We again go West—Hiding the trail—Red and white for once in harmony—Peace and plenty—An autumn holiday—We select a winter’s camp—The Forks—Hut-building—Our food supply—The autumn hunt—The Great Prairie—Home thoughts—Indian instincts—The Lake of the Winds—Buffalo—Good meat—A long stalk—The monarch of the waste—A stampede—Wolves—The red man’s tobacco.
As we rode back to camp, the Sioux learned from the scout all that had happened in the camp of the Assineboines, from the time that he had himself brought news of the presence in the hills of the disabled Cree and his protectors, until the moment when he had been captured by the united efforts of the dog and his masters.
The Sioux listened eagerly to the story of the trader’s having literally set a price upon his head; and when he reflected that all the precautions which he, Red Cloud, had taken had been done in complete ignorance of the machinations of his enemy, and only from casually learning from the Cree that a party of hostile Indians had passed him on the previous night, he felt how true is that lesson in war which enjoins never neglecting in times of danger to guard against the worst even though the least may only be threatened.
But Red Cloud learned from the story of the scout information for future guidance, as well as confirmation of the course he had already followed. He realized the fact that though the fire had already freed him from the presence of the Assineboines, yet, that it could only be a short respite; the bribe offered by the trader was too high to allow these men to relinquish all hope of taking prizes which were to make them great Indians for the rest of their lives. The necessity of quickly shifting his ground, and of leaving altogether that part of the country, became so fully apparent to him that he lost no time in communicating to us his plan of action.
It was, to march that evening about ten miles towards the north, and then to strike from the hills due west into the great plain. Being heavily loaded with stores, we could not hope by dint of hard marching to outstrip our enemies; but by taking unusual precautions to hide our trail, we might succeed in successfully eluding the watchful eyes of the Assineboines.
A hasty dinner followed the return of the party to camp, and then preparations for departure were at once made. The Cree had made, in the rest and care of the last two days, more progress to recovery than in the whole period of his former convalescence, and he was now well able to[146] take his share in the work of striking camp.
When men bivouac in the open it takes but little time to make a camp or to quit it, and ere the sun had set the whole party had got in motion, and, led by the Sioux, were threading their course through the hills farther towards the north.
The rain had ceased, but the grass was still too wet to burn, so that the simple expedient of setting fire to the prairie in order to hide a trail, was in this instance impossible. As, however, the point of departure from the hills for the west was the point most essential to obliterate, the Sioux did not so much care that our trail while in the hills could easily be followed.
Not until midnight did he give the word to camp, and the first streak of dawn found us again in motion. While the morning was still young we arrived at a small river which flowed out from the hills into the plain, and pursued, far as the eye could determine to the west, a course sunken in a narrow valley deep beneath the level of the prairie. Here was the point of departure. The stream was shallow, and the current ran over a bed of sand and pebbles. The Sioux, Donogh, and I, led the pack-horses along the centre of this river channel, while the scout and the Cree were directed to ride many times to and fro up the farther bank, and then to continue their course towards the north for some miles.
It was Red Cloud’s intention to camp about fifteen miles lower down the stream; he would only keep his horses in the bed of the channel for one hour, by that time he would have gained a considerable distance down stream; then selecting a dry or rocky place, we would have left the channel and continued our course along the meadows on one side.
When the scout and the Cree had put some miles between them and the stream they were to turn sharp to their left hand; first one, and later on the other, and then rejoin us some time during the following day. By these plans the Sioux hoped to foil any pursuers who might be on his trail, and he would certainly succeed in delaying a pursuit until the fine weather would again make the grass dry enough to allow it to burn.
Down the centre of the stream we led the pack-horses in file, and away to the north went the scout and the Cree. It was toilsome work wading along the channel of the river, which in some places held rocks and large loose stones; but by little and little progress was made, and ere sunset the dry ground was once more under foot, and our party was pursuing a rapid course along the meadows to the west.
Red Cloud had told the scout that he would await him at the Minitchinas, or Solitary Hill, a conical elevation in the plains some twenty miles away to the west. At the north side of this hill our whole party came again together about the middle of the following day, and after a hearty meal we turned our faces towards that great plain which stretches from the base of this solitary mound into what seemed an endless west.
Everybody was in high spirits; even the dog had quite recovered from the effects of his arrow-wound, and the scout and he had become firm friends.
It was a curious group this, that now held its course into the western wilds.
It was a curious group this, that now held its course into the western wilds.
