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 TlIK OKKAT LO^E L.VXI). SHOWING THK ROtTF. OF (.U'T.U.X M. F. BinXKR.F.R.U-S.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND : 
 
 A NARRATIVE OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE 
 IN THE NORTH-WEST OF AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 Majoe W. F. BUTLER, C.B., F.R.G.S. 
 
 AUTHOE OF "HISTOEICAL EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE SIXTY-NINTH 
 EEGIMENT," ETC. 
 
 ' A full fed river winding slow, 
 By herds upon an endless plain. 
 
 And some one pacing there alone 
 
 Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, 
 
 Lit with a low, large moon." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND ROUTE MAP. 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION. 
 
 IContJou : 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE, 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1875. 
 
 \_All rights reserved.''^
 
 LONDON : 
 
 GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 
 
 ST. JOHNS SQUARE.
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 At York Factory on Hudson Bay there lived, not very 
 long ago,, a man who had stored away in his mind one 
 fixed resolution — it was to write a book. 
 
 " When I put down/^ he used to say, " all that I have 
 seen, and all that I havn^t seen, I will be able to write a 
 good book." 
 
 It is probable that had this man carried his intention 
 into effect the negative portion of his vision would have 
 been more successful than the positive. People are gene- 
 rally more ■ ready to believe what a man hasn't seen than 
 what he has seen. So, at least, thought Karkakonias the 
 Chippeway Chief at Pembina. 
 
 Karkakonias was taken to Washington during the great 
 Southern War, in order that his native mind might be 
 astonished by the grandeur of the United States, and by 
 the strength and power of the army of the Potomac 
 
 a2
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 Upon his return to liis tribe he remained silent and 
 impassive ; his days were spent in smoking-, his evenings 
 in quiet contemplation ; he spoke not of his adventures in 
 the land of the great white medicine-man. But at length 
 the tribe grew discontented; they had expected to hear 
 the recital of the wonders seen by their chief, and lo ! 
 he had come back to them as silent as though his wander- 
 ings had ended on the Coteau of the Missouri, or by the 
 borders of the Kitchi-Gami. Their discontent found vent 
 in words. 
 
 " Our father, Karkakonias, has come back to us/' they 
 said; "why does he not tell his children of the medi- 
 cine of the white man ? Is our father dumb that he does 
 not speak to us of these things '^" 
 
 Then the old chief took his calumet from his lips, and 
 replied, " If Karkakonias told his children of the medi- 
 cines of the white man — of his war-canoes moving by 
 fire and making thunder as they move, of his warriors 
 more numerous than the buffalo in the days of our fathers, 
 of all the wonderful things he has looked upon — his 
 children would point and say, ' Behold ! Karkakonias has 
 become in his old age a maker of lies ! ' No, my children, 
 Karkakonias has seen many wonderful things, and his 
 tongue is still able to speak j but, until your eyes have
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 travelled as far as has his tongue, he will sit silent and 
 smoke the calumet, thinking only of what he has looked 
 upon/^ 
 
 Perhaps I too should have followed the example of the 
 old Chippeway chief, not because of any wonders I have 
 looked upon ; but rather because of that well-known 
 prejudice against travellers' tales, and of that terribly 
 terse adjuration — " O that mine enemy might write a 
 book!'^ Be that as it may, the book has been written; 
 and it only remains to say a few words about its title and 
 its theories. 
 
 The " Great Lone Land " is no sensational name. Tile 
 North-west fulfils, at the present time, every essential of 
 that title. There is no other portion of the globe in 
 which travel is possible where loneliness can be said to 
 dwell so thoroughly. One may wander 500 miles in a 
 direct line without seeing a human being, or an animal 
 larger than a wolf. And if vastness of plain, and mag- 
 nitude of lake, mountain and river can mark a land as 
 great, then no region possesses higher claims to that dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 A word upon more personal matters. Some two months 
 since I sent to the firm from whose hands this work has 
 emanated a portion of the unfinished manuscript. I re-
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 ceived in reply a communication to the effect that their 
 Reader thought hig-hly of my descriptions of real occurrences, 
 but less of my theories. As it is possible that the general 
 reader may fully endorse at least the latter portion of this 
 opinion, I have only one observation to make. 
 
 Almost every page of this book has been written amid 
 the ever-present pressure of those feelings which spring 
 from a sense of unrequited labour, of toil and service 
 theoretically and oflBcially recognized, but practically and 
 professionally denied. However, a personal preface is not 
 my object, nor should these things find allusion here, save 
 to account in some manner, if account be necessary, for 
 peculiarities of language or opinion which may hereafter 
 make themselves apparent to the reader. Let it be. 
 
 In the solitudes of the Great Lone Land, whither I am 
 once more about to turn my steps, the trifles that spriug 
 from such disappointments will cease to trouble. 
 
 W. F. B. 
 
 April Uth, 1872.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Peace — Rumours of War — Retrenchment — A Cloud in the far West 
 — A distant Settlement — Personal — The Purchase System— A 
 Cable-gi-am — Away to the West 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The "Samaria" — Across the Atlantic — Shipmates — The Despot of 
 the Deck — " Keep her Nor' -West " — Democrat versus Republican 
 — A First Glimpse— Boston ,10 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Bunker— New York- — Niagara — Toronto — Spring-time in Quebec — A 
 Summons — A Start — In good Company — Stripping a Peg— An 
 Expedition — Poor Canada — An Old Glimpse at a New Land — Rival 
 Routes— Change of Masters — The Red River Revolt — The Half- 
 breeds — Early Settlers — Bungling — "Eaters of Pemmican" — 
 M. Louis Riel— The Murder of Scott 24 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Chicago— "Who is S. B. D.?"— Milwaukie— The Great Fusion- 
 Wisconsin — The Sleeping-car — The Train Boy — Minnesota — St. 
 Paul — I start for Lake Superior — The Future City — "Bust up" 
 and " Gone on "—The End of the Track 48 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Lake Superior — The Dalles of the St. Louis — The North Pacific Rail- 
 road — Fond-du-Lac — Duluth — Superior City — The Great Lake — 
 A Plan to dry up Niagara — Stage Driving— Tom's Shanty again 
 — St. Paul and its Neighbourhood 68
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Our Cousins — Doing America — Two Lessons — St. Cloud — Sauk 
 Rapids — " Steam Pudding or Pumpkin Pie ? " — Trotting liim out 
 — Away for the Red River . 70 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 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 SO 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Retrospective — The North-west Passage — The Bay of Hudson — Rival 
 Claims — The Old French Fur Trade — The North-west Company — 
 How the Half-breeds came — The Highlanders defeated — Progress 
 — Old Feuds 105 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Running the Gauntlet — Across the Line — Mischief ahead — Prepara- 
 tions—A Night March — The Steamer captured — The Pursuit — 
 Daylight— The Lower Fort— The Red Man at last— The Chief's 
 Speech — A Big Feed — Making ready for the Winnipeg — A Delay 
 — I visit Fort Garry— Mr. President Riel — The Final Start— Lake 
 Winnipeg — The First Night out — My Crew 113 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Winnipeg River — The Ojibbeway's House — Rusting a Rapid — 
 A Camp — No Tidings of the Coming Man — Hope in Danger — Rat 
 Portage— A far-fetched Islington — " Like Pemmican " . . . 143 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Expedition — The Lake of the Woods — A Night Alarm— A close 
 Shave — Rainy River — A Night Paddle — Fort Francis — A Meeting 
 — The Officer commanding the Expedition — The Rank and File — 
 The 60th Rifles — A Windigo — Ojibbeway Bravery — Canadian 
 Volunteers ........... 155 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 To Fort Garry — Down the Winnipeg— Her Majesty's Royal Mail — 
 Grilling a Mail-bag — Running a Rapid — Up the Red River — A 
 dreary Bivouac — The President bolts — The Rebel Chiefs — 
 Departure of the Regular Troops 180
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Westward — News from the Outside World — I retrace my Steps — 
 An Offer — The West — The Kissaskatchewan — The Inland Ocean — 
 
 • Preparations — Departure — A Terrible Plague — A lonely Grave — 
 Digi-essive — The Assineboine Eiver — Eossette .... 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Hudson Bay Company — Furs and Free Trade — Fort Ellice — 
 Quick Travelling — Horses — Little Blackie — Touchwood Hills — A 
 Snow-storm — The South Saskatchewan — Attempt to cross the 
 River — Death of poor Blackie — Carlton 210 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Saskatchewan — Start from Carlton— Wild Mares — Lose our Way — 
 A long Ride — Battle River — Mistawassis the Cree — A Dance . 230 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 The Red Man — Leave Battle River— The Red Deer Hills— A long 
 Ride — Fort Pitt — The Plague— Hauling by the Tail — A pleasant 
 Companion — An easy Method of Divorce— Reach Edmonton . . 240 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Edmonton — The RufBan Tahakooch — French Missionaries — West- 
 ward still— A beautiful Land — The Blackfeet— Horses — A " Bell- 
 ox" Soldier -A Blackfoot Speech — The Indian Land — First Sight 
 of the Rocky Mountains — The Mountain House — The Mountain 
 Assineboines — An Indian Trade — M. la Combe — Fire-water — A 
 Night Assault , . 258 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 Eastward— A beautiful Light 291 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I start from Edmonton with Dogs — Dog-travelling — The Cabri Sack 
 — A cold Day — Victoria — " Sent to Rome " — Reach Fort Pitt — The 
 blind Cree — A Feast or a Famine — Death of Pe-na-koara the 
 Blackfoot 293 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 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 315
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Great Sub-Arctic Forest— The " Forks " of the Saskatchewan — 
 An Iroquois — Fort-a-la-Come — News from the outside World — 
 All haste for Home — The solitary Wigwam — Joe Miller's Death . 329 
 
 CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 Cumberland — We bury poor Joe — A good Train of Dogs — The great 
 Marsh — Mutiny — Cliicag the Sturgeon-fisher — A Night with a 
 Medicine-man — Lakes Winnipegoosis and Manitoba — Muskeymote 
 eats his Boots — We reach the Settlement — From the Saskatchewan 
 to the Seine 338
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Map of the Great Lone Land ..,.,. Frontispiece 
 
 Working up the Winnipeg 147 
 
 I waved to the leading Canoe 168 
 
 Across the Plains in November ........ 215 
 
 The Rocky Mountains at the Sources of the Saskatchewan . . 274 
 Leaving a cosy Camp at dawn ........ 298 
 
 The " Forks " of the Saskatchewan . 329
 
 THE 
 
 GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Peace — Eumours of "War — Eeteenchment — A Cloud in the 
 FAR "West — A Distant Settlement — Personal — The Purchase 
 System — A Cable-gram — Away to the West. 
 
 It was a period of universal peace over the wide world. 
 There was not a shadow of war in the North, the South, 
 the East, or the West. There was not even a Bashote in 
 South Africa, a Beloochee in Scinde, a Bhoottea, a Burmese, 
 or any other of the many "eses^^ or "eas" forming the great 
 colonial empire of Britain who seemed capable of kicking 
 up the semblance of a row. Newspapers had never been 
 so dull ; illustrated journals had to content themselves 
 with pictorial representations of prize pigs, foundation 
 stones, and provincial civic magnates. Some of the great 
 powers were bent upon disarming; several influential per- 
 sons of both sexes had decided, at a meeting held for the 
 suppression of vice, to abolish standing armies. But, to 
 be more precise as to the date of this epoch, it will be 
 necessary to state that the time was the close of the year 
 
 B
 
 2 THE GEEAT LONE LAXD. 
 
 18G9j just twenty- two months ago. Looking- back at this 
 most piping" period of peace from the stand-point of to- 
 day, it is not at all improbable that even at that tranquil 
 moment a great power, now very much greater, had a 
 firm hold of certain wires carefully concealed ; the dexterous 
 pulling of which would cause 100, 000,000 of men to rush 
 at each other^s throats : nor is this supposition rendered 
 the more unlikely because of the utterance of the most 
 religious sentiments on the part of the great power in 
 question, and because of the well-known Christianity and 
 orthodoxy of its ruler. But this was not the only power 
 that possessed a deeper insight into the future than did its 
 neighbours. It is hardly to be gainsaid that there was, 
 about that period, another great power popularly supposed 
 to dwell amidst darkness — a power which is said also to 
 possess the faculty of making Scriptural quotations to his 
 own advantage. It is not at all unlikely that amidst this 
 scene of universal quietude he too was watching certain 
 little snow-wrapt hamlets, scenes of straw-yard and deep 
 thatched byre in which cattle munched their winter pro- 
 vender — watching them with the perspective scent of death 
 and destruction in his nostrils ; gloating over them with 
 the knowledge of what was to be their fate before another 
 Bnow time had come round. It could not be supposed 
 that amidst such an era of tranquillity the army of 
 England should have been allowed to remain in a very 
 formidable position. When other powers were talking of 
 disarming, was it not necessary that Great Britain should 
 actually disarm ? of course there was a slight difference 
 existing between the respective cases, inasmuch as Great 
 Britain had never armed ; but that distinction was not 
 taken into account, or was not deemed of sufficient im- 
 portance to be noticed, except by a few of the opposition
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 3 
 
 journals ; and is not every one aware that when a country 
 is governed on the principle of parties, the party which is 
 called the opposition must be in the wrong* ? So it was 
 decreed about this time that the fighting force of the 
 British nation should be reduced. It w^as useless to speak 
 of the chances of war, said the British tax-payer, speak- 
 ing through the mouths of innumerable members of the 
 British Legislature. Had not the late Prince Consort 
 and the late Mr. Cobden come to the same conclusion 
 from the widely different points of great exhibitions and 
 free trade, that war could never be ? And if, in the face of 
 great exhibitions and universal free trade — even if war did 
 become possible, had we not ambassadors, and legations, 
 and consulates all over the world; had we not military 
 attaches at every great court of Europe; and would we 
 not know all about it long before it commenced ? No, no, 
 said the tax-payer, speaking through the same medium as 
 before, reduce the army, put the ships of war out of com- 
 mission, take your largest and most powerful transport 
 steamships, fill them full with your best and most ex- 
 perienced skilled military and naval artisans and labourers, 
 send them across the Atlantic to forge guns, anchors, and 
 material of war in the navy-yards of Norfolk and the 
 arsenals of Springfield and Rock Island; and let us hear 
 no more of war or its alarms. It is true, there were some 
 persons who thought otherwise upon this subject, but 
 many of them were men whose views had become warped 
 and deranged in such out-of-the-way places as Southern 
 Russia, Eastern China, Cenralt Hindoostan, Southern 
 Africa, and Northern America — military men, who, in fact, 
 could not be expected to understand questions of grave 
 political economy, astute matters of place and party, upon 
 which the very existence of the parliamentary system 
 
 B 3
 
 4 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 depended; and who, from the ignorance of these nice 
 distinctions of liberal-conservative and conservative-liberal, 
 had imagined that the strength and power of the empire 
 was not of secondary importance to the strength and power 
 of a party. But the year 1869 did not pass altogether 
 into the bygone without giving a faint echo of disturbance 
 in one far-away region of the earth. It is true, that not 
 the smallest breathing of that strife which was to make 
 the succeeding year crimson through the centuries had 
 yet sounded on the continent of Europe. No; all was 
 as quiet there as befits the mighty hush which precedes 
 colossal conflicts. But far away in the very farthest West, 
 so far that not one man in fifty could tell its whereabouts, 
 up somewhere between the Rocky Mountains, Hudson 
 Bay, and Lake Superior, along a river called the Red 
 River of the North, a people, of whom nobody could tell 
 who or what they were, had risen in insurrection. Well- 
 informed persons said these insurgents were only Indians, 
 others, who had relations in America, averred that they 
 were Scotchmen, and one journal, well-known for its 
 clearness upon all subjects connected with the American 
 Continent, asserted that they were Frenchmen. Amongst 
 so much conflicting testimony, it was only natural that 
 the average Englishman should possess no very decided 
 opinions upon the matter ; in fact, it came to pass that 
 the average Englishman, having heard that somebody 
 was rebelling against him somewhere or other, looked to 
 his atlas and his journal for information on the subject, 
 and having failed in obtaining any from either source, 
 naturally concluded that the whole thing was something 
 v/hich no fellow could be expected to understand. As, 
 however, they who follow the writer of these pages 
 through such vicissitudes as he may encounter will have
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 5 
 
 to live awhile among-st these people of the Red River of 
 the Northj it will be necessary to examine this little cloud 
 of insurrection which the last days of 1869 pushed above 
 the political horizon. 
 
 About the time when Napoleon was carrying half a mil- 
 lion of men through the snows of Russia, a Scotch noble- 
 man of somewhat eccentric habits conceived the idea of 
 planting a colony of his countrymen in the very heart of 
 the vast continent of North America. It was by no means 
 an original idea that entered into the brain of Lord Selkirk ; 
 other British lords had tried in earlier centuries the same 
 experiment; and they, in turn, were only the imitators of 
 those great Spanish nobles who, in the sixteenth century, had 
 planted on the coast of the Carolinas and along the Gulf of 
 Mexico the first germs of colonization in the New World* 
 But in one respect Lord Selkirk's experiment was wholly 
 different from those that had preceded it. The earlier ad- 
 venturers had sought the coast-line of the Atlantic upon 
 which to fix their infant colonies. He boldly penetrated 
 into the very centre of the continent and reached a fertile 
 spot which to this day is most difiicult of access. But at 
 that time what an oasis in the vast wilderness of America 
 was this Red River of the North ! For 1400 miles between 
 it and the Atlantic lay the solitudes that now teem with the 
 cities of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michi- 
 gan. Indeed, so distant appeared the nearest outpost of 
 civilization towards the Atlantic that all means of commu- 
 nication in that direction was utterly unthought of. The 
 settlers had entered into the new land by the ice-locked bay 
 of Hudson, and all communication with the outside world 
 should be maintained through the same outlet. No easy 
 task ! 300 miles of lake and 400 miles of river, wildly 
 foaming over rocky ledges in its descent of 700 feet.
 
 D THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 lay between them and the ocean, and then only to reach 
 the stormy waters of the great Bay of Hudson, whose ice- 
 bound outlet to the Atlantic is fast locked save during two 
 short months of latest summer. No wonder that the in- 
 fant colony had hard times in store for it — hard times, if 
 left to fight its way against winter rigour and summer 
 inundation, but doubly hard when the hand of a powerful 
 enemy was raised to crush it in the first year of its existence. 
 Of this more before we part. Enough for us now to know 
 that the little colony, in spite of opposition, increased and 
 multiplied ; people lived in it, were married in it, and died 
 in it, undisturbed by the busy rush of the outside world, 
 until, in the last months of 1869, just fifty-seven years after 
 its formation, it rose in insurrection. 
 
 And now, my reader, gentle or cruel, whichsoever you may 
 be, the positions we have hitherto occupied in these few 
 preliminary pages must undergo some slight variation. 
 You, if you be gentle, will I trust remain so until the end ; 
 if you be cruel, you will perhaps relent ; but for me, it will 
 be necessary to come forth in the full glory of the indivi- 
 dual " 1" and to retain it until we part. 
 
 It was about the end of the year 1869 that I became 
 conscious of having experienced a decided check in life. 
 One day I received from a distinguished militarj^ func- 
 tionary an intimation to the effect that a company in Her 
 Majesty^s service would be at my disposal, provided I could 
 produce the sum of 1100(^. Some dozen years previous to 
 the date of this letter I entered the British army, and by 
 the slow process of existence had reached a position among 
 the subalterns of the regiment technically known as first for 
 purchase ; but now, when the moment arrived to turn that 
 position to account, 1 found that neither the 1100^. of regu- 
 lation amount nor the 400/. of over-regulation items (terms
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 7 
 
 very familiar now, but soon, I trust, to be for ever obso- 
 lete) were forthcoming, and so it came about that younger 
 hands began to pass me in the race of life. What was 
 to be done ? What course lay open ? Serve on ; let the 
 dull routine of barrack-life grow duller ; go from Canada 
 to the Cape, from the Cape to the Mauritius, from Mauritius 
 to Madras, from INIadras goodness knows where, and trust 
 to delirium tremens, yellow fever, or cholera morbus for 
 promotion and advancement ; or, on the other hand, cut the 
 service, become in the lapse of time governor of a peniten- 
 tiary, secretary to a London club, or adjutant of militia. 
 And yet — here came the rub — when every fibre of one's 
 existence beat in unison with the true spirit of military ad- 
 venture, when the old feeling which in boyhood had made 
 the study of history a delightful pastime, in late years had 
 grown into a fixed unalterable longing for active service, 
 when the whole current of thought ran in the direction of 
 adventure — no matter in what climate, or under what cir- 
 cumstances — it was hard beyond the measure of words to 
 sever in an instant the link that bound one to a life where 
 such aspirations were still possible of fulfilment ; to separate 
 one^s destiny for ever from that noble profession of arms; to 
 become an outsider, to admit that the twelve best years of 
 life had been a useless dream, and to bury oneself far away 
 in some Western wilderness out of the reach or sight of red 
 coat or sound of bugle — sights and sounds which old asso- 
 ciations would have made unbearable. Surely it could not 
 be done ; and so, looking abroad into the future, it was 
 difficult to trace a path which could turn the flank of this 
 formidable barrier flung thus suddenly into the highway of 
 life. 
 
 Thus it was that one, at least, in Grc at Britain watched 
 with anxious gaze this small speck of revolt rising so far
 
 8 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 away in the vast wilderness of the North-West ; and when, 
 about the beginning- of the month of April, 1870, news came 
 of the projected despatch of an armed force from Canada 
 ag-ainst the malcontents of Red River, there was one who 
 beheld in the approaching- expedition the chance of a solu- 
 tion to the difficulties which had beset him in his career. 
 That one was myself. 
 
 There was little time to be lost, for already, the cable 
 said, the arrang-ements were in a forward state ; the staff of 
 the little force had been org-anized, the roug-h outline of the 
 expedition had been sketched, and with the opening- of 
 navigation on the northern lakes the first move would be 
 commenced. Going- one morning to the nearest telegraph 
 station, I sent the following message under the Atlantic to 
 
 America : — " To , Winnipeg Expedition. Please 
 
 remember me/' When words cost at the rate of four shil- 
 lings each, conversation and correspondence become of ne- 
 cessity limited. In the present instance I was only allowed 
 the use of ten words to convey address, signature, and 
 substance, and the five words of my message were framed 
 both with a view to economy and politeness, as well as in a 
 manner which by calling for no direct answer still left un- 
 decided the great question of success. Having despatched 
 my message under the ocean, I determined to seek the 
 Horse Guards in a final effort to procure unattached pro- 
 motion in the army. It is almost unnecessary to remark 
 that this attempt failed ; and as I issued from the audience 
 in which I had been informed of the utter hopelessness of 
 my request, I had at least the satisfaction of having reduced 
 my chances of fortune to the narrow limits of a single 
 throw. Pausinor at the "-ate of the Horse Guards I reviewed 
 in a moment the whole situation ; whatever was to be the 
 result there was no time for delay, and so, hailing a hansom.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 9 
 
 I told the cabby to drive to the office of the Cunard Steam- 
 ship Company, Old Broad Street, City. 
 
 " What steamer sails on Wednesday for America?'''' 
 
 " The ' Samaria ■* for Boston, the ' Marathon ' for New 
 
 " The ' Samaria ' broke her shaft, didn't she, last voyage, 
 and. was a missing ship for a month? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered the clerk. 
 
 " Then book me a passage in her," I replied ; " she's 
 not likely to play that prank twice in two voyages/^
 
 10 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The " Samahia " — Aceoss the Atlantic — Shipmates — The Despot 
 OP the Deck — " Keep her Nok'-West " — Demockat versus 
 Eepublican — A First Glimpse — Boston. 
 
 Political economists and newspaper editors for years have 
 dwelt upon the unfortunate fact that Ireland is not a manu- 
 facturing nation, and does not export largely the products 
 of her soil. But persons who have lived in the island, or 
 who have visited the ports of its northern or southern 
 shores, or crossed the Atlantic by any of the ocean steamers 
 which sail daily from the United Kingdom, must have ar- 
 rived at a conclusion totally at variance with these writers; 
 for assuredly there is no nation under the sun which manu- 
 factures the material called mon so readily as does that 
 grass-covered island. Ireland is not a manufacturing 
 nation, says the political economist. Indeed, my good sir, 
 you are wholly mistaken. She is not only a manufacturing 
 nation, but she manufactures nations. You do not see her 
 broad-cloth, or her soft fabrics, or her steam-engines, but 
 you see the broad shoulder of her sons and the soft cheeks 
 of her daughters in vast states whose names you are utterly 
 ignorant of; and as for the exportation of her products to 
 foreign lands, just come with me on board this ocean steam- 
 ship " Samaria " and look at them. The good ship has run 
 down the channel during the night and now lies at anchor 
 in Queenstown harbour, waiting for mails and passengers. 
 The latter came quickly and thickly enough. No poor, ill-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 11 
 
 fed, miserably dressed crowd, but fresh, and fair, and strong, 
 and well clad, the bone and muscle and rustic beauty of the 
 land; the little steam-tender that plies from the shore to the 
 ship is crowded at every trip, and you can scan them as they 
 come on board in batches of seventy or eighty. Some eyes 
 among" the girls are red with crying, but tears dry quickly 
 on young cheeks, and they will be laughing before an hour 
 is over. "Let them go," says the economist; "we have 
 too many mouths to feed in these little islands of ours ; 
 their going will give us moi'e room, more cattle, more 
 chance to keep our acres for the few ; let them go." My 
 friend, that is just half the picture, and no more ; we may 
 get a peep at the other half before you and I part. 
 
 It was about five o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th of May 
 when the " Samaria ■'•' steamed slowly between the capes of 
 Camden and Carlisle, and rounding out into Atlantic turned 
 her head towards the westernhorizon. The ocean lay unruffled 
 along the rocky headlands of Ireland's southmost shore. A 
 long line of smoke hanging suspended between sky and sea 
 marked the unseen course of another steamship farther away 
 to the south. A hill-top, blue and lonely, rose above the 
 rugged coast-line, the far-off summit of some inland moun- 
 tain ; and as evening came down over the still tranquil 
 ocean and the vessel clove her outward way through phos- 
 phorescent water, the lights along the iron coast grew 
 fainter in distance till there lay around only the unbroken 
 circle of the sea. 
 
 On boakd. — A trip across the Atlantic is now-a-days 
 a very ordinary business ; in fact, it is no longer a voyage 
 — it is a run, you may almost count its duration to within 
 four hours ; and as for fine weather, blue skies, and calm 
 seas, if they come, you may be thankful for them, but 
 don't expect them, and you won't add a sense of disappoint-
 
 12 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 ment to one of discomfort. Some experience of tlie Atlantic 
 enables me to affirm that north or south of 35° north and 
 south latitude there exists no such thing as pleasant sailing. 
 But the usual run of weather, time, and tide outside the 
 ship is not more alike in its characteristics than the usual 
 run of passenger one meets inside. There is the man who 
 has never been sea-sick in his life, and there is the man who 
 has never felt well upon board ship, but who, nevertheless, 
 both manage to consume about fifty meals of solid food in 
 ten days. There is the nautical landsman who tells you 
 that he has been eighteen times across the Atlantic and 
 four times round the Cape of Good Hope, and who is gene- 
 rally such a bore upon marine questions that it is a subject 
 of infinite regret that he should not be performing a fifth 
 voyage round that distant and interesting promontory. 
 Early in the voyage, owing to his superior sailing qualities, 
 he has been able to cultivate a close intimacy with the 
 captain of the ship ; but this intimacy has been on the de- 
 cline for some days, and, as he has committed the unpar- 
 donable error of differing in opinion with the captain upon 
 a subject connected with the general direction and termina- 
 tion of the Gulf Stream, he begins to fall quickly in the 
 estimation of that potentate. Then there is the relict of 
 the late Major Fusby, of the Fusiliers, going to or returning 
 from England. Mrs. Fusby has a predilection for port- 
 negus and the first Burmese war, in which campaign her 
 late husband received a wound of such a vital description 
 (he died just twenty-two years later), that it has enabled 
 her to provide, at the expense of a grateful nation, for three 
 youthful Fusbies, who now serve their country in various 
 parts of the world. She does not suffer from sea-sickness, 
 but occasionally undergoes periods of nervous depression 
 which require the administration of the stimulant already
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 13 
 
 referred to. It is a singular fact that the present voyage is 
 strang-ely illustrative of remarkable events in the life of the 
 late Fusby ; there has not been a sail or a porpoise in sight 
 that has not called up some reminiscence of the early career 
 of the major ; indeed^ even the somewhat unusual appearance 
 of an iceberg has been turned to account as suggestive of 
 the intense suffering undergone by the major during the 
 period of his wound^ owing to the scarcity of the article ice 
 in tropical countries. Then on deck we have the inevitable 
 old sailor who is perpetually engaged in scraping the vestiges 
 of paint from your favourite seat, and who, having arrived 
 at the completion of his monotonous task after four day's 
 incessant labour, is found on the morning of the fifth en- 
 gaged in smearing the paint-denuded place of rest with a 
 vilely glutinous compound peculiar to ship-board. He 
 never looks directly at you as you approach, with book and 
 rug, the desired spot, but you can tell by the leer in his eye 
 and the roll of the quid in his immense mouth that the old 
 villain knows all about the discomfort he is causing you, and 
 you fancy you can detect a chuckle as you turn away in a 
 vain quest for a quiet cosy spot. Then there is the captain 
 himself, that most mighty despot. What king ever wielded 
 such power, what czar or kaiser had ever such obedience 
 yielded to their decrees ? This man, who on shore is no- 
 thing, is here on his deck a very pope ; he is infallible. 
 Canute could not stay the tide, but our sea-king regulates 
 the sun. Charles the Fifth could not make half a dozen 
 clocks go in unison, but Captain Smith can make it twelve 
 o'clock any time he pleases ; nay, more, when the sun has 
 made it twelve o'clock no tongue of bell or sound of clock 
 can proclaim time's decree until it has been ratified by the 
 fiat of the captain ; and even in his misfortunes what gran- 
 deur, what absence of excuse or crimination of others in the
 
 14 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 hour of liis disaster ! "Who has not heard of that captain 
 who sailed away from Liverpool one day bound for America ? 
 He had been hard worked on shore, and it was said that 
 when he sought the seclusion of his own cabin he was not 
 unmindful of that comfort which we are told the first navi- 
 gator of the ocean did not disdain to vise. For a little time 
 things went well. The Isle of Man was passed ; but unfor- 
 tunately, on the second day out, the good ship struck the 
 shore of the north-east coast of Ireland and became a total 
 wreck. As the weather was extremely fine, and there ap- 
 peared to be no reason for the disaster, the subject became 
 matter for investigation by the authorities connected with 
 the Board of Trade. During the inquiry it was deposed 
 that the Calf of ]\Ian had been passed at such an hour on 
 such a day, and the circumstance duly reported to the cap- 
 tain, who, it was said, was below. It was also stated that 
 having received the report of the passage of the Calf of Man 
 the captain had ordered the ship to be kept in a north-west 
 course until further orders. About six hours later the vessel 
 went ashore on the coast of Ireland. Such was the evidence 
 of the first officer. The captain was shortly after called and 
 examined. 
 
 " It appears, sir," said the president of the court, " that 
 the passing of the Calf of Man was duly reported to you 
 by the first officer. May I ask, sir, what course you ordered 
 to be steered upon receipt of that information ? " 
 
 " North-west, sir," answered the captain ; " I said, ' Keep 
 her north-west.^ " 
 
 " North-west," repeated the president " a very excellent 
 general course for making the coast of America, but not 
 until you had cleared the channel and were well into the 
 Atlantic. Why, sir, the whole of Ireland lay between you 
 and America on that course."
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 15 
 
 " Can^t help that, sir ; can't help that, sir/' replied the 
 sea-king" in a tone of half-contemptuous pitj, " that the 
 whole of Ireland should have been so very unreasonable as 
 to intrude itself in such, a position/' 
 
 And yet, with all the despotism of the deck, what kindly 
 spirits are these old sea-captains with the freckled hard- 
 knuckled hands and the g-rim storm-seamed faces ! What 
 honest genuine hearts are lying- buttoned up beneath those 
 rough pea-jackets ! If all despots had been of that kind 
 perhaps we shouldn't have known quite as much about 
 Parliamentary Institutions as we do. 
 
 And now, while we have been talking thus, the "Samai'ia" 
 has been getting far out into mid Atlantic, and yet we 
 know not one among our fellow-passengers, although they 
 do not number much above a dozen : a merchant from 
 INIaryland, a sea-captain from JNIaine, a young doctor from 
 Pennsylvania, a Massachusetts man, a Hhode Islander, a 
 German geologist going to inspect seams in Colorado, a 
 priest's sister from Ireland going to look after some little 
 property left her by her brother, a poor fellow who was 
 always ill, who never appeared at table, and who alluded 
 to the demon sea sickness that preyed upon him as " it/' 
 " It comes on very bad at night. It prevents me touch- 
 ing food. It never leaves me," he would say ; and in truth 
 this terrible " it" never did leave him until the harbour of 
 Boston was reached, and even then, I fancy, dwelt in his 
 thoughts during many a day on shore. 
 
 The sea-captain from Maine was a violent democrat, the 
 Massachusetts man a rabid republican j and many a fierce 
 battle waged between them on the vexed questions of state 
 rights, negro suffrage, and free trade in liquor. To many 
 Englishmen the terms republican and democrat may seem 
 synonymous; but not between radical and conservative.
 
 16 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 between outmost Whig and inmost Tory exist more opposite 
 extremes than between these great rival political parties of 
 the United States. As a drop of sea-water possesses the 
 properties of the entire water of the ocean, so these units of 
 American political controversy were microscopic representa- 
 tives of their respective parties. It was curious to remark 
 what a prominent part their religious convictions played in 
 the war of words. The republican was a member of the 
 Baptist congregation ; the democrat held opinions not very 
 easy of description, something of a universalist and semi- 
 unitarian tendency; these opinions became frequently inter- 
 mixed with their political jargon, forming that curious 
 combination of ideas which to unaccustomed ears sounds 
 slightly blasphemous. I recollect a very earnest American 
 once saying that he considered all religious, political, social, 
 and historical teaching should be reduced to three subjects 
 — the Sermon on the Mount, the Declaration of American 
 Independence, and the Chicago Republican Platform of 1860. 
 On the present occasion the Massachusetts man was a per- 
 son whose nerves were as weak as his political convictions 
 were strong, and the democrat being equally gifted with 
 strong opinions, strong nerves, and a tendency towards 
 strong waters, was enabled, particularly after dinner, to ob- 
 tain an easy victory over his less powerfully gifted antago- 
 nist. In fact it was to the weakness of the latter's nervous 
 system that we were indebted for the pleasure of his society 
 on board. Eight weeks before he had been ordered by his 
 medical adviser to leave his wife and office in the little village 
 of Hyde Park to seek change and relaxation on the continent 
 of Europe. He was now returning to his native land filled, 
 he informed us, with the gloomiest forebodings. He had a 
 very powerful presentiment that we were never to see the 
 shores of America. By what agency our destruction was to
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 17 
 
 be accomplished he did not enlig-hten us, but the ship had 
 not well commenced her voyage before he commenced his 
 evil prognostications. That these were not founded upon 
 any prophetic knowledge of future events will be sufficiently 
 apparent from the fact of this book being written. Indeed, 
 when the mid Atlantic had been passed our Massachusetts 
 acquaintance began to entertain more hopeful expectations 
 of once more pressing his wife to his bosom, although he re- 
 peatedly reiterated that if that domestic event was really des- 
 tined to take place no persuasion on earth, medical or other- 
 wise, would ever induce him to place the treacherous billows 
 of the Atlantic between him and the person of that bosom's 
 partner. It was drawing near the end of the voyage when 
 an event occurred which, though in itself of a most trivial 
 nature, had for some time a disturbing effect upon our 
 little party. The priest's sister, an elderly maiden lady of 
 placidly weak intellect, announced one morning at breakfast 
 that the sea-captain from Maine had on the previous day 
 addressed her in terms of endearment, and had, in fact, called 
 her his " little duck.'' This announcement, which was made 
 generally to the table, and which was received in dead 
 silence by every member of the community, had by no 
 means a pleasurable effect upon the countenance of the 
 person most closely concerned. Indeed, amidst the silence 
 which succeeded the revelation, a half-smothered sentence, 
 more forcible than polite, was audible from the lips of the 
 democrat, in which those accustomed to the vernacular of 
 America could plainly distinguish " darned old fool." 
 iSIeantime, in spite of political discussions, or amorous reve- 
 lations, or prophetic disaster, in spite of mid-ocean storm 
 and misty fog-bank, our gigantic screw, unceasing as the 
 whirl of life itself, had wound its way into the waters which 
 wash the rugged shores of New England. To those whose 
 
 C
 
 18 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 lives are spent in ceaseless movement over the world, who 
 wander from continent to continent, from island to island, 
 who dwell in many cities but are the citizens of no city, who 
 sail away and come back ag-ain, whose home is the broad 
 
 • earth itself, to such as these the coming- in sight of land is 
 no unusual occurrence, and yet the man has grown old at 
 his trade of wandering who can look utterly uninterested 
 upon the first glimpse of land rising out of the waste of 
 ocean : small as that glimpse may be, only a rock, a cape, a 
 mountain crest, it has the power of localizing an idea, the 
 very vastness of which prevents its realization on shore. 
 From the deck of an outward-bound vessel one sees rising, 
 faint and blue, a rocky headland or a mountain summit — one 
 does not ask if the mountain be of Maine, or of Mexico, or 
 the Cape be St. Ann^s or Hatteras, one only sees America. 
 Behind that strip of blue coast lies a world, and that world 
 the new one. Far away inland lie scattered many land- 
 scapes glorious with mountain, lake, river, and forest, all 
 unseen, all unknown to the wanderer who for the first time 
 seeks the American shore ; yet instinctively their presence 
 is felt in that faint outline of sea-lapped coast which lifts 
 itself above the ocean ; and even if in after-time it becomes 
 the lot of the wanderer, as it became my lot, to look again 
 upon these mountain summits, these immense inland seas, 
 
 r these mighty rivers whose waters seek their mother ocean 
 through 3000 miles of meadow, in none of these glorious 
 parts, vast though they be, will the sense of the still vaster 
 whole be realized as strongly as in that first glimpse of land 
 showing dimly over the western horizon of the Atlantic. 
 
