.