There were representatives of three of those strange families of the aboriginal race of North America—that race now rapidly vanishing from the earth, and soon only to be known by those wild names of soft sound and poetic meaning which, in the days of their glory, they gave to ridge, lake, and river, over the wild wilderness of their vast dominions; and two white men from a far-distant land, alien in race, strange in language, but bound to them by a sympathy of thought, by a soldier instinct which was strong enough to bridge the wide gulf between caste and colour, and make red and white unite in a real brotherhood—a friendship often pictured in the early dreams of the red race when the white man first sought the wilds, but never fully realized in all these long centuries of war and strife, save when the pale-faced stranger whom they called the Black Robe, came to dwell amongst them and to tell them of a world beyond the grave, more blissful than their fabled happy hunting-grounds, where red men and white[149] were to dwell, the servants of One Great Master.
And now days began to pass of quiet travel over the autumn prairies—days of real enjoyment to me, who hour by hour read deeper into the great book which nature ever holds open to those who care to be her students—that book whose pages are sunsets and sunrises, twilights darkening over interminable space, dawns breaking along distant horizons, shadows of inverted hill-top lying mirrored in lonely lakes, sigh of west wind across measureless meadow, long reach of silent river, stars, space, and solitude.
Ten days of such travel carried our little party far into the west. We had reached that part of the northern plains which forms the second of those sandy ridges or plateaux which mount in successive steps from the basin of the great lake Winnipeg, to the plains lying at the base of the Rocky Mountains.
In this great waste game was numerous. Buffalo roamed in small bodies hither and thither; cabri could be seen dotting the brown grass, or galloping in light bounds to some vantage hill, from whence a better survey of the travellers could be had; wolves and foxes kept skulking in the prairie depressions, and dodged along the edges of ridges to scent or sight their prey. The days were still fine and bright; but the nightly increasing cold told that winter was slowly but surely coming on.
It was now the middle of September, early enough still for summer travel, but it would soon be necessary to look out for some wintering-ground, where wood for a hut and fuel could be easily obtained, and where the grass promised food for the horses during the long months of snow.
Almost every part of this vast ocean of grass had become thoroughly known to Red Cloud. Land once crossed by a red man is ever after a living memory to him. He can tell, years after he has passed along a trail, some of the most trifling landmarks along it; a bush, a rock, a sharply marked hill, will be all treasured in his memory; and though years may have elapsed since his eye last rested upon this particular portion of the great prairie, he will know all its separate features, all the little hills, courses, or creeks which lie hidden amid the immense spaces of this motionless ocean.
For some days the Sioux had been conning over in his mind the country, seeking some spot lying within easy reach of where he was now moving which yielded what our party required—timber, fuel, and grass. A few years earlier he had camped at the point of junction of two rivers, the Red Deer and the Medicine, not more than four days’ journey to the north-west of where he now was. He remembered that amid a deep thicket of birch, poplar, and cotton-wood, there stood a large group of pine-trees. If fire had spared that part of the prairie, he knew that the alluvial meadows along the converging rivers, would yield rich store of winter food for the horses. He knew, too, that in other respects the[151] spot had many recommendations in its favour; it lay almost in the centre of that neutral zone between the Cree country and the sandy wastes of the Blackfeet nation, and that it was therefore safe in winter from the roving bands of these wild tribes, whose warfare is only carried on during the months of spring, summer, and autumn. All these things combined made him fix upon this spot for the winter camping-ground, and he began to shape the course of the party more to the north, to see if the place held still in its sheltered ridges all the advantages it had possessed when he had seen it for the first and last time.
Riding along one sunny mid-day, he explained to me the prospect before us.
“It is getting late in the season,” he said; “all the grass is yellow; the wind has begun to rustle in the dry seeds and withered prairie flowers; the frost of night gets harder and colder. At any moment we may see a great change; that far off sky-line, now so clear cut against the prairie, would become hidden; dense clouds would sweep across the sky, and all the prairie would be wrapped in snow-drift.
“The winter in this north land is long and severe; the snow lies for months upon the plains, in many feet in thickness it will rest upon yon creek, now so full of bird-life. The cold will then be intense; all the birds, save the prairie-grouse, the magpie, and the whisky jack, will seek southern lands; the buffalo will not, however, desert us, they may[152] move farther north into the Saskatchewan, and wolves, foxes, and coyotes will follow in their wake. Neither horse nor man can then brave for any time the treeless plains.