 The sunset of a very beautiful evening in May was 
 making bright the shores of Massachusetts as the 
 " Samaria,^^ under her fullest head of steam, ran up the 
 entrance to Plymouth Sound. To save daylight into port
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAXD. 10 
 
 was an object of moment to the Captain, for the approach 
 to Boston harbour is as intricate as shoal, sunken rock, and 
 fort-crowned isknd can make it. If ever that mueh- 
 talked-of conilict between the two great branches of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race is destined to quit the realms of fancy 
 for those of fact, Boston, at least, will rest as safe from 
 the destructive engines of British iron-clads as the city ot 
 Omaha on the ISIissouri River. It was only natural that 
 the Massachusetts man should have been in a fever of 
 excitement at finding himself once more within sight of 
 home ; and for once human nature exhibited the unusual 
 spectacle of rejoicing over the falsity of its own predictions. 
 As every revolution of the screw brought out some new 
 feature into prominence, he skipped gleefully about; and, 
 recognizing in my person the stranger element in the 
 assembly, he took particular pains to point out the lions 
 of the landscape. " There, sir, is Fort Warren, where we 
 kept our rebel prisoners during the war. In a few minutes 
 more, sir, we will be in sight of Bunker's Hill '^' and then, 
 in a frenzy of excitement, he skipped away to some post of 
 vantage upon the forecastle. 
 
 Night had come down over the harbour, and Boston had 
 lighted all her lamps, before the ^^ Samaria,^' swinging 
 round in the fast-running tide, lay, with quiet screw and 
 smokeless funnel, alongside the wharf of New England's 
 oldest city. 
 
 " Real mean of that darned Baptist pointing you out 
 Bunker's Hill," said the sea-captain from Maine ; "just 
 like the ill-mannered republican cuss !" It was useless to 
 tell him that I had felt really obliged for the information 
 given me by his political opponent. "Never mind,"" he 
 said, " to-morrow I'll show you how these moral Bostonians 
 break their darned liquor law in every hotel in their city.'' 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Boston has a clean, English look about it, pecu- 
 liar to it alone of all the cities in the United States. 
 Its streets, running in curious curves, as though they had 
 not the least idea where they were going, are full of prettily- 
 dressed pretty girls, who look as though they had a very 
 fair idea of where they were going to. Atlantic fogs and 
 French fashions have combined to make Boston belles pink, 
 pretty, and piquante ; while the western states, by drawing 
 fully half their male population from New England, make 
 the preponderance of the female element apparent at a 
 glance. The ladies, thus left at home, have not been 
 idle : their colleges, their clubs, their reading-classes are 
 numerous ; like the man in " Hudibras," — 
 
 " 'Tis known they can speak 
 Greek as naturally as pigs squeak ; " 
 
 and it is probable that no city in the world can boast so 
 high a standard of female education as Boston : nevertheless, 
 it must be regretted that this standard of mental excellence 
 attributable to the ladies of Boston should not have been 
 found capable of association with the duties of domestic 
 life. Without going deeper into topics which are better 
 understood in America than in England, and which have 
 undergone most eloquent elucidation at the hands of Mr. 
 Hepworth Dixon, but which are nevertheless slightly 
 nauseating, it may safely be observed, that the inculca- 
 tion at ladies'" colleges of that somewhat rude but forcible 
 home truth, enunciated by the first Napoleon in reply 
 to the most illustrious Frenchwoman of her day, when 
 questioned upon the subject of female excellence, should 
 not be forgotten. 
 
 There exists a very generally received idea that strangers 
 are more likely to notice and complain of the short-comings
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 21 
 
 of a social habit or system than are residents who have 
 grown old under that infliction ; but I cannot help thinking 
 that there exists a considerable amount of error in this 
 opinion. A stranger will frequently submit to extortion, 
 to insolence, or to inconvenience, because, being a stranger, 
 he believes that extortion, insolence, and inconvenience are 
 the habitual characteristics of the new place in which he 
 finds himself: they do not strike him as things to be 
 objected to, or even wondered at ; they are simply to be 
 submitted to and endured. If he were at home, he would 
 die sooner than yield that extra half-dollar ; he would leave 
 the house at once in which he was told to get up at an 
 unearthly hour in the morning; but, being in another 
 country, he submits, without even a thought of resistance. 
 In no other way can we account for the strange silence on 
 the part of English writers upon the tyrannical disposition 
 of American social life. A nation everlastingly boasting 
 itself the freest on the earth submits unhesitatingly to 
 more social tyranny than any people in the world. In the 
 United States one is marshalled to every event of the day. 
 Whether you like it or not, you must get up, breakfast, 
 dine, sup, and go to bed at fixed hours. Attached upon 
 the inside of your bedroom-door is a printed document 
 which informs you of all the things you are not to do in 
 the hotel — a list in which, like Mr. J. S. Mill's definition 
 of Christian doctrine, the shall-nots predominate over the 
 shalls. In the event of your disobeying any of the 
 numerous mandates set forth in this document — such as 
 not getting up very early — you will not be sent to the 
 penitentiary or put in the pillory, for that process of 
 punishment would imply a necessity for trouble and exer- 
 tion on the part of the richly-apparelled gentleman who 
 does you the honour of receiving your petitions and grossly
 
 22 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 oA'Gcliarg'ing you at the office — no, you have simply to 
 g-o without food until dinner-time, or to g-o to bed by the 
 light of a jet of gas for which you will be charged an 
 exorbitant price in your bill. As in the days of Roman 
 despotism we know that the slaves were occasionally 
 permitted to indulge in the grossest excesses, so, under 
 the rigorous system of the hotel-keeper, the guest is 
 allowed to expectorate profusely over every thing ; over 
 the marble with which the hall is paved, over the Brussels 
 carpet which covers the drawing-room, over the bed-room, 
 and over the lobby. Expectoration is apparently the one 
 saving clause which American liberty demands as the price 
 of its submission to the prevailing tyranny of the hotel. 
 Do not imagine — you, who have never yet tasted the sweets 
 of a transatlantic transaction — that this tyranny is confined 
 to the hotel : every person to whom you pay money in the 
 ordinary travelling ti-ansactions of life — your omnibus-man, 
 your railway-conductor, your steamboat-clerk — takes your 
 money, it is true, but takes it in a manner which tells you 
 plainly enough that he is conferring a very great favour by 
 so doing. He is in all probability realizing a profit of from 
 three to four hundred per cent, on whatever the transaction 
 may be ; but, all the same, although you are fully aware of 
 this fact, you are nevertheless almost overwhelmed with the 
 sense of the very deep obligation which you owe to the man 
 who thus deigns to receive your money. 
 
 It was about ten o'clock at night when the steamer 
 anchored at the wharf at Boston. Not until midday on 
 the following day were we (the passengers) allowed to leave 
 the vessel. The cause of this delay arose from the fact that 
 the collector of customs of the port of Boston was an in- 
 dividual of great social importance ; and as it would have 
 been inconvenient for him to attend at an earlier hour for
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 23 
 
 the purpose of being" present at the examination of our 
 bag-gage^ we were detained prisoners until the day was 
 far enough advanced to suit his convenience. From a 
 conversation which subsequently I had with this gentle- 
 man at our hotel, I discovered that he was more obliging 
 in his general capacity of politician and prominent citizen 
 than he was in his particular duties of customs' col- 
 lector. Like many other instances of the kind in the 
 United States, his was a case of evident unfitness for 
 the post he held. A socially smaller man would have 
 made a much better customs official. Unfortunately for 
 the comfort of the public, the remuneration attached to 
 appointments in the postal and customs departments is fre- 
 quently very large, and these situations are eagerly sought 
 as prizes in the lottery of political life—prizes, too, which 
 can only be held for the short term of four years. As a 
 consequence, the official who holds his situation by right of 
 political service rendered to the chief of the predominant 
 clique or party in his state does not consider that he owes 
 to the public the service of his office. In theory he is a 
 public servant; in reality he becomes the master of the 
 public. This is, however, the fault of the system and not of 
 the individual.
 
 24j THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Bunker — New York — Niagara — Toronto — Spring-time in Que- 
 bec — A Summons — A Start — In good Company — Stripping 
 A Peg — An Expedition — Poor Canada — An Old Glimpse 
 AT A New Land — Rival Routes — Change or Masters — The 
 Red River Revolt — The Half-breeds — Early Settlers 
 — Bungling — "Eaters or Pemmican" — M. Louis Rlel — The 
 Murder oe Scott. 
 
 When a city or a nation has but one military memory, 
 it ding's to it with all the affectionate tenacity of an 
 old maid for her solitary poodle or parrot. Boston — 
 supreme over any city in the Republic — can boast of 
 possessing- one military memento : she has the Hill of 
 Bunker. Bunker has long- passed into the bygone; but 
 his hill remains, and is likely to remain for many a long 
 day. It is not improbable that the life, character and 
 habits, sayings, even the writings of Bunker — perhaps he 
 couldn't write ! — are familiar to many persons in the United 
 States ; but it is in Boston and Massachusetts that Bunker 
 holds highest carnival. They keep in the Senate-chamber 
 of the Capitol, nailed over the entrance doorway in full 
 sight of the Speaker's chair, a drum, a musket, and a 
 mitre-shaped soldier's hat — trophies of the fight fought in 
 front of the low earthwork on Bunker's Hill. Thus the 
 senators of Massachusetts have ever before them visible 
 reminders of the glory of their fathers : and I am not sure 
 that these former belongings of some long-waistcoated
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 25 
 
 redcoat are not as valuable incentives to correct legislation 
 as that historic " bauble" of our own constitution. 
 
 Meantime we must away. Boston and New York have 
 had their stories told frequently enough — and, in reality, 
 there is not much to tell about them. The world does not 
 contain a more uninteresting accumulation of men and 
 houses than the great city of New York : it is a place 
 wherein the stranger feels inexplicably lonely. The 
 traveller has no mental property in this city whose enor- 
 mous growth of life has struck scant roots into the great 
 heart of the past. 
 
 Our course, however, lies west. We will trace the onward 
 stream of empire in many portions of its way; we will 
 reach its limits, and pass beyond it into the lone spaces 
 which yet silently await its coming ; and farther still, 
 where the solitude knows not of its approach and the 
 Indian still reigns in savage supremacy. 
 
 Niagara. — They have all had their say about Niagara. 
 From Hennipin to Dilke, travellers have written much 
 about this famous cataract, and yet, put all together, they 
 have not said much about it ; description depends so much 
 on comparison, and comparison necessitates a something 
 like. If there existed another Niagara on the earth, 
 travellers might compare this one to that one; but as 
 there does not exist a second Niagara, they are generally 
 hard up for a comparison. In the matter of roar, however, 
 comparisons are still open. There is so much noise in the 
 world that analysis of noise becomes easy. One man hears 
 in it the sound of the Battle of the Nile — a statement not 
 likely to be challenged, as the survivors of that celebrated 
 naval action are not numerous, the only one we ever had 
 the pleasure of meeting having been stone-deaf. Another 
 writer compares the roar to the sound of a vast mill ; and
 
 26 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 this similitude, more flowery than poetical, is perhaps as 
 good as that of the one who was in Aboukir Bay. To leave 
 out Niagara when you can possibly bring- it in would be as 
 much against the stock-book of travel as to omit the duel, 
 the steeple-chase, or the escape from the mad bull in a 
 thirty-one-and-sixpenny fashionable novel. What the pyra- 
 mids are to Egypt — what Vesuvius is to Naples — what the 
 field of Waterloo has been for fifty years to Brussels, so 
 is Niagara to the entire continent of North America. 
 
 It was early in the month of September, three years 
 prior to the time I now write of, when I first visited this 
 famous spot. The Niagara season was at its height : the 
 monster hotels were ringing with song, music, and dance ; 
 tourists were doing the falls, and touts were doing the 
 tourists. Newly-married couples were conducting them- 
 selves in that demonstrative manner charactei-istic of such 
 people in the New World. Buffalo girls had apparently 
 responded freely to the invitation contained in their 
 favourite nigger melody. Venders of Indian bead-work ; 
 itinerant philosophers; camei'a-obscura men; imitation 
 squaws ; free and enlightened negroes ; guides to go under 
 the cataract, who should have been sent over it ; spiritual- 
 ists, phrenologists, and nigger minstrels had made the place 
 their own. Shoddy and petroleum were having "a high old 
 time of it,^' spending the dollar as though that '' almighty 
 article had become the thin end of nothing whittled fine •" 
 altogether, Niagara was a place to be instinctively shunned. 
 
 Just four months after this time the month of January 
 was drawing to a close. King Frost, holding dominion over 
 Niagara, had worked strange wonders with the scene. 
 Folly and ruffianism had been frozen up, shoddy and 
 petroleum had betaken themselves to other haunts, the 
 bride strongly demonstrative or weakly reciprocal had
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 27 
 
 vanished, the monster hotels were silent and deserted, the 
 free and enlightened negro had gone back to Buffalo, and 
 the girls of that thriving city no longer danced, as of yore, 
 " under de light of de moon." Well, Niagara was worth 
 seeing then — and the less we say about it, perhaps, the 
 better. "Pat," said an American to a staring Irishman 
 lately landed, " did you ever see such a fall as that in the 
 old country ?" " Begarra ! I niver did ; but look here now, 
 why wouldn't it fall? what's to hinder it from falling?" 
 
 When I reached the city of Toronto, capital of the pro- 
 vince of Ontario, I found that the Red River Expeditionary 
 Force had already been mustered, previous to its start for 
 the North-West. Making my way to the quarters of the 
 commander of the Expedition, I was greeted every now 
 and again with a " You should have been here last week ; 
 every soul wants to get on the Expedition, and you hav'n't 
 a chance. The whole thing is complete ; we start to-mor- 
 row." Thus I encountered those few friends who on such 
 occasions are as certain to offer their pithy condolences as 
 your neighbour at the dinner-table when you are late is 
 sure to tell you that the soup and fish were delicious. At last 
 I met the commander himself. 
 
 " ]\Iy good fellow, there's not a vacant berth for you," he 
 said ; " I got your telegram, but the whole army in Canada 
 wanted to get on the Expedition." 
 
 " I think, sir, there is one berth still vacant," I answered. 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " You will want to know what they are doing in ]\Iinne- 
 sota and along the flank of your march, and you have no 
 one to tell you," I said. 
 
 " You are right ; we do want a man out there. Look 
 now, start for Montreal by first train to-morrow ; by to- 
 night's mail I will write to the general, recommending your
 
 28 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 appointment. If you see him as soon as possible, it may 
 yet be all riglit/^ 
 
 I thanked him, said ^' Good-bye," and in little more than 
 twenty-four hours later found myself in Montreal, the com- 
 mercial capital of Canada. 
 
 " Let me see," said the general next morning, when I 
 presented myself before him, "you sent a cable message 
 I'rom the South of Ireland last month, didn't you ? and you 
 now want to get out to the West? Well, we will require a 
 man there, but the thing doesn^t rest with me ; it will have 
 to be referred to Ottawa ; and meantime you can remain here, 
 or with your regiment, pending the receipt of an answer.'^ 
 
 So I went back to my regiment to wait. 
 
 Spring breaks late over the province of Quebec — that 
 portion of America known to our fathers as Lower 
 Canada, and of old to the subjects of the Grand Monarque 
 as the kingdom of New France. But when the young trees 
 begin to open their leafy lids after the long sleep of winter, 
 they do it quickly. The snow is not all gone before the 
 maple-trees are all green — the maple, that most beautiful 
 of trees ! Well has Canada made the symbol of her new 
 nationality that tree whose green gives the spring its 
 earliest freshness, whose autumn dying tints are richer 
 than the clouds of sunset, whose life-stream is sweeter than 
 honey, and whose branches are drowsy through the long 
 summer with the scent and the hum of bee and flower ! 
 Still the long line of the Canadas admits of a varied spring. 
 When the trees are green at Lake St. Clair, they are 
 scarcely budding at Kingston, they are leafless at Mon- 
 treal, and Quebec is white with snow. Even between 
 Montreal and Quebec, a short night's steaming, there exists 
 a difference of ten days in the opening of the summer. But 
 late as comes the summer to Quebec, it comes in its love-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LA^^). 20 
 
 liest and most enticino" form, as though it wished to atone 
 for its long- delay iu banishing from such a landscape the 
 oold tyranny of winter. And with what loveliness does the 
 whole face of plain, river, lake, and mountain turn from the 
 iron clasp of icy winter to kiss the balmy lips of returning 
 summer, and to welcome his bridal gifts of sun and shower ! 
 The trees open their leafy lids to look at him — the brooks 
 and streamlets break forth into songs of gladness — "the 
 birch-tree/' as the old Saxon said, " becomes beautiful in its 
 branches, and rustles sweetly in its leafy summit, moved to 
 and fro by the breath of heaven " — the lakes uncover their 
 sweet faces, and their mimic shores steal down in quiet 
 evenings to bathe themselves in the transparent waters — 
 far into the depths of the great forest speeds the glad 
 message of returning glory, and graceful fern, and solt 
 velvet moss, and white wax-like lily peep forth to cover 
 rock and fallen tree and wreck of last year's autumn in one 
 great sea of foliage. There are many landscapes which can 
 never be painted, photographed, or described, but which 
 the mind carries away instinctively to look at again and 
 again in after-time — these are the celebrated views of the 
 world, and they are not easy to find. From the Queen's 
 rampart, on the citadel of Quebec, the eye sweeps over a 
 greater diversity of landscape than is probably to be found 
 in any one spot in the universe. Blue mountain, far- 
 stretching river, foaming cascade, the white sails of ocean 
 ships, the black trunks of many-sized guns, the pointed 
 roofs, the white village nestling amidst its fields of green, the 
 great isle in mid-channel, the many shades of colour from deep 
 blue pine-wood to yellowing corn-field — in what other spot 
 on the earth's broad bosom lie grouped together in a single 
 glance so many of these " things of beauty " which the eye 
 loves to feast on and to place in memory as joys for ever ?
 
 30 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 I had been domiciled in Quebec for about a week, when 
 there appeared one morning in General Orders a para- 
 graph commanding my presence in Montreal to receive 
 instructions from the military authorities relative to my 
 further destination. It was the long-looked-for order, and 
 fortune, after many frowns, seemed at length about to smile 
 upon me. It was on the evening of the 8th June, exactly 
 two months after the despatch of my cable message from 
 the South of Ireland, that I turned my face to the West 
 and commenced a long journey towards the setting sun. 
 When the broad curves of the majestic river had shut out 
 the rugged outline of the citadel, and the east was growing 
 coldly dim while the west still glowed with the fires of 
 sunset, I could not help feeling a thrill of exultant thought 
 at the prospect before me. I little knew then the limits of 
 my wanderings — I little thought that for many and many 
 a day my track would lie with almost undeviating precision 
 towards the setting sun, that summer would merge itself 
 into autumn, and autumn darken into winter, and that still 
 the nightly bivouac would be made a little nearer to that 
 west whose golden gleam was suffusing sky and water. 
 
 But though all this was of course unknown, enough was 
 still visible in the foreground of the future to make even 
 the swift-moving paddles seem laggards as they beat to 
 foam the long reaches of the darkening Cataraqui. " We 
 must leave matters to yourself, I think," said the General, 
 when I saw him for the last time in Montreal, " you will 
 be best judge of how to get on when you know and see the 
 ground. I will not ask you to visit Fort Garry, but if you 
 find it feasible, it would be well if you could drop down the 
 Red River and join Wolseley before he gets to the place. 
 You know what I want, but how to do it, I will leave alto- 
 gether to yourself. For the rest, you can draw on us for any
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 31 
 
 money you require. Take care of those northern fellows. 
 Good-bye, and success/^ 
 
 This was on the 12th June, and on the morning of the 
 13th I started by the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada for 
 the West. On that morning- the Grand Trunk Railway of 
 Canada was in a high state of excitement. It was about to 
 attempt, for the first time, the despatch of a Lightning 
 Express for Toronto ; and it was to carry from Montreal, on 
 his way to Quebec, one of the Royal Princes of England, 
 whose sojourn in the Canadian capital was drawing to a close. 
 The Lightning Express was not attended with the glowing 
 success predicted for it by its originators. At some thirty 
 or forty miles from Montreal it came heavily to grief, 
 owing to some misfortune having attended the progress of 
 a preceding train over the rough uneven track, A delay of 
 two hours having supervened, the Lightning Express got 
 into motion again, and jolted along with tolerable celerity 
 to Kingston. When darkness set in it worked itself up to 
 a high pitch of fury, and rushed along the low shores of 
 Lake Ontario with a velocity which promised disaster. 
 The car in which I travelled was one belonging to the 
 director of the Northern Railroad of Canada, Mr. Cumber- 
 land, and we had in it a minister of fisheries, one of edu- 
 cation, a governor of a province, a speaker of a house of 
 commons, and a colonel of a distinguished rifle regiment. 
 IBeing the last car of the train, the vibration caused by the 
 unusual rate of speed over the very rough rails was ex- 
 cessive ; it was, however, consolatory to feel that any little 
 unpleasantness which might occur through the fact of the 
 car leaving the track would be attended with some sense of 
 alleviation. The rook is said to have thought he was 
 paying dear for good company when he was put into the 
 pigeon pie, but it by no means follows that a leap from au
 
 32 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 embaukment, or an upset into a river, would be as disas- 
 trous as is usually supposed, if taken in the society of such 
 pillars of the state as those I have already mentioned. 
 Whether a speaker of a house of commons and a governor 
 of a larg-e province, to say nothing- of a minister of fisheries, 
 would tend in reality to mitigate the unpleasantness of 
 being " telescoped through colliding,^' I cannot decide, for 
 we reached Toronto without accident, at midnight, and I 
 saw no more of my distinguished fellow-travellers. 
 
 I remained long enough in the city of Toronto to pro- 
 vide myself with a wardrobe suitable to the countries I was 
 about to seek. In one of the principal commercial streets 
 of the flourishing capital of Ontario I found a small 
 tailoring establishment, at the door of which stood an 
 excellent representation of a colonial. The garments be- 
 longing to this figure appeared to have been originally 
 designed from the world-famous pattern of the American 
 flag, presenting above a combination of stars, and below 
 having a tendency to stripes. The general groundwork c»f 
 the whole rig appeared to be shoddy of an inferior descrip- 
 tion, and a small card attached to the figure intimated that 
 the entire fit-out was procurable at the very reasonable sum 
 of ten dollars. It was impossible to resist the fascination 
 of this attire. While the bargain was being transacted 
 the tailor looked askance at the garments worn by his cus- 
 tomer, which, having only a few months before emanated 
 from the establishment of a well-known London cutter, 
 presented a considerable contrast to the new investment ; 
 he even ventured upon some remarks which evidently had 
 for their object the elucidation of the enigma, but a word 
 that such clothes as those worn by me were utterly un- 
 suited to the bush repelled all further questioning — indeed, 
 so pleased did the noor fellow appear in a pecuniary point-
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 33 
 
 of view, that he insisted upon presenting- me gratis with a 
 neck-tie of green and yellow, fully in keeping with the 
 other articles composing the costume. And now, while 1 
 am thus arranging these little preliminary matters so essen- 
 tial to the work I was about to engage in, let us examine 
 for a moment the objects and scope of that work, and settle 
 the limits and extent of the first portion of my journey, and 
 sketch the route of the Expedition. It will be recollected 
 that the Expedition destined for the Red River of the North 
 had started some time before for its true base of operations, 
 namely Fort William, on the north-west shore of Lake 
 Superior. The distance intervening between Toronto and 
 Thunder Bay is about 60() miles, 100 being by railroad 
 conveyance and 500 by water. The island-studded ex- 
 panse of Lake Huron, known as Georgian Bay, receives at 
 the northern extremity the waters of the great Lake 
 Superior, but a difference of level amounting to upwai'ds of 
 thirty feet between the broad bosoms of these two vast 
 expanses of fresh water has rendered necessary the con- 
 struction of a canal of considerable magnitude. This canal 
 is situated upon American territory — a fact which gives 
 our friendly cousins the exclusive possession of the great 
 northern basin, and which enabled them at the very outset 
 of the Red River affair to cause annoyance and delay to the 
 Canadian Expedition. Poor Canada ! when one looks at you 
 along the immense length of your noble river-boundary, how 
 vividly become apparent the evils under which your youth 
 has grown to manhood ! Looked at from home by every 
 succeeding colonial minister through the particular whig, or 
 tory spectacles of his party, subject to violent and radical 
 alterations of policy because of some party vote in a Legis- 
 lative Assembly 8000 miles from your nearest coast-line, 
 your own politicians, for years, too timid to grasp the limits 
 
 D
 
 34 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 of your possible future, parties every where in your pro- 
 vinces, and of every kind, except a national party; no 
 breadth, no depth, no earnest striving to make you great 
 amongst the nations, each one for himself and no one for 
 the country ; men fighting for a sect, for a province, for a 
 nationality, but no one for the nation ; and all this while, 
 close alongside, your great rival grew with giant^s growth, 
 looking far into the future before him, cutting his cloth 
 with perspective ideas of what his limbs would attain to 
 in after-time, digging his canals and grading his rail- 
 roads, with one eye on the Atlantic and the other on the 
 Pacific, spreading himself, monopolizing, annexing, out- 
 manoeuvring and flanking those colonial bodies who sat 
 in solemn state in Downing Street and wrote windy pro- 
 clamations and despatches anent boundary-lines, of which 
 they knew next to nothing. Macaulay laughs at poor 
 Newcastle for his childish delight in finding out that Cape 
 Breton was an island, but I strongly suspect there were 
 other and later Newcastles whose geographical knowledge 
 on matters American were not a whit superior. Poor 
 Canada ! they muddled you out of Maine, and the open 
 harbour of Portland, out of Rouse^s Point, and the command 
 of Lake Champlain, out of many a fair mile far away by the 
 Rocky Mountains. It little matters whether it was the 
 treaty of 1783, or 1S18, or '21, or '48, or '71, the worst of 
 every bargain, at all times, fell to you. 
 
 I have said that the possession of the canal at the Sault 
 St. Marie enabled the Americans to delay the progress of 
 the Red River Expedition. The embargo put upon the 
 Canadian vessels originated, however, in the State, and not 
 the Federal^ authorities ; that is to say, the State of Michi- 
 gan issued the prohibition against the passage of the steam- 
 boat, and not the Cabinet of Washington. Finally,
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 35 
 
 Washington overruled the decision of Michigan — a feat far 
 more feasible now than it would have been prior to the 
 Southern war — and the steamers were permitted to pass 
 through into the waters of Lake Superior. From thence to 
 Thunder Bay was only the steaming of four-and-twenty 
 hours through a lake whose vast bosom is the favourite 
 playmate of the wild storm-king of the North. But 
 although full half the total distance from Toronto to the 
 Red River had been traversed when the Expedition reached 
 Thunder Bay, not a twentieth of the time nor one hundredth 
 part of the labour and fatigue had been accomplished. For 
 a distance of 600 miles there stretched away to the north- 
 west a vast tract of rock-fringed lake,, swamp, and forest ; 
 lying spread in primeval savagery, an untravelled wilder- 
 ness; the home of the Ojibbeway, who here, entrenched 
 amongst Nature's fastnesses, has long called this land his 
 own. Long before Wolfe had scaled the heights of Abra- 
 ham, before even Marlborough, and Eugene, and Villers, and 
 Vendome, and Villeroy had commenced to fight their 
 giants' fights in divers portions of the low countries, some 
 adventurous subjects of the Grand Monarque were forcing 
 their way, for the first time, along the northern shores of 
 Lake Superior, nor stopping there : away to the north-west 
 there dwelt wild tribes to be sought out by two classes of 
 men — by the black robe, who laboured for souls ; by the 
 trader, who sought for skins — and a hard race had these 
 two widely different pioneers who sought at that early day 
 these remote and friendless regions, so hard that it would 
 almost seem as though the great powers of good and 
 of evil had both despatched at this same moment, on rival 
 errands, ambassadors to gain dominion over these distant 
 savages. It was a curious contest : on the one hand, showy 
 robes, shining beads^ and maddening fire-water, on the 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 other, the old, old story of peace and brotherhood, of Christ 
 and Calvary — a contest so full of interest, so teeming 
 with adventure, so pregnant with the discovery of mighty 
 rivers and great inland seas, that one would fain ramble 
 away into its depths; but it must not be, or else the 
 journey I have to travel myself would never even begin. 
 
 Vast as is the accumulation of fresh water in Lake 
 Superior, the area of the country which it drains is limited 
 enough. Fifty miles from its northern shores the rugged 
 hills which form the backbone or " divide " of the continent 
 raise their barren heads, and the streams carry from thence 
 the vast rainfall of this region into the Bay of Hudson. 
 Thus, when the voyageur has paddled, tracked, poled, and 
 carried his canoe up any of the many rivers which rush like 
 mountain torrents into Lake Superior from the north, he 
 reaches the height of land between the Atlantic Ocean and 
 Hudson Bay. Here, at an elevation of 1500 feet above 
 the sea level, and of 900 above Lake Superior, he launches 
 his canoe upon water flowing north and west ; then he has 
 before him hundreds of miles of quiet-lying lake, of wildly- 
 rushing river, of rock-broken rapid, of foaming cataract, but 
 through it all runs ever towards the north the ocean - 
 seeking current. As later on we shall see many and many a 
 mile of this wilderness — living in it, eating in it, sleeping 
 in it — although reaching it from a different direction alto- 
 gether from the one spoken of now, I anticipate, by 
 alluding to it here, only as illustrating the track of the 
 Expedition between Lake Superior and Red River. For 
 myself, my route was to be altogether a diff'erent one. I 
 was to follow the lines of railroad which ran out into the 
 frontier territories of the United States, then, leaving the 
 iron horse, I was to make my way to the settlements on the 
 west shore of Lake Superior, and from thence to work round
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 37 
 
 to the American boundary-line at Pembina on the Red 
 River ; so far through American teiTitory^ and with distinct 
 and definite instructions ; after that^ altogether to my own 
 resources, but with this summary of the generaFs wishes : 
 " I will not ask you to visit Fort Garry, but however you 
 manage it, try and reach Wolseley before he gets through 
 from Lake Superior, and let him know what these Red 
 River men are going to do/^ Thus the military Expedi- 
 tion under Colonel Wolseley was to work its way across 
 from Lake Superior to Red River, through British terri- 
 tory ; I was to pass round by the United States, and, after 
 ascertaining the likelihood of Fenian intervention from the 
 side of Minnesota and Dakota, endeavour to reach Colonel 
 Wolseley beyond Red River, with all tidings as to state of 
 parties and chances of fight. But as the reader has heard 
 only a very brief mention of the state of affairs in Red 
 River, and as he may very naturally be inclined to ask, 
 What is this Expedition going to do — why are these men sent 
 through swamp and wilderness at all ? a few explanatory 
 words may not be out of place, serving to make matters now 
 and at a later period much more intelligible. I have said 
 in the opening chapter of this book, that the little com- 
 munity, or rather a portion of the little community, of Red 
 River Settlement had risen in insurrection, protesting 
 vehemently against certain arrangements made between the 
 Governor of Canada and the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company 
 relative to the cession of territorial rights and governing 
 powers. After forcibly expelling the Governor of the 
 country a^Dpointed by Canada, from the frontier station at 
 Pembina, the French malcontents had proceeded to other 
 and still more questionable proceedings. Assembling in 
 large numbers, they had fortified portions of the road 
 between Pembina and Fort Garry, and had taken armed
 
 38 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 possession of the latter place^ in wliich large stores of pro- 
 visions, clothing, and merchandise of all descriptions had 
 been stored by the Hudson Bay Company. The occupa- 
 tion of this fort, which stands close to the confluence of the 
 E-ed and Assineboine Rivers, nearly midway between the 
 American boundary-line and the southern shore of Lake 
 Winnipeg, gave the French party the virtual command of 
 the entire settlement. The abundant stores of clothing and 
 provisions were not so important as the arms and ammuni- 
 tion v/hich also fell into their hands — a battery of nine- 
 pound bronze guns, complete in every respect, besides 
 several smaller pieces of ordnance, together with large store 
 of Enfield rifles and old brown-bess smooth bores. The 
 place was, in fact, abundantly supplied with war material of 
 every description. It is almost refreshing to notice the 
 ability, the energy, the determination which up to this 
 point had characterized all the movements of the originator 
 and mainspring of the movement, M. Louis Riel. One 
 hates so much to see a thing bungled, that even resistance, 
 although it borders upon rebellion, becomes respectable 
 when it is carried out with courage, energy, and decision. 
 
 And, in truth, up to this point in the little insurrection 
 it is not easy to condemn the wild Metis of the North-west 
 — wild as the bison which he hunted, unreclaimed as the 
 prairies he loved so well, what knew he of State duty or 
 of loyalty ? He knew that this land was his, and that 
 strong men were coming to square it into rectangular farms 
 and to push him farther west by the mere pressure of civi- 
 lization. He had heard of England and the English, but 
 it was in a shadowy, vague, unsubstantial sort of way, 
 unaccompanied by any fixed idea of government or law. 
 The Company — not the Hudson Bay Company, but the 
 Company — represented for him all law, all power, all govern-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 39 
 
 ment. Protection he did not need — his quick ear, his 
 unerring- eye, his untiring horse, his trading- gun, gave him 
 that ; but a market for his taurreau, for his buffalo robe, 
 for his lynx, fox, and wolf skins, for the produce of his 
 summer hunt and winter trade, he did need, and in the 
 forts of the Company he found it. His wants were few — a 
 capote of blue cloth, with shining brass buttons ; a cap, with 
 beads and tassel ; a blanket ; a gun, and ball and powder ; a 
 box of matches, and a knife, these were all he wanted, and 
 at every fort, from the mountain to the banks of his well- 
 loved River Eouge, he found them, too. What were these 
 new people coming to do with him ? Who could tell ? If 
 they meant him fair, why did they not say so ? why did 
 they not come up and tell him what they wanted, and what 
 they were going to do for him, and ask him what he wished 
 for? But, no; they either meant to outwit him, or they 
 held him of so small account that it mattered little what he 
 thought about it; and, with all the pride of his mother^s race, 
 that idea of his being slighted hurt him even more than the 
 idea of his being wronged. Did not every thing point to 
 his disappearance under the new order of things ? He had 
 only to look round him to verify the fact ; for years before 
 this annexation to Canada had been carried into effect 
 stragglers from the east had occasionally reached Red 
 River. It is true that these new-comers found much to 
 foster the worst passions of the Anglo-Saxon settler. They 
 found a few thousand occupants, half-farmers, half-hunters, 
 living under a vast commercial monopoly, which, though it 
 practically rested upon a basis of the most paternal kindness 
 towards its subjects, was theoretically hostile to all oppo- 
 sition. Had these men settled quietly to the usual avoca- 
 tions of farming, clearing the wooded ridges, fencing the 
 rich expanses of prairie, covering the great swamps and
 
 40 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 t)lains with herds and flocks, it is probable that all would 
 have g-one well between the new-comers and the old pro- 
 prietors. Over that great western thousand miles of prairie 
 there was room for all. But, no ; they came to trade and 
 not to till, and trade on the Red River of the North was 
 conducted upon the most peculiar principles. There was, 
 in fact, but one trade, and that was the fur trade. Now, 
 the fur trade is, for some reason or other, a very curious 
 description of bai-ter. Like some mysterious chemical 
 agency, it pervades and permeates every thing it touches. 
 If a man cuts off legs, cures diseases, draws teeth, sells 
 whiskey, cotton, wool, or any other commodity of civilized 
 or uncivilized life, he will be as sure to do it with a view to 
 furs as any doctor, dentist, or general merchant will be sure 
 to practise his particular calling with a view to the acqui- 
 sition of gold and silver. Thus, then, in the first instance 
 were the new-comers set in antagonism to the Company, 
 and finally to the inhabitants themselves. Let us try and 
 be just to all parties in this little oasis of the Western 
 wilderness. 
 
 The early settlers in a Western country are not by any 
 means persons much given to the study of abstract justice, 
 still less to its practice ; and it is as well, perhaps, that they 
 should not be. They have rough work to do, and they 
 generally do it roughly. The very fact of their coming 
 out so far into the wilderness implies the other fact of their 
 not being able to dwell quietly and peaceably at home. 
 They are, as it were, the advanced pioneers of civilization 
 who make smooth the way of the coming race. Obstacles 
 of any kind are their peculiar detestation — if it is a tree, 
 cut it down; if it is a savage, shoot it down ; if it is a half- 
 breed, force it down. That is about their creed, and it 
 must be said they act up to their convictions.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 41 
 
 Now, had the country bordering' on Red River been an 
 unpeopled wilderness, the plan carried out in effecting- the 
 transfer of land in the North-west from the Hudson^s Bay 
 Company to the Crown, and from tlie Crown to the 
 Dominion of Canada, would have been an eminently wise 
 one; but, unfortunately for its wisdom, there were some 
 15,000 persons living in peaceful possession of the soil thus 
 transferred, and these 15,000 persons very naturally ob- 
 jected to have themselves and possessions signed away 
 without one word of consent or one note of approval. Nay, 
 more than that, these straggling pioneers had on many an 
 occasion taunted the vain half-breed with what would 
 happen when the irresistible march of events had thrown 
 the country into the arms of Canada : then civilization 
 Avould dawn upon the benighted country, the half-breed 
 would seek some western region, the Company would dis- 
 appear, and all the institutions of New World progress 
 would shed prosperity over the land; prosperity, not to 
 the old dwellers and of the old type, but to the new-comers 
 and of the new order of thing-s. Small wonder, then, if the 
 little community, resenting- all this threatened improvement 
 off the face of the earth, got their powder-horns ready, took 
 ■^he covers off their trading flint-guns, and with much 
 gesticulation summarily interfered with several anticipatory 
 surveys of their farms, doubling up the sextants, bundling 
 the surveying parties out of their freeholds, and very 
 peremptorily informing Mr. Governor M'^Dougall, just 
 arrived from Canada, that his presence was by no means of 
 the least desirability to Red River or its inhabitants. The 
 man who, with remarkable energy and perseverance, had 
 tvorked up his fellow-citizens to this pitch of resistance, 
 organizing and directing the whole movement, was a young 
 French half-breed named Louis Riel — a man possessing
 
 42 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 many of the attributes suited to the leadership of parties, 
 and quite certain to rise to the surface in any time of poli- 
 tical disturbances. It has doubtless occurred to any body 
 who has followed me through this brief sketch of the causes 
 which led to the assumption of this attitude on the part of 
 the French half-breeds — it has occurred to them, I say, to 
 ask who then was to blame for the mismanagement of the 
 transfer : was it the Hudson Bay Company who surren- 
 dered for 300,000^. their territorial rights ? was it the 
 Imperial Government who accepted that surrender ? or was 
 it the Dominion Government to whom the country was in 
 turn retransferred by the Imperial authorities? I answer 
 that the blame of having bungled the whole business 
 belongs collectively to all the great and puissant bodies. 
 Any ordinary matter-of-fact, sensible man would have 
 managed the whole affair in a few hours; but so many 
 high and potent powers had to consult together, to pen 
 despatches, to speechify, and to lay down the law about it, 
 that the whole affair became hopelessly muddled. Of 
 course, ignorance and carelessness were, as they always are, 
 at the bottom of it all. Nothing would have been easier 
 than to have sent a commissioner from England to Red 
 River, while the negotiations for transfer were pending, 
 who would have ascertained the feelings and wishes of 
 the people of the country relative to the transfer, and 
 would have guaranteed them the exercise of their rights 
 and liberties under any and every new arrangement that 
 might be entered into. Now, it is no excuse for any 
 Government to plead ignorance upon any matter per- 
 taining to the people it governs, or expects to govern, for 
 a Government has no right to be ignorant on any such 
 matter, and its ignorance must be its condemnation ; yet 
 this is the plea put forward by the Dominion Government
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 43 
 
 of Canada, and yet the Dominion Government and the 
 Imperial Government had ample opportunity of arriving 
 at a correct knowledge of the state of affairs in Red River* 
 if they had only taken the trouble to do so. Nay, more, it 
 is an undoubted fact that warning had been given to the 
 Dominion Government of the state of feeling amongst the 
 half-breeds, and the phrase, " they are only eaters of 
 pemmican,^' so cutting to the Metis, was then first origi- 
 nated by a distinguished Canadian politician. 
 
 And now let us see what the " eaters of pemmican " pro- 
 ceeded to do after their forcible occupation of Fort Garry. 
 Well, it must be admitted they behaved in a very indiffe- 
 rent manner, going steadily from bad to worse, and much 
 befriended in their seditious proceedings by continued and 
 oft repeated bungling on the part of their opponents. 
 Early in the month of December, 1869, Mr. M'Dougall 
 issued two proclamations from his post at Pembina, on the 
 frontier : in one he declared himself Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the territory which Her Majesty had transferred to 
 Canada; and in the other he commissioned an officer of 
 the Canadian militia, under the high-sounding title of 
 " Conservator of the Peace,^' " to attack, arrest, disarm, and 
 disperse armed men disturbing the public peace, and to 
 assault, fire upon, and break into houses in which these 
 armed men were to be found." Now, of the first pro- 
 clamation it will be only necessary to remark, that Her 
 Majesty the Queen had not done any thing of the kind 
 imputed to her ; and of the second it has probably already 
 occurred to the reader that the title of " Conservator of the 
 Peace " was singularly inappropriate to one vested with such 
 sanguinary and destructive powers as was the holder of this 
 commission, who was to " assault, fire upon, and break into 
 houses, and to attack, arrest, disarm, and disperse people/^ and
 
 44 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 generally to conduct himself after the manner of Attila, 
 Genshis Khan, the Emperor Theodore, or any other ferocious 
 magnate of ancient or modern times. The officer holding 
 this destructive commission thought he could do nothing 
 better than imitate the tactics of his French adversary, 
 accordingly we find him taking possession of the other 
 rectangular building known as the Lower Fort Garry, 
 situated some twenty miles north of the one in v/hich the 
 French had taken post, but unfortunately, or perhaps for- 
 tunately, not finding within its walls the same store of 
 warlike material which had existed in the Fort Garry senior. 
 The Indians, ever ready to have a hand in any fighting 
 which may be " knocking around,^' came forward in all the 
 glory of paint, feathers, and pow-wow ; and to the number 
 of fifty were put as garrison into the place. Some hundreds 
 of English and Scotch half-breeds were enlisted, told oflP 
 into companies under captains improvised for the occasion, 
 and every thing pointed to a very pretty quarrel before 
 many days had run their course. But, in truth, the 
 hearts of the English and Scotch settlers were not in this 
 business. By nature peaceably disposed, inheriting from 
 their Orkney and Shetland forefathers much of the frugal 
 habits of the Scotchmen, these people only asked to be 
 left in peace. So far the French party had been only fight- 
 ing the battle of every half-breed, whether his father had 
 hailed from the northern isles, the shires of England, or the 
 snows of Lower Canada; so, after a little time, the Scotch 
 and English volunteers began to melt away, and on the 9th 
 of December the last warrior had disappeared. But the 
 effects of their futile demonstration soon became apparent 
 in the increasing violence and tyranny of Riel and his 
 followers. The threatened attempt to upset his authority 
 by arraying the Scotch and English half-breeds against him.
 
 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 45 
 
 served only to add strength to his party. The number of 
 armed malcontents in Fort Garry became very much 
 increased, clergymen of both parties, neglecting their mani- 
 fest functions, began to take sides in the conflict, and the 
 worst form of religious animosity became apparent in the 
 little community. Emboldened by the presence of some five 
 or six hundred armed followers, Riel determined to strike 
 a blow against the party most obnoxious to him. Tliis was 
 the English-Canadian party, the pioneers of the Western 
 settlement already alluded to as having been previously in 
 antagonism with the people of Red River. Some sixty or 
 seventy of these men, believing in the certain advance of the 
 English force upon Fort Garry, had taken up a position in 
 the little village of Winnipeg, less than a mile distant from the 
 fort, where they awaited the advance of their adherents pre- 
 vious to making a combined assault upon the French. But 
 Riel proved himself more than a match for his antagonists ; 
 marching quickly out of his stronghold, he surrounded the 
 buildings in which they were posted, and, planting a gun 
 in a conspicuously commanding position, summoned them 
 all to sui-render in the shortest possible space of time. 
 As is usual on such occasions, and in such circumstances, 
 the whole party did as they were ordered, and marching 
 out — with or without side-arms and military honours his- 
 tory does not relate — were forthwith conducted into close 
 confinement within the walls of Fort Garry. Having by 
 this bold coup got possession not only of the most energetic 
 of his opponents, but also of many valuable American 
 Remington Rifles, fourteen shooters and revolvers, Mr. 
 R,iel, with all the vanity of the Indian peeping out, began 
 to imagine himself a very great personage, and as very great 
 personages are sometimes supposed to be believers in the 
 idea that to take a man's property is only to confiscate it.
 
 46 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 and to take his life is merely to execute him, he too 
 commenced to violently sequestrate, annex, and requisition 
 not only divers of his prisoners, but also a considerable share 
 of the goods stored in warehouses of the Hudson Bay 
 Company, having particular regard to some hogsheads of 
 old port wine and very potent Jamaica rum. The pro- 
 verb which has reference to a mendicant suddenly placed 
 in an equestrian position had notable exemplification in 
 the case of the Provisional Government, and many of his 
 colleagues ; going steadily from bad to worse, from violence 
 to pillage, from pillage to robbery of a very low type, much 
 supplemented by rum-drunkenness and dictatorial de- 
 bauchery, he and they finally, on the 4th of March, 1870, 
 disregarding some touching appeals for mercy, and with 
 many accessories of needless cruelty, shot to death a helpless 
 Canadian prisoner named Thomas Scott. This act, com- 
 mitted in the coldest of cold blood, bears only one name : 
 the red name of murder — a name which instantly and for 
 ever drew between Riel and his followers, and the outside 
 Canadian world, that impassable gulf which the murderer 
 in all ages digs between himself and society, and which 
 society attempts to bridge by the aid of the gallows. It is 
 needless here to enter into details of this matter; of the 
 second rising which preceded it ; of the dead blank which 
 followed it ; of the heartless and disgusting cruelty which 
 made the prisoner's death a foregone conclusion at his 
 mock trial ; or of the deeds worse than butchery which 
 characterized the last scene. Still, before quitting the 
 revolting subject, there is one point that deserves remark, 
 as it seems to illustrate the feeling entertained by the 
 leaders themselves. 
 
 On the night of the murder the body was interred in a 
 very deep hole which had been dug within the walls of the
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAKD. 47 
 
 fort. Two clergymen had asked permission to inter the 
 remains in either of their churches, but this request 
 had been denied. On the anniversary of the murder, 
 namely, the 4th March, 1871, other joowers being then 
 predominant in Fort Garry, a large crowd gathered at 
 the spot where the murdered man had been interred, for the 
 purpose of exhuming the body. After digging for some 
 time they came to an oblong box or coffin in which the 
 remains had been placed, but it was empty, the interment 
 within the walls had been a mock ceremony, and the final 
 resting-place of the body lies hidden in mystery. Now 
 there is one thing very evident from the fact, and that is 
 that Riel and his immediate followers were themselves 
 conscious of the enormity of the deed they had committed, 
 for had they believed that the taking of this man's life was 
 really an execution justified upon any grounds of military 
 or political necessity, or a forfeit fairly paid as price for 
 crimes committed, then the hole inside the gateway of Fort 
 Garry would have held its skeleton, and the midnight 
 interment would not have been a senseless lie. The mur- 
 derer and the law both take life — it is only the murderer 
 who hides under the midnight shadows the body of his 
 victim.
 
 4$ TEE GEEAT LONE LAKD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Chicago — ""Who is S. B. D.?" — Milwatjkie — The Great Fusion — 
 Wisconsin — The Sleeping-cab — The Train Boy — Minnesota — 
 St. Paul — I start eor Lake Superior — The Future City — 
 " Bust up " and " Gone on " — The End oe the Track. 
 
 Alas ! I have to go a long way back to the city of 
 Toronto, where I had just completed the purchase of a 
 full costume of a Western borderer. On the 10th of June 
 I crossed the Detroit River from Western Canada to the 
 State of Michigan, and travelling by the central railway of 
 that state reached the great city of Chicago on the fol- 
 lowing day. All Americans, but particularly all Western 
 Americans, are very proud of this big city, which is not 
 yet as old as many of its inhabitants, and they are justly 
 proud of it. It is by very much the largest and the richest 
 of the new cities of the New World. Maps made fifty 
 years ago will be searched in vain for Chicago. Chicago 
 was then a swamp where the skunks, after whom it is 
 called, held undisputed revels. To-day Chicago numbers 
 about 300,000 souls, and it is about "the livest city in our 
 great Republic, sir."" 
 
 Chicago lies almost 1000 miles due west of New 
 York. A traveller leaving the latter city, let us say on 
 Monday morning, finds himself on Tuesday at eight o'clock 
 in the evening in Chicago — one thousand miles in thirty- 
 four hours. In the meantime he will have eaten three
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 49 
 
 meals and slept soundly ''^on board" his palace-car, if he 
 is so minded. For many hundred miles during the latter 
 portion of his journey he will have noticed great tracts of 
 swamp and forest, with towns and cities and settlements 
 interspersed between ; and then, when these tracts of swamp 
 and unreclaimed forest seem to be increasing instead of 
 diminishing', he comes all of a sudden upon a vast, full- 
 grown, bustling city, with tall chimneys sending out much 
 smoke, with heavy horses dragging great drays of bulky 
 freight through thronged and busy streets, and with tall- 
 masted ships and whole fleets of steamers lying packed 
 against the crowded quays. He has begun to dream him- 
 self in the West, and lo ! there rises up a great city. " But 
 is not this the West?" will ask the new-comer from the 
 Atlantic states. " Upon your own showing we are here 
 1000 miles from New York, by water 1500 miles to Que- 
 bec ; surely this must be the West ? " No ; for in this New 
 World the West is ever on the move. Twenty years ago 
 Chicago was West ; ten years ago it was Omaha ; then it 
 was Salte Lak City, and now it is San Francisco on the 
 Pacific Ocean. 
 
 This big city, with its monster hotels and teeming traffic, 
 was no new scene to me, for I had spent pleasant days in it 
 three years before. An American in America is a very 
 pleasant fellow. It is true that on many social points and 
 habits his views may differ from ours in a manner very 
 shocking to our prejudices, insular or insolent, as these pre- 
 judices of ours too frequently are; but meet him with fair 
 allowance for the fact that there may be two sides to a 
 question, and that a man may not tub every morning and 
 yet be a good fellow, and in nine cases of ten you will find 
 him most agreeable, a little inquisitive perhaps to know 
 )our peculiar belongings, but equally ready to impart to you
 
 50 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the details of every item connected with his business — 
 altogether a very jolly every-day companion when met on 
 even basis. If you happen to be a military man, he will 
 call you Colonel or General, and expect similar recognition 
 of rank by virtue of his volunteer services in the 44th 
 Illinois, or 55th Missourian. At present, and for many 
 years to come, it is and will be a safe method of beginning 
 any observation to a Western American with " I say, 
 General,'^ and on no account ever to get below the rank 
 of field officer when addressing any body holding a 
 socially smaller position than that of bar-keeper. Indeed 
 major-generals were as plentiful in the United States at the 
 termination of the great rebellion as brevet-majors were in 
 the British service at the close of the Crimean campaign. 
 It was at Plymouth, I think, that a grievance was esta- 
 blished by a youngster on the score that he really could 
 not spit out of his own window without hitting a brevet- 
 major outside ; and it was in a Western city that the man 
 threw his stick at a dog across the road, "missed that 
 dawg, sir, but hit five major-generals on t'other side, and 
 'twasn't a good day for major-generals either, sir.'*' Not 
 less necessary than knowledge of social position is know- 
 ledge of the political institutions and characters of the 
 West. Not to know Rufus P. W. Smidge, or Ossian W. 
 Dodge of Minnesota, is simply to argue yourself utterly 
 unknown. My first experience of Chicago fully impressed 
 me with this fact. I had made the acquaintance of an 
 American gentleman " on board" the train, and as we ap- 
 proached the city along the sandy margin of Lake Michigan 
 he kindly pointed out the buildings and public institutions 
 of the neighbourhood. 
 
 " There, sir,*' he finally said, " there is our new monu- 
 ment to Stephen B. Douglas.''
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 51 
 
 I looked in the direction indicated, and beheld some 
 blocks of granite in course of erection into a pedestal. I 
 confess to having been entirely ignorant at the time as to 
 what claim Stephen B. Douglas may have had to this 
 public recognition of his worth, but the tone of my in- 
 formant's voice was sufficient to warn me that every body 
 knew Stephen B. Douglas, and that ignorance of his 
 career might prove hurtful to the feelings of my nevv 
 acquaintance, so I carefully refrained from showing by 
 word or look the drawback under which I laboured. There 
 was with me, however, a travelling companion who, to an 
 ignorance of Stephen B. D. fully equal to mine own, added 
 a truly British indignation that monumental honours 
 should be bestowed upon one whose fame was still faint 
 across the Atlantic. Looking partly at the monument, 
 partly at our American informant, and partly at me, he 
 hastily ejaculated," Who the devil was Stephen B. Douglas?^' 
 
 Alas ! the murder was out, and out in its most aggra- 
 vating form. I hastily attempted a rescue. " Not know 
 who Stephen B. Douglas was '^" I exclaimed, in a tone of 
 mingled reproof and surprise. '* Is it possible you don't 
 know who Stephen B. Douglas was ?"" 
 
 Nothing cowed by the assumption of knowledge implied 
 by my question, my fellow-traveller was not to be done. 
 " All deuced fine,'' he went on, " I'll bet you a fiver you 
 don't know who he was either ! " 
 
 I kicked at him under the seat of the carriage, but it was 
 of no use, he persisted in his reckless oflTers of " laying 
 fivers," and our united ignorance stood fatally revealed. 
 
 Round the city of Chicago stretches upon three sides a 
 vast level prairie, a meadow larger than the area of 
 England and Wales, and as fertile as the luxuriant vege- 
 tation of thousands of years decaying under a semi-tropic 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE GEEAT LOXE LAND. 
 
 suu could make it. Illinois is in round numbers 400 miles 
 from north to south, its greatest breadth being* about '200 
 miles. The Mississippi, running in vast curves along the 
 entire length of its western frontier for 700 miles, bears 
 away to southern ports the rich burden of wheat and 
 Indian corn. The inland sea of Michigan carries on its 
 waters the wealth of the northern portion of the state to 
 the Atlantic seaboard. The Ohio, flowing south and west, 
 un waters the south-eastern counties, while 5500 miles of 
 completed railroad traverse the interior of the state. This 
 5500 miles of iron road is a significant fact — 5500 miles of 
 railway in the compass of a single western state ! more 
 than all Hindostan can boast of, and nearly half the railway 
 mileage of the United Kingdom. Of this immense system 
 of interior connexion Chicago is the centre and heart. 
 Other great centres of commerce have striven to rival the 
 City of the Skunk, but all have failed ; and to-day, thanks 
 to the dauntless energy of the men of Chicago, the garden 
 state of the Union possesses this immense extent of railroad, 
 ships its own produce, north, east, and south, and boasts a 
 population scarcely inferior to that of many older states ; 
 and yet it is only fifty years ago since William Cobbett 
 laboured long and earnestly to prove that English emi- 
 grants who pushed on into the " wilderness of the Illinois 
 v/ent straight to misery and ruin.'''' 
 
 Passing through Chicago, and going out by one of the 
 lines running north along the shore of Lake Michigan, I 
 reached the city of Milwaukie late in the evening. 
 Now the city of Milwaukie stands above 100 miles north 
 of Chicago and is to the State of Wisconsin what its southern 
 neighbour (100 miles in the States is nothing) is to Illinois. 
 Eeing also some 100 miles nearer to the entrance to Lake 
 Michigan, and consequently nearer by water to New York
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 53 
 
 and the Atlantic^ Milwaukie carries off no small share of 
 the export wheat trade of the North-west. Behind it lie 
 the rolling- prairies of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, the 
 three wheat-growing- states of the American Union. Scan- 
 dinavia, Germany, and Ireland have made this portion of 
 America their own, and in the streets of Milwaukie one 
 hears the guttural sounds of the Teuton and the deep brog-ue 
 of the Irish Celt mixed in curious combinations. This 
 railway-station at Milwaukie is one of the great distributing 
 points of the in-coming flood from Northern Europe. From 
 here they scatter far and wide over the plains which lie 
 between Lake Michigan and the head-waters of the Missis- 
 sippi. No one stops to look at these people as they throng 
 the wooden platform and fill the sheds at the depot; the 
 sight is too common to cause interest now, and yet it is a 
 curious sight this entry of the outcasts into the promised 
 land. Tired, travel-stained, and worn come the fair-haired 
 crowd of men and women and many children, eating all 
 manner of strange food while they rest, and speaking all 
 manner of strange tongues, carrying the most uncouth 
 shapeless boxes that trunkmaker of Bergen or Upsal can 
 devise — such queer oval red-and-green painted wooden 
 cases, more like boxes to hold musical instruments than for 
 the Sunday kit of Hans or Christian — clothing much soiled 
 and worn by lower-deck lodgment and spray of mid- 
 Atlantic roller, and dust of that 1100 miles of railroad 
 since New York was left behind, but still with many traces, 
 under dust and seediness, of Scandinavian rustic fashion ; 
 altogether a homely people, but destined ere long to lose 
 every vestige of their old Norse habits under the grindstone 
 of the great mill they are now entering. That vast human 
 machine which grinds Celt and Saxon, Teuton and Dane, 
 Fin and Goth into the same imafje and likeness of the
 
 54 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 inevitable Yankee — grinds him too into that image in one 
 short generation^ and oftentimes in less ; doing it without 
 any apparent outward pressure or any tyrannical law of 
 language or religion, but nevertheless beating out, welding, 
 and amalgamating the various conflicting races of the Old 
 ^^'orld into the great American people. Assuredly the 
 world has never witnessed any experiment of so gigantic 
 a nature as this immense fusion of the Caucasian race now 
 going on before our eyes in North America. One asks 
 oneself, with feelings of dread, what is to be the result ? 
 Is it to eliminate from the human race the evil habits of 
 each nationality, and to preserve in the new one the noble 
 characteristics of all ? I say one asks the question with a 
 feeling of dread, for it is the question of the well-being of 
 the whole human family of the future, the question of the 
 advance or retrogression of the human race. No man 
 living can answer that question. Time alone can solve it ; 
 but one thing is certain — so far the experiment bodes ill for 
 success. Too often the best and noblest attributes of the 
 people wither and die out by the process of transplanting. 
 The German preserves inviolate his love of lager, and leaves 
 behind him his love of Fatherland. The Celt, Scotch or 
 Irish, appears to eliminate from his nature many of those 
 traits of humour of which their native lands are so pregnant. 
 It may be that this is only the beginning, that a national 
 decomposition of the old distinctions must occur before the 
 new elements can arise, and that from it all will come in 
 the fulness of time a regenerated society — 
 " Sin itself be found, 
 A cloudy porcli oft opening on tlie sun." 
 
 But at present, looking abroad over the great seething mass 
 of American society, there seems little reason to hope for 
 such a result. The very groundwork of the whole plan will
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 55 
 
 require alteration. The dollar must cease to be the only 
 God, and that old, old proverb that " honesty is the best 
 policy " must once more come into fashion. 
 
 Four hundred and six miles intervene between Milwaukie, 
 in the State of Wisconsin, and St. Paul, the capital and 
 principal city of the State of Minnesota. About half that 
 distance lies through the State of Wisconsin, and the 
 remaining- half is somewhat unequally divided between Iowa 
 and Minnesota. Leaving- Milwaukie at eleven o^clock a.m., 
 one reaches the Mississippi at Prairie-du-Chien at ten o^clock 
 same night ; here a steamer ferries the broad swift-running 
 stream, and at North Macgregor, on the Iowa shore, a train is 
 in waiting to take on board the now sleepy passengers. The 
 railway sleeping-car is essentially an American institution. 
 Like every other institution, it has its critics, favourable 
 and severe. On the one hand, it is said to be the acme of 
 comfort; on the other, the essence of unrest. But it is just 
 what might be expected under the circumstances, neither 
 one thing nor the other. No one in his senses would prefer 
 to sleep in a bed which was being borne violently along 
 over rough and uneven iron when he could select a 
 stationary resting-place. On the other hand, it is a very 
 great saving of time and expense to travel for some eighty 
 or one hundred consecutive hours, and this can only be 
 effected by means of the sleeping-car. Take this distance, 
 from New York to St. Paul, as an instance. It is about 
 1450 miles, and it can be accomplished in sixty-four hours. 
 Of course one cannot expect to find oneself as comfor- 
 tably located as in an hotel ; but, all things considered, the 
 balance of advantage is very much on the side of the 
 sleeping-car. After a night or two one becomes accustomed 
 to the noise and oscillation; the little peculiarities incidental 
 to turning-in in rather a promiscuous manner with ladies
 
 56 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 old and young, children in arms and out of arms, vanish 
 before the force of habit ; the necessity of making- an early 
 rush to the lavatory appliances in the morning-, and there 
 securing- a plentiful supply of water and clean towels, 
 becomes quickly apparent, and altogether the sleeping-car 
 ceases to be a thing of nuisance and is accepted as an accom- 
 plished fact. The interior arrangements of the car are 
 conducted as follows : — A passage runs down the centre 
 from one door to the other ; on either side are placed the 
 berths or " sections '' for sleeping ; during the day-time 
 these form seats, and are occupied by such as care to take 
 them in the ordinary manner of railroad cars. At night, 
 however, the whole car undergoes a complete transforma- 
 tion. A negro attendant commences to make down the 
 beds. This operation is performed by drawing out, after the 
 manner of telescopes, portions of the car heretofore looked 
 upon as immoveable; from various receptacles thus ren- 
 dered visible he extracts large store of blankets, mattresses, 
 bolsters, pillows, sheets, all which he arranges after the 
 usual method of such articles. His work is done speedily 
 and without noise or bustle, and in a very short time the 
 interior of the car presents the spectacle of a long, dimly- 
 lighted passage, having on either side the striped damask 
 curtains which partly shroud the berths behind them. Into 
 these berths the passengers soon withdraw themselves, and all 
 goes quietly till morning — unless, indeed, some stray turning 
 bridge has been left turned over one of the numerous creeks 
 that underlie the track, or the loud whistle of " brakes 
 down " is the short prelude to one of the many disasters of 
 American railroad travel. There are many varieties of the 
 sleeping-car, but the principle and mode of procedure are 
 identical in each. Some of those constructed by Messrs. 
 Pullman and Wagner are as gorgeously decorated as gilding,
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 57 
 
 plating', velvet, and damask can make them. The former 
 gentleman is likely to live long- after his death in the title 
 of his cars. One takes a Pullman (of course, only a share 
 of a Pullman) as one takes a Hansom. Pullman and 
 sleeping'-ear have become synonymous terms likely to last 
 the wear of time. Travelling- from sunrise to sunset 
 through a country which offers but few changes to the eye, 
 and at a rate which in the remoter districts seldom exceeds 
 twenty miles an hour, is doubtless a very tiresome occupa- 
 tion ; still it has much to relieve the tedium of what under 
 the English system of railroad travel would be almost 
 insupportable. The fact of easy communication being 
 maintained between the different cars renders the passage 
 from one car to another during motion a most feasible 
 undertaking. One can visit the various cars and inspect 
 their occupants, and to a man travelling to obtain informa- 
 tion this is no small boon. Americans are always ready to 
 enter into conversation, and though many queer fish will 
 doubtless be met with in such interviews, still as one is 
 certain to fall in with persons from all parts of the Union — 
 Down-easters, Southerners, Western men, and Californians 
 — the experiment of " knocking around the cars " is well 
 worth the trial of any person who is not above taking 
 human nature, as we take the weather, just as it comes. 
 
 The individual known by the title of " train-boy ''■' is also 
 worth some study. He is oftentimes a grown-up man, but 
 more frequently a most precocious boy ; he is the agent for 
 some enterprising house in Chicago, New York, or Philadel- 
 phia, or some other large town, and his aim is to dispose of a 
 very miscellaneous collection of mental and bodily nourish- 
 ment. He usually commences operations with the mental 
 diet, which he serves round in several courses. The first 
 course consists of works of a hig-h moral character —
 
 58 , THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 standard English novels in American reprints, and works of 
 travel or biography. These he lays beside each passenger, 
 stopping now and then to recommend one or the other for 
 some particular excellence of morality or binding. Having 
 distributed a portion through the car, he passes into the next 
 car, and so through the train. After a few minutes^ delay 
 he returns again to pick up the books and to settle with 
 any one who may be disposed to retain possession of one. 
 After the lapse of a very short time he reappears with the 
 second course of literature. This usually consists of a 
 much lower standard of excellence — Yankee fun, illustrated 
 periodicals of a feeble nature, and cheap reprints of popular 
 works. The third course, which soon follows, is, however, 
 a very much lower one, and it is a subject for regret on the 
 pai*t of the moralist that the same powers of persuasion 
 which but a little time ago were put forth to advocate the 
 sale of some works of high moral excellence should now be 
 exerted to push a vigorous circulation of the " Last Sensa- 
 tion,^^ "The Dime Illustrated,''^ "New York under Gas- 
 light,'^ " The Bandits of the Rocky Mountains,^' and other 
 similar productions. These pernicious periodicals having 
 been shown around, the train-boy evidently becomes 
 convinced that mental culture requires from him no 
 further effort ; he relinquishes that portion of his labour 
 and devotes all his energies to the sale of the bodily 
 nourishment, consisting of oranges and peaches, according 
 to season, of a very sickly and uninviting description ; these 
 he follows with sugar in various preparations of stickiness, 
 supplementing the whole with pea-nuts and crackers. In 
 the end he becomes without any doubt a terrible nuisance ; 
 one conceives a mortal hatred for this precocious pedlar who 
 with his vile compounds is ever bent upon forcing you to 
 purchase his wares. He gets, he will tell you, a percentage
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. . 59 
 
 on his sales of ten cents in the dollar ; if you are going a 
 ion g" journey, he will calculate to sell you a dollar's worth of 
 his stock. You are therefore worth to him ten cents. Now 
 you cannot do better in his first round of high moral litera- 
 ture than present him at once with this ten cents, stipu- 
 lating that on no account is he to invite your attention, 
 press you to buy, or offer you any candy, condiment, or 
 book during the remainder of the journey. If you do this 
 you will get out of the train-boy at a reasonable rate. 
 
 Going to sleep as the train works its way slowly up the 
 grades which lead to the higher level of the State of Iowa 
 Irom the waters of Mississippi one sinks into a state of dim 
 consciousness of all that is going on in the long carriage. 
 The whistle of the locomotive — which, by the way, is very 
 much more melodious than the one in use in England, 
 being softer, deeper, and reaching to a greater distance — the 
 roll of the train into stations, the stop and the start, all 
 become, as it were, blended into uneasy sleep, until 
 daylight sets the darkey at his work of making up the 
 sections. When the sun rose we were well into Minnesota, 
 the most northern of the Union States. Around on every 
 side stretched the great wheat lands of the North-west, that 
 region whose farthest limits lie far within the territories 
 where yet the red man holds his own. Here, in the south 
 of Minnesota, one is only on the verge of that great wheat 
 region. Far beyond the northern limit of the state it 
 stretches away into latitudes unknown, save to the fur trader 
 and the red man, latitudes which, if you tire not on the road, 
 good reader, you and I may journey into together. 
 
 The City of St. Paul, capital and chief town of the State of 
 Minnesota, gives promise of rising to a very high position 
 among the great trade centres of America. It stands almost 
 at the head of the navigation of the Mississippi River, about
 
 60 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 2050 miles from New Orleans ; not that the great river lias 
 its beginning" here or in the vicinity^ its cradle lies far to tha 
 norths 700 miles along the stream. But the Falls of St. 
 Anthony, a few miles above St. Paul, interrupt all navigation, 
 and the course of the river for a considerable distance above 
 the fall is full of rapids and obstructions. Immediately 
 above and below St. Paul the Mississippi River receives 
 several large tributary streams from north-east and north- 
 tvest ; the St. Peter's or Minnesota River coming from near 
 the Coteau of the Missouri, and the St. Croix un watering 
 the great tract of pine land which lies west of Lake Superior ; 
 but it is not alone to water communication that St. Paul 
 owes its commercial importance. With the same restless 
 energy of the Northern American, its leading men have 
 looked far into the future, and shaped their course for later 
 times; railroads are stretching out in every direction to 
 pierce the solitude of the yet uninhabited prairies and pine 
 forests of the North. There is probably no pai't of the 
 world in which the inhabitants are so unhealthy as in 
 America ; but the life is more trying than the climate, the 
 constant use of spirit taken " straight,^^ the incessant 
 chewing of tobacco with its disgusting accompaniment, the 
 want of healthier exercise, the habit of eating in a hurry, 
 all tend to cut short the term. of man's life in the New 
 World. Nowhere have I seen so many young wrecks. 
 " Yes, sir, we live fast here,'^ said a general officer to me one 
 day on the Missouri; "And we die fast too," echoed a 
 major from another part of the room. As a matter of 
 course, places possessing salubrious climates are crowded 
 with pallid seekers after health, and as St. Paul enjoys a dry 
 and bracing atmosphere from its great elevation above the sea 
 level, as well as from the purity of the surrounding prairies, 
 its hotels — and thej are many — ai'e crowded with the broken
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 61 
 
 wrecks of half the Eastern states ; some find what they 
 voek, but the majority come to Minnesota only to die. 
 
 Business connected with the supply of the troops during 
 the coming winter in Red River, detained me for some 
 weeks in Minnesota, and as the letters which I had des- 
 patched upon my arrival, giving the necessary particulars 
 regarding the proposed arrangements, required at least a 
 week to obtain replies to, I determined to visit in the interim 
 the shores of Lake Superior. Here I would glean what tidings 
 1 could of the progress of the Expedition, from whose base 
 at Fort William, I would be only 100 miles distant, as well 
 as examine the chances of Fenian intervention, so much 
 talked of in the American newspapers, as likely to place in 
 peril the flank of the expeditionary force as it followed the 
 devious track of swamp and forest which has on one side 
 Minnesota, and on the other the Canadian Dominion. 
 
 Since my departure from Canada the weather had been 
 intensely warm — pleasant in Detroit, warm in Chicago, hot 
 in Milwaukie, and sweltering, blazing in St. Paul, would 
 have aptly described the temperature, although the last- 
 named city is some hundred miles more to the north than 
 the first. But latitude is no criterion of summer heat in 
 America, and the short Arctic summer of the Mackenzie 
 River knows often a fiercer heat than the swamp lands of 
 the Carolinas. So, putting together a very light field-kit, I 
 started early one morning from St. Paul for the new town 
 of Duluth, on the extreme westerly end of Lake Superior. 
 
 Duluth, I was told, was the very newest of new towns, in 
 fact it only had an existence of eighteen months ; as may be 
 inferred, it had no past, but any want in that respect was 
 compensated for in its marvellous future. It was to be the 
 great grain emporium of the North-west ; it was to kill St. 
 Paul, Milwaukie, Chicago, and half-a-dozen other thriving
 
 62 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 towns; its murderous propensities seemed to have no 
 bounds; lots were already selling at fabulous prices, and every 
 body seemed to have Duluth in some shape or other on tha 
 brain. To reach this paradise of the future I had to travel 
 100 miles by the Superior and Mississippi railroad, to a 
 halting'-place known as the End of the Track — a name which 
 gave a very accurate idea of its whereabouts and general 
 capabilities. The line was^in fact, in course of formation, and 
 was being rapidly pushed forward from both ends with a 
 view to its being opened through by the 1st day of August, 
 About forty miles north-east of St. Paul we entered the 
 region of pine forest. At intervals of ten or twelve miles 
 the train stopped at places bearing high-sounding titles, 
 such as Rush City, Pine City ; but upon examination one 
 looked in vain for any realization of these names, pines and 
 rushes certainly were plentiful enough, but the city part 
 of the arrangement was nowhere visible. Upon asking a 
 fellow-passenger for some explanation of the phenomena, 
 he answered, " Guess there was a city hereaway last year, 
 but it's busted up or gone on." Travellers unacquainted 
 with the vernacular of America might have conjured up 
 visions of a catastrophe not less terrible than that of 
 Pompeii or Herculaneum, but an earlier acquaintance of 
 Western cities had years before taught me to comprehend 
 such phrases. In the autumn of 1867 I had visited the 
 prairies of Nebraska, along the banks of the Platte River. 
 Buffalo were numerous on the sandy plains which form 
 the hunting-grounds of the Shienne and Arapahoe Indians, 
 and amongst the vast herds the bright October days 
 passed quickly enough. One day, in company with an 
 American officer, we were following, as usual, a herd of 
 buffalo, when we came upon a town standing silent and de- 
 serted in the middle of the prairie. " That," said the Ameri-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 63 
 
 caiij " is Kearney City ; it did a good trade in the old waggon 
 times, but it busted up when the railroad went on farther 
 west ; the people moved on to North Platte and Julesburg — 
 guess there^s only one man left in it now, and he's got 
 snakes in his boots the hull season." Marvelling what 
 manner of man this might be who dwelt alone in the silent 
 city, we rode on. One house showed some traces of occu- 
 pation, and in this house dwelt the man. We had passed 
 through the deserted grass-grown street, and were again on 
 the prairie, when a shot rang out behind us, the bullet cutting 
 
 up the dust away to the left. " By G he's on the shoot," 
 
 cried our friend ; " ride, boys V and so we rode. Much has 
 been written and said of cities old and new, of Aztec and 
 Peruvian monuments, but I venture to offer to the attention 
 of the future historian of America this sample of the busted- 
 up city of Kearney and its solitary indweller, who had snakes 
 in his boots and was on the shoot. 
 