“We must prepare for the winter,” he went on, “and my plan is this: some days’ march from this is a spot which, when I last saw it, had around it all that we shall require for our winter comfort. Where two rivers come together there stands, sheltered among hills, a clump of pine-trees. The points of the rivers are well wooded, and the marshes along the banks hold wild vetch, and the pea plant of the prairie grows through the under-bush, high above the snow, giving food to horses in the worst seasons of the year.
“I don’t know any fitter place for winter camp in all the hundreds of miles that are around us. We are now bound for that spot, and if things are as I last saw them, we shall make our hut in the pine wood and settle into our winter-quarters ere the cold has come. We have still much to do, and it is time we set to work.”
I heard with joy these plans for the winter. The life was still so new to me—the sense of breathing this fresh bright atmosphere, and of moving day by day through this great ocean of grass, was in itself such pleasure, that I had latterly ceased almost altogether to think much about the future, feeling unbounded confidence in my Indian friend’s skill and forethought.
Donogh and I had in fact been enjoying the utmost bliss of perfect freedom—that only true freedom in life, the freedom of fording streams, crossing prairies, galloping over breezy hill-tops, watching wild herds in their daily habits of distance, seeing them trail along slowly into golden sunsets, or file in long procession to some prairie stream for the evening drink; or better still, marking some stray wolf into a valley where he thought himself unseen, and dashing down upon him with wild hulloo ready for the charge, while the silent echoes wake to the clash of hoof and ring of cheer. All these things, and many more, had filled the hours of our life in the past month to such a degree, that our spirits seemed to have widened out to grasp the sense of a freedom as boundless as the wilderness itself.
It was on the third day following the conversation above recorded, that we came in sight of a low dark ridge, showing itself faintly above the northern horizon.
Flowing in many serpentine bends, a small creek wound through the prairie at our left hand, cotton-wood clusters fringed the “points” of this stream, and long grass grew luxuriantly between the deep bends, which sometimes formed almost a figure eight in the roundness of their curves. Our party moved in a straight line, which almost touched the outer points of these deep curves, and from the higher ground along which we marched, the eye could at times catch the glint of water amid the ends of grasses, and mark the wild ducks sailing thickly on the rushy pools. I had[154] used my gun frequently during the morning, and when the mid-day hour had come we had a plentiful supply of wild ducks hanging to our saddles.
In this life in the wilderness I had early learned the lesson of killing only what was needed to supply the wants of the party. When wild ducks were so plentiful, it would of course have been easy to shoot any quantity of them; but that habit of civilized sport which seeks only the “bag” had long since ceased to influence me, and I had come to regard the wild creatures of the prairie, birds and beasts, as far more worthy of study in life than in death. That terrible misnomer “good sport” had for me a truer significance. It meant watching the game by little and little, and killing only what was actually required for the use of our fellow travellers and myself. During the mid-day halt on this day Red Cloud held a long conversation with the other Indians upon the place they were now tending to. The Assineboine had never visited the spot, the Cree had been there on a war-party two summers ago; but it was now, he thought, so late in the season that there would be little danger of meeting any roving bands of Blackfeet, and the Crees he knew to be far away towards the eastern prairies.
It would have been difficult to have imagined a more perfect scene of a mid-day camp than that in which our little party found itself on this bright autumnal day. The camp fire was made at the base of a round knoll, which ran from the higher plateau of the prairie into one of the deep bends of the creek; upon three sides a thick fringe of cotton-wood lined the edges of the stream; the golden leaves of poplars and the bronzed foliage of the bastard maple hung still and bright in the quiet September day. Immediately around the camp grew small bushes of wild plum, covered thickly with crimson and yellow fruits of delicious flavour.
Ah, what a desert that was! When the wild ducks and the flour gelettes had been eaten, a single shake of the bush brought down showers of wild sweet fruit, and when we had eaten all we could, bags were filled for future use.
But even such prairie repasts must come to an end, and it was soon time to saddle and be off. So the horses were driven in, and resuming our course, the evening found us on the banks of the Red Deer river, not far from its point of junction with the Medicine. We camped that night upon the banks of the stream, and early next day reached the point of junction. A ford was soon found, and to the Sioux’ great joy no trace of fire was to be seen in the meadows between the rivers, or on the range of hills that lay to the north and east; all was still and peaceful as he had last seen it. The pine bluff yet stood dark and solemn at the point where the rivers met, and the meadows, as our party rode through them, were knee-deep in grasses and long trailing plants.