 After that explanation of a "busted-up'' and " gone-on" 
 city, I was of course sufficiently well '' posted" not to require 
 further explanation as to the fate of Pine and Rush Cities; but 
 had I entertained any doubts upon the subject, the final stop- 
 page of the train at Moose Lake, or City, would have effec- 
 tually dispelled them. For there stood the portions of Rush 
 and Pine Cities which had not " bust up," but had simply 
 " gone on." Two shanties, with a few outlying sheds, stood 
 on either side of the track, which here crossed a clear running 
 forest stream. Passenger communication ended at this point; 
 the rails were laid down for a distance of eight miles farthei*, 
 but only the " construction train," with supplies, men, &c., 
 proceeded to that point. Track-laying was going on at the 
 rate of three miles a day, I was informed, and the line 
 would soon be opened to the Dalles of the St. Louis 
 River, near the head of Lake Superior. The heat all day
 
 64 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 had been very great, and it was refreshing to get out of the 
 dusty car^ evcjn though the shanties, in which eating, 
 drinking, and sleeping were supposed to be carried on, were 
 of the very lowest description. I had made the acquaint- 
 ance of the express agent, a gentleman connected with the 
 baggage department of the train, and during the journey 
 he had taken me somewhat into his confidence on the 
 matter of the lodging and entertainment which were to be 
 found in the shanties. " The food ain^t bad," he said, " but 
 that there shanty of Tom's licks creation for bugs.'' This 
 terse and forcibly expressed opinion made me select the 
 interior of a waggon, and some fresh hay, as a place of rest, 
 where, in spite of vast numbers of mosquitoes^ I slept the 
 sleep of the weary. 
 
 The construction train started from Moose City at six 
 o'clock a.m., and as the stage, which was supposed to connect 
 with the passenger train and carry forward its human freight 
 to Superior City was filled to overflowing, I determined to 
 take advantage of the construction train, and travel on it as 
 far as it would take me. A very motley group of lumberers, 
 navvies, and speculators assembled for breakfast a five o'clock 
 a.m. at Tom's table, and although I cannot quite confirm the 
 favourable opinion of my friend the express agent as to the 
 quality of the viands which graced it, I can at least testify to 
 the vigour with which the " guests" disposed of the pork and 
 beans, the molasses and dried apples which Tom, with foul 
 fingers, had set before them. Seated on the floor of a waggon in 
 the construction train, in the midst of navvies of all countries 
 and ages, I reached the end of the track while the morning sun 
 was yet lowin the east. I had struck up a kind of partnership 
 for the journey with a pedlar Jew and a Ohio man, both going 
 to Duluth, and as we had a march of eighteen miles to get 
 through between the end of the track and the town of Fond-
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 65 
 
 (la-Lac, it became necessary to push on before the sun had 
 reached his midday level ; so, shouldering" our bag-gag-e, we 
 left the busy scene of track-laying and struck out along" 
 the graded line for the Dalles of the St. Louis. Up 
 to this point the line had been fully levelled, and the 
 walking- was easy enough, but when the much- talked of 
 Dalles were reached a complete change took place, and the 
 toil became excessive. The St. Louis River, which in reality 
 forms the headwater of the great St. Lawrence, has its 
 source in the dividing- ridge between Minnesota and the 
 British territory. From these rugged Laurentian ridges 
 it foams down in an impetuous torrent through wild pine- 
 clad steeps of rock and towering precipice, apparently to 
 force an outlet into the valley of the Mississippi, but at the 
 Dalles it seems to have suddenly preferred to seek the 
 cold waters of the Atlantic, and, bending its course 
 abruptly to the east, it pours its foaming torrent into 
 the great Lake Superior below the old French trading-post 
 of Fond-du-Lac. The load which I carried was not of itself 
 a heavy one, but its weight became intolerable under the 
 rapidly increasing heat of the sun and from the toilsome 
 nature of the road. The deep narrow gorges over which 
 the railway was to be carried were yet unbridged, and we 
 had to let ourselves down the steeiJ yielding embankment 
 to a depth of over 100 feet, and then clamber up the other 
 side almost upon hands and knees — this under a sun that 
 beat down between the hills with terrible intensity on the 
 yellow sand of the railway cuttings ! The Ohio man 
 carried no baggage, but the Jew was heavily laden, and 
 soon fell behind. For a time I kept pace with my light 
 I'ompanion ; but soon I too was obliged to lag, and about 
 midday found myself alone in the solitudes of the Dalles. 
 At last there came a gorge deeper and steeper than
 
 66 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 any thing that had preceded it^ and I was forced to 
 rest long- before attempting its almost perpendicular ascent. 
 "When I did reach the top, it was to find myself thoroughly 
 done up — the sun came down on the side of the embank- 
 ment as though it would burn the sandy soil into ashes, 
 not a breath of air moved through the silent hills^ not a 
 leaf stirred in the forest. My load was more than I could 
 bear, and again I had to lie down to avoid falling down. 
 Only once before had I experienced a similar sensation of 
 choking, and that was in toiling through a Burmese 
 swamp, snipe-shooting under a midday sun. How near 
 that was to sun-stroke, I can^t say ; but 1 don^t think it 
 could be very far. After a little time, I saw, some distance 
 down below, smoke rising from a shanty. I made my way 
 with no small difficulty to the door, and found the place 
 full of some twenty or more rough-bearded looking men 
 sitting down to dinner. 
 
 " About played out, I guess ?" said one. " Wall, that sun 
 is h — ; any how, come in and have a bit. Have a drink of 
 tea — or some vinegar and water. ^' 
 
 They filled me out a literal dis/i of tea, black and boil- 
 ing; and I drained the tin with a feeling of relief such as 
 one seldom knows. The place was lined round with bunks 
 like the forecastle of a ship. After a time I rose to depart 
 and asked the man who acted as cook how much there 
 was to pay. 
 
 "Not a cent, stranger;^' and so I left my rough hospi- 
 table friends, and, gaining the railroad, lay down to 
 rest until the fiery sun had got lower in the west. The 
 remainder of the road was thronged with gangs of men at 
 work along it, bridging, blasting, building, and levelling — 
 strong able-bodied fellows fit for any thing. Each gang
 
 THE GEEAT LOXE LAXD. 67 
 
 was under the superintendence of a railroad " boss/^ and all 
 seemed to be working well. But then two dollars a head 
 per diem will make men work well even under such o^ 
 sun. 
 
 p i
 
 68 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 Lake Superior — The Dalles of the St. Louis — The North 
 Pacific Railroad — Fond-du-Lac — Duluth — Superior City — 
 The Great Lake — A Plan to dry up Niagara — Stage Driv- 
 ing — Tom's Shanty again — St. Paul and its Neighbourhood. 
 
 Almost in the centre of the Dalles I passed the spot 
 where the Northern Pacific liailroad had on that day 
 turned its first sod, commencing its long- course across the 
 continent. This North Pacific Railroad is destined to play 
 a great part in the future history of the United States ; it 
 is the second great link which is to bind together the 
 Atlantic and Pacific States (before twenty years there will 
 be many others). From Puget Sound on the Pacific to 
 Duluth on Lake Superior is about 2200 miles, and across 
 this distance the North Pacific Railroad is to run. The im- 
 mense plains of Dakota, the grassy uplands of Montana 
 and Washington, and the centre of the State of Minne- 
 sota will behold ere long this iron road of the North 
 Pacific Company piercing their lonely wilds. " Red 
 Cloud " and " Black Eagle " and " Standing Buffalo '^ may 
 gatherth eir braves beyond the Cotcau to battle against this 
 steam-horse which scares their bison from his favourite 
 breeding grounds on the scant pastures of the great Missouri 
 plateau ; but all their efToi-ts will be in vain, the dollar will 
 beat them out. Poor Red Cloud ! in spite of thy towering- 
 form and mighty strength, the dollar is mightier still, and 
 the fiat has gone forth before which thou and thy braves
 
 TEE GKEAT LONE LAND. 60 
 
 must pass away from the land ! Very tired and covered 
 deep with the dust of railroad cuttings, I reached the col- 
 lection of scattered houses which bears the name of Fond-du- 
 Lac. Upon inquiring- at the first house which I came to as 
 to the whereabouts of the hotel, I was informed by a sour- 
 visaged old female, that if I wanted to drink and get 
 drunk, I must go farther on ; but that if I wished to behave 
 in a quiet and respectable manner, and could live without 
 liquor, I could stay in her house, which w^as at once post- 
 office. Temperance Hotel, and very respectable. Being 
 weary and footsore, I did not feel disposed to seek 
 farther, for the place looked clean, the river was close at 
 hand, and the whole aspect of the scene was suggestive of 
 rest. In the evening hours myriads of mosquitoes and 
 flying things of minutest size came forth from the wooded 
 hills and did their best towards making life a misery ; so 
 bad were they that I welcomed a passing navvy who dropped 
 in as a real godsend. 
 
 " You're come up to look after work on this North Pacific 
 Railroad,! guess?'' he commenced — he was a Southern Irish- 
 man, but "guessed" all the same — "w^ell, now, look here, the 
 North Pacific Railroad will never be like the U.P. (Union 
 Pacific) — I worked there, and I know what it was; it was 
 bully, I can tell you. A chap lay in his bunk all day and 
 got two dollars and a half for doing it ; ay, and hit the boss 
 
 on the head with his shovel if the boss gave him any d 
 
 chat. No, sirree, the North Pacific will never be like 
 that." 
 
 I could not help thinking that it was perhaps quite as 
 well for the North Pacific Railroad Company and the boss 
 if they never were destined to rival the Union Pacific 
 Company as pictured by my companion; but I did not 
 attempt to say sc, as it might have come under the heading
 
 70 THE GREAT LONE LAN]). 
 
 of " d chat/' woi'tliy only of being replied to by that 
 
 convincing" argument, the shovel. 
 
 A good night's sleep and a swim in the St. Louis river 
 banished all trace of toil. I left Fond-du-Lac early in the 
 afternoon, and, descending by a small steamer the many- 
 winding St. Louis River, soon came in sight of the town of 
 Duluth. The heat had become excessive; the Bay of St. 
 Louis, shut in on all sides by lofty hills, lay under a mingled 
 mass of thunder-cloud and sunshine; far out in Lake 
 Superior vivid lightnings flashed over the gloomy water and 
 long rolls of thunder shook the hills around. On board our 
 little steamboat the atmosphere was stifling, and could not 
 have been short of 100° in the coolest place (it was 93° at 
 six o'clock same evening in the hotel at Duluth) ; there 
 was nothing for it but to lie quietly on a wooden bench 
 and listen to the loud talking of some fellow-passengers. 
 Three of the hardest of hard cases were engaged in the 
 mental recreation of " swapping lies ; " their respective 
 exchanges consisting on this occasion of feats of stealing ; 
 the experiences of one I recollect in particular. He had 
 stolen an axe from a man on the North Pacific Railroad 
 and a few days later sold him the same article. This piece 
 of knavery was received as the acme of 'cuteness ; and I 
 well recollect the language in which the brute wound up 
 his self-laudations — " If any chap can steal faster than 
 me, let him.'' 
 
 As we emerged from the last bend of the river and stood 
 across the Bay of St. Louis, Duluth, in all its barrenness, 
 stood before us. The future capital of the Lakes, the great 
 central port of the continent, the town whose wharves 
 were to be laden with the teas of China and the silks of 
 Japan stood out on the rocky north shore of Lake Superior, 
 the sorriest spectacle of city that eye of man could look
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 71 
 
 upon — wooden houses scattered at intervals along a steep 
 ridge from which the forest had been only partially cleared, 
 houses of the smallest possible limits growing out of a reedy 
 marsh, which lay between lake and ridge^ tree-stumps and 
 lumber standing in street and landing-place, the swamps 
 croaking with bull-frogs and passable only by crazy- 
 looking planks of tilting proclivities — over all^ a sun fit for 
 a Carnatic coolie, and around, a forest vegetation in whose 
 heart the memory of Arctic winter rigour seemed to live for 
 ever. Still, in spite of rock and swamp and icy winter, 
 Yankee energy will triumph here as it has triumphed else- 
 where over kindred difficulties. 
 
 "There's got to be a Boss City hereaway on this end 
 of the lake,'" said the captain of the little boat; and 
 though he spoke with much labour of imprecation, both 
 needless then and now, taking what might be termed a 
 cursory view of the situation, he summed up the pro- 
 spects of Duluth conclusively and clearly enough. 
 
 I cannot say I enjoyed a stay of two days in Duluth. 
 Several new saloons (name for dram-shops, gaming-houses, 
 and generally questionable places) were being opened for 
 the first time to the public, and free drinks were conse- 
 quently the rule. Now " free drinks'' have generally a 
 demoralizing tendency upon a community, but taken in 
 connexion with a temperature of 98° in the shade, they 
 quickly develope into free revolvers and freer bowie-knives. 
 Besides, the spirit of speculation was rampant in the hotel, 
 and so many men bad corner lots, dock locations, pine forests, 
 and pre-empted lauds to sell me, that nothing but flight 
 prevented my becoming a large holder of all manner of 
 Duluth securities upon terms that, upon the clearest 
 showing, would have been ridiculously favourable to me. 
 The principal object of my visit to Duluth was to discover
 
 /-J THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 if any settlement existed at the Vermilion Lakes^ eighty 
 miles to the north and not far from the track of the 
 Expedition^ a place which had been named to the military 
 authorities in Canada as likely to form a base of attack for 
 any filibusters who would be adventurous enoug'h to make 
 a dash at the communication of the expeditionary force. A 
 report of the discovery of gold and silver mines around the 
 Vermilion Lakes had induced a rush of miners there during 
 the previous year; but the mines had all " bust up/^ and 
 the miners had been blown away to other regions^ leaving the 
 plant and fixtures of quartz-crushing machinery standing 
 drearily in the wilderness. These facts I ascertained from 
 the engineer, who had constructed a forest track from 
 Duluth to the mines, and into whose office I penetrated in 
 quest of information. He, too, looked upon me as a specu- 
 lator. 
 
 " Don't mind them mines," he said, after I had ques- 
 tioned him on all points of distance and road; "don't 
 touch them mines ; they're clean gone up. The gold in 
 them mines don't amount to a row of pines, and there's not 
 a man there now." 
 
 That evening there came a violent thunder-storm, which 
 cleared and cooled the atmosphere ; between ten o'clock in 
 the morning and three in the afternoon the thermometer fell 
 30°. Lake Superior had asserted its icy influence over the 
 sun. Glad to get away from Duluth, I crossed the bay to 
 Superior City, situated on the opposite, or Wisconsin shore 
 of the lake. A curious formation of sand and shingle runs 
 out from the shore of Duluth, forming a long narrow spit 
 of land projecting far into Lake Superior. It bears the 
 name of Minnesota Point, and has evidently been formed 
 by the opposing influence of the east wind over the great 
 expanse cf the lake^ and the current of the St. Louis River
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 73 
 
 from the West. It has a length of seven miles, and is only 
 a few yards in width. Close to the Wisconsin shore a 
 break occurs in this long" narrow spit, and inside this open- 
 ing lies the harbour and city of Superior — incomparably 
 a better situation for a city and lake-port, level, sheltered, 
 capacious; but, nevertheless, Superior City is doomed to 
 delay, while eight miles off its young rival is rapidly rush- 
 ing to wealth. This anomaly is easily explained. Duluth 
 is pushed forward by the capital of the State of Minnesota, 
 while the legislature of Wisconsin looks with jealous eye 
 upon the formation of a second lake-port city which might 
 draw off to itself the trade of Milwaukie. 
 
 In course of time, however, Superior City must rise, in 
 spite of all hostility, to the very prominent position to which 
 its natural advantages entitle it. I had not been many 
 minutes in the hotel at Superior City before the trying and 
 unsought character of land speculator was again thrust 
 upon me. 
 
 " Now, stranger," said a long-legged Yankee, who, with 
 hisboots on the stove— the day hadgot raw and cold — and his 
 knees considerably higher than his head, was gazing intently 
 at me, " I guess IVe fixed you." I was taken aback by 
 the sudden identification of my business, when he continued, 
 " Yes, Fve just fixed you. You air a Kanady speculator, ain't 
 ye ?" Not deeming it altogether wise to deny the correct- 
 ness of his fixing, I replied I had lived in Kanady for some 
 time, but that I was not going to begin speculation until I 
 had knocked round a little. An invitation to liquor soon 
 followed. The disagreeable consequence resulting from this 
 admission soon became apparent. I was much pestered 
 towards evening by offers of investment in things varying 
 from a sand-hill to a city-square, or what would infallibly in 
 course of time develope into a city square. A gentleman
 
 74 THE GEEAT LOXE LAND. 
 
 rejoicing in the name of Vose Palmer insisted upon inter- 
 viewing me until a protracted hour of the night, with a 
 view towards my investing in straight drinks for him at 
 the bar and in an extensive pine forest for myself some- 
 where on the north shore of Lake Superior. I have no 
 doubt the pine forest is still in the market ; and should any 
 enterprising capitalist in this country feel disposed to enter 
 into partnership on -a basis of bearing all expenses himself, 
 giving only the profits to his partner, he will find " Vose 
 Palmer, Superior City, Wisconsin, United States,^^ ever 
 ready to attend to him. 
 
 Before turning our steps westward from this inland- 
 ocean of Superior, it will be well to pause a moment on 
 its shore and look out over its bosom. It is worth looking 
 at, for the world possesses not its equal. Four hundred 
 English miles in length, 150 miles across it, 600 feet above 
 Atlantic level, 900 feet in depth — one vast spring of purest 
 crystal water, so cold, that during summer months its 
 waters are like ice itself, and so clear, that hundreds of feet 
 below the surface the rocks stand out as distinctly as 
 though seen through plate-glass. Follow in fancy the 
 outpourings of this wonderful basin ; seek its future course 
 in Huron, Erie, and Ontario, in that wild leap from the 
 rocky ledge which makes Niagara famous through the 
 world. Seek it farther still, in the quiet loveliness of the 
 Thousand Isles ; in the whirl and sweep of the Cedar 
 Rapids ; in the silent rush of the great current under the 
 rocks at the foot of Quebec. Ay, and even farther away 
 still, down where the lone Laurentian Hills come forth to 
 look again upon that water whose earliest beginnings they 
 cradled along the shores of Lake Superior. There, close to 
 the sounding billows of the Atlantic, 2000 miles from 
 Superior^ these hills — the only ones that ever last — guard
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 75 
 
 tlie great gate by which the St. Lawrence seeks the 
 sea. 
 
 There are rivers whose current, running red with the silt 
 and mud of their soft alluvial shores, carry far into the 
 ocean the record of their muddy progress ; but this glorious 
 river system, through its many lakes and various names, is 
 ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from the foun- 
 tain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its shores ; 
 but they are powerless to dim the transparency of its 
 waters. Steamships cover the broad bosom of its lakes 
 and estuaries ; but they change not the beauty of the 
 water — no more than the fleets of the world mark the waves 
 of the ocean. Any person looking at the maps of the 
 region bounding the great lakes of North America will 
 be struck by the absence of rivers flowing into Lakes 
 Superior, Michigan, or Huron from the south ; in fact, 
 the drainage of the states bordering these lakes on the 
 south is altogether carried off* by the valley of the Missis- 
 sippi — it follows that this valley of INIississippi is at a much 
 lower level than the surface of the lakes. These lakes, con- 
 taining an area of some 73,000 square miles, are therefore 
 an immense reservoir held high over the level of the great 
 Mississippi valley, from which they are separated by a 
 barrier of slight elevation and extent. 
 
 It is not many years ago since an enterprising Yankee 
 proposed to annihilate Canada, dry up Niagara, and "fix 
 British creation " generally, by diverting the current of 
 Lake Erie, through a deep canal, into the Ohio River ; but 
 should nature, in one of her freaks of earthquake, ever 
 cause a disruption to this intervening barrier on the 
 southern shores of the great northern lakes, the drying 
 up of Niagara, the annihilation of Canada, and the divers 
 disasters to British power, will in all probability be followed
 
 7G THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 by the submersion of half of the Mississippi states under 
 the waters of these inland seas. 
 
 On the 26th June I quitted the shores of Lake Superior 
 and made my way back to ]\Ioose Lake. Without any excep- 
 tion, the road thither was the very worst I had ever travelled 
 over — four horses essayed to drag a stage-waggon over, or 
 rather, I should say, through, a track of mud and ruts im- 
 possible to picture. The stage fare amounted to $6, or 
 ] I, 4s. for 34 miles. An extra dollar reserved the box-seat 
 and gave me the double advantage of knowing what was 
 coming in the rut line and taking another lesson in the 
 idiom of the American stage-driver. This idiom consists of 
 the smallest possible amount of dictionary words, a few 
 Scriptural names rather irreverently used, a very large 
 intermixture of " git-ups ^^ and ejaculatory "hi's,^' and 
 a general tendency to blasphemy all round. We reached 
 Tom's shanty at dusk. As before, it was crowded to excess, 
 and the memory of the express man's warning was still 
 sufficiently strong to make me prefer the forest to " bunk- 
 ing in " with the motley assemblage ; a couple of Eastern 
 Americans shared with me the little camp. We made a 
 fire, laid some boards on the ground, spread a blanket upon 
 them, pulled the " mosquito bars " over our heads, and lay 
 down to attempt to sleep. It was a vain effort ; mosquitoes 
 came out in myriads, little atoms of gnats penetrated 
 through the netting of the " bars," and rendered rest or 
 sleep impossible. At last, when the gnats seemed disposed 
 to retire, two Germans came along, and, seeing our fire, 
 commenced stumbling about our boards. To be roused at 
 two o'clock a.m., when one is just sinking into oblivious- 
 ness after four hours of useless struggle with unseen 
 enemies, is provoking enough, but to be roused imder 
 such circumstances by Germans is simply unbearable.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 77 
 
 At last daylight came. A batlie in the creek, despite the 
 clouds of mosquitoes, freshened one up a little and made 
 Tom^s terrible table seem less repulsive. Then came a long 
 hot day in the dusty cars, until at length St. Paul was 
 reached. 
 
 I remained at St. Paul some twelve days, detained there 
 from day to day awaiting the arrival of letters from Canada 
 relative to the future supply of the Expedition. This delay 
 was at the time most irksome, as I too frequently pictured 
 the troops pushing on towards Fort Garry while I was 
 detained inactive in Minnesota; but one morning the 
 American papers came out with news that the expedi- 
 tionary forces had met with much delay in their first move 
 from Thunder Bay ; the road over which it was necessary 
 for them to transp ort their boats, munitions, and supplies 
 for a distance of forty-four miles — from Superior to Lake 
 Shebandowan — was utterly impracticable, portions of it, 
 indeed, had still to be made, bridges to be built, swamps to 
 be corduroyed, and thus at the very outset of the Expedition 
 a long delay became necessary. Of course, the American 
 press held high jubilee over this check, which was repre- 
 sented as only the beginning of the end of a series of 
 disasters. The British Expedition was never destined to 
 reach Bed Biver — swamps would entrap it, rapids 
 would engulf it; and if, in spite of these obstacles, some 
 few men did succeed in piercing the rugged wilderness, 
 the trusty rifle of the Metis would soon annihilate the 
 presumptive intruders. Such was the news and such were 
 the comments I had to read day after day, as I anxiously 
 
 j scanned the columns of the newspapers for intelligence. 
 Nor were these comments on the Expedition confined to 
 
 I prophecy of its failure from the swamps and rapids of the 
 route : Fenian aid w^as largely spoken of by one portion of
 
 78 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the press. Arms and ammunition, and hands to use them, 
 were being* pushed towards St. Cloud and the Red River, 
 to aid the free sons of the North-west to follow out their 
 manifest destiny, which, of course, was annexation to the 
 United States. But although these items made reading a 
 matter of no pleasant desci'iption, there were other things 
 to be done in the good city of St. Paul not without their 
 special interest. The Falls of the Mississippi at St. Anthony, 
 and the lovely little Fall of Minnehaha, lay only some seven 
 miles distant. Minnehaha is a perfect little beauty; its 
 bright sparkling' waters, forming innumerable fleecy threads 
 of silk-like wavelets, seem to laugh over the rocky edge ; so 
 light and so lace-like is the curtain, that the sunlight 
 streaming through looks like a lovely bride through some 
 rich bridal veil. The Falls of St. Anthony are neither grand 
 nor beautiful, and are utterly disfigured by the various saw- 
 mills that surround them. 
 
 The hotel in which I lodged at St. Paul was a very 
 favourable specimen of the American hostelry ; its pro- 
 prietor was, of course, a colonel, so it may be presumed that 
 he kept his company in excellent order. I had but few 
 acquaintances in St. Paul, and had little to do besides study 
 American character as displayed in diniug-room, lounging- 
 hall, and verandah, during the hot fine days; but when 
 the hour of sunset came it was my wont to ascend to the 
 roof of the building to look at the glorious panorama spread 
 out before me — for sunset in America is of itself a sight of 
 rare beauty, and the valley of the jMississippi never ap- 
 peared to better advantage than when the rich hues of 
 the western sun were gilding the steep ridges that over- 
 hansr it.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 79 
 
 CHAPTER VT. 
 
 Our Cousins— DoI^^G America — Two Lessons — St. Cloud— Sauk 
 Eapids — " Steam Pudding or Pumpkin Pie ? " — Trotting nm out 
 — Away for the Bed Rivek. 
 
 Englishmen who visit America take away with them two 
 widely different sets of opinions. In most instances they 
 have rushed through the land, note-hook in hand, recording 
 impressions and eliciting" information. The visit is too 
 frequently a first and a last one ; the thirty-seven states 
 are run over in thirty-seven days; then out comes the 
 book, and the great question of America, socially and 
 politically considered, is sealed for evermore. Now, if 
 these gentlemen would only recollect that impressions, &c., 
 which are thus hastily collected must of necessity share 
 the imperfection of all tilings done in a hurry, they would 
 not record these hurriedly gleaned facts with such an ap- 
 pearance of infallibility, or, rather, they might be induced 
 to try a second rush across the Atlantic before attempting 
 that first rush into print. Let them remember that even the 
 genius of Dickens was not proof against such error, and that 
 a subsequent visit to the States caused no small amount 
 of alteration in his impressions of America. This second 
 visit should be a rule with every man who wishes to 
 read aright, for his own benefit, or for that of others, the 
 great book which America holds open to the traveller. 
 Above all, the English traveller who enters the United 
 States with a portfolio filled with letters of introduction will
 
 80 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 generally prove the most untrustworthy guide to those 
 who follow him for information. He will travel from city 
 to city, finding every where lavish hospitality and bound- 
 less kindness; at every hotel he will be introduced to 
 several of '^our leading citizens;" newspapers will report 
 his progress, general-superintendents of railroads will 
 pester him with free passes over half the lines in the 
 Union; and he will take his departure from New York 
 after a dinner at Delmonico^s, the cartes of which will cost 
 a dollar each. The chances are extremely probable that his 
 book will be about as fair a representation of American 
 social and political institutions as his dinner at Del- 
 monico's would justly represent the ordinary cuisine 
 throughout the Western States. 
 
 Having been feted and free-passed through the Union, 
 he of course comes away delighted with every thing. If he 
 is what is called a Liberal in politics, his political bias still 
 further strengthens his favourable impressions of democracy 
 and Delmonico ; if he is a rigid Conservative, democracy 
 loses half its terrors when it is seen across the Atlantic — just 
 as widow-burning or Juggernaut are institutions much 
 better suited to Bengal than they would be to Berkshire. 
 Of course Canada and things Canadian are utterly beneath 
 the notice of our traveller. He may, however, introduce 
 them casually with reference to Niagara, which has a 
 Canadian shore, or Quebec, which possesses a fine view; for 
 the rest, America, past, present, and to come, is to be studied 
 in New York, Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and half a 
 dozen other big places, and, with Niagara, Salt Lake City, 
 and San Francisco thrown in for scenic effect, the whole thing 
 is complete. Salt Lake City is peculiarly valuable to the 
 traveller, as it affords him much subject-matter for question- 
 able writing. It might be well to recollect, however, that
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 81 
 
 there really exists no necessity for crossing the Atlantic 
 and travelling as far west as Utah in order to compose 
 questionable books upon unquestionable subjects; similar 
 materials in vast quantities exist much nearer home, and 
 Pimlico and St. Johns's Wood will be found quite as prolific 
 in " Spiritual Wives'' and " Gothic'' affinities as any creek or 
 lake in the Western wilderness. Neither is it to be wondered 
 at that so many travellers carry away with them a fixed 
 idea that our cousins are cousins in heart as well as in re- 
 lationship — the friendship is of the Delmonico type too. 
 Those speeches made to the departing- guest, those pledges 
 of brotherhood over the champagne glass, this " old lang 
 syne" with hands held in Scotch fashion, all these are not 
 worth much in the markets of brotherhood. You will be 
 told that the hostility of the inhabitants of the United 
 States towards England is confined to one class, and that 
 class, though numerically large, is politically insignificant. 
 Do not believe it for one instant : the hostility to England 
 is universal ; it is more deep rooted than any other feeling; 
 it is an instinct and not a reason, and consequently possesses 
 the dogged strength of unreasoning antipathy. I tell you, 
 Mr. Bull, that were you pitted to-morrow against a race 
 that had not one idea in kindred with your own, were you 
 fighting a deadly struggle against a despotism the most 
 galling on earth, were you engaged with an enemy whose grip 
 was around your neck and whose foot was on your chest, 
 that English-speaking cousin of yours over the Atlantic — 
 whose language is your language, whose literature is your 
 literature, whose civil code is begotten from your digests of 
 k.\v — would stir no hand, no foot, to save you, would gloat 
 Aver your agony, would keep the ring while you were, 
 being knocked out of all semblance of nation and power, 
 and would not be very far distant when the moment came 
 
 G
 
 82 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 to hold a feast of eagles over your vast disjointed limbs. 
 Make no mistake in this matter, and be not blinded by ties 
 of kindred or belief. You imagine that because he is your 
 cousin — sometimes even your very son — that he cannot hate 
 you, and you nurse yourself in the beUef that in a moment of 
 peril the stars and stripes would fly alongside the old red 
 cross. Listen one moment; one cannot go five miles through 
 any State in the American Union without coming upon 
 a square substantial building in which children are being 
 taught one universal lesson — the history of how, through 
 long years of blood and strife, their country came forth a 
 nation from the bungling tyranny of Britain. Until five 
 short years ago that was the one bit of history that went 
 home to the heart of Young America, that was the lesson 
 your cousin learned, and still learns, in spite of later conflicts. 
 Let us see what was the lesson your son had laid to heart. 
 Well, your son learned his lesson, not from books, for too 
 often he could not read, but he learned it in a manner which 
 perhaps stamps it deeper into the mind than even letter-press 
 or schoolmaster. He left you because you would not keep 
 him, because you preferred grouse-moors and deer-forests 
 in Scotland, or meadows and sheep-walks in Ireland to him 
 or his. He did not leave you as one or two from a house- 
 hold — as one who would go away and establish a branch 
 connexion across the ocean ; he went away by families, 
 by clans, by kith and kin, for ever and for aye — 
 and he went away with hate in his heart and dark 
 thoughts towards you who should have been his mother. 
 It matters little that he has bettered himself and grown 
 rich in the new land ; that is his afiair; so far as you were 
 concerned, it was about even betting whether he went to the 
 bottom of the Atlantic or to the top of the social tree — 
 so, I say, to close this subject, that son and cousin owe you.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 83 
 
 nnd give you, scant and feeblest love. You will find them 
 the firm friend of the Russian, because that Russian if 
 likely to become your enemy in Herat, in Cabool, in 
 Kashgar, or in Constantinople ; you will find him the ally 
 of the Prussian whenever Kaiser William, after the fashion 
 of his tribe, orders his legions to obliterate the line between 
 Holland and Germany, taking hold of that metaphorical 
 pistol which you spent so many millions to turn from your 
 throat in the days of the first Napoleon. Nay, even 
 should any woman-killing Sepoy put you to sore strait 
 by indiscriminate and ruthless slaughter, he will be your 
 cousin's friend, for the simple reason that he is your 
 enemy. 
 
 But a study of American habits and opinions, however 
 interesting in itself, was not calculated to facilitate in any 
 way the solving of the problem which now beset me, 
 namely, the further progress of my journey to the North- 
 west, The accounts which I daily received were not en- 
 couraging. Sometimes there came news that M. Riel had 
 grown tired of his pre-eminence and was anxious to lay 
 down his authority; at other times I heard of preparation 
 made and making to oppose the Expedition by force, and 
 of strict watch being maintained along the Pembina fron- 
 tier to arrest and turn back all persons except such as were 
 friendly to the Provisional Government. 
 
 Nor was my own position in St. Paul at all a pleasant 
 one. The inquiries I had to make on subjects connected 
 with the supply of the troops in Red River had made so 
 many persons acquainted with my identity, that it soon 
 became known that there was a British officer in the place— 
 a knowledge which did not tend in any manner to make the 
 days pleasant in themselves nor hopeful in the anticipation 
 of a successful prosecution of my journey in the time to 
 
 G Z
 
 S4j the great lone lakd. 
 
 3oine. About the first week in July 1 left St. Paul foi* St. 
 Cloud, seventy miles higher up on th(j Mississippi, having 
 decided to wait no longer for instructions, bat to trutit to 
 chance for further progress towards the North-west. 
 "You will meet with no obstacle at this side of the line," 
 said an American gentleman who was acquainted with the 
 object of my journey, *' but I won't answer for the other 
 side ;" and so, not knowing exactly how I was to get through 
 to join the Expedition, but determined to try it some 
 way or other, I set out for Sauk Rapids and St. Cloud. 
 Sauk Rapids, on the Mississippi River, is a city which has 
 neither burst up nor gone on. It has thought fit to remain, 
 without monument of any kind, where it originally located 
 itself — on the left bank of the Mississippi, opposite the con- 
 fluence of the Sauk River with the " Father of Waters." It 
 takes its name partly from the Sauk River and partly from 
 the rapids of the Mississij)pi which lie abreast of the town. 
 Like many other cities, it had nourished feelings of the 
 most deadly enmity against its neighbours, and was to 
 " kill creation " on every side ; but these ideas of animosity 
 have decreased considerably in lapse of time. Of course it 
 possessed a newspapex' — I believe it also possessed a church, 
 but I did not see that edifice ; the paper, however, I did 
 see, and was much struck by the fact that the greater 
 portion of the first page — the paper had only two — was 
 taken up with a pictorial delineation of what Sauk Rapids 
 would attain to in the future, when it had sufficiently 
 developed its immense water-power. In the mean time — 
 previous to the development of said water-power — Sauk 
 Rapids was not a bad sort of place : a bath at an hotel in 
 St. Paul was a more expensive luxury than a dinner; but 
 the Mississippi flowing by the door of the hotel at Sauk 
 Rapids permitted free bathing in its waters. Anj- traveller
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. bi) 
 
 in the United States will fully appreciate this e('ndescension 
 on the part of the great river. If a man wishes to be clean, 
 he has to pay highly for the luxury. The baths which 
 exist in the hotels are evidently meant for very rare and 
 important occasions. 
 
 " I would like/^ said an American gentleman to a friend 
 of mine travelling by railway, — " I would like to show 
 you round our city, and will call for you at the hotel.^' 
 
 " ThaL'k you/' replied my friend ; " I have only to take 
 a bath, and will be ready in half an hour." 
 
 "Take a bath!" answered the American; ''why, you 
 ain't sick, air you ?" 
 
 There are not many commandments strictly adhered to 
 in the United States ; but had there ever existed a " Thou 
 shalt not tub," the implicit obedience rendered to it would 
 have been delightful, but perhaps, in that case, every 
 American would have been a Diogenes. 
 
 The Russell House at Sauk Rapids was presided over by 
 a Dr. Chase. According to his card, Dr. Chase conferred 
 more benefactions upon the human race for the very 
 smallest remuneration than any man living. His hotel 
 was situated in the loveliest portion of Minnesota, com- 
 manding the magnificent rapids of the Mississippi; hi& 
 board and lodging were of the choicest description ; horses 
 and buggies were free, gratis, and medical attendance was 
 also uncharged for. Finally, the card intimated that, upon 
 turning over, still more astonishing revelations would meet 
 the eye of the reader. Prepared for some terrible instance 
 of humane abnegation on the part of Dr. Chase, I proceeded 
 to do as directed, and, turning over the card, read, " Pre- 
 sent of a $500 greenback" ! ! 1 The gift of the green- 
 back was attended with some little drawback, inasmuch as 
 it was conditional upon paying to Dr. Chase the sum of
 
 86 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 $20,000 for the goodwill, &c., of his hotel, farm, and 
 appurtenances, or procuring a purchaser for them at that 
 figure, which was, as a matter of course, a ridiculously low 
 one. Two damsels who assisted Dr. Chase in ministering 
 to the wants of his guests at dinner had a very appalling 
 manner of presenting to the frightened feeder his choice of 
 viands. The solemn silence which usually pervades the 
 dinner-table of an American hotel was nowhere more ob- 
 servable than in this Doctor's establishment ; whether it 
 was from the fact that each guest suffered under a painful 
 knowledge of the superhuman efforts which the Doctor was 
 making for his or her benefit, I cannot say ; but I never 
 witnessed the proverbially frightened appearance of the 
 American people at meals to such a degree as at the 
 dinner-table of the Sauk Hotel. When the damsels be- 
 fore alluded to commenced their peregrinations round the 
 table, giving in terribly terse language the choice of meats, 
 the solemnity of the proceeding could not have been ex- 
 ceeded. "Pork or beef ?" "Pork,^' would answer the trem- 
 bling feeder ; " Beef or pork T' " Beef," would again reply 
 the guest, grasping eagerly at the first name which struck 
 upon his ear. But when the second course came round the 
 damsels presented us with a choice of a very mysterious 
 nature indeed. I dimly heard two names being uttered into 
 the ears of my fellow-eaters, and I just had time to notice the 
 paralyzing effect which the communication appeared to have 
 upon them, when presently over my own shoulder I heard 
 the mystic sound — I regret to say that at first these sounds 
 entirely failed to present to my mind any idea of food or 
 sustenance of known description, I therefore begged for a 
 repetition of the words ; this time there was no mistake 
 about it, "Steam-pudding or pumpkin-pie?" echoed the 
 maiden, giving me the terrible alternative in her most
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 87 
 
 cutting- tones ; "Both!'' I ejaculated, with equal distinct- 
 ness, but, I believe, audacity unparalleled since the times of 
 Twdst. The female Bumble seemed to reel beneath the 
 shock, and I uoticed that after communicating* her expe- 
 rience to her fellow waiting-'Woman, I was not thoug-ht of 
 much account for the remainder of the meal. 
 
 Upon the day of my arrival at Sauk Bapids I had let it be 
 known pretty widely that I was ready to become the purchaser 
 of a saddle-horse, if any person had such an animal to dispose 
 of. In the three following- days the amount of saddle-horses 
 produced in the neig-hbourhood was perfectly astonishing ; 
 indeed the fact of placing- a saddle upon the back of any 
 thing possessing four legs seemed to constitute the required 
 animal; even a Germana "Dutchman" came along with a 
 miserable thing in horseflesh, sandcracked and spavined, for 
 which he only asked the trifling sum of $100. Two livery- 
 stables in St. Cloud sent up their superannuated stagers, 
 and Dr. Chase had something to recommend of a very 
 superior description. The end of it all was, that, declining 
 to purchase any of the animals brought up for inspec- 
 tion, I found there was little chance of being able to 
 get over the 400 miles which lay between St. Cloud and 
 Fort Garry. It was now the 12th of July; I had reached 
 the farthest limit of railroad communication, and before me 
 lay 200 miles of partly settled country lying between the 
 Mississippi and the Bed Biver. It is true that a four- 
 horse stage ran from St. Cloud to Fort Abercrombie on 
 Bed Biver, but that would only have conveyed me to a 
 point 300 miles distant from Fort Garry, and over that last 
 300 miles I could see no prospect of travelling. I had there- 
 fore determined upon procuring a horse and riding the entire 
 way, and it was with this object that I had entered into 
 these inspections of horseflesh already mentioned. Matters
 
 88 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 
 
 were in this unsatisfactory state on the 12th of July, when 
 I was informed that the solitary steamboat which pHed 
 upon the waters of the Red River was about to mate a 
 descent to Fort Garry, and that a week would elapse before 
 she would start from her moorings below Georgetown, a 
 station of the Hudson Bay Company situated 250 miles 
 from St. Cloud. This was indeed the best of good news to 
 me ; I saw in it the long-looked-for chance of bridging this 
 great stretch of 400 miles and reaching at last the Red 
 River Settlement. I saw in it still more the prospect of 
 loining at no very distant time the expeditionary force 
 itself, after I had run the gauntlet of M. Riel and his 
 associates, and althouo-h many obstacles yet remained to be 
 overcome, and distances vast and wild had to be covered 
 before that hope could be realized, still the prospect of 
 immediate movement overcame every perspective difficulty; 
 and glad indeed I was when from the top of a well-horsed 
 stage I saw the wooden houses of St. Cloud disappear 
 beneath the prairie behind me, and I bade good-bye lor 
 many a day to the valley of the Mississippi,
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 89 
 
 CHAPTER TIL 
 
 North Mimtesota — A Beautiful Land — Eival Savages — Aber- 
 CROMBiE — News from the North — Plans — A Loxely Shanty — 
 The Red Ebtir — Prairies — Sunset — Mosquitoes — Going North 
 — A Mosquito Night — A Thunder-storm — A Prussian — Dakota 
 — I ride tor 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 tole- 
 rably 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
 
 90 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 smoke of the wigwams." "What savag-es, too^ are they, th.e 
 successors of the old-race savages ! not less barbarous be- 
 cause 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 flow- 
 ing 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,
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 91 
 
 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 Presi- 
 dent 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 Supe- 
 rior, 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 repre- 
 sented 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
 
 92 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 plans for rapid movement. There was no horse or convey- 
 ance of any kind to be had from Abercrombie ; but I dis- 
 covered 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 Aber- 
 crombie by the next stage, two days from this time ; he had 
 left a horse and Red River eart at Abercrombie, and it was 
 his intention to start with this horse and cart for his steam- 
 boat immediately upon his arrival by stage from St. Paul. 
 Now the boat "International " was lying at a part of the Rod 
 River known as Frog Point, distant by land 100 miles 
 north from Abercrombie, and as 1 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 convey- 
 ance, 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 Aber- 
 crombie, which for many reasons was a matter for congra- 
 tulation, and put me in a position to intercept the captain 
 on his way to Abercrombie. So on the llUh 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 GKEAT LOxVE LAND. 93 
 
 the level sea of grass and was visibl3 miles and miles before 
 one reached it. Here had rested on3 of those unquiet birds 
 whose flig-ht is ever westward, building* himself a rude nest 
 of such material as the oak- wooded "bays^^ of the Bed 
 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 Missis- 
 sippi 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 
 'bourses diametrically opposite to their after-lines; the 
 Mississippi first running to the n irth, 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 liac 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
 
 94 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 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. 
 Flowino- towards the north with innumerable twists and 
 sudden turnings, the Red River divides the State of Minne- 
 sota, 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. Stand- 
 ing upon the ground the eye ranges over many miles of
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 95 
 
 grass, standing- on a wag-gon, 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 
 gi'ass}/ plains ; a thousand tints of gold are cast along the 
 heavens, and the two oceans of the sky and of the earth in- 
 termingle 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, 
 ;,ud riches, for assuredly I know of nothing so conducive to
 
 96 THE GEE AT LOXE LAXD. 
 
 early turning in and early turning out as that most pitiless 
 pest. On the piesent 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 faintly audible. Listen- 
 ing 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 myste- 
 rious 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 loneh" surroundings of the place. It was, in fact, a 
 drop of that mucb-desired " crathure " that the old couple 
 were so anxious to obtain. 
 
 About three c'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 ponj- 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
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 97 
 
 cartj we left Mr. Nolan^s door some little time before sun- 
 set, 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 al- 
 though a Red River cart is not the easiest mode of convey- 
 ance 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 Aber- 
 crombie we passed a small creek in whose leaves and stag- 
 nant 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 any thing, 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 
 
 u
 
 98 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 to the speck of cloud by my companion I naturally con- 
 cluded 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 wund 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, hum- 
 ming and buzzing along wdth 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 in- 
 creased. 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 propor- 
 tions ; it was no longer in the south-west ; it occupied the 
 whole west, and was moving on towards the north. Pre- 
 sently, 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 thun- 
 der 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.''
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 99 
 
 It was now midniglit. To loose the horse from the 
 shafts^ to put the oil-cloth over the cart^ and to creep un- 
 derneath the wheels did not take my friend long. I fol- 
 lowed 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. Some- 
 times 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 com- 
 panion 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 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 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 arrange- 
 ments 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 agree- 
 ably employed in preparing something for our bodily com- 
 fort. 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 satis- 
 factorily. 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 had 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. Pood 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
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 101 
 
 of magical beauty. The sun resting- on the rim of the 
 prairie east 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-cloudsj 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 anything 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,
 
 102 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 with lights showing out through the windows. Riding 
 quickly down this valley we reached, followed hy 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 por- 
 tion 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 pre- 
 cincts 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
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 103 
 
 boat became perfectly black with insects. Attracted by the 
 light they flocked into the saloon, covering- walls and ceil- 
 ing 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, bleed- 
 ing, and hungry, I sought refuge beneath the gauze cur- 
 tains in my cabin, and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. 
 
 And in truth there was reason enough for sleep indepen- 
 dently of mosquitoes' bites. By dint of hard travel we had 
 accomplished 104 miles in twenty-seven hours. The mid- 
 night storm had lost us three hours and added in no small de- 
 gree to discomfort. Mosquitoes had certainly caused but little 
 thought to be bestowed upon fatigue duringthelasttwo 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 oakwoods 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
 
 104 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 patchwork — pieces of rope seemed twisted around crank and 
 shaft^ mud was laid thickly on boiler and pipes^ little jets 
 and spirts of steam had a disagreeable way of coming* out 
 from places not supposed to be capable of such outpouring's. 
 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 20tli 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.
 
 THE GKEAT LOXE LAND. 105 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Retrospective — The North-west Passage — The Bay of Hudson 
 — Rival Claims — The Old French Fur Trade — The ISTorth- 
 WEST Company — How the Half-breeds came — The High- 
 landers defeated — Progress — Old Feuds. 
 
 "We who have seen in our times the solution of the lonjr- 
 hidden secret worked out amidst the icy solitudes of the 
 Polar Seas cannot realize the excitement which for nio-h 
 400 years vexed the minds of European kings and peoples — 
 how they thought and toiled over this northern passage to 
 wild realms of Cathay and Hindostan — how from every port, 
 from the Adriatic to the Baltic, ships had sailed out in quest 
 of this ocean strait, to find in succession portions of the great 
 ■world which Columbus had given to the hujnan race. 
 
 Adventurous spirits were these early navigators who thus 
 fearlessly entered the great unknown oceans of the North in 
 craft scarce larger than canal-boats. And how long and 
 how tenaciously did they hold that some passage must exist 
 by which the Indies could be reached ! Not a creek, not a 
 bay, but seemed to promise the long- sought- for opening to 
 the Pacific. 
 
 Hudson and Forbisher, Fox, Baffin, Davis, and James, 
 how little thought they of that vast continent whose 
 presence was but an obstacle in the path of their discovery ! 
 Hudson had long perished in the ocean which bears his 
 name before it was known to be a cul-de-sac. Two hun- 
 dred years had passed away from the time of Columbus ere
 
 106 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 his dream of an open sea to the city of Quinsay in Cathay 
 had ceased to find believers. This immense inlet of Hud- 
 son Bay must lead to the Western Ocean. So^ at least, 
 thought a host of bold navigators who steered their way 
 through fog and ice into the great Sea of Hudson, giving 
 those names to strait and bay and island, which we read in 
 our school-days upon great wall-hung maps and never 
 think or care about again. Nor were these anticipations of 
 reaching the East held only by the sailors. 
 
 La Salle, when he fitted out his expeditions from the 
 Island of Montreal for the West, named his point of depar- 
 ture La Chine, so certain was he that his canoes would 
 eventually reach Cathay. And La Chine still exists to 
 attest his object. But those who went on into the great 
 continent, reaching the shores of vast lakes and the banks 
 of mighty rivers, learnt another and a truer story. 
 They saw these rivers flowing with vast volumes of 
 water from the north-west ; and, standing on the brink of 
 their unknown waves, they rightly judged that such 
 rolling volumes of water must have their sources far away 
 in distant mountain ranges. Well might the great heart of 
 De Soto sink within him when, after long months of 
 arduous toil through swamp and forest, he stood at last on 
 the low shores of the Mississippi and beheld in thought the 
 enormous space which lay between him and the spot where 
 such a river had its birth. 
 
 The East — it was always the East. Columbus had said 
 the world was not so large as the common herd believed it, 
 and yet when he had increased it by a continent he tried to 
 make it smaller than it really was. So fixed were men's 
 minds upon the East, that it was long before they would 
 think of turning to account the discoveries of those early 
 navigators. But in time there came to the markets of
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 107 
 
 Europe the products of the New AVorld. The gold and the 
 silver of Mexico and the rich sables of the frozen North 
 found their way into the marts of Western Europe. And 
 while Drake plundered galleons from the Spanish Main, 
 England and France commenced their career of rivalry for 
 the possession of that trade in furs and peltries which had 
 its sources round the icy shores of the Bay of Hudson. It 
 was reserved however for the fiery Prince Rupert to carry 
 into effect the idea of opening up the North-west through 
 the ocean of Hudson Bay. 
 
 Somewhere about 200 years ago a ship sailed away from 
 England bearing in it a company of adventurers sent out to 
 form a colony upon the southern shores of James's Bay. 
 These men named the new land after the Prince who sent 
 them forth, and were the pioneers of that " Hon. Company 
 of Adventurers from England trading into Hudson Bay.^^ 
 
 More than forty years previous to the date of the 
 charter by which Charles II. conferred the territory of 
 Rupert's Land upon the London company, a similar grant 
 had been made by the French monarch, Louis XIIL, to 
 '' La Compagnie de la Nouvelle France.'^ Thus there had 
 arisen rival claims to the possession of this sterile region, 
 and although treaties had at various times attempted to 
 rectify boundaries or to rearrange watersheds, the question 
 of the right of Canada or of the Company to hold a portion 
 of the vast territory draining into Hudson Bay had never 
 been legally solved. 
 
 For some eighty years after this settlement on Jameses Bay, 
 the Company held a precarious tenure of their forts and fac- 
 tories. Wild-lookingmen, more Indian than French, marched 
 from Canada over the height of land and raided upon the posts 
 of Moose and Albany, burning the stockades and carrying 
 off the little brass howitzers mounted thereon. The same
 
 108 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 wild-looking men, pushing on into the interior from Lake 
 Superior, made their way into Lake Winnipeg, up the 
 great Saskatchewan River, and across to the valley of the 
 Red River; building their forts for war and trade by distant 
 lake-shore and confluence of river current, and drawing off 
 the valued trade in furs to France ; until all of a sudden 
 there came the great blow struck by Wolfe under the walls 
 of Quebec, and every little far-away post and distant fort 
 throughout the vast interior continent felt the echoes of the 
 guns of Abraham. It might have been imagined that now, 
 when the power of France was crushed in the Canadas, the 
 trade which she had carried on with the Indian tribes of the 
 Far West would lapse to the English company trading into 
 Hudson Bay ; but such was not the case. 
 
 Immediately upon the capitulation of Montreal, fur 
 traders from the English cities of Boston and Albany 
 appeared in Montreal and Quebec, and pushed their way 
 along the old French route to Lake Winnipeg and into 
 the valley of the Saskatchewan. There they, in turn, 
 erected their little posts and trading-stations, laid out their 
 l)eads and blankets, their strouds and cottons, and ex- 
 changed their long -carried goods for the beaver and marten 
 and fisher skins of the Nadow, Sioux, Kinistineau, 
 and Osinipoilles. Old maps of the North-west still mark 
 spots along the shores of Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan 
 with names of Henry's House, Finlay's House, and 
 Mackay's House. These " houses " were the trading- 
 posts of the first English free-traders, whose combination 
 in 1783 gave rise to the great North-west Fur Company, 
 so long the fierce rival of the Hudson Bay, To picture 
 here the jealous rivalry which during forty years raged 
 throughout these immense territories would be to fill a 
 volume with tales of adventure and discovery.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 100 
 
 The zeal with which the North-west Company pursued 
 the trade in furs quickly led to the exploration of the entire 
 country. A Mackenzie penetrated to the Arctic Ocean 
 down the immense river which bears his name — a Frazer 
 and a Thompson pierced the tremendous masses of the 
 Rocky Mountains and beheld the Pacific rolling- its waters 
 against the rocks of New Caledonia. Based upon a system 
 which rewarded the efforts of its emploijes by giving them a 
 share in the profits of the trade, making them partners as 
 well as servants, the North-west Company soon put to sore 
 straits the older organization of the Hudson Bay. While 
 the heads of both companies were of the same nation, the 
 working men and voyageurs were of totally different races, 
 the Hudson Bay employing Highlanders and Orkney men 
 from Scotland, and the North-west Company drawing its 
 recruits from the hardy French habifans of Lower Canada. 
 This difference of nationality deepened the strife between 
 them, and many a deed of cruelty and bloodshed lies buried 
 amidst the oblivion of that time in those distant regions. 
 The men who went out to the North-west as voyageurs and 
 servants in the employment of the rival companies from 
 Canada and from Scotland hardly ever returned to their 
 native lands. The wild roving life in the great prairie or 
 the trackless pine forest, the vast solitudes of inland lakes 
 and rivers, the chase, and the camp-fii-e had too much of 
 excitement in them to allow the voyageur to return again 
 to the narrow limits of civilization. Besides, he had taken 
 to himself an Indian wife, and although the ceremony by 
 which that was effected was frequently wanting in those 
 accessories of bell, book, and candle so essential to its proper 
 well-being, nevertheless the voyageur and his squaw got on 
 pretty well together, and little ones, who jabbered the 
 smallest amount of English or French, and a great deal of
 
 110 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Ojibbeway, or Cree, or Assineboine, began to multiply 
 around them. 
 
 Matters were in this state when, in 1812, as we have 
 already seen in an earlier chapter, the Earl of Selkirk, a 
 large proprietor of the Hudson Bay Company, conceived 
 the idea of planting a colony of Highlanders on the banks 
 of the Red River near the lake called Winnipeg. 
 
 Some great magnate was intent on making a deer forest 
 in Scotland about the period that this country was holding 
 its own with difficulty against Napoleon. So, leaving their 
 native parish of Kildonan in Sutherlandshire, these people 
 established another Kildonan in the very heart of North 
 America, in the midst of an immense and apparently 
 boundless prairie. Poor people ! they had a hard time of 
 it — inundation and North-west Company hostility nearly 
 sweeping them off their prairie lands. Before long mat- 
 ters reached a climax. The North-west Canadians and 
 half-breeds sallied forth one day and attacked the settlers; 
 the settlers had a small guard in whose prowess they placed 
 much credence ; the guard turned out after the usual manner 
 of soldiers, the half-breeds and Indians lay in the long 
 grass after the method of savages. For once the Indian 
 tactics prevailed. The Governor of the Hudson Bay 
 Company and the guard were shot down, the fort at Point 
 Douglas on the Red River was taken, and the Scotch 
 settlers driven out to the shores of Lake Winnipeg. 
 
 To keep the peace between the rival companies and the 
 two nationalities was no easy matter, but at last Lord Sel- 
 ku-k came to the rescue ; they were disbanding regiments 
 after the great peace of 1815, and portions of two foreign 
 corps, called De Muiron^s and De Watteville^s Regiments, 
 were induced to attempt an expedition to the Red River. 
 
 Starting in winter from the shores of Lake Superior
 
 THE CHEAT LONE LAND. Ill 
 
 these hardy fellows traversed the forests and frozen lakes 
 upon sno\v-shoes_, and^ entering* from the Lake of the Woods, 
 snddenly appeared in the Selkirk Settlement, and took 
 possession of Fort Douglas. 
 
 A few years later the g-reat Fur ComJ)anies became 
 amalg"amated, or rather the North-west ceased to exist, and 
 henceforth the Hudson Bay Company ruled supreme from 
 the shores of the Atlantic to the frontiers of Russian 
 America. 
 
 From that date, 1823, the progress of the little colony 
 had been gradual but sure. Its numbers were constantly 
 increased by the retired servants of the Hudson Bay 
 Company, who selected it as a place of settlement when 
 their period of active service had expired. • Thither came 
 the voyageur and the trader to spend the winter of their 
 lives in the little world of Assineboine. Thus the Selkirk 
 Settlement grew and flourished, caring little for the outside 
 earth — " the world forgetting, by the world forgot." 
 
 But the old feelings which had their rise in earlier years 
 never wholly died out. National rivalry still existed, and 
 it required no violent effort to fan the embers into flame 
 again. The descendants of the two nationalities dwelt 
 apart ; there were the French parishes and the Scotch and 
 English parishes, and, although each nationality spoke the 
 same mother tongue, still the spread of schools and 
 churches fostered the different languages of the fatherland, 
 and perpetuated the distinction of race wdiich otherwise 
 would have disappeared by lapsing into savagery. In an 
 earlier chapter I have traced the events immediately pre- 
 ceding the breaking out of the insurrectionary movement 
 among the French half-breeds, and in the foregoing pages 
 I have tried to sketch the early life and history of the 
 country into which I am about to ask the reader to follow
 
 112 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 me. Into the immediate sectional disputes and religious 
 animosities of the present movement it is not my intention 
 to enter ; as I journey on an occasional arrow may be shot 
 to the right or to the left at men and things; but I will 
 leave to others the details of a petty provincial quarrel, 
 while I have before me, stretching far and wide, the vast 
 solitudes which await in silence the footfall of the future.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 113 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RrnsTNiNG THE Gauntlet — Across the Line — Mischief ahead — 
 Preparations — A Night March — The Steamer captured — The 
 Pursuit — Daylight — The Lower Fort — The Eed Man at last 
 — The Chief's Speech — A Big Feed — Making ready for the 
 Winnipeg — A Delay — I visit Fort Garry — Mr. President Eiel 
 — The Final Start — Lake Winnipeg — The First Night out — 
 My Crew. 
 
 The steamer " International " made only a short delay at 
 the frontier post of Pembina^ but it was long' enough to 
 impress the on-looker with a sense of dirt and debauchery, 
 which seemed to pervade the place. Some of the leading- 
 citizens came forth with hands stuck so deep in breeches' 
 pockets, that the shoulders seemed to have formed an offen- 
 sive and defensive alliance with the arms, never again to 
 permit the hands to emerge into daylight unless it should 
 be in the vicinity of the ancles. 
 
 Upon inquiring for the post-office, I was referred to the 
 postmaster himself, who, in his capacity of leading citizen, 
 was standing by. Asking if there were any letters lying 
 at his office for me, I was answered in a very curt negative, 
 the postmaster retiring immediately up the steep bank 
 towards the collection of huts which calls itself Pembina. 
 The boat soon cast off her moorings and steamed on into 
 British territory. "We were at length within the limits of 
 the Red River Settlement, in the land of M. Louis Riel, 
 President, Dictator, Ogre, Saviour of Society, and New 
 Napoleon, as he was variously named by friends and foes 
 
 I
 
 114 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 in the little tea-cup of Eed River whose tempest had cast 
 him suddenly from dregs to surface. " I wasn^'t so sure 
 that they wouldn^t have searched the boat for jou/' said 
 the captain from his wheel-house on the roof-deck, soon 
 after we had passed the Hudson Bay Company^s post, 
 whereat M. RieFs frontier guard was supposed to hold 
 its head-quarters. " Now, darn me, if them whelps had 
 stopped the boat, but Fd have jist rounded her back to 
 Pembina and tied up under the American post yonder, and 
 claimed protection as an American citizen.^' As the act of 
 tying up under the American post would in no way have 
 forwarded my movements, however consolatory it might 
 have proved to the wounded feelings of the captain, I was 
 glad that we had been permitted to proceed without moles- 
 tation. But I had in my possession a document which I 
 looked upon as an " open sesame " in case of obstruction 
 from any of the underlings of the Provisional Government. 
 
 This document had been handed to me by an eminent 
 ecclesiastic whom I met on the evening preceding my 
 departure at St. Paul, and who, upon hearing that it was 
 my intention to proceed to the Red River, had handed me, 
 unsolicited, a very useful notification. 
 
 So far, then, I had got within the outer circle of this so 
 jealously protected settlement. The guard, whose presence 
 had so often been the theme of Manitoban journals, the 
 picquet line which extended from Pembina Mountain to 
 Lake of the Woods (150 miles), was nowhere visible, and 
 I began to think that the whole thing was only a myth, 
 and that the Red River revolt was as unsubstantial as the 
 Spectre of the Brocken. But just then, as I stood on 
 the high roof of the " International," from whence a wide 
 view was obtained, I saw across the level prairie outside 
 the huts of Pembina the figures of two horsemen riding at
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 115 
 
 a rapid pace towards the north. They were on the road to 
 Fort Garry. 
 
 The long July day passed slowly away, and evening 
 began to darken over the level land, to find us still 
 steaming down the widening reaches of the E-ed River. 
 
 But the day had shown symptoms sufficient to convince 
 me that there was some reality after all in the stories of 
 detention and resistance, so frequently mentioned ; more 
 than once had the figures of the two horsemen been visible 
 from the roof-deck of the steamer, still keeping the Fort 
 Garry trail, and still forcing their horses at a gallop. 
 
 The windings of the river enabled these men to keep 
 ahead of the boat, a feat which, from their pace and manner, 
 seemed the object they had in view. But there were other 
 indications of difficulty lying ahead : an individual con- 
 nected with the working of our boat had been informed by 
 persons at Pembina that my expected arrival had been noti- 
 fied to Mr. President Kiel and the members of his trium- 
 virate, as I would learn to my cost upon arrival at Fort 
 Garry. 
 
 That there was mischief ahead appeared probable enough, 
 and it was with no pleasant feelings that when darkness 
 came I mentally surveyed the situation, and bethought me 
 of some plan by which to baffle those who sought my 
 detention. 
 
 In an hour^s time the boat would reach Fort Garry. I 
 was a stranger in a strange land, knowing not a feature 
 in the locality, and with only an imperfect map for ray 
 guidance. Going down to my cabin, I spread out the raap 
 before me. I saw the names of places familiar in imagi- 
 nation — the winding river, the junction of the Assineboine 
 and the Red River, and close to it Fort Garry and the 
 village of Winnipeg; then, twenty miles farther to the 
 
 1 2
 
 116 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 north, the Lower Fort Garry and the Scotch and Eng-lish 
 Settlement. My object was to reach this lower fort ; but 
 in that lay all the difficulty. The map showed plainly enough 
 the place in which safety lay ; but it showed no means by 
 which it could be reached, and left me, as before, to my own 
 resources. These were not large. 
 
 My baggage was small and compact, but weighty ; for 
 it had in it much shot and sporting gear for perspective 
 swamp and prairie work at wild duck and sharp-tailed 
 grouse. I carried arms available against man and beast — 
 a Colt's six-shooter "and a fourteen-shot repeating carbine, 
 both light, good, and trusty; excellent weapons when 
 things came to a certain point, but useless before that 
 point is reached. 
 
 Now, amidst perplexing prospects and doubtful expe- 
 dients, one course appeared plainly prominent; and that 
 was — that there should be no captiu'e by Kiel. The bag- 
 gage and the sporting gear might go, but, for the rest, I 
 was bound to carry myself and my arms, together with my 
 papers and a dog, to the Lower Fort and English Settle- 
 ment. Having decided on this course, I had not much 
 time to lose in putting it into execution. I packed my 
 things, loaded my arms, put some extra ammunition into 
 pocket, handed over my personal effects into the safe cus- 
 tody of the captain, and awaited whatever might turn up. 
 
 When these preparations were completed, I had still an 
 hour to spare. There happened to be on board the same 
 boat as passenger a gentleman whose English proclivities 
 had marked him during the late disturbances at Red River 
 as a dangerous opponent to M. Riel, and who consequently 
 had forfeited no small portion of his liberty and his chattels. 
 The last two days had made me acquainted with his history 
 and opinions, and, knowing that he could supply the want
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAITD. 117 
 
 I was most in need of — a horse — I told him the plan I had 
 formed for evading* M. Riel, in case his minions should 
 attempt my capture. This was to pass quickly from the 
 steamboat on its reaching the landing-place and to hold 
 my way across the country in the direction of the Lower 
 Fort, which I hoped to reach before daylight. If stopped, 
 there was but one course to pursue — to announce name and 
 profession, and trust to the Colt and sixteen-shooter for the 
 rest. My new acquaintance, however, advised a change of 
 programme, suggested by his knowledge of the locality. 
 
 At the point of junction of the Assineboine and Red 
 Rivers the steamer, he said, would touch the north shore. 
 The spot was only a couple of hundred yards distant from 
 Fort Garry, but it was sufficient in the darkness to conceal 
 any movement at that point ; we would both leave the boat 
 and, passing by the flank of the fort, gain tJie village of 
 AYinnipeg before the steamer would reach her landing- 
 place ; he would seek his home and, if possible, send a horse 
 to meet me at the first wooden bridge upon the road to the 
 Lower Fort. All this was simj^le enough, and supplied me 
 with that knowledge of the ground which I required. 
 
 It was now eleven o'clock p.m., dark but fine. With 
 my carbine concealed under a large coat, I took my station 
 near the bows of the boat, watching my companion's move- 
 ments. Suddenly the steam was shut off, and the boat 
 began to round from the Red River into the narrow Assine- 
 boine. A short distance in front appeared lights and 
 figures moving to and fro along the shore — the lights 
 were those of Fort Garry, the figures those of Riel, 
 O'Donoghue, and Lepine, with a strong body of guards. 
 
 A second more, and the boat gently touched the soft 
 mud of the north shore. My friend jumped off to the 
 beach ; dragging the pointer by chain and collar after me.
 
 118 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 I, too, sprang- to the shore just as the boat began to recede 
 from it. As I did so, I saw my companion rushing- up a 
 very steep and lofty bank. Much impeded by the arms 
 and dog, I followed him up the ascent and. reached the top. 
 Around stretched a dead black level plain, on the left the 
 fort, and fig-ures were dimly visible about 200 yards away. 
 There was not much time to take in all this, for my com- 
 panion, whispering- me to follow him closely, commenced 
 to move quickly along an irregular path which led from 
 the river bank. In a short time we had reached the 
 vicinity of a few straggling houses whose white walls 
 showed distinctly through the darkness ; this, he told me, 
 was Winnipeg. Here was his residence, and here we were 
 to separate. Giving me a few hurried directions for 
 further guidance, he pointed to the road before me as a 
 starting-point, and then vanished into the gloom. Por a 
 moment I stood at the entrance of the little village half- 
 irresolute what to do. One or two houses showed lights in 
 single windows, behind gleamed the lights of the steamer 
 which had now reached the place of landing. I commenced 
 to walk quickly through the silent houses. 
 
 As I emerged from the farther side of the village I saw, 
 standing on the centre of the road, a solitary figure. 
 Approaching nearer to him, I found that he occupied a 
 narrow wooden bridge which opened out upon the prairie. 
 To pause or hesitate would only be to excite suspicion in 
 the mind of this man, sentinel or guard, as he might be. 
 So, at a sharp pace, I advanced towards him. He never 
 inoved ; and without word or sign I passed him at arm's 
 length. But here the dog, which I had unfastened when 
 parting from my companion, strayed away, and, being loth 
 10 lose him, I stopped at the farther end of the bridge to 
 call him back. This was evidently the bridge of which my
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 119 
 
 companion had spoken, as the place where I was to await 
 the horse he would send me. 
 
 The trysting-place seemed to be but ill-chosen — close to 
 the village, and already in possession of a sentinel, it would 
 not do. " If the horse comes/^ thoug-ht I, " he will be too 
 late ; if he does not come, there can be no use in waiting,^' 
 so, giving a last whistle for the dog (which I never saw 
 again), I turned and held my way into the dark level plain 
 lying mistily spread around me. For more than an 
 hour I walked hard along a black-clay track bordered on 
 both sides by prairie. I saw no one, and heard nothing 
 save the barking of some stray dogs away to my right. 
 
 During this time the moon, now at its last quarter, 
 rose above trees to the east, and enabled me better to 
 discern the general features of the country through which 
 I was passing. Another hour passed, and still I held on 
 my way. I had said to myself that for three hours I 
 must keep up the same rapid stride without pause or halt. 
 In the meantime I was calculating for emergencies. If 
 followed on horseback, I must become aware of the fact 
 while yet my enemies were some distance away. The 
 black capote flung on the road would have arrested 
 their attention, the enclosed fields on the right of the track 
 would afford me concealment, a few shots from the fourteen- 
 shooter fired in the direction of the party, already partly 
 dismounted deliberating over the mysterious capote, would 
 have occasioned a violent demoralization, probably causing 
 a rapid retreat upon Fort Garry, darkness would have mul- 
 tiplied numbers, and a fourteen-shooter by day or night 
 is a weapon of very equalizing tendencies. 
 
 When the three hours had elapsed I looked anxiously 
 around for water, as I was thirsty in the extreme. 
 
 A creek soon gave me the drink I thirsted for, and, once
 
 120 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 more refreshed, I kept on my lonely way beneath the 
 waning moon. At the time when I was searching" for 
 water along the bottom of the Middle Creek my pursuers 
 were close at hand — probably not five minutes distant — 
 but in those things it is the minutes which make all the 
 difierence one way or the other. 
 
 We must now go back and join the pursuit, just to see 
 what the followers of M. Riel were about. 
 
 Sometime during the afternoon preceding the arrival of 
 the steamer at Fort Garry, news had come down by mounted 
 express from Pembina, that a stranger was about to make 
 his entrance into Red River. 
 
 Who he might be was not clearly descernible ; some said 
 he was an officer in Her Majesty^s Service, and others, that 
 he was somebody connected with the disturbances of the 
 preceding winter who was attempting to revisit the settle- 
 ment. 
 
 Whoever he was, it was unanimously decreed that he 
 should be captured; and a call was made by M. Riel for 
 '^ men not afraid to fight " who would proceed up the river 
 to meet the steamer. Upon after-reflection, however, it was 
 resolved to await the arrival of the boat, and, by capturing 
 captain, crew, and passengers, secure the person of the 
 mysterious stranger. 
 
 Accordingly, when the " InteruationaF^ reached the land- 
 ing-place beneath the walls of Fort Garry a strange scene 
 was enacted. 
 
 Messrs. Riel, Lepine, and O'Donoghue, surrounded by 
 a body-guard of half-breeds and a few American adventurers, 
 appeared upon the landing-place. A select detachment, I 
 presume, of the " men not afraid to fight " boarded the 
 boat and commenced to ransack her from stem to stern. 
 While the confusion was at its height, and doors, &c., were
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 121 
 
 being broken open, it became known to some of the 
 searchers that two persons had left the boat only a few 
 minutes previously. The rage of the petty Napoleon be- 
 came excessive, he sacreed and stamped and swore, he 
 ordered pursuit on foot and on horseback ; and altogether 
 conducted himself after the manner of rum-drunkenness and 
 despotism based upon ignorance and " straight drinks." 
 
 All sorts of persons were made jDrisoners upon the spot. 
 My poor companion was siezed in his house twenty minutes 
 after he had reached it, and, being hurried to the boat, was 
 threatened with instant hanging. Where had the stranger 
 gone to ? and who was he ? He had asserted himself to 
 belong to Her Majesty^s Service, and he had gone to the 
 Lower Fort. 
 
 " After him \" screamed the President ; " bring him in 
 dead or alive." 
 
 So some half-dozen men, half-breeds and American fili- 
 busters, started out in pursuit. It was averred that the 
 man who left the boat was of colossal proportions, that he 
 carried arms of novel and terrible construction, and, more 
 mysterious still, that he was closely followed by a gigantic 
 dog. 
 
 People shuddered as they listened to this part of the 
 story — a dog of gigantic size ! What a picture, this im- 
 mense man and that immense dog stalking through the 
 gloom-wrapped prairie, goodness knows where ! Was it to 
 be wondered at, that the pursuit, vigorously though it com- 
 menced, should have waned faint as it reached the dusky 
 ])rairie and left behind the neighbourhood and the habita- 
 tions of men ? The party, under the leadership of Lepine the 
 " Adjutant-general," was seen at one period of its progress 
 besides the moments of starting and return. 
 
 Just previous to daybreak it halted at a house known by
 
 122 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the suggestive title of " Wliisky Tom^s/' eight miles from 
 the village of Winnipeg ; whether it ever got farther on its 
 way remains a mystery, but I am inclined to think that the 
 many attractions of Mr. Tom^s residence, as evinced by the 
 prefix to his name, must have proved a powerful obstacle to 
 such thirsty souls. 
 
 Daylight breaks early in the month of July, and I had 
 been but little more than three hours on the march when 
 the first sign of dawn began to glimmer above the tree- 
 tops of the Red River. When the light became strong 
 enough to afford a clear view of the country, I found that I 
 was walking along a road or track of very black soil with 
 poplar groves at intervals on each side. 
 
 Through openings in these poplar groves I beheld a row 
 of houses built apparently along the bank of the river, and 
 soon the steeple of a church and a comfortable-looking glebe 
 became visible about a quarter of a mile to the right. Calcu- 
 lating by my watch, I concluded that I must be some six- 
 teen miles distant from Fort Garry, and therefore not more 
 than four miles from the Lower Fort. However, as it was 
 now quite light, I thought I could not do better than ap- 
 proach the comfortable-looking glebe with a double view 
 towards refreshment and information. I reached the gate 
 and, having run the gauntlet of an evily-intentioned dog, 
 pulled a bell at the door. 
 
 Now it had never occurred to me that my outward 
 appearance savoured not a little of the bandit — a poet has 
 written about " the dark Suliote, in his shaggy capote," 
 &c., conveying the idea of a very ferocious-looking fellow — 
 but I believe that my appearance fully realized the descrip- 
 tion, as far as outward semblance was concerned; so, 
 evidently, thought the worthy clergyman when, cautiously 
 approaching his hall-door, he beheld through the glass
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 123 
 
 window the person whose reiterated ringing- had summoned 
 him hastily from his early slumbers. Half opening his 
 door, he inquired my business. 
 
 " How far/' asked I, "to the Lower Fort?'' 
 
 " About four miles." 
 
 ''Any conveyance thither?" 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 He was about to close the door in my face, when I in- 
 quired his country, and he replied, — 
 
 " I am English." 
 
 " And I am an English officer, arrived last night in the 
 Red River, and now making my way to the Lower Fort." 
 
 Had my appearance been ten times more disreputable 
 than it was — had I carried a mitrailleuse instead of a 
 fourteen -shooter, I would have been still received with open 
 arms after that piece of information was given and received. 
 The door opened very wide and the worthy clergyman's 
 hand shut very close. Then suddenly there became appa- 
 rent many facilities for reaching the Lower Fort not before 
 visible, nor was the hour deemed too early to preclude all 
 thoughts of refreshment. 
 