And now began in earnest a period of hard work. First the small lodge of dressed skins was pitched upon a knoll amid the pine-trees; then the saddles and stores were all made safe, upon a rough stage supported upon poles driven fast into the ground. Next began the clearing of trees and brushwood on the site selected for the hut. It was a spot close to the point formed by the meeting of the two rivers, but raised about twenty feet above the water, and partly hidden by trees and bushes. Tall pines grew on the site, but the axe of the Sioux and the scout soon brought down these giants, and made clear the space around where the hut was to stand.
It was wonderful to watch the ready manner in which the Indians worked their hatchets; never a blow missed its mark, each falling with unerring aim upon the spot where the preceding one had struck; then a lower-struck cut would cause the huge splinters to fly from the trunk, until, in a few moments the tree crashed to the earth in the exact line the Indians wished it to fall.
Although a novice at woodman’s craft, I was no idle spectator of the work. If a man has a quick eye, a ready hand, and a willing heart, the difficulties that lie in things that are unknown to us are soon overcome. Every hour’s toil made a sensible improvement in my work. I soon learnt how to roughly square the logs, and to notch the ends of them so[157] that one log fitted closely to the other.
Donogh and the wounded Cree meantime looked after the horses, gathered fuel for the fire, and cooked the daily meals of our party, and often gave a hand at the lifting of log or labour of construction. Thus the work went on without intermission, and day by day the little hut grew in size. All day long the sound of wood-chopping echoed through the pine wood at the point, over the silent rivers, causing some passing wolf to pause in his gallop and listen to the unwonted noise; but no human ear was there to catch it, or human eye to mark the thin column of blue smoke that rose at eventime above the dark pine-tops when the day’s work was over. There was no lack of food either. With a few hooks and lines Donogh managed to do good work among the fishes in the rivers. The creeks and ponds still held large flocks of wild ducks, and many a fat black duck fell to a steady stalk of the Cree, whose crawling powers were simply unmatched. The black-tailed buck were numerous in the thickets around, and with so many things the larder never wanted for game, venison, wild fowl, or fish.
Thus the days went by, and at last the hut was finished and ready for occupation. It was an oblong structure, measuring twenty-five feet by twenty. A low door gave admission upon the south side; east and west held windows of parchment-skin drawn over a wooden frame that opened[158] and shut on leather hinges. At the north side stood the fireplace, a large hearth, and a chimney capable of holding a quantity of pine logs. Half the wooden door frame was also bound with parchment skins; thus plenty of light could be obtained in rough weather, and when the days would be still and fine both door and windows could be open.
“When the snow has fallen,” said Red Cloud to us, “the light from the ground will be very great. The snow hanging on the pine boughs will also light up the place, and the winter’s day will be brighter than you can imagine. At night our logs will blaze brightly upon the hearth.”
The fireplace and chimney were built of stones and mud. The Indians had carefully mixed the latter so as to ensure its standing the great heat of the winter fires. The logs composing the walls were all of pines, or, more properly speaking, of white spruce; they had been roughly squared and notched at the end, to allow of their catching each other and fitting tightly together; mud and moss had then been pressed into the interstices so as to make them perfectly air-tight. The roof was composed of long reed-grass, cut from a neighbouring swamp and dried in the sun. The floor was plastered with a coating of mud, which, when fully dry, made a smooth and firm surface. Altogether the interior presented an aspect of great comfort—rude, it is true, but still clean, bright, and cheerful.
It was a marvel to me how all this labour had been done, and this result achieved, with only a few rude implements—a couple of axes, a saw, a few gimlets and awls, and those wonderful knives which the Indians themselves make from old files—those knives with which a ready man can fashion a canoe, a dog-sled, or a snow-shoe, with a beauty of design which no civilized art can excel.
But although shelter for the winter had been thus provided, an equally important want had still to be attended to; a supply of meat sufficient to last three months had to be obtained.
The Red Cloud had often spoken to me of the expedition which we had still before us in the first month of the winter, and now that the hut was finished the time had come for setting out in quest of buffalo.
“Of all the winter food which the prairie can give,” said he to me, “there is no food like the meat of the buffalo. The time has now come when the frost is sufficiently keen all day to keep the meat frozen, therefore all we kill can be brought in; none of it will be lost. The last buffalo we saw,” he continued, “were on the plains south of the Elk river; they were scattered herds of bulls. The cows were then absent three days’ march south of that ground; the herds were moving very slowly to the west. About a week’s journey from here there is a small lake in the plains, called the Lake of the Wind, from the ceaseless movement of its waters. Day and night, even when the winds are still, the waters of that lake move and dash with noise against the pebbles on the shore. It is a favourite haunt for buffalo. To that lake we shall steer our course; for four days we shall have to c............