 It was some time before my host could exactly realize 
 the state of affairs, but when he did, his horse and buggy 
 were soon in readiness, and driving along the narrow road 
 which here led almost uninterruptedly through little clumps 
 and thickets of poplars, we reached the Lower Fort Garry 
 not very long after the sun had begun his morning work 
 of making gold the forest summits. I had run the gauntlet 
 of the lower settlement; I was between the Expedition 
 and its destination, and it was time to lie down and rest. 
 
 Up to this time no intimation had reached the Lower 
 Fort of pursuit by the myrmidons of M. Riel. But soon 
 there came intelligence. A farmer carrying corn to the
 
 124 TEE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 mill in the fort had been stopped by a party of men 
 some seven miles away, and questioned as to his having 
 seen a strang-er ; others had also seen the mounted scouts. 
 And so while I slept the sleep of the tired my worthy host 
 was receiving- all manner of information regarding the 
 movements of the marauders who were in quest of his 
 sleeping guest. 
 
 I may have been asleep some two hours, when I became 
 aware of a hand laid on my shoulder and a voice whisper- 
 ing something into my ear. E-ousing myself from a very 
 deep sleep, I beheld the Hudson Bay officer in charge of 
 the fort standing by the bed repeating words which failed 
 at first to carry any meaning along with them. 
 
 " The French are after you," he reiterated. 
 
 " The French" — where was I, in France ? 
 
 I had been so sound asleep, that it took some seconds to 
 gather up the different threads of thought where I had left 
 them off a few hours before, and " the French " was at that 
 time altogether a new name in my ears for the Red E-iver 
 natives. " The French are after you \" altogether it was not 
 an agreeable prospect to open my eyes upon, tired, exhausted, 
 and sleepy as I was. But, under the circumstances, break- 
 fast seemed the best preparation for the siege, assault, and 
 general battery which, according to all the rules of war, 
 ought to have followed the announcement of the Gallic 
 Nationality being in full pursuit of me. 
 
 Seated at breakfast, and doing full justice to a very ex- 
 cellent mutton chop and cup of Hudson Bay Company 
 Souchong (and where does there exist such tea, out of 
 China?), I heard a digest of the pursuit from the lips 
 of my host. The French had visited him in his fort 
 once before with evil intentions, and they might come 
 again, so he proposed that we should drive down to
 
 THE GREAT LONE LA^^D. 125 
 
 the Indian Settlement, where the ever-faithful Ojibbcways 
 would, if necessary, roll back the tide of Gallic pursuit, 
 giving- the pursuers a reception in which Pahaouza-tau-ka, 
 or "The Great Scalp-taker," would play a prominent 
 part. 
 
 Breakfast over, a drive of eight miles brought us to the 
 mission of the Indian Settlement presided over by Arch- 
 deacon Cowley. 
 
 Here, along the last few miles of the Red River ere it 
 seeks, through many channels, the waters of Lake Winnipeg, 
 dwell the remnants of the tribes whose fathers in times 
 gone by claimed the broad lands of the Red River ; 
 now clothing themselves, after the fashion of the white 
 man, in garments and in religion, and learning a few of 
 his ways and dealings, but still with many wistful hanker- 
 ings towards the older era of the paint and feathers, of the 
 medicine bag and the dream omen. 
 
 Poor red man of the great North-west, I am at last in 
 your land ! Long as I have been hearing of you and your 
 wild doings, it is only hei-e that I have reached you on 
 the confines of the far-stretching Winnipeg. It is no 
 easy task to find you now, for one has to travel far into 
 the lone spaces of the Continent before the smoke of your 
 wigwam or of your tepie blurs the evening air. 
 
 But henceforth we will be companions for many months, 
 and through many varied scenes, for my path lies amidst 
 the lone spaces which are still your own ; by the rushing 
 rapids where you spear the great '^namha" (sturgeon) 
 will we light the evening fire and lie down to rest, lulled 
 by the ceaseless thunder of the torrent ; the lone lake- 
 shore will give us rest for the midday meal, and from your 
 frail canoe, lying like a sea-gull on the wave, we will get 
 the " mecuhaga " ('the blueberry) and the " wa-wa,'' (the
 
 126 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 goose) giving you the great medicine of the white man, 
 the the and suga in exchange. But I anticipate. 
 
 On the morning following my arrival at the mission 
 house a strange sound greeted my ears as I arose. Look- 
 ing through the window, I beheld for the first time the 
 red man in his glory. 
 
 Filing along the outside road came some two hundred 
 of the warriors and braves of the Ojibbeways, intent upon 
 all manner of rejoicing. At their head marched Chief 
 Henry Prince, Chief " Kechiwis " (or the Big Apron) 
 " Sou Souse '* (or Little Long Ears) ; there was also 
 ^* We-we-tak-gum Na-gash '•* (or the Man who flies round 
 the Feathers), and Pahaouza-tau-ka, if not present, was repre- 
 sented by at least a dozen individuals just as fully qualified 
 to separate the membrane from the top of the head as was 
 that most renowned scalp-taker. 
 
 Wheeling into the grass-plot in front of the mission 
 house, the whole body advanced towards the door shouting, 
 "Ho, ho!^^ and firing off their flint trading-guns in token 
 of welcome. The chiefs and old men advancing to the 
 front, seated themselves on the ground in a semi-circle, 
 while the young men and braves remained standing or 
 lying on the ground farther back in two deep lines. In front 
 of all stood Henry Prince the son of Pequis, Chief of the 
 Swampy tribe, attended by his interpreter and pipe-bearer. 
 
 My appearance upon the door-step was the signal for a 
 burst of deep and long-rolling " Ho, ho^s,^^ and then the 
 ceremony commenced. There was no dance or "pow- 
 wow;" it meant business at once. Striking his hand 
 upon his breast the chief began ; as he finished each 
 sentence the interpreter took up the thread, explaining 
 with difficulty the long rolling words of the Indian. 
 
 " You see here," he said, " the most faithful children of
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 127 
 
 the Great Mother ; they have heard that you have come 
 from the great chief who is bringing thither his warriors 
 from the Kitchi-gami" (Lake Superior), "and they have 
 come to bid you welcome, and to place between you and 
 the enemies of the Great Mother their guns and their 
 lives. But these children are sorely puzzled ; they know 
 not what to do. They have gathered in from the East, and 
 the North, and the West, because bad men have risen their 
 hands against the Great Mother and robbed her goods 
 and killed her sons and put a strange flag over her fort. 
 And these bad men are now living in plenty on what they 
 have robbed, and the faithful children of the Great Mother 
 are starving and very poor, and they wish to know what 
 they are to do. It is said that a great chief is coming 
 across from the big sea-water with many mighty braves 
 and warriors, and much goods and presents for the Indians. 
 But though we have watched long for him, the lake is 
 still clear of his canoes, and we begin to think he is not 
 coming at all ; therefore we were glad when we were told 
 that you had come, for now you will tell us what we are 
 to do and what message the great Ogima has sent to 
 the red children of the Great Mother." 
 
 The speech ended, a deep and prolonged " Ho ! " — a sort 
 of universal " thems our sentiments " — ran round the 
 painted throng of warriors, and then they awaited my 
 answer, each looking with stolid indifference straight 
 before him. 
 
 My reply was couched in as few words as possible. " It 
 was true what they had heard. The big chief was coming 
 across from the Kitchi-gami at the head of many warriors. 
 The arm of the Great Mother was a long one, and stretched 
 far over seas and forests ; let them keep quiet, and when 
 the chief would arrive, he would give them store of pre-
 
 128 THE GEEAT LONE LKSD. 
 
 sents and supplies ; he would reward them for their good 
 behaviour. Bad men had set themselves ag-ainst the Great 
 Mother ; hut the Great Mother would feel angry if any of 
 her red children moved against these men. The big chief 
 would soon be with them, and all would be made right. 
 As for myself, I was now on my way to meet the big 
 chief and his warriors, and I would say to him how true 
 had been the red children, and he would be made glad 
 thereat. Meantime, they should have a present of tea, 
 tobacco, flour, and pemmican ; and with full stomachs their 
 hearts would feel fuller still," 
 
 A universal " Ho ! " testified that the speech was good ; 
 and then the ceremony of hand-shaking began. I inti- 
 mated, however, that time would only permit of my having 
 that honour with a few of the large assembly — in fact, with 
 the leaders and old men of the tribe. 
 
 Thus, in turns, I grasped the bony hands of the " Red 
 Deer " and the " Big Apron," of the " Old Englishman " 
 and the " Long Claws," and the " Big Bird ;" and, with 
 the same " Ho, ho !" and shot-firing, they filed away as 
 they had come, carrying with them my order upon the 
 Lower Fort for one big feed and one long pipe, and, I dare 
 say, many blissful visions of that life the red man ever 
 loves to live— the life that never does come to him — the 
 future of plenty and of ease. 
 
 Meantime, my preparations for departure, aided by my 
 friends at the mission, had gone on apace. I had got a 
 canoe and five stout English half-breeds, blankets, pemmi- 
 can, tea, flour, and biscuit. All were being made ready, and 
 the Indian Settlement was alive with excitement on the 
 subject of the coming man — now no longer a myth — in 
 relation to a general millennium of unlimited pemmican 
 and tobacco.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 129 
 
 But just when all preparations had been made complete 
 an unexpected event occurred which postponed for a time 
 the date of my departure ; this was the arrival of a very 
 urgent message from the Upper Fort, with an invitation to 
 visit that place before quitting the settlement. There had 
 been an error in the proceedings on the night of my arrival, 
 I was told, and, acting under a mistake, pursuit had been 
 organized. Great excitement existed amongst the French half- 
 breeds, who were in reality most loyally disposed ; it was quite 
 a mistake to imagine that there was any thing approach- 
 ing to treason in the designs of the Provisional Government 
 — and much more to the same effect. It is needless now 
 to enter into the question of how much all this was worth : 
 at that time so much conflicting testimony was not easily 
 reduced into proper limits. But on three points, at all 
 events, I could form a correct opinion for myself. Had not 
 my companion been arrested and threatened with instant 
 death ? Was he not still kept in confinement ? and had 
 not my baggage undergone confiscation (it is a new name 
 for an old thing) ? And was there not a flag other than the 
 Union Jack flying over Fort Garry ? Yes, it was true ; all 
 these things were realities. 
 
 Then I replied, " While these things remain, I will not 
 visit Fort Garry." 
 
 Then I was told that Colonel Wolseley had wi-itten, 
 urging the construction of a road between Fort Garry and 
 Lake of the Woods, and that it could not be done unless I 
 visited the upper settlement. 
 
 I felt a wish, and a very strong one, to visit this upper 
 Fort Garry and see for myself its chief and its garrison, if 
 the thing could be managed in any possible way. 
 
 From many sources I was advised that it would be 
 dangerous to do so ; but those who tendered this counsol 
 
 K
 
 130 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 had in a manner grown old under tlie despotism of M. Kiel, 
 and had, moreover, begun to doubt that the expedi- 
 tionary force would ever succeed in overcoming the terri- 
 ble obstacles of the long route from Lake Superior. I 
 knew better. Of E,iel I knew nothing, or next to no- 
 thing ; of the progress of the expeditionary force, I knew 
 only that it was led by a man who regarded impossibilities 
 merely in the light of obstacles to be cleared from his path ; 
 and that it was composed of soldiers who, thus led, would 
 go any where, and do any thing, that men in any shape of 
 savagery or of civilization can do or dare. And although 
 no tidings had reached me of its having passed the rugged 
 portage from the shore of Lake Superior to the height 
 of land and launched itself fairly on the waters which 
 flow from thence into Lake Winnipeg, still its ultimate 
 approach never gave me one doubtful thought. I reckoned 
 much on the Bishop^s letter, which I had still in my 
 possession, and on the influence which his last com- 
 munication to the "President" would of necessity exer- 
 cise ; so I decided to visit Fort Garry, upon the con- 
 ditions that my baggage was restored intact, Mr. Dreever 
 set at liberty, and the nondescript flag taken down. 
 My interviewer said he could promise the first two pro- 
 positions, hut of the third he was not so certain. He would, 
 however, despatch a message to me with full information as 
 to how they had been received. I gave him until five o'clock 
 the following evening, at which hour, if his messenger had 
 not appeared, I was to start for the Winnipeg River, en 
 route for the Expedition. 
 
 Five o'clock came on the following day, and no messen- 
 ger. Every thing was in readiness for my departure : the 
 canoe, freshly pitched, was declared fit for the Winnipeg 
 itself ; the provisions were all ready to be put on board at a
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 131 
 
 moment's notice. I g-ave half an hour's law, and that de- 
 lay broug-ht the messenger ; so, putting* off my intention 
 of starting", I turned my face back towards Fort Garrv. 
 My former interviewer had sent me a letter ; all was as I 
 wished — Mr. Di-eever had been set at liberty, my bag-g-age 
 given up, and he would expect me on the following 
 morning. 
 
 The Indians were in a terrible state of commotion over my 
 going. One of their chief medicine-men, an old Swampy 
 named Bear, laboured long and earnestly to convince me 
 that Kiel had got on what he called " the track of blood," 
 the deviFs track, and that he could not get off of it. This 
 curious proposition he endeavoured to illustrate by means of 
 three small pegs of wood, which he set up on the ground. 
 One represented Riel, another his Satanic Majesty, while the 
 third was supposed to indicate myself. 
 
 He moved these three pegs about very much after the 
 fashion of a thimble-rigger ; and I seemed to have, through 
 my peg, about as bad a time of it as the pea under the 
 thimble usually experiences. Upon the most conclusive 
 testimony. Bear proceeded to show that I hadn't a chance 
 between Riel and the devil, who, according to an equally 
 clear demon-strsition, were about as bad as bad could be. 
 I had to admit a total inability to follow Bear in the rea- 
 soning which led to his deductions ; but that only proved 
 that I was not a "medicine-man,'" and knew nothing 
 whatever of the peg theory. 
 
 So, despite of the evil deductions drawn by Bear from 
 the three pegs, I set out for Fort Garry, and, journeying 
 along the same road which I had travelled two nights ])re- 
 viously, I arrived in sight of the village of Winnipeg 
 before midday on the 23rd of July. At a little distance 
 from the village rose the roof and flag-staffs of Fort Garry, 
 
 k2
 
 132 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 and around in unbroken verdure stretched the prairie lands 
 of Red River. 
 
 Passing from the villag-e along the walls of the fort, I 
 crossed the Assineboine River and saw the '^ International" 
 lying at her moorings below the floating bridge. The 
 captain had been liberated, and waved his hand with a 
 cheer as I crossed the bridge. The gate of the fort stood 
 open, a sentry was leaning lazily against the wall, a portion 
 of which leant in turn against nothing. The whole exterior 
 of the place looked old and dirty. The muzzles of one or 
 two guns protruding through the embrasures in the flanking 
 bastions failed even to convey the idea of fort or fortress 
 to the mind of the beholder. 
 
 Returning from the east or St. Boniface side of the 
 Red River, I was conducted by my companion into the 
 fort. His private residence was situated within the walls, 
 and to it we proceeded. Upon entering the gate I took in 
 at a glance the surroundings — ranged in a semi-circle with 
 their muzzles all pointing towards the entrance, stood some 
 six or eight field-pieces ; on each side and in front were 
 bare looking, white-washed buildings. The ground and 
 the houses looked equally dirty, and the whole aspect of the 
 place was desolate and ruinous. 
 
 A few ragged-looking dusky men with rusty firelocks, 
 and still more rusty bayonets, stood lounging about. We 
 drove through without stopping and drew up at the door of 
 my companion's house, which was situated at the rear of 
 the buildings I have spoken of. From the two flag-staffs flew 
 two flags, one the Union Jack in shreds and tatters, the 
 other a well-kept bit of bunting having the fleur-de-lis 
 and a shamrock on a white field. Once in the house, my 
 companion asked me if I would see Mr. Riel. 
 
 " To call on him, certainly not," was my reply.
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 133 
 
 "Bui if he calls on you?" 
 
 " Then I will see him," replied I. 
 
 The gentleman who had spoken thus soon left the room. 
 There stood in the centre of the apartment a small billiard 
 table, I took up a cue and commenced a game with the 
 only other occupant of the room — the same individual who 
 had on the previous evening acted as messenger to the 
 Indian Settlement. We had played some half a dozen 
 strokes when the door opened, and my friend returned. 
 Following him closely came a short stout man with a 
 large head, a sallow, puffy face, a sharp, restless, intelli- 
 gent eye, a square-cat massive forehead overhung by. a mass 
 of long and thickly clustering hair, and marked with well- 
 cut eyebrows — altogether, a remarkable-looking face, all the 
 more so, perhaps, because it was to be seen in a land where 
 such things are rare sights. 
 
 This was ]M. Louis Riel, the head and front of the Red 
 River Rebellion — the President, the little Napoleon, the 
 Ogre, or whatever else he may be called. He was dressed 
 in a curious mixture of clothing — a black frock-coat, vest, 
 and trousers ; but the effect of this somewhat clerical cos- 
 tume was not a little marred by a pair of Indian mocassins, 
 which nowhere look more out of place than on a carpeted 
 floor. 
 
 M. Riel advanced to me, and we shook hands with all 
 that empressement so characteristic of hand-shaking on the 
 American Continent. Then there came a pause. My com- 
 panion had laid his cue down. I still retained mine in my 
 hands, and, more as a means of bridging the awkward gulf 
 of silence which followed the introduction, I asked him to 
 continue the game — another stroke or two, and the mocas- 
 sined President began to move nervously about the window 
 recess. To relieve his burthened feelings, I inquired if he
 
 134 * THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 ever indulged in billiards ; a rather laconic " Never," was 
 his reply. 
 
 " Quite a loss/' I answered, making an absurd stroke 
 across the table ; " a capital game." 
 
 I had scarcely uttered this profound sentiment when I 
 beheld the President moving hastily towards the door, 
 muttering as he went, " I see I am intruding here." There 
 was hardly time to say, " Not at all," when he vanished. 
 
 But my companion was too quick for him ; going out 
 into the hall, he brought him back once more into the 
 room, called away my billiard opponent, and left me alone 
 with the chosen of the people of the new nation. 
 
 Motioning M. E,iel to be seated, I took a chair myself, 
 and the conversation began. 
 
 Speaking with difficulty, and dwelling long upon his 
 words, Kiel regretted that I should have shown such 
 distrust of him and his party as to prefer the Lower Fort 
 and the English Settlement to the Upper Fort and the 
 society of the French. I answered, that if such distrust 
 existed it was justified by the rumours spread by his sym- 
 pathizers on the American frontier, who represented him 
 as making active preparations to resist the approaching 
 Expedition. 
 
 " Nothing," he said, " was more false than these state- 
 ments. I only wish to retain power until I can resign it 
 to a proper Government. I have done every, thing for the 
 sake of peace, and to prevent bloodshed amongst the people 
 of this land. But they will find," he added passionately, "they 
 will find, if they try, these people here, to put me out — they 
 will find they cannot do it. I will keep what is mine until 
 the proper Government arrives ; " as he spoke he got up 
 from his chair and began to pace nervously about the room. 
 
 I mentioned having met Bishop Taehe in St. Paul and
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 135 
 
 the letter which I had received from him. He read it 
 attentively and commenced to speak about the Expedition. 
 
 " Had I come from it ? " 
 
 " No ; I was going" to it." 
 
 He seemed surprised, 
 
 " Ey the road to the Lake of the Woods ? " 
 
 " No ; by the Winnipeg River/' I replied. 
 
 " Where was the Expedition ? " 
 
 I could not answer this question ; but I concluded it 
 could not be very far from the Lake of the Woods. 
 
 " Was it a large force ? " 
 
 I told him exactly, setting the limits as low as possible, 
 not to deter him from fighting if such was his intention. 
 The question uppermost in his mind was one of which he 
 did not speak, and he deserves the credit of his silence. 
 Amnesty or no amnesty was at that moment a matter of 
 very grave import to the French half-breeds, and to none so 
 much as to their leader. Yet he never asked if that pardon 
 was an event on which he could calculate. He did not even 
 allude to it at all. 
 
 At one time, when speaking of the efforts he had 
 made for the advantage of his country, he grew very 
 excited, walking hastily up and down the room with 
 theatrical attitudes and declamation, which he evidently 
 fancied had the effect of imposing on his listener ; but, alas ! 
 for the vanity of man, it only made him appear ridiculous; 
 the mocassins sadly marred the exhibition of presidential 
 power. 
 
 An Indian speaking with the solemn gravity of his race 
 looks right manful enough, as with moose-clad leg his mo- 
 cassined feet rest on prairie grass or frozen snow- drift ; but 
 this picture of the black-coated Metis playing the part of 
 Europe^s great soldier in the garb of a priest and the shoes
 
 136 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 of a savage^ looked simply absurd. At leng-th M. Riel ap- 
 peared to think he had enough of the interview^ for stop- 
 ping in front of me he said^ — 
 
 " Had I been your enemy you would have known it be- 
 fore. I heard you would not visit me, and, although I felt 
 humiliated, I came to see you to show you my pacific inclina- 
 tions." 
 
 Then darting quickly from the room he left me. An hour 
 later I left the dirty ill-kept fort. The place was then full 
 of half-breeds armed and unarmed. They said nothing and 
 did nothing, but simply stared as I drove by. I had seen 
 the inside of Fort Garry and its president, not at my 
 solicitation but at his own ; and now before me lay the 
 solitudes of the foaming Winnipeg and the pathless waters 
 of great inland seas. 
 
 It was growing dusk when I reached the Lower Fort. 
 My canoe men stood ready, for the hour at which I was to have 
 joined them had passed, and they had begun to think some 
 mishap had befallen me. After a hasty supper and a farewell 
 to my kind host of the Lower Fort, I stepped into the frail 
 canoe of painted bark which lay restive on the swift current. 
 " All right; away ! " The crew, with paddles held high for 
 the first dip, gave a parting shout, and like an arrow from 
 its bow we shot out into the current. Overhead the stars 
 were beginning to brighten in the intense blue of the twi- 
 light heavens ; far away to the north, where the river ran 
 between wooded shores, the luminous arch of the twilight 
 bow spanned the horizon, mei'ging the northern constella- 
 tion into its soft hazy glow. Towards that north we held 
 our rapid way, while the shadows deepened on the shores 
 and the reflected stars grew brighter on the river. 
 
 We halted that night at the mission, resuming our course 
 at sunrise on the following morning. A few miles below
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 137 
 
 tlie mission stood the huts and birch-bark lodges of the 
 Indians. My men declared that it would be impossible to 
 pass without the ceremony of a visit. The chief had given 
 them orders on the subject^ and all the Indians were expect- 
 ing- it; so^ paddling in to the shore, I landed and walked up 
 the pathway leading to the chiefs hut. 
 
 It was yet very early in the morning, and most of the 
 braves were lying asleep inside their wigwams, dogs and 
 papocses seeming to have matters pretty much their own 
 way outside. 
 
 The hut in which dwelt the son of Pequis was small, low, 
 and ill-ventilated. Opening the latched door I entered 
 stooping ; nor was there much room to extend oneself when 
 the interior was attained. 
 
 The son of Pequis had not yet been aroused from his 
 morning's slumber ; the noise of my entrance, however, dis- 
 turbed him, and he quickly came forth from a small in- 
 terior den, rubbing his eyelids and gaping profusely. He 
 looked sleepy all over, and was as much disconcerted as a 
 man usually is who has a visit of ceremony paid to him as 
 he is getting out of bed. 
 
 Prince, the son of Pequis, essayed a speech, but I am 
 constrained to admit that taken altogether it was a miserable 
 failure. Action loses dignity when it is accompanied by 
 furtive attempts at buttoning nether garments, and not even 
 the eloquence of the Indian is proof against the generally 
 demoralized aspect of a man just out of bed. I felt that 
 some apology was due to the chief for this early visit ; but 
 I told him that being on my way to meet the great Ogima 
 whose braves were coming from the big sea water, I could 
 not pass the Indian camp without stopping to say good-bye. 
 
 Before any thing else could be said I shook Prince by the 
 hand and walked back towards the river.
 
 138 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 By this time, however, the whole camp was thoroughly 
 aroused. From each lodge came forth warriors decked in 
 whatever garments could be most easily donned. 
 
 The chief gave a signal, and a hundred trading-guns were 
 held aloft and a hundred shots rang out on the morning 
 air. Again and again the salutes were repeated, the whole 
 tribe moving down to the water^s edge to see me off. Put- 
 ting out into the middle of the river, I discharged my four- 
 teen shooter in the air in rapid succession ; a prolonged war- 
 whoop answered my salute, and paddling their very best, for 
 the eyes of the finest canoers in the world were upon them, 
 my men drove the little craft flying over the water until 
 the Indian village and its still firing braves were hidden 
 behind a river bend. Through many marsh-lined channels, 
 and amidst a vast sea of reeds and rushes, the Red River of 
 the North seeks the w^aters of Lake Winnipeg. A mixture 
 of land and water, of mud^ and of the varied vegetation 
 which grows thereon, this delta of the Red River is, like 
 other spots of a similar description, inexplicably lonely. 
 
 The wind sighs over it, bending the tall reeds with 
 mournful rustle, and the wild bird passes and repasses with 
 plaintive cry over the rushes which form his summer home. 
 
 Emerging from the sedges of the Red River, we shot out 
 into the waters of an immense lake, a lake which stretched 
 away into unseen spaces, and over whose waters the fervid 
 July sun was playing strange freaks of mirage and inverted 
 shore land. 
 
 This was Lake Winnipeg, a great lake even on a con- 
 tinent where lakes are inland seas. But vast as it is now, 
 it is only a tithe of what it must have been in the earlier 
 ages of the earth. 
 
 The capes and headlands of what once was a vast inland 
 sea now stand far away from the shores of Winnipeg.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 139 
 
 Hundreds of miles from its present limits these great 
 landmarks still look down on an ocean, but it is an ocean 
 of g-rass. The waters of Winnipeg have retired from their 
 I'eet, and they are now mountain ridges rising over seas of 
 verdure. At the bottom of this bygone lake lay the whole 
 valley of the Red River, the present Lakes Winnipegoos 
 and Manitoba, and the prairie lands of the Lower Assine- 
 boine, 100,000 square miles of water. The water has long 
 since been drained off by the lowering of the rocky channels 
 leading to Hudson Bay, and the bed of the extinct lake 
 now forms the richest prairie land in the world. 
 
 But although Winnipeg has shrunken to a tenth of its 
 original size, its rivers still remain worthy of the great 
 basin into which they once flowed. The Saskatchewan is 
 longer than the Danube, the Winnipeg has twice the 
 volume of the Rhine. 400,000 square mdes of continent 
 shed their waters into Lake Winnipeg ; a lake as changeful 
 as the ocean, but, fortunately for us, in its very calmest mood 
 to-day. Not a wave, not a ripple on its surface ; not a 
 breath of breeze to aid the untiring paddles. The little 
 canoe, weighed down by men and provisions, had scarcely 
 three inches of its gunwale over the water, and yet the 
 steersman held his course far out into the glassy waste, 
 leaving behind the marshy headlands which marked the 
 river's mouth. 
 
 A long low point stretching from the south shore of the 
 lake was faintly visible on the horizon. It was past mid- 
 day when we reached it; so, putting in among the rocky 
 boulders which lined the shore, we lighted our lire and 
 cooked our dinner. Then, resuming our way, the Grande 
 Traverse was entered upon. Far away over the lake rose 
 the point of the Big Stone, a lonely cape whose perpen- 
 dicular front was raised high over the water. The sua
 
 140 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 began to sink towards the west; but still not a breath 
 rippled the surface of the lake, not a sail moved over the 
 wide expanse, all was as lonely as though our tiny craft had 
 been the sole speck of life on the waters of the world. 
 The red sun sank into the lake, warning us that it was 
 time to seek the shore and make our beds for the night. A 
 deep sandy bay, with a high backing of woods and rocks, 
 seemed to invite us to its solitudes. Steering in with great 
 caution amid the rocks, we landed in this sheltered spot, and 
 drew our boat upon the sandy beach. The shore yielded 
 large store of drift-wood, the relics of many a northern 
 gale. Behind us lay a trackless forest ; in front the golden 
 glory of the Western sky. As the night shades deepened 
 around us and the red glare of our drift-wood fire cast its 
 light upon the woods and the rocks, the scene became one 
 of rare beauty. 
 
 As I sat watching from a little distance this picture so 
 full of all the charms of the wild life of the voyageur and 
 the Indian, I little marvelled that the red child of the lakes 
 and the woods should be loth to quit such scenes for all the 
 luxuries of our civilization. Almost as I thought with pity 
 over his fate, seeing here the treasures of nature which were 
 his, there suddenly emerged from the forest two dusky 
 forms. They were Ojibbeways, who came to share our fire 
 and our evening meal. The land was still their own. When 
 I lay down to rest that night on the dry sandy shore, I long 
 watched the stars above me. As children sleep after a day 
 of toil and play, so slept the dusky men who lay around me. 
 It was my first night with these poor wild sons of the lone 
 spaces ; it was strange and weird, and the lapping of the 
 mimic wave against the rocks close by failed to bring sleep 
 to my thinking eyes. Many a night afterwards I lay down 
 to sleep beside these men and their brethren — many a night
 
 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 141 
 
 by lake-shore, by torrent's edge, and far out amidst the 
 measureless meadows of the West — but " custom stales " 
 even nature's infinite variety, and through many wild 
 bivouacs my memory still wanders back to that first night 
 out by the shore of Lake Winnipeg. 
 
 At break of day we launched the canoe again and pur- 
 sued our course for the mouth of the Winnipeg River. The 
 lake which yesterday was all sunshine, to-day looked black 
 and overcast — thunder-clouds hung angrily around the 
 horizon, and it seemed as though Winnipeg, was anxious 
 to give a sample of her rough ways before she had done 
 with us. While the morning was yet young we made a 
 portage — that is, we carried the canoe and its stores across 
 a neck of land, saving thereby a long paddle round a pro- 
 jecting cape. The portage was through a marshy tract 
 covered with long grass and rushes. While the men are 
 busily engaged in carrying across the boat and stores, I will 
 introduce them to the reader. They were four in number, 
 and were named as follows : — Joseph Monkman, cook and 
 interpreter; William Prince, full Indian; Thomas Smith, 
 ditto ; Thomas Hope, ci-devant schoolmaster, and now sglf- 
 constituted steersman. The three first were good men. 
 Prince, in particular, was a splendid canoe-man in dangerous 
 water. But Hope possessed the greatest capacity for eating 
 and talking of any man I ever met. He could devour 
 quantities of pemmican any number of times during the day, 
 and be hvmgry still. What he taught during the period 
 when he was schoolmaster I have never been able to find 
 out, but he was popularly supposed at the mission to be a ■ 
 very good Christian. He had a marked disinclination to 
 hard or continued toil, although he would impress an on- 
 looker with a sense of unremitting exertion. This he 
 achieved by divesting himself of his shirt and using his
 
 142 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 paddle, as Alp used his sword, " with right arm Lara." A 
 fifth Indian was added to the canoe soon after crossing the 
 portage. 
 
 A couple of Indian lodges stood on the shore along which 
 we were coasting. We put in towards these lodges to ask 
 information, and found them to belong to Samuel Hender- 
 son, full Swampy Indian. Samuel, who spoke excellent 
 English, at once volunteered to come with me as a guide to 
 the Winnipeg River ; but I declined to engage him until I 
 had a report of his capability for the duty from the Hud- 
 son Bay officer in charge of Fort Alexander, a fort now 
 only a few miles distant. Samuel at once launched his 
 canoe, said " Good-bye " to his wife and nine children, and 
 started after us for the fort, where, on the advice of ihQ 
 officer, I finally engaged him.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 143 
 
 CPIAPTER X. 
 
 The Winnipeg Kiver — The Ojibbeway's House— Bushing a Eapid 
 — A Camp — No Tidings of the Coming Man— Hope in Danger 
 — Eat Portage — A fas-fetched Islington — " Like Pemmican." 
 
 We entered the mouth of the Winnipeg- River at mid- 
 day and paddled up to Fort Alexander^ which stands about a 
 mile from the river's entrance. Here I made my final prepa- 
 rations for the ascent of the Winnipeg", getting a fresh canoe 
 better adapted for forcing the rapids, and at five o'clock in the 
 evening started on my journey up the river. Eight miles 
 above the fort the roar of a great fall of water sounded 
 through the twilight. In surge and spray and foaming 
 torrent the enormous volume of the Winnipeg was makino* 
 its last grand leap on its way to mingle its waters with the 
 lake. On the flat surface of an enormous rock which stood 
 well out into the boiling water we made our fire and our 
 camp. 
 
 The pine-trees which gave the fall its name stood round 
 MS, dark and solemn, w:aving their long arms to and fro 
 in the gusty winds that swept the valley. It was a 
 wild picture. The pine-trees standing in inky blackness — 
 the rushing water, white with foam — above, the rifted 
 thunder-clouds. Soon the lightning began to flash and the 
 voice of the thunder to sound above the roar of the cataract. 
 My Indians made me a rough shelter with cross-poles and 
 a sail-cloth, and, huddling themselves together under the 
 upturned canoe, we slept regardless of the storm.
 
 14-i THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 
 
 I was ninety miles from Fort Garry, and as yet no tidings 
 of the Expedition. 
 
 A man may journey very far through the lone spaces of 
 the earth without meeting with another Winnipeg River, In 
 it nature has contrived to place her two great units of earth 
 and water in strange and wild combinations. To say that the 
 Winnipeg River has an immense volume of water, that it 
 descends 360 feet in a distance of 160 miles, that it is 
 full of eddies and whirlpools, of every variation of waterfall 
 from chutes to cataracts, that it expands into lonely pine- 
 cliffed lakes and far-reaching island-studded bays, that its 
 bed is cumbered with immense wave-polished rocks, that 
 its vast solitudes are silent and its cascades ceaselessly 
 active — to say all this is but to tell in bare items of fact the 
 narrative of its beauty. For the Winnipeg by the multi- 
 plicity of its perils and the ever-changing beauty of its 
 character, defies the description of civilized men as it defies 
 the puny eSbrts of civilized travel. It seems part of the 
 savage — fitted alone for him and for his ways, useless to 
 carry the burden of man^s labour, but useful to shelter the 
 wild things of wood and water which dwell in its waves 
 and along its shores. And the red man who steers his little 
 birch-bark canoe through the foaming rapids of the Winni- 
 peg, how well he knows its various ways ! To him it seems 
 to possess life and instinct, he speaks of it as one would of 
 a high-mettled charger which will do any thing if he be 
 rightly handled. It gives him his test of superiority, his 
 proof of courage. To shoot the Otter Falls or the Rapids of 
 the Barriere, to carry his canoe down the whirling eddies 
 of Portage-de-l'Isle, to lift her from the rush of water at 
 the Seven Portages, or launch her by the edge of the whirl- 
 pool below the Chute-a-Joeko, all this is to be a brave and 
 a skilful Indian, for the man who can do all this must
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 145 
 
 possess a power in the sweep of his paddle, a quickness of 
 glance,, and a quiet consciousness of skill, not to be found 
 except after generations of practice. For hundreds of years 
 the Indian has lived amidst these rapids; they have been 
 the playthings of his boyhood, the realities of his life, the 
 instinctive habit of his old age. What the horse is to the 
 Arab, what the dog is to the Esquimaux, what the camel 
 is to those who journey across Arabian deserts, so is the 
 canoe to the Ojibbeway. Yonder wooded shore yields him 
 from first to last the materials he requires for its construc- 
 tion : cedar for the slender ribs, birch-bark to eo ver them, 
 juniper to stitch together the separate pieces, red pine to 
 give resin for the seams and ci'e vices. By the lake or river 
 shore, close to his wigwam, the boat is built ; 
 
 " And the forest life is in it — 
 All its mystery and its magic, 
 All the tightness of the birch-tree, 
 All the toughness of the cedar, 
 All the larch's stipple sinews. 
 And it floated on the river 
 Like a yellow leaf in autumn, 
 Like a yellow water lily." 
 
 It is not a boat, it is a house ; it can be carried long dis- 
 tances over land from lake to lake. It is frail beyond words, 
 yet you can load it down to the water^s edge; it carries the 
 Indian by day, it shelters him by night ; in it he will steer 
 boldly out into a vast lake where land is unseen, or paddle 
 through mud and swamp or reedy shallows ; sitting in it, he 
 gathers his harvest of wild rice and catches his fish or 
 shoots his game ; it will dash down a foaming rapid, brave 
 a fiercely-rushing torrent, or lie like a sea-bird on the placid 
 water. 
 
 For six months the canoe is the home of the Ojibbeway,
 
 146 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 While the trees are green^ while the waters dance and sparkle, 
 while the wild rice bends its graceful head in the lake and 
 the wild duck dwells amidst the rush-covered mere, the 
 Ojibbeway^s home is the birch-bark canoe. When the 
 winter comes and the lake and rivers harden beneath the 
 icy breath of the north wind, the canoe is put carefully 
 away ; covered with branches and with snow, it lies through 
 the long dreary winter until the wild swan and the wavy, 
 passing northward to the polar seas, call it again from its 
 long icy sleep. 
 
 Such is the life of the canoe, and such the river along 
 which it rushes like an arrow. 
 
 The days that now commenced to pass were filled from 
 dawn to dark with moments of keenest enjoyment, every 
 thing was new and strange, and each hour brought with it 
 some fresh surprise of Indian skill or Indian scenery. 
 
 The sun would be just tipping the western shores with 
 his first rays when the canoe would be lifted from its ledge 
 of rock and laid gently on the water; then the blankets and 
 kettles, the provisions and the guns would be placed in it, 
 and four Indians would take their seats, while one remained 
 on the shore to steady the bark upon the water and keep its 
 sides from contact with the rock ; then when I had taken my 
 place in the centre, the outside man would spring gently 
 in, and we would glide away from the rocky resting-place. 
 To tell the mere work of each day is no difficult matter: start 
 at five 0^ clock a.m., halt for breakfast at seven o^'clock, oflT 
 again at eight, halt at one o'clock for dinner, away at two 
 o'clock, paddle until sunset at 7. '30 ; that was the work of 
 each day. But how shall I attempt to fill in the details of 
 scene and circumstance between these rough outlines of 
 time and toil, for almost at every hour of the long summer 
 day the great Winnipeg revealed some new phase of beauty
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 147 
 
 .and of peril, some eliang-ing- scene of lonely grandeur ? I 
 have already stated that the river in its course from the 
 Lake of the Woods to Lake Winnipeg", 160 miles, makes, a 
 descent of 360 feet. This descent is effected not by a con- 
 tinuous decline, but by a series of terraces at various distances 
 from each other; in other words, the river forms innumerable 
 lakes and wide expanding reaches bound tog-ether by rapids 
 and perpendicular falls of varying" altitude, thus when the 
 voyageur has lifted his canoe from the foot of the Silver Falls 
 and launched it again above the head of that rapid, he will 
 have surmounted two-and-twenty feet of the ascent ; again, 
 the dreaded Seven Portages will give him a total rise of sixty 
 feet in a distance of three miles. (How cold does the bare 
 narration of these facts appear beside their actual realization 
 in a small canoe manned by Indians !) Let us see if we 
 can picture one of these many scenes. There sounds ahead 
 a roar of falling water, and we see, upon rounding some 
 pine-clad island or ledge of rock, a tumbling mass of foam 
 and spray studded with projecting rocks and flanked by 
 dark wooded shores; above we can see nothing, but 
 below the waters, maddened by their wild rush amidst the 
 rocks, surge and leap in angry whirlpools. It is as wild a 
 scene of crag and wood and water as the eye can gaze upon, 
 but we look upon it not for its beauty, because there is no 
 time for that, but because it is an enemy that must be 
 conquered. Now mark how these Indians steal upon this 
 enemy before he is aware of it. The immense volume of 
 water, escaping from the eddies and whirlpools at the foot of 
 the fall, rushes on in a majestic sweep into calmer water; this 
 rush produces along the shores of the river a counter or 
 back-current which flows up sometimes close to the foot of 
 the fall, along this back-water the canoe is carefully steered, 
 being often not six feet from the opposing rush in the 
 
 L %
 
 148 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 central river, but the back-current in turn ends in a whirl- 
 pool, and the canoe, if it followed this back-current, would 
 inevitably end in the same place ; for a minute there is no 
 paddling-, the bow paddle and the steersman alone keeping 
 the boat in her proper direction as she drifts rapidly up the 
 current. Amongst the crew not a word is spoken, but 
 every man knows what he has to do and will be ready 
 when the moment comes ; and now the moment has come, 
 for on one side there foams along a mad surge of water, 
 and on the other the angry whirlpool twists and turns in 
 smooth green hollowing curves round an axis of air, whirling 
 round it with a strength that would snap our birch bark 
 into fragments and suck us down into great depths below. 
 All that can be gained by the back-current has been gained, 
 and now it is time to quit it ; but where ? for there is often 
 only the choice of the whirlpool or the central river. Just 
 on the very edge of the eddy there is one loud shout given 
 by the bow paddle, and the canoe shoots full into the centre 
 of the boiling flood, driven by the united strength of the 
 entire crew — the men work for their very lives, and the 
 boat breasts across the river with her head turned full to- 
 ward the falls; the waters foam and dash about her, the 
 waves leap high over the gunwale, the Indians shout as they 
 dip their paddles like lightning into the foam, and the 
 stransrer to such a scene holds his breath amidst this war 
 of man against nature. Ha ! the struggle is useless, they 
 cannot force her against such a torrent, we are close to the 
 rocks and the foam ; but see, she is driven down by the 
 current in spite of those wild fast strokes. The dead 
 strength of such a rushing flood must prevail. Yes, it 
 is true, the canoe has been driven back ; but behold, almost 
 in a second the whole thing is done— we float suddenly 
 beneath a little rocky isle on the foot of the cataract. We
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 149 
 
 have crossed the river in the face of the fall, and the portage- 
 landing- is over this rock, while three yards out on either 
 side the torrent foams its headlong course. Of the skill 
 necessary to perform such things it is useless to speak. 
 A single false stroke, and the whole thing would have 
 failed ; driven headlong down the torrent, another attempt 
 would have to be made to gain this rock-protected spot, but 
 now we lie secure here ; spray all around us, for the rush of 
 the river is on either side and you can touch it with an out- 
 stretched paddle. The Indians rest on their paddles and 
 laugh; their long hair has escaped from its fastening through 
 their exertion, and they retie it while they rest. One is 
 already standing upon the wet slippery rock holding the 
 canoe in its place, then the others get out. The freight is 
 carried up piece by piece and deposited on the flat surface 
 some ten feet above; that done, the canoe is lifted out very 
 gently, for a single blow against this hard granite boulder 
 would shiver and splinter the frail birch-bark covering ; they 
 raise her very carefully up the steep face of the cliff and 
 rest again on the top. What a view there is from this coigne 
 of vantage ! We are on the lip of the fall, on each side it 
 makes its plunge, and below we mark at leisure the tor- 
 rent we have just braved; above, it is smooth water, and 
 away ahead we see the foam of another rapid. The rock oa 
 which we stand has been worn smooth by the washing of 
 the water during countless ages, and from a cleft or fissuro 
 there springs a pine-tree or a rustling aspen. We have 
 crossed the Petit Roches, and our course is onward still. 
 
 Through many scenes like this we held our way during 
 the last days of July. The weather was beautiful; now and 
 then a thunder-storm would roll along during the night, 
 but the morning sun rising clear and bright would almost 
 tempt one to believe that it had been a dream, if the pools
 
 150 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 of water in the hollows of the rocks and the dampness of 
 blanket or oil-cloth had not proved the sun a humbug. Our 
 general distance each day would be about thirty-two miles, 
 with an average of six portages. At sunset we made our 
 camp on some rocky isle or shelving shore, one or two 
 cut wood, another got the cooking things ready, a fourth 
 gummed the seams of the canoe, a fifth cut shavings from a 
 dry stick for the fire — for myself, I generally took a plunge in 
 the cool delicious water — and soon the supper hissed in the 
 pans, the kettle steamed from its suspending stick, and the 
 evening meal was eaten with appetites such as only the 
 voyageur can understand. 
 
 Then when the shadows of the night had fallen 
 around and all was silent, save the river^s tide against 
 the rocks, we would stretch our blankets on the springy 
 moss of the crag and lie down to sleep with only the stars 
 for a roof. 
 
 Happy, happy days were these — days the memory of 
 which goes very far into the future, growing brighter 
 as we journey farther away from them, for the scenes 
 through which our course was laid were such as speak m 
 whispers, only when we have left them — the whispers of the 
 pine-tree, the music of running water, the stillness of great 
 lonely lakes. 
 
 On the evening of the fifth day from leaving Fort Alex- 
 ander we reached the foot of the Rat Portage, the twenty- 
 seventh, and last, upon the Winnipeg E-iver ; above this 
 portage stretched the Lake of the Woods, which here poured 
 its waters through a deep rock-bound gorge with tremendous 
 force. During the five days we had only encountered two 
 solitary Indians ; they knew nothing whatever about the 
 Expedition, and, after a short parley and a present of tea 
 and flour, we pushed on. About midday on the fourth day
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 151 
 
 we halted at the Mission of the White Dog, a spot which 
 some more than heathen missionary had named IsHng-ton 
 in a moment of virtuous cockneyism. What could have 
 tempted him to commit this act of desecration it is needless 
 to ask. 
 
 Islington on the Winnipeg ! O religious Gilpin, hadst 
 thou fallen a prey to savage Cannibalism, not even Sidney 
 Smith's farewell aspiration would have saved the savage 
 who devoured you, you must have killed him. 
 
 The Mission of the White Dog had been the scene of 
 Thomas Hope's most brilliant triumphs in the role of 
 schoolmaster, and the youthful Ojibbeways of the place had 
 formerly belonged to the band of /wjie. For some days past 
 Thomas had been labouring under depression, his power of 
 devouring pemmican had, it is true, remained unimpaired, 
 but in one or two trying moments of toil, in rapids and 
 portages, he had been found miserably wanting ; he had, in 
 fact, shown many indications of utter uselessness ; he had 
 also begun to entertain gloomy apprehensions of what the 
 French would do to him when they caught him on the 
 Lake of the Woods, and although he endeavoured fre- 
 quently to prove that under certain circumstances the 
 French w^ould have no chance whatever against him, yet, as 
 these circumstances were from the nature of things never 
 likely to occur, necessitating, in the first instance, a pre- 
 sumption that Thomas would show fight, he failed to convince 
 not only his hearers, but himself, that he was not in a veiy 
 bad way. At the White Dog Mission he was, so to speak, 
 on his own hearth, and was doubtless desirous of showing 
 me that his claims to the rank of interpreter were well 
 founded. No tidings whatever had reached the few huts of 
 the Indians at the White Dog ; the women and children, 
 who now formed the sole inhabitants, went but little out of
 
 152 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the neighbourliood^ and the men had been away for many 
 days in the forest^ hunting- and fishing". Thus^ through the 
 whole course of the Winnipeg, from lake to lake, I could 
 glean no tale or tidings of the great Ogima or of his 
 myriad warriors. It was quite dark when we reached, on 
 the evening of the 30th July, the northern edge of the Lake 
 of the Woods and paddled across its placid waters to the 
 Hudson Bay Company's post at the Rat Portage. An 
 arrival of a canoe with six strangers is no ordinary event 
 at one of these remote posts which the great fur company 
 have built at long intervals over their immense territory. 
 Out came the denizens of a few Indian lodges, out came the 
 people of the fort and the clerk in charge of it. My first 
 question was about the Expedition, but here, as elsewhere, 
 no tidings had been heard of it. Other tidings were how- 
 ever forthcoming which struck terror into the heart of 
 Hope. Suspicious canoes had been seen for some days past 
 amongst the many islands of the lake ; strange men had 
 come to the fort at night, and strange fires had been seen 
 on the islands — the French were out on the lake. The 
 officer in charge of the post was absent at the time of my 
 visit, but I had met him at Fort Alexander, and he had 
 anticipated my wants in a letter which I myself carried to 
 his son. I now determined to strain every effort to cross 
 with rapidity the Lake of the Woods and ascend the Rainy 
 River to the next post of the Company, Fort Francis, 
 distant from Rat Portage about 140 miles, for there I felt 
 sure that I must learn tidings of the Expedition and bring 
 my long solitary journey to a close. But the Lake of the 
 Woods is an immense sheet of water lying 1000 feet above 
 the sea level, and subject to violent gales which lash its 
 bosom into angry billows. To be detained upon some 
 island, storm-bound amidst the lake, would never have
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 153 
 
 answered, so I ordered a large keeled boat to be got ready 
 by midday ; it only required a few trifling- repairs of sail and 
 oars, but a great feast had to be gone through in which my 
 pemmican and flour were destined to play a very prominent 
 part. As the word pemmican is one which may figure 
 frequently in these pages, a few words explanatory of it may 
 be useful, Pemmican, the favourite food of the Indian and 
 the half-breed voyagexir, can be made from the flesh of any 
 animal, but it is nearly altogether composed of buffalo meat ; 
 the meat is first cut into slices, then dried either by fire or in 
 the sun, and then pounded or beaten out into a thick flaky 
 substance ; in this state it is put into a large bag made from 
 the hide of the animal, the dry pulp being soldered down into 
 a hard solid mass by melted fat being poured over it — the 
 quantity of fat is nearly half the total weight, forty 
 pounds of fat going to fifty pounds of " beat meat ;" the 
 best pemmican generally has added to it ten pounds of 
 berries and sugar, the whole composition forming the most 
 solid description of food that man can make. If any person 
 should feel inclined to ask, "What does pemmican taste like?" 
 I can only reply, " Like pemmican," there is nothing else in 
 the world that bears to it the slightest resemblance. Can 
 I say any thing that will give the reader an idea of its 
 suflScing quality ? Yes, I think I can. A dog that will 
 eat from four to six pounds of raw fish a day when sleighing, 
 will only devour two pounds of pemmican, if he be fed 
 upon that food ; yet I have seen Indians and half-breeds eat 
 four pounds of it in a single day — but this is anticipating. 
 Pemmican can be prepared in many ways, and it is not 
 easy to decide which method is the least objectionable. 
 There is rubeiboo and richot, and pemmican plain and 
 pemmican raw, this last method being the one most in 
 vogue amongst voyageurs ; but the richot, to me, seemed
 
 154 THE GREAT LONE LKRT>. 
 
 the best ; mixed with a little flour and fried in a pan, 
 pemmican in this form can be eaten^ provided the appe- 
 tite be sharp and there is nothing else to be had — this last 
 consideration is, however, of importance.
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Expedition — The Lake of the Woods — A Night Alauai — 
 A Close Shave — Eainy Biver — A Night Paddle — Fort Francis 
 — A Meeting — The Officer coiimanding the Expedition — The 
 Eank and File — The 60th Eifles — A Windigo — Ojibbeway 
 Bravery — Canadian "Volunteers. 
 
 The feast having" been concluded (I believe it had gone on 
 all nig-ht, and was protracted far into the morning), the 
 sails and oars were suddenly reported ready, and about 
 midday on the 31st July we stood away from the Portag-e 
 du Rat into the Lake of the Woods. I had added 
 another man to my crew, which now numbered seven hands, 
 the last accession was a French half-breed, named Morris- 
 seau. Thomas Hope had possessed himself of a flint gun, 
 with which he was to do desperate things should we fall in 
 with the French scouts upon the lake. The boat in which 
 I now found myself was a large, roomy craft, capable of 
 carrying about three tons of freight ; it had a single tall 
 mast carrying a large square lug-sail, and also possessed of 
 powerful sweeps, which were worked by the men in standing- 
 positions, the rise of the oar after each stroke making the 
 oarsman sink back upon the thwarts only to resume again 
 his upright attitude for the next dip of the heavy 
 sweep. 
 
 This is the regular Hudson Bay Mackinaw boat, used for 
 the carrying trade of the great Fur Company on every 
 river from the Bay of Hudson to the Polar Ocean. It looks
 
 156 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 a big, heavy, lumbering affair, but it can sail well before a 
 wind, and will do good work with the oars too. 
 
 That portion of the Lake of the Woods through which 
 we now steered our way was a perfect maze and network of 
 island and narrow channel ; a light breeze from the north 
 favoured us, and we passed gently along the rocky islet 
 shores through unruffled water. In all directions there 
 opened out innumerable channels, some narrow and winding, 
 others straight and open, but all lying between shores 
 clothed with a rich and luxuriant vegetation ; shores that 
 curved and twisted into mimic bays and tiny promontories, 
 that rose in rocky masses abruptly from the water, that 
 sloped down to meet the lake in gently swelling undulations, 
 that seemed, in fine, to present in the compass of a single 
 glance every varying feature of island scenery. Looking 
 through these rich labyrinths of tree and moss-covered 
 rock, it was difficult to imagine that winter could ever 
 stamp its frozen image upon such a soft summer scene. 
 The air was balmy with the scented things which grow 
 profusely upon the islands; the water was warm, almost 
 tepid, and yet despite of this the winter frost wo.uld cover 
 the lake with five feet of ice, and the thick brushwood 
 of the islands would lie hidden during many months beneath 
 great depths of snow. 
 
 As we glided along through this beautiful scene the men 
 kept a sharp look-out for the suspicious craft whose presence 
 had caused such alarm at the Portage-du-Rat. We saw no 
 trace of man or canoe, and nothing broke the stillness of the 
 evening except the splash of a sturgeon in the lonely bays. 
 About sunset we put ashore upon a large rock for supper. 
 While it was being prepared I tried to count the islands 
 around. From a projecting point I could see island upon 
 island to the number of over a hundred — the wild cherry, the
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 157 
 
 plum, the wild rose, the raspberry, intermixed with ferns and 
 mosses in vast variety, covered every spot around me, and 
 froia rock and crevice the pine and the poplar hung their 
 branches over the water. As the breeze still blew fitfully 
 from the north we again embarked and held our way 
 throuo-h the winding channels — at times these channels 
 would grow wider only again to close together; but there 
 was no current, and the large high sail moved us slowly 
 through the water. When it became dark a fire suddenly 
 appeared on an island some distance ahead. Thomas Hope 
 grasped his flint gun and seemed to think the supreme 
 moment had at length arrived. During the evening I could 
 tell by the gestures and looks of the men that the mys- 
 terious rovers formed the chief subject of conversation, and 
 our latest accession painted so vividly their various sus- 
 picious movements, that Thomas was more than ever con- 
 vinced his hour was at hand. Great then was the excite- 
 ment when the fire was observed upon the island, and 
 greater still when I told Samuel to steer full towards it. As 
 we approached we could distinguish figures moving to and 
 fro between us and the bright flame, but when we had got 
 within a few hundred yards of the spot the light was sud- 
 denly extinguished, and the ledge of rock upon which it had 
 been burning became wrapped in darkness. We hailed, but 
 there was no reply. Whoever had been around the fire had 
 vanished through the trees ; launching their canoe upon the 
 other side of the island, they had paddled away through the 
 intricate labyrinth scared by our sudden appearance in 
 front of their lonely bivouac. This apparent confirmation 
 of his worst fears in no way served to reanimate the spirits 
 of Hope, and though shortly after he lay down with the 
 other men in the bottom of the boat, it was not without 
 misgivings as to the events which lay before him in the
 
 158 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 darkness. One man only remained up to steer, for it was 
 my intention to run as long- as the breeze, faint though it 
 was, lasted. I had been asleep about half an hour when I 
 felt my arm quickly pulled, and, looking up, beheld Samuel 
 bending over me, while with one hand he steered the boat. 
 " Here they are,'' he whispered, " here they are.'' I looked 
 over the gunwale and under the sail and beheld right on 
 the course we were steering two bright fires burning close 
 to the water's edge. We were running down a channel 
 which seemed to narrow to a strait between two islands, and 
 presently a third fire came into view on the other side of the 
 strait, showing distinctly the narrow pass towards which 
 we were steering, it did not ajDpear to be more than twenty 
 feet across it, and, from its exceeding narrowness and the 
 position of the fires, it seemed as though the place had really 
 been selected to dispute our outward passage. We were not 
 more than two hundred yards from the strait and the 
 breeze was holding well into it. What was to be done ? 
 Samuel was for putting the helm up ; but that would have 
 been useless, because we were already in the channel, and to 
 run on shore would only place us still more in the power of 
 our enemies, if enemies they were, so I told him to hold his 
 course and run right through the narrow pass. The other 
 men had sprung quickly from their blankets, and Thomas 
 was the picture of terror. When he saw that I was about 
 to run the boat through the strait, he instantly made up his 
 mind to shape for himself a different course. Abandoning 
 his flint musket to any body who would take it, he clam- 
 bered like a monkey on to the gunwale, with the evident 
 intention of dropping noiselessly into the water, and 
 seeking, by swimming on shore, a safety which he deemed 
 denied to him on board. Never shall I forget his face as 
 he was pulled back into the boat; nor is it easy to describe
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 159 
 
 the sudden revulsion of feeling wliich possessed him when a 
 dozen different fires breaking- into view showed at once that 
 the forest was on fire, and that the imaginary bivouac of 
 the French was only the flames of burning brushwood. 
 Samuel laughed over his mistake, but Thomas looked on it 
 in no laughing light, and, seizing his gun, stoutly main- 
 tained that had it really been the French they would have 
 learnt a terrible lesson from the united volleys of the four- 
 teen-shooter and his flint musket. 
 
 The Lake of the Woods covers a very large extent of 
 country. In length it measures about seventy miles, and 
 its greatest breadth is about the same distance ; its shores 
 are but little known, and it is only the Indian who can 
 steer with accuracy through its labyrinthine channels. In 
 its southern portion it spreads out into a vast expanse of 
 open water, the surface of which is lashed by tempests 
 into high-running seas. 
 
 In the early days of the French fur trade it yielded large 
 stores of beaver and of martens, but it has long ceased 
 to be rich in furs. Its shores and islands will be found 
 to abound in minerals whenever civilization reaches them. 
 
 Among the Indians the lake holds high place as the 
 favourite haunt of the Manitou. The strange water-worn 
 rocks, the islands of soft pipe-stone from which are cut the 
 bowls for many a calumet, the curious masses of ore resting 
 on the polished surface of rock, the islands struck yearly 
 by lightning, the islands which abound in lizards although 
 these reptiles are scarce elsewhere — all these make the Lake 
 of the Woods a region abounding in Indian legend and 
 superstition. There are isles upon which he will not dare 
 to venture, because the evil spirit has chosen them ; there 
 are promontories upon which offerings must be made to the 
 Manitou when the canoe drifts by their lonely shores ; and
 
 IGO THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 there are spots watched over by the great Kennebic, or 
 Serpent^ who is jealous of the treasures which they contain. 
 But all these things are too long to dwell upon now; I 
 must haste along my way. 
 
 On the second morning after leaving Rat Portage we 
 began to leave behind the thickly-studded islands and to 
 get out into the open waters. A thunder-storm had swept 
 the lake during the night, but the morning was calm, and 
 the heavy sweeps were not able to make much way. 
 Suddenly, while we were halted for breakfast, the wind 
 veered round to the north-west and promised us a rapid 
 passage across the Grande Traverse to the mouth of Rainy 
 River. Embarking hastily, we set sail for a strait known as 
 the Grassy Portage, which the high stage of water in the 
 lake enabled us to run through without touching ground. 
 Beyond this strait there stretched away a vast expanse of 
 water over which the white-capped waves were running in 
 high billows from the west. It soon became so rough 
 that we had to take on board the small canoe which 
 I had brought with me from Rat Portage in case of 
 accident, and which was towing astern. On we swept over 
 the high-rolling billows with a double reef in the lug-sail. 
 Before us, far away, rose a rocky promontory, the extreme 
 point of which we had to weather in order to make the 
 mouth of Rainy River. Keeping the boat as close to the 
 wind as she would go, we reeled on over the tumbling seas. 
 Our lee-way was very great, and for some time it seemed 
 doubtful if we would clear the point ; as we neared it we 
 saw that there was a tremendous sea running against the 
 rock, the white sprays shooting far up into the air when 
 the rollers struck against it. The wind had now freshened 
 to a gale and the boat laboured much, constantly shipping 
 sprays. At last we were abreast of the rocks, close hauled.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 161 
 
 and yet only a hundred yards from the breakers. Sud- 
 denly the wind veered a little, or the heavy swell which 
 was running- caught us, for we began to drift quickly down 
 into the mass of breakers. The men were all huddled together 
 in the bottom of the boat, and for a moment or two nothing 
 could be done. " Out with the sweeps ! '' I roared. All was 
 confusion ; the long sweeps got foid of each other, and for a 
 second every thing went wrong. At last three sweeps were 
 got to work, but they could do nothing against such a 
 sea. We were close to the rocks, so close that one began to 
 make preparations for doing something — one didn't well 
 know what — when we should strike. Two more oars were 
 out, and for an instant we hung in suspense as to the result. 
 How they did pull ! it was the old paddle-work forcing the 
 rapid again ; and it told ; in spite of wave and wind, we were 
 round the point, but it was only by a shade. An hour 
 later we were running through a vast exjDanse of marsh and 
 reeds into the mouth of Rainy River; the Lake of the 
 Woods was passed, and now before me lay eighty miles 
 of the Riviere-de-la-Pluie. 
 
 A friend of mine once, describing* the scenery of the Falls 
 of theCauvery in India, wrote that " below the falls there was 
 an island round which there was water on every side :" this 
 mode of description, so very true and yet so very simple in 
 its character, may fairly be applied to Rainy River ; one may 
 safely say that it is a river, and that it has banks on either 
 side of it ; if one adds that the banks are rich, fertile, and 
 well wooded, the description will be complete — such was the 
 river up which I now steered to meet the Expedition. The 
 Expedition, where was it ? An Indian whom we met on the 
 lake knew nothing about it; perhaps on the river we should 
 hear some tidings. About five miles from the mouth of 
 Rainy River there was a small out-station of the Hudson 
 
 M
 
 162 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Bay Company kept by a man named Morrisseau^ a brother 
 of my boatman. As we approached this little post it was 
 announced to us by an Indian that Morrisseau had that 
 morning lost a child. It was a place so wretched-looking 
 that its name of Hungery Hall seemed well adapted 
 to it. 
 
 When the boat touched the shore the father of the dead 
 child came out of the hut, and shook hands with every one 
 in solemn silence ; when he came to his brother he kissed him, 
 and the brother in his turn went up the bank and kissed a 
 number of Indian women who were standing round ; there 
 was not a word spoken by any one; after awhile they 
 all went into the hut in which the little body lay, and 
 remained some time inside. In its way, I don't ever 
 recollect seeing a more solemn exhibition of grief than this 
 complete silence in the presence of death ; there was no 
 question asked, no sign given, and the silence of the dead 
 seemed to have descended upon the living. In a little time 
 several Indians appeared, and I questioned them as to the 
 Expedition ; had they seen or heard of it ? 
 
 " Yes, there was one young man who had seen with his 
 own eyes the great army of the white braves." 
 
 "Where?" I asked. 
 
 " Where the road slants down into the lake," was the 
 interpreted reply. 
 
 " What were they like ? " I asked again, half incredulous 
 after so many disappointments.' 
 
 He thought for awhile : " They were like the locusts," 
 he answered, " they came on one after the other." There 
 could be no mistake about it, he had seen British soldiers. 
 
 The chief of the party now came forward, and asked what 
 I had got to say to the Indians ; that he would like to hear 
 me make a speech; that they wanted to know why all
 
 THE GEEAT LOXE LAXD. 163 
 
 tliese men were coming throug-h their country. To maice a 
 speech ! it was a curious request. I was leaning with my back 
 against the mast^ and the Indians were seated in a line on 
 the bank ; every thing looked so miserable around, that I 
 thought I might for once play the part of Chadband, mid 
 improve the occasion, and, as a speech was expected of me, 
 make it. So I said, " Tell this old chief that I am sorry he 
 is poor and hungry ; but let him look around, the land on 
 which he sits is rich and fertile, why does he not cut down 
 the trees that cover it, and plant in their places potatoes 
 and corn ? then he will have food in the winter when the 
 moose is scarce and the sturgeon cannot be caught.''^ He 
 did not seem to relish my speech, but said nothing. I gave 
 a few plugs of tobacco all round, and we shoved out again 
 into the river. " Where the road comes down to the lake "" 
 the Indian had seen the troops ; where was that spot ? no 
 easy matter to decide, for lakes are so numerous in this 
 land of the North-west that the springs of the earth ::eem to 
 have found vent there. Before sunset we fell in with 
 another Indian ; he was alone in a canoe, which he paddled 
 close along shore out of the reach of the strong breeze which 
 was sweeping us fast up the river. While he \vas yet a long 
 way off, Samuel declared that he had recently left Fort 
 Francis, aud therefore would bring us news from that place. 
 " How can you tell at this distance that he has come from 
 the fort P^"" I asked. "Because his shirt looks bright,^' he 
 answered. And so it was ; he had left the fort on the previous 
 clay and run seventy miles ; he was old Monkman's Indian 
 returning after having left that hardy voyageur at Fort 
 Francis. 
 
 Not a soldier of the Expedition had yet reached the fort, 
 nor did any man know where they were. 
 
 On again ; another sun set and another sun rose, and we 
 ii 2
 
 164 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 were still running' up the Rainy River before a strong north 
 wind which fell away towards evening. At sundown of 
 the 3rd August I caleulatea that some four and twenty 
 miles must yet lie between me and that fort at which, I 
 felt convinced, some distinct tidings must reach me of the 
 progress of the invading column. I was already 180 miles 
 beyond the spot where I had counted upon falling in 
 with them. I was nearly 400 miles from Fort Garry. 
 
 Towards evening on the 3rd it fell a dead calm, and the 
 heavy boat could make but little progress against the strong 
 running current of the river, so I bethought me of the 
 little birch-bark canoe which I had brought from Rat 
 Portage ; it was a very tiny one, but that was no hindrance 
 to the work I now required of it. We had been sailing all 
 day, so my men were fresh. At supper I proposed that 
 Samuel, Monkman, and William Prince should come on with 
 me during the night, that we would leave Thomas Hope in 
 command of the big boat and push on for the fort in the 
 light canoe, taking with us only sufficient food for one meal. 
 The three men at once assented, and Thomas was delighted 
 at the prospect of one last grand feed all to himself, 
 besides the great honour of being promoted to the rank and 
 dignity of Captain of the boat. So we got the little craft 
 out, and having gummed her all over, started once more on 
 our upward way just as the shadows of the night began to 
 close around the river. We were four in number, quite as 
 many as the canoe could carry; she was very low in the 
 water and, owing to some damage received in the rough 
 waves of the Lake of the Woods, soon began to leak badly. 
 Once we put ashore to gum and pitch her seams again, but 
 still the water oozed in and we were wet. What was to be 
 done? with these delays we never could hope to reach the 
 fort by daybreak, and something told me instinctively,
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 165 
 
 that unless I did get there that night I would find the 
 Expedition already arrived. Just at that moment we descried 
 smoke rising amidst the trees on the right shore, and 
 soon saw the poles of Indian lodges. The men said they 
 were very bad Indians from the American side — the left 
 shore of Hainy River is American territory — but the chance 
 of a bad Indian was better than the certainty of a 
 bad canoe, and we stopped at the camp. A lot of half- 
 naked redskins came out of the trees, and the pow-wow 
 commenced. I gave them all tobacco, and then asked if they 
 would give me a good canoe in exchange for my bad one, 
 telling them that I would give them a present next day at 
 the fort ^ ^ one or two amongst them would come up there. 
 After a short parley they assented, and a beautiful canoe was 
 brought out and placed on the water. They also gave us a 
 supply of dried sturgeon, and, again shaking hands all round, 
 we departed on our way. 
 
 This time there was no mistake, the canoe proved as dry 
 as a bottle, and we paddled bravely on through the mists of 
 night. About midnight we halted for supper, making a 
 fire amidst the long wet grass, over which we fried the 
 sturgeon and boiled our kettle; then we went on again 
 through the small hours of the morning. At times I 
 could see on the right the mouths of large rivers which 
 flowed from the west : it is down these rivers that the 
 American Indians come to fish for sturgeon in the Rainy 
 River. For nearly 200 miles the country is still theirs, and 
 the Pillager and Red Lake branches of the Ojibbeway 
 nation yet hold their hunting-grounds in the vast swamps 
 of North Minnesota. 
 
 These Indians have a bad reputation, as the name of 
 Pillager implies, and my Red River men were anxious to 
 avoid falling in with them. Once during the night, oppo.
 
 168 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 site the mouth of one of the rivers opening to the west, we 
 saw the lodges of a large party on our left ; with paddles 
 that were never lifted out of the water, we glided noise- 
 lessly by, as silently as a wild duck would cleave the 
 current. Once again during the long night a large 
 sturgeon, struck suddenly by a paddle, alarmed us by 
 bounding out of the water and landing full upon the gun- 
 wale of the canoe, splashing back again into the water and 
 wetting us all by his curious manoeuvre. At length in 
 the darkness we heard the hollow roar of the great Falls of 
 the Chaudiere sounding loud through the stillness. It 
 grew louder and louder as with now tiring strokes my 
 worn-out men worked mechanically at their paddles. The 
 day was beginning to break. We were close beneath the 
 Chaudiere and alongside of Fort Francis. The scene was won- 
 drously beautiful. In the indistinct light of the early dawn 
 the cataract seemed twice its natural height, the tops of pine- 
 trees rose against the pale green of the coming day, close 
 above the falls the bright morning-star hung, diamond-like, 
 over the rim of the descending torrent; around the air 
 was tremulous with the rush of water, and to the north the 
 rose-coloured streaks of the aurora were woven into the 
 dawn. My long solitary journey had nearly reached its 
 close. 
 
 Very cold and cramped by the constrained position in 
 which I had remained all night, I reached the fort, and, 
 unbarring the gate, with my rifle knocked at the door of 
 one of the wooden houses. After a little, a man opened the 
 door in the costume, scant and unpicturesque, in which he 
 had risen from his bed. 
 
 '' Is that Colonel Wolseley ?" he asked. 
 
 " No,^"" I answered ; '' but that sounds well ; he can't be 
 far off.'-'
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 1G7 
 
 " He will be in to breakfast/' was the reply. 
 
 After all, I was not much too soon. When one has 
 journeyed very far along such a route as the one I had 
 followed since leaving Fort Garry in daily expectation of 
 meeting with a body of men making their way from a dis- 
 tant point through the same wilderness, one does not like 
 the idea of being found at last within the stockades of an 
 Indian trading-post as though one had quietly taken one's 
 ease at an inn. Still there were others to be consulted in 
 the matter, others whose toil during the twenty-seven 
 hours of our continuous travel had been far greater than 
 mine. 
 
 After an hour's delay I went to the house where the men 
 were lying down, and said to them, " The Colonel is close 
 at hand. It will be well for us to go and meet him, and 
 we will thus see the soldiers before they arrive at the Fort /•* 
 so getting the canoe out once more, we carried her above 
 the falls, and paddled up towards the Rainy Lake, whose 
 waters flow into Rainy River two miles above the fort. 
 
 It was the 4th of August — we reached the foot of the 
 rapid which the river makes as it flows out of the Lake. 
 Forcing up this rapid, we saw spreading out before us the 
 broad waters of the Rainy Lake. 
 
 The eye of the half-breed or the Indian is of marvellous 
 keenness; it can detect the presence of any strange 
 object long before that object will strike the vision of the 
 civilized man ; but on this occasion the eyes of my men 
 were at fault, and the glint of something strange upon the 
 lake first caught my sight. There they are ! Yes, there 
 they were. Coming along with the full swing of eight 
 paddles, swept a large North-west canoe, its Iroquois paddlers 
 timing their strokes to an old French chant as they shot 
 down towards the river's source.
 
 168 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Beyond^ in the expanse of the lake, a boat or two showed 
 far and faint. We put into the rocky shore^ and^ mounting 
 upon a crag which guarded the head of the rapid, I waved 
 to the leading canoe as it swept along. In the centre sat 
 a figvire in uniform with forage-cap on head, and I could 
 see that he was scanning through a field-glass the strange 
 figure that waved a welcome from the rock. Soon they 
 entered the rapid, and commenced to dip down its rushing 
 waters. Quitting the rock, I got again into my canoe, and 
 we shoved off into the current. Thus running down the 
 rapid the two canoes drew together, until at its foot they 
 were only a few paces apart. 
 
 Then the officer in the large canoe, recognizing a face he 
 had last seen three months before in the hotel at Toronto, 
 called out, " Where on earth have you dropped from ?" and 
 with a " Fort Garry, twelve days out, sir,^'' I was in his boat. 
 
 The officer whose canoe thus led the advance into Rainy 
 River was no other than the commander of the Expedi- 
 tionary Force. During the period which had elapsed since 
 that force had landed at Thunder Bay on the shore of Lake 
 Superior, he had toiled with untiring energy to overcome 
 the many obstacles which opposed the progress of the troops 
 through the rock-bound fastnesses of the North. But there 
 are men whose perseverance hardens, whose energy quickens 
 beneath difficulties and delay, whose genius, like some 
 spring bent back upon its base, only gathers strength from 
 resistance. These men are the natural soldiers of the world ; 
 and fortunate is it for those who carry swords and rifles and 
 are dressed in uniform when such men are allowed to lead 
 them, for with such men as leaders the following, if it be Bri- 
 tish, will be all right — nay, if it be of any nationality on the 
 earth, it will be all right too. Marches will be made beneath 
 Buns wliicli by every rule of known experience ought to
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 169 
 
 prove fatal to nine-tenths of those who are exposed to them, 
 rivers will be crossed, deserts will be traversed, and moun- 
 tain passes will be pierced, and the men who cross and 
 traverse and pierce them will only marvel that doubt or 
 distrust should ever have entered into their minds as to the 
 feasibility of the undertaking. The man who led the little 
 army across the Northern wilderness towards Red River 
 u'as well fitted in every respect for the work which was to 
 be done. He was young in years but he was old in service ; 
 the highest professional training had developed to the utmost 
 his ability, while it had left unimpaired the natural instinctive 
 faculty of doing a thing from oneself, which the knowledge 
 of a given rule for a given action so frequently destroys. 
 Nor was it only by his energy, perseverance, and profes- 
 sional training that Wolseley was fitted to lead men upon 
 the very excei^tional service now required from them. 
 Officers and soldiers will always follow when those three 
 qualities are combined in the man who leads them ; but 
 they will follow with delight the man who, to these quali- 
 ties, unites a happy aptitude for command, which is neither 
 taught nor learned, but which is instinctively possessed. 
 
 Let us look back a little upon the track of this Expedi- 
 tion. Through a vast wilderness of wood and rock and 
 water^ extending for more than 600 miles, 1200 men, carry- 
 ing with them all the appliances of modern war, had to 
 force their way. 
 
 The region through which they travelled was utterly 
 destitute of food, except such as the wild game afforded to 
 the few scattered Indians ; and even that source was so 
 limited that whole families of the Ojibbeways had perished 
 of starvation, and cases of cannibalism had been frequent 
 amongst them. Once cut adrift from Lake Superior, no 
 chance remained for food until the distant settlement of
 
 170 THE GEEAT LONE LAND, 
 
 Red River had been reached. Nor was it at all certain that 
 even there supplies could be obtained, periods of great dis- 
 tress had occurred in the settlement itself; and the dis- 
 turbed state into which its affairs had lately fallen in no 
 way promised to g-ive greater habits of agricultural industry 
 to a people who were proverbially roving in their tastes. It 
 became necessary, therefore, in piercing this wilderness to 
 take with the Expedition three month's supply of food, and 
 the magnitude of the undertaking will be somewhat under- 
 stood by the outside world when this fact is borne in mind. 
 
 Of course it would have been a simple matter if the boats 
 which carried the men and their supplies had been able to 
 sail through an unbroken channel into the bosom of Lake 
 Winnipeg ; but through that long 600 miles of lake and 
 river and winding creek, the rocky declivities of cataracts 
 and the wild wooded shores of rapids had to be traversed, 
 and full forty-seven times between lake and lake had boats, 
 stores, and ammunition, had cannon, rifles, sails, and oars 
 to be lifted from the water, borne across long ridges of 
 rock and swamp and forest, and placed again upon the 
 northward rolling river. But other difficulties had to be 
 overcome which delayed at the outset the movements of 
 the Expedition. A road, leading from Lake Superior to 
 the height by land (42 miles), had been rendered 
 utterly impassable by fires which swept the forest and 
 rains which descended for days in continuous torrents. A 
 considerable portion of this road had also to be opened out 
 in order to carry the communication through to Lake She- 
 bandowan close to the height of land. 
 
 For weeks the whole available strength of the Expedition 
 had been employed in road- making and in hauling the 
 boats up the rapids of the Kaministiquia River, and it was 
 only on the 16th of July, after seven weeks of unremitting
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAXD. 171 
 
 toil and arduous labour, that all these preliminary difficulties 
 had been finally overcome and the leading detachments of 
 boats set out upon their long and perilous journey into the 
 wilderness. Thus it came to pass that on the morning of 
 the 4th of August, just three weeks after that departure, 
 the silent shores of the Rainy River beheld the advance of 
 these pioneer boats who thus far had " marched on without 
 impediment/' 
 
 The evening of the day that witnessed my arrival at Fort 
 Francis saw also my departure from it ; and before the sun 
 had set I was already far down the Rainy River. But I 
 was no longer the solitary white man ; and no longer the 
 camp-fire had around it the swarthy faces of the Swampies. 
 The woods were noisy with many tongues ; the night was 
 bright with the glare of many fires. The Indians, frightened 
 by such a concourse of braves, had fled into the woods, and 
 the roofless poles of their wigwams alone marked the 
 camping-places where but the evening before I had seen 
 the red man monarch of all he surveyed. The word had 
 gone forth from the commander to push on with all speed 
 for Red River, and I was now with the advanced portion 
 of the 60th Rifles en route for the Lake of the Woods. Of 
 my old friends the Swampies only one remained with me, 
 the others had been kept at Fort Francis to be distributed 
 amongst the various brigades of boats as guides to the Lake 
 of the Woods and Winnipeg River ; even Thomas Hope had 
 got a promise of a brigade — in the mean time pork was 
 abundant, and between pride and pork what more could 
 even Hope desire ? 
 
 In two days we entered the Lake of the Woods, and 
 hoisting sail stood out across the waters. Never before 
 had these lonely islands witnessed such a sight as they now 
 beheld. Seventeen large boats close hauled to a splendid
 
 172 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 breeze swept in a great scattered mass through the high- 
 running seas, dashing the foam from their bows as they dipped 
 and rose under their large lug-sails. Samuel Henderson 
 led the way, proud of his new position, and looked upon by 
 the soldiers of his boat as the very acme of an Indian. 
 How the poor fellows enjoyed that day ! no oar, no portage 
 no galling weight over rocky ledges, nothing but a grand 
 day's racing over the immense lake. They smoked all day, 
 balancing themselves on the weather-side to steady the 
 boats as they keeled over into the heavy seas. I think 
 they would have given even Mr, Riel that day a pipeful 
 of tobacco; but Heaven help him if they had caught him 
 two days later on the portages of the Winnipeg ! he would 
 have had a hard time of it. 
 
 There has been some Hungarian poet, I think, who has 
 found a theme for his genius in the glories of the private 
 soldier. He had been a soldier himself, and he knew the 
 wealth of the mine hidden in the unknown and unthought- 
 of Rank and File. It is a pity that the knowledge of that 
 wealth should not be more widely circulated. 
 
 Who are the Rank and File ? They are the poor 
 wild birds whose country has cast them off, and who 
 repay her by offering their lives for her glory ; the 
 men who take the shilling, who drink, who drill, who 
 march to music, who fill the graveyards of Asia ; the men 
 who stand sentry at the gates of world-famous fortresses, 
 who are old when their elder brothers are still young, 
 who are bronzed and burned by fierce suns, who sail over 
 seas packed in great masses, who watch at night over lonely 
 magazines, who shout, " Who comes there '^" through the 
 darkness, who dig in trenches, who are blown to pieces in 
 mines, who are torn by shot and shell, who have carried the 
 flag of England into every land, who have made her name
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 173 
 
 famous througli the nations^ who are the nation's pride in 
 her hour of peril and her ph^ything- in her hour of pro- 
 sperity — these are the rank and file. We are a curious 
 nation ; until lately we bought our rank, as we buy our 
 mutton, in a market ; and we found officers and gentlemen 
 where other nations would have found thieves and swindlers. 
 Until lately we flogged our files with a cat-o^-nine-tails, and 
 found heroes by treating men like dogs. But to return 
 to the rank and file. The regiment which had been selected 
 for the work of piercing these solitudes of the American 
 continent had peculiar claims for that service. In bygone 
 times it had been composed exclusively of Americans, and 
 there was not an Expedition through all the wars which 
 England waged against France in the New World in which 
 the 60th, or " Royal Americans,'^ had not taken a promi- 
 nent part. When Munro yielded to Montcalm the fort of 
 William Henry, when Wolfe reeled back from Montraorenci 
 and stormed Abraham, when Pontiac swept the forts from 
 Lake Superior to the Ohio, the 60th, or Royal Ameri- 
 cans, had ever been foremost in the struggle. Weeded 
 now of their weak and sickly men, they formed a picked 
 body, numbering 350 soldiers, of whom any nation on earth 
 n.ight well be proud. They were fit to do any thing and to 
 go any where ; and if a fear luirked in the minds of any of 
 them, it was that Mr. Kiel would not show fight. Well 
 led, and officered by men who shared with them every thing, 
 from the portage-strap to a roll of tobacco, there was com- 
 plete confidence from the highest to the lowest. To be wet 
 seemed to be the normal condition of man, and to carry a 
 pork-barrel weighing 200 pounds over a rocky portage was 
 but constitutional and exhilarating exercise — such were the 
 men with whom, on the evening of the 8th of August, I once 
 more reached the neighbourhood of the Rat Porta ere. In
 
 174 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 a little bay between many islands the flotilla halted just 
 before entering- the reach which led to the portage. Paddling 
 on in front with Samuel in my little canoe, we came sud- 
 denly upon four large Hudson Bay boats with full crews 
 of Red River half-breeds and Indians — they were on their 
 way to meet the Expedition_, with the object of rendering 
 what assistance they could to the troops in the descent of 
 the Winnipeg river. They had begun to despair of ever 
 falling in with it, and great was the excitement at the 
 sudden meeting ; the flint-gun was at once discharged into 
 the air, and the shrill shouts began to echo through the 
 islands. But the excitement on the side of the Expedition 
 was quite as keen. The sudden shots and the wild shouts 
 made the men in the boats in rear imagine that the fun was 
 really about to begin, and that a skirmish through the 
 v/ooded isles would be the evening's work. The mistake 
 was quickly discovered. They were glad of course to meet 
 their Red River friends ; but somehow, I fancy, the feeling 
 of joy would certainly not have been lessened had the boats 
 held the dusky adherents of the Provisional Government. 
 
 On the following morning the seventeen boats com- 
 menced the descent of the Winnipeg river, while I 
 remained at the Portage-du-Rat to await the arrival 
 of the chief of the Expedition from -Fort Francis. Each 
 succeeding day brought a fresh brigade of boats under 
 the guidance of one of my late canoe-men; and finally 
 Thomas Hope came along, — seemingly enjoying life to 
 the utmost — pork was plentiful, and as for the French 
 there was no need to dream of them, and he could sleep in 
 peace in the midst of fifty white soldiers. 
 
 During six days I remained at the little Hudson Bay 
 Company^s post at the Rat Portage, making short excur- 
 sions into the surroundino: lakes and rivers, fishing: below
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 175 
 
 the rapids of the Great Chute^ and in the evenings listening 
 to the Indian stories of the lake as told by my worthy host, 
 Mr. Macpherson, a great portion of whose life had been 
 spent in the vicinity. 
 
 One day I went some distance away from the fort to fish 
 at the foot of one of the great rapids formed by the Winni- 
 peg River as it runs from the Lake of the Woods. We 
 carried our canoe over two or three portages, and at length 
 reached the chosen spot. In the centre of the river an 
 Indian was floating quietly in his canoe, casting every now 
 and then a large hook baited with a bit of fish into the water. 
 My bait consisted of a bright spinning piece of metal, which 
 I had got in one of the American cities on my way through 
 ISIinnesota. Its effect upon the fish of this lonely region 
 was marvellous; they had never before been exposed to 
 such a fascinating affair, and they rushed at it with avidity. 
 Civilization on the rocks had certainly a better time of it, 
 as far as catching fish went, than barbarism in the canoe. 
 With the shining thing we killed three for the Indian^s one. 
 ]My companion, who was working the spinning bait while I 
 sat on the rock, casually observed, pointing to the Indian, — 
 
 " He's a Windigo.'^ 
 
 "A what?'' I asked. 
 
 " A Windigo." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "A man that has eaten other men." 
 
 " Has this man eaten other men ? " 
 
 " Yes ; a long time ago he and his band were starving, 
 and they killed and ate forty other Indians who were starving 
 with them. They lived through the winter on them, and in 
 the spring he had to fly from Lake Superior because the 
 others wanted to kill him in revenge ; and so he came here, 
 and he now lives alone near this place."
 
 176 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 The Windigo soon paddled over to us^ and I had a good 
 opportunity of studying his appearance. He was a stout, 
 low-sized savage, with coarse and repulsive features, and 
 eyes fixed sideways in his head like a Tartar's. We had 
 left our canoe some distance away, and my companion 
 asked him to put us across to an island. The Windigo at 
 once consented : we got into his canoe, and he ferried us 
 over. I don't know the name of the island upon which he 
 landed us, and very likely it has got no name, but in 
 mind, at least, the rock and the Windigo will always be 
 associated with that celebrated individual of our early days, 
 the King of the Cannibal Islands. The Windigo looked 
 with wonder at the spinning bait, seeming to regard it as 
 a " great medicine;" perhaps if he had possessed such a 
 thing he would never have been forced by hunger to be- 
 come a Windigo. 
 
 Of the bravery of the Lake of the Woods Ojibbeway I did 
 not form a very high estimate. Two instances related to me 
 by Mr. Macpherson will suffice to show that opinion to have 
 been well founded. Since the days when the Bird of Ages 
 dwelt on the Coteau-des-Prairies the Ojibbeway and the 
 Sioux have warred against each other ; but as the Ojibbeway 
 dwelt chiefly in the woods and the Sioux are denizens of the 
 great plains, the actual war carried on between them has 
 not been unusually destructive. The Ojibbeways dislike to 
 go far into the open plains ; the Sioux hesitate to pierce the 
 dark depths of the forest, and the war is generally confined 
 to the border- land, where the forest begins to merge into 
 the plains. Every now and again, however, it becomes 
 necessary to go through the form of a war-party, and the 
 young men depart upon the war-path against their hereditary 
 enemies. To kill a Sioux and take his scalp then becomes 
 the great object of existence. Fortunate is the brave who
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 177 
 
 can return to the camp bearing with him the coveted 
 trophy. Far and near spreads the glorious news that a 
 Sioux scalp has been taken, and for many a night the 
 camps are noisy with the shouts and revels of the scalp- 
 dance from Winnipeg to Rainy Lake. It matters little 
 whether it be the scalp of a man, a woman, or a child; 
 provided it be a scalp it is all right. Here is the record of 
 the two last war-paths from the Lake of the "Woods. 
 
 Thirty Ojibbeways set out one fine day for the plains to 
 war against the Sioux, they followed the line of the 
 Rosseau River, and soon emerged from the forest. Before 
 them lay a camp of Sioux. The thirty braves, hidden 
 in the thickets, looked at the camp of their enemies; but 
 the more they looked the less they liked it. They called a 
 council of deliberation ; it was unanimously resolved to 
 retire to the Lake of the Woods : but surely they must 
 bring back a scalp, the women would laugh at them ! What 
 was to be done ? At length the difficulty was solved. Close 
 by there was a newly-made grave ; a squaw had died and 
 been buried. Excellent idea; one scalp was as good as 
 another. So the braves dug up the buried squaw, took the 
 scalp, and departed for Rat Portage. There was a great 
 dance, and it was decided that each and every one of the 
 thirty Ojibbeways deserved well of his nation. 
 
 But the second instance is still more revolting. A very 
 brave Indian departed alone from the Lake of the Woods 
 to war against the Sioux ; he wandered about, hiding in the 
 thickets by day and coming forth at night. One evening, 
 being nearly starved, he saw the smoke of a wigwam ; he 
 went towards it, nnd found that it was inhabited only by 
 women and children, of whom there were four altogether. 
 He went up and asked for food ; they invited him to enter 
 the lodge; they set before him the best food they had got, 
 
 N
 
 17S THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 and they laid a buffalo robe for bis bed in the warmest 
 corner of the wigwam. When night came^ all slept j when 
 midnight came the Ojibbeway quietly arose from his couch, 
 killed the two women, killed the two children, and departed 
 for the Lake of the Woods with four scalps. Oh, he was 
 a very brave Indian, and his name went far through the 
 forest ! I know somebody who would have gone very far 
 to see him hanged. 
 
 Late on the evening of the 14th August the commander 
 of the Expedition arrived from Fort Francis at the Portage- 
 du-Rat. He had attempted to cross the Lake of the Woods 
 in a gig manned by soldiers, the weather being too tempes- 
 tuous to allow the canoe to put out, and had lost his way in 
 the vast maze of islands already spoken of. As we had re- 
 ceived intelligence at the Portage-du-Rat of his having set 
 out from the other side of the lake, and as hour after hour 
 passed without bringing his boat in sight, I got the canoe 
 ready and, with two Indians, started to light a beacon-fire on 
 the top of the DeviFs Rock, one of the haunted islands of 
 the lake, which towered high over the surrounding isles. 
 We had not proceeded far, however, before we fell in 
 with the missing gig bearing down for the portage under 
 the guidance of an Indian who had been picked up en 
 route. 
 
 On the following day I received orders to start at once for 
 Fort Alexander at the mouth of the Winnipeg River to en- 
 gage guides for the brigades of boats which had still to 
 come — two regiments of Canadian Militia. And here let us 
 not forget the men who, following in the footsteps of the 
 regular troops, were now only a few marches behind their 
 more fortunate comrades. To the lot of these two regiments 
 of Canadian Volunteers fell the same hard toil of oar and 
 portage which we have already described. The men com-
 
 TUE GEEAT LONE LAND. 179 
 
 posing these regiments were stout athletic fellows, eager 
 for service, tired of citizen life, and only needing the toil of 
 a campaign to weld them into as tough and resolute a body 
 of men as ever leader could desire.
 
 180 THE GIIEAT LONE LAND, 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 To Fort Garry — Down the "Winnipeg — Her Majesty's Eoyal 
 Mail — Grilling a Mail-bag — Eunning a Eapid — Up the 
 Eed Eiver — A dreary Bivouac — The President bolts — 
 The Eebel Chiefs — Departure of the Eegular Troops. 
 
 I TOOK a very small canoe, manned by three Indians 
 father and two sons — and, with provisions for three days, 
 commenced the descent of the river of rapids. How we shot 
 down the hissing waters in that tiny craft ! How fast we 
 left the wooded shores behind us, and saw the lonely isles 
 flit by as the powerful current swept us like a leaf upon 
 its bosom 1 
 
 It was late of the afternoon of the 15th Aug-ust when I 
 left for the last time the Lake of the Woods. Next night 
 our camp was made below the Eagle's Nest, seventy miles 
 from the Portage- du- Rat. A wild storm burst upon us at 
 night-fall, and our bivouac was a damp and dreary one. 
 The Indians lay under the canoe ; I sheltered as best I 
 could beneath a huge pine-tree. My oil-cloth was only 
 four feet in length — a shortcoming on the part of its feet 
 which caused mine to suffer much discomfort. Besides, I 
 had Her Majesty's royal mail to keep dry, and, with the 
 limited liability of my oil- cloth in the matter of length, that 
 became no easy task — two bags of letters and papers, 
 home letters and papers, too, for the Expedition. They had 
 been flung into my canoe when leaving Rat Portage, and I 
 had spent the flrst day in sorting them as we swept along,
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 181 
 
 and now they were getting wet in spite of every effort to the 
 contrary. I made one bag into a pillow, but the rain came 
 through the big pine-tree, splashing down through the 
 branches, putting out my fire and drenching mail-bags and 
 blankets. 
 
 Daylight came at last, but still the rain hissed down, 
 making it no easy matter to boil our kettle and fry our bit 
 of pork. Then we put out for the day's work on the river. 
 How bleak and wretched it all was ! After a while we found 
 it was impossible to make head against the storm of wind 
 and rain which swept the water, and we had to put back to 
 the shelter of our miserable camp. About seven o'clock the 
 wind fell, and we set out again. Soon the sun came forth 
 drying and warming us all over. All day we paddled on, 
 passing in succession the grand Chute-a- Jacquot, the Three 
 Portages-des-Bois, the Slave Falls, and the dangerous rapids 
 of the Barriere. The Slave Falls ! who that has ever be- 
 held that superb rush of water will forget it ? Glorious, 
 glorious "Winnipeg ! it may be that with these eyes of mine 
 I shall never see thee again, for thou liest far out of the 
 track of life, and man mars not thy beauty with ways of 
 civilized travel ; but I shall often see thee in imagination, 
 and thy rocks and thy waters shall murmur in memory for 
 life. 
 
 That night, the 17th of August, we made our camp on a 
 little island close to the Otter Falls. It came a night of 
 ceaseless rain, and again the mail-bags underwent a drench- 
 ing. The old Indian cleared a space in the dripping vege- 
 tation, and made me a I'ude shelter with branches woven 
 together ; but the rain beat through, and drenched body, 
 bag, and baggage. 
 
 And yet how easy it all was, and how sound one slept ! 
 simply because one had to do it; that one consideration is
 
 182 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the greatest expounder of the possible. I could not speak 
 a word to my Indians, but we got on by signs, and seldom 
 found the want of speech — " ugh, ugh" and "caween/"' yes 
 and no, answered for any difficulty. To make a fire and a 
 camp, to boil a kettle and fry a bit of meat are the home- 
 works of the Indian. His life is one long pic-nic, and it 
 matters as little to him whether sun or rain, snow or biting 
 frost, warm, drench, cover, or freeze him, as it does to the 
 moose or the reindeer that share his forest life and yield him 
 often his forest fare. Upon examining the letters in the 
 morning the interior of the bags presented such a pulpy and 
 generally deplorable appearance that I was obliged to stop 
 at one of the Seven Portages for the purpose of drying Her 
 Majesty^s mail. With this object we made a large fire, and 
 placing cross-sticks above proceeded to toast and grill the 
 dripping papers. The Indians sat around, turning the letters 
 with little sticks as if they were baking cakes or frying 
 sturgeon. Under their skilful treatment the pulpy mass 
 soon attained the consistency, and in many instances the 
 legibility, of a smoked herring, but as they had before pre- 
 ■ sented a very fishy appearance that was not of much con- 
 sequence. 
 
 This day was bright and fine. Notwithstanding the 
 delay caused by drying the mails, as well as distributing 
 them to the several brigades which we overhauled and 
 passed, we ran a distance of forty miles and made no less 
 than fifteen portages. The carrying or portaging power of 
 the Indian is very remarkable. A young boy will trot 
 away under a load which would stagger a strong European 
 unaccustomed to such labour. The portages and the falls 
 which they avoid bear names which seem strange and un- 
 meaning but which have their origin in some long-forgotten 
 incident connected with the early history of the fur trade or
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 183 
 
 of Indian war. Thus the great Slave Fall tells by its name 
 the fate of two Sioax captives taken in some foray by the 
 Ojibbeway; lashed together in a canoe, they were the only 
 men who ever ran the Great Chute. The rocks around 
 were black with the figures of the Ojibbeways, whose wild 
 triumphant yells were hushed by the roar of the cataract ; 
 1 )ut the torture was a short one ; the mighty rush, the wild 
 leap, and the happy hunting-ground, where even Ojib- 
 beways cease from troubling and Sioux warriors are at 
 rest, had been reached. In Mackenzie's journal the fall 
 called Galet-du-Bonnet is said to have been named by the 
 Canadian voj/ageurs, from the fact that tlie Indians were in 
 the habit of crowning the highest rock above the portage 
 with wreaths of flowers and branches of trees. The Grand 
 Portage, which is three quarters of a mile in length, is the 
 great test of the strength of the Indian and half-breed ; but, 
 if Mackenzie speaks correctly, the voyageur has much de- 
 generated since the early days of the fur trade, for he 
 writes that seven pieces, weighing each ninety pounds, were 
 carried over the Grand Portage by an Indian in one trip — 
 630 pounds borne three quarters of a mile by one man — 
 the loads look big enough still, but 250 pounds is considered 
 excessive now. These loads are carried in a manner which 
 allows the whole strength of the body to be put into the 
 work. A broad leather strap is placed round the forehead, 
 the ends of the strap passing back over the shoulders sup- 
 port the pieces which, thus carried, lie along the spine from 
 the small of the back to the crown of the head. When 
 fully loaded, the voyageur stands with his body bent 
 forward, and with one hand steadying the ''^pieces,'' he 
 trots briskly away over the steep and rock-strewn por- 
 tage, his bare or mocassined feet enable him to pass 
 nimbly over the slippery rocks in places where boots would
 
 184 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 infallibly send portager and pieces feet-foremost to the 
 bottom. 
 
 In ascending" the Winnipeg we have seen what exciting 
 toil is rushing or breasting up a rapid. Let us now glance 
 at the still more exciting operation of running a rapid. It 
 is difficult to find in life any event which so effectually con- 
 denses intense nervous sensation into the shortest possible 
 space of time as does the work of shooting, or running an im- 
 mense rapid. There is no toil, no heart-breaking labour about 
 it, but as much coolness, dexterity, and skill as man can 
 throw into the work of hand, eye, and head ; knowledge of 
 when to strike and how to do it ; knowledge of water and of 
 rock, and of the one hundred combinations which rock and 
 water can assume — for these two things, rock and water, taken 
 in the abstract, fail as completely to convey any idea of their 
 fierce embracings in the throes of a rapid as the fire burning 
 quietly in a drawing-room fireplace fails to convey the idea 
 of a house wrapped and sheeted in flames. Above the rapid 
 all is still and quiet, and one cannot see what is going on 
 below the first rim of the rush, but stray shoots of spray and 
 the deafening roar of descending water tell well enough 
 what is about to happen. The Indian has got some rock or 
 mark to steer by, and knows well the door by which he is to 
 • enter the slope of water. As the canoe — never appearing 
 so frail and tiny as when it is about to commence its series 
 of wild leaps and rushes — nears the rim where the waters 
 disappear from view, the bowsman stands up and, stretching 
 forward his head, peers down the eddying rush ; in a second 
 he is on his knees again ; without turning his head he 
 speaks a word or two to those who are behind him ; then 
 the canoe is in the rim ; she dips to it, shooting her bows 
 r.lear out of the water and striking hard against the lower 
 level. After that there is no time for thought ; the eye is
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 185 
 
 not quick enough to take in the rushing scene. There is a 
 rock here and a big" green cave of water there ; there is a 
 tumultuous rising and sinking of snow-tipped waves ; there 
 are places that are smooth-running for a moment and then 
 yawn and open up into great gurgling chasms the next ; 
 there are strange whirls and backward eddies and rocks^ 
 rough and smooth and polished — and through all this the 
 canoe glances like an arrow, dips like a wild bird down the 
 wing of the storm, now slanting from a rock, now edging a 
 green cavern, now breaking through a backward rolling 
 billow, without a word spoken, but with every now and 
 again a quick convulsive twist and turn of the bow-paddle 
 to edge far off some rock, to put her full through some 
 boiling billow, to hold her steady down the slope of some 
 thundering chute which has the power of a thousand 
 horses : for remember, this river of rapids, this Winnipeg, is 
 no mountain torrent, no brawling brook, but over every 
 rocky ledge and " wave-worn precipice ''■' there rushes twice , 
 a vaster volume than Rhine itself pours forth. The rocks 
 which strew the torrent are frequently the most trifling of 
 the dangers of the descent, formidable though they appear 
 to the stranger. Sometimes a huge boulder will stand full 
 in the midst of the channel, apparently presenting an 
 obstacle from which escape seems impossible. The canoe is 
 rushing full towards it, and no power can save it — there is 
 just one power that can do it, and the rock itself provides it. 
 Not the skill of man could run the boat bows on to that rock. 
 There is a wilder sweep of water rushing off the polished 
 sides than on to them, and the instant that we touch that 
 sweep we shoot away with redoubled speed. No, the rock is 
 not as treacherous as the whirlpool and twisting billow. 
 
 On the night of the 20th of August the whole of the 
 regular troops of the Expedition and the general com-
 
 186 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 manding it and his staflp had reached Fort Alexander, at 
 the mouth of the Winnipeg- River. Some accidents had 
 occurred^ and many had been the " close shaves " of rock 
 and rapid, but no life had been lost; and from the 600 miles 
 of wilderness there emerged 400 soldiers whose muscles and 
 sinews, taxed and tested by continuous toil, had been deve- 
 loped to a pitch of excellence seldom equalled, and whose 
 appearance and physique — browned, tanned, and powerful 
 — told of the glorious climate of these Northern solitudes. 
 It was near sunset when the large canoe touched the wooden 
 pier opposite the Fort Alexander and the commander of the 
 Expedition stepped on shore to meet his men, assembled for 
 the first time together since Lake Superior's distant sea 
 had been left behind. It was a meeting not devoid of those 
 associations which make such things memorable, and the 
 cheer which went up from the soldiers who lined the steep 
 bank to bid him welcome had in it a note of that sympathy 
 which binds men together by the inward consciousness of 
 difficulties shared in common and dangers successfully 
 overcome together. 
 
 Next day the united fleet put out into Lake Winnipeg, 
 and steered for the lonely shores of the Island of Elks, the 
 solitary island of the southern portion of the lake. In a 
 broad, curving, sandy bay the boats found that night a 
 shelter; a hundred fires threw their lights far into the lake, 
 and bugle-calls startled echoes that assuredly had never 
 been roused before by notes so strange. Sailing in a wide- 
 scattered mass before a favouring breeze, the fleet reached 
 about noon the following day the mouth of the Red 
 River, the river whose jiame was the name of the Expedi- 
 tion, and whose shores had so long been looked forward 
 to as a haven of rest from portage and oar labour. There 
 it was at last, seeking through its many mouths the waters
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 187 
 
 of the lake. And now our course lay up alon^j the reed- 
 fring-ed river and slug-g-ish current to where the tree-tops 
 began to rise over the low marsh-land — up to where my old 
 friends the Indians had pitched their camp and given me 
 the parting salute on the morning of my departure just one 
 month before. It was dusk when we reached the Indian 
 Settlement and made a camp upon the opposite shore, and 
 darkness had quite set in when I reached the mission-house, 
 some three miles higher up. My old friend the Archdeacon 
 was glad indeed to welcome me back. News from the 
 settlement there was none — news from the outside world 
 there was plenty. " A great battle had been fought near 
 the Rhine/^ the old man said, " and the French had been 
 disastrously defeated.^' 
 
 Another day of rowing, poling, tracking, and sailing, and 
 evening closed over the Expedition, camped within six miles 
 of Fort Garry ; but all through the day the river banks 
 were enlivened with people shouting welcome to the soldiers, 
 and church bells rang out peals of gladness as the boats 
 passed by. This was through the English and Scotch 
 Settlement, the people of which had long grown weary of 
 the tyranny of the Dictator Riel. Riel — why, we have 
 almost forgotten him altogether during these weeks on the 
 Winnipeg ! Neveitheless, he had still held his own within 
 the walls of Fort Garry, and still played to a constantly- 
 decreasing audience the part of the Little Napoleon. 
 
 During this day, the 23rd August, vague rumours reached 
 us of terrible things to be done by the warlike President. 
 He would suddenly appear with his guns from the woods — 
 he would blow up the fort when the troops had taken pos- 
 F^ssion — he would die in the ruins. These and many other 
 schemes of a similar desci'iption were to be enacted by the 
 Dictator in the last extremity of his despair.
 
 188 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 I had spent the day in the saddle^ scouring the woods on 
 the right bank of the river in advance of the fleet, while on 
 the left shore a company of the 60th, partly mounted, moved 
 on also in advance of the leading boats. But neither Riel 
 nor his followers appeared to dispute the upward passage of 
 the flotilla, and the woods through which I rode were silent 
 and deserted. Early in the morning a horse had been lent 
 to me by an individual rejoicing in the classical name of 
 Tacitus Struthers. Tacitus had also assisted me to swim 
 the steed across the Red River in order to gain the right 
 shore, and, having done so, took leave of me with oft- 
 repeated injunctions to preserve from harm the horse and 
 his accoutrements, "For,^^ said Tacitus, " that thar horse is a 
 racer.''' Well, I suppose it must have been that fact that 
 made the horse race all day through the thickets and oak 
 woods of the right shore, but I rather fancy my spurs had 
 something to say to it too. 
 
 When night again fell, the whole force had reached a spot 
 six miles from the rebel fort, and camp was formed for the 
 last time on the west bank of the river. And what a night 
 of rain and storm then broke upon the Red River Expedi- 
 tion ! till the tents flapped and fell and the drenched soldiers 
 shivered sheltei'less, waiting for the dawn. The occupants 
 of tents which stood the pelting of the pitiless storm were 
 no better off than those outside ; the surface of the ground 
 became ankle-deep in mud and water, and the men lay in 
 pools during the last hours of the night. At length a dismal 
 daylight dawned over the dreary scene, and the upward 
 course was resumed. Still the rain came down in torrents, 
 and, with water above, below, and around, the Expedition 
 neared its destination. If the steed of Tacitus had had a 
 hard day, the night had been less severe upon him than upon 
 his rider. I had procured him an excellent stable at the
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 189 
 
 other side of the river, and upon recrossing- again in the 
 morning" I found him as ready to race as his owner could 
 desire. Poor beast, he was a riost miserable-looking animal, 
 though belying his attenuated appearance by his perform- 
 ances. The only race which his generally forlorn aspect 
 justified one in believing him capable of running was a race, 
 and a hard one, for existence ; but for all that he went well, 
 and Tacitus himself might have envied the classical outline 
 of his Roman nose. 
 
 About two miles north of Fort Garry the Red River 
 makes a sharp bend to the east and, again turning round to 
 the west, forms a projecting point or neck of land known as 
 Point Douglas. This spot is famous in Red River history 
 as the scene of the battle, before referred to in these pages, 
 where the voyageurs and French half-breeds of the North- 
 west Fur Company attacked the retainers of the Hudson 
 Bay, some time in 1813, and succeeded in putting to death 
 by various methods of half- Indian warfare the governor of 
 the rival company and about a score of his followers. At 
 this point, where the usually abrupt bank of the Red River 
 was less steep, the troops began to disembark from the boats 
 for the final advance vipon Fort Garry. The preliminary 
 arrangements were soon completed, and the little army, with 
 its two brass guns trundling along behind Red River carts, 
 commenced its march across the mud-soaked prairie. How 
 unspeakably dreary it all looked ! the bridge, the wretched 
 village, the crumbling fort, the vast level prairie, water- 
 soaked, draped in mist, and pressed down by low-lying 
 clouds. To me the ground was not new — the bridge was 
 the spot where only a month before I had passed the half- 
 breed sentry in my midnight march to the Lower Fort. 
 Other things had changed since then besides the weather. 
 
 Preceded by skirmishers and followed by a rear-guard, the
 
 190 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 little force drew near Fort Garry. There was no sign of 
 occupation ; no flag on the flag-staff, no men upon the 
 walls; the muzzles of one or two guns showed through the 
 bastions, but no sign of defence or resistance was visible 
 about the place. The gate facing the north was closed, but 
 the ordinary one, looking south upon the Assineboine River, 
 was found open. As the skirmish line neared the north 
 side two mounted men rode round the west face and entered 
 at a gallop through the open gateway. On the top steps of 
 the Government House stood a tall, majestic-looking man, 
 who, with his horse beside him, alternately welcomed with 
 uplifted hat the new arrivals and denoimced in no stinted 
 terms one or two miserable-looking men who seemed to 
 cower beneath his reproaches. This was an ofiicer of the 
 Hudson Bay Company, well known as one of the most 
 intrepid amongst the many brave men who had sought for 
 the lost Franklin in the darkness of the long polar night. 
 He had been the first to enter the fort, some minutes in 
 advance of the Expedition, and his triumphant imprecations, 
 bestowed with unsparing vigour, had tended to accelerate 
 the flight of M. Riel and the members of his government, 
 who sought in rapid retreat the safety of the American fron- 
 tier. How had the mighty fallen ! With insult and derision 
 the President and his colleagues fled from the scene of their 
 triumph and their crimes. An officer in the service of the 
 Company they had plundered hooted them as they went, but 
 perhaps there was a still harder note of retribution in the 
 " still small voice " which must have sounded from the 
 bastion wherein the murdered Scott had been so brutally done 
 to death. On the bare flag-staff in the fort the Union Jack 
 was once more hoisted, and from the battery found in the 
 square a royal salute of twenty-one guns told to settler and 
 savage that the man who had been '^ elevated by the grace
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 191 
 
 of Providence and the suffrages of his fellow-citizens to the 
 highest position in the Government of his country ^^ had 
 been ignominiously expelled from his high position. Still 
 even in his fall we must not be too hard upon him. Vain, 
 ignorant, and conceited though he was, he seemed to have 
 been an implicit believer in his mission ; nor can it be 
 doubted that he possessed a fair share of courage too — 
 courage not of the Red River type, which is a very peculiar 
 one, but more in accordance with our European ideas of 
 that virtue. 
 
 Tliat he meditated opposition cannot be doubted. The 
 muskets cast away by his guard were found loaded; am- 
 munition had been served from the magazine on the 
 morning of the flight. But muskets and ammunition are 
 not worth much without hands and hearts to use them, 
 and twenty hands with perhaps an aggregate of two and 
 a half hearts among them wei-e all he had to depend on at 
 the last moment. The other members of his government 
 appear to have been utterly devoid of a single redeeming 
 quality. The Hon. W. B. O^Donoghue was one of those 
 miserable beings who seem to inherit the vices of every 
 calling and nationality to which they can claim a kindred. 
 Educated for some semi-clerical profession which he aban- 
 doned for the more congenial trade of treason rendered 
 apparently secure by distance, he remained in garb the 
 cleric, while he plundered his prisoners and indulged in the 
 fashionable pastime of gambling with purloined property 
 and racing with confiscated horses — a man whose revolt- 
 ing countenance at once suggested the hulks and prison 
 garb, and who, in any other land save America, would 
 probably long since have reached the convict level for 
 which nature destined him. Of the other active member 
 of the rebel council — Adjutant-General the Hon. Lepine —
 
 192 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 it is unnecessary to say much. He seems to have possessed 
 all the vices of the Metis without any of his virtues or 
 noble traits. A strang-e ignorance, quite in keeping* with 
 the rest of the Red River rebellion, seems to have existed 
 among the members of the Provisional Government to the 
 last moment with regard to the approach of the Expedi- 
 tion. It is said that it was only the bugle-sound of the 
 skirmishers that finally convinced M. Riel of the proximity 
 of the troops, and this note, utterly unknown in Red River, 
 followed quickly by the arrival in hot haste of the Hudson 
 Bay official, whose deprecatory language has been already 
 alluded to, completed the terror of the rebel government, 
 inducing a retreat so hasty, that the breakfast of Govern- 
 ment House was found untouched. Thus that tempest in 
 the tea-cup, the revolt of Red River, found a fitting 
 conclusion in the President's untasted tea. A wild scene 
 of drunkenness and debauchery amongst the voyageurs 
 followed the arrival of the troops in Winnipeg. The 
 miserable-looking village produced, as if by magic, more 
 saloons than any city of twice its size in the States could 
 boast of. The vilest compounds of intoxicating liquors 
 were sold indiscriminately to every one, and for a time it 
 seemed as though the place had become a very Pande- 
 monium. No civil authority had been given to the com- 
 mander of the Expedition, and no civil power of any kind 
 existed in the settlement. The troops alone were under 
 control, but the populace were free to work what mischief 
 they pleased. It is almost to be considered a matter of con- 
 gratulation, that the terrible fire-water sold by the people 
 of the village should have been of the nature that it was, 
 for so deadly were its efiPects upon the brain and nervous 
 system, that under its influence men became perfectly 
 helpless, lying stretched upon the prairie for hours, as
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAifD. 193 
 
 though they were bereft of life itself. I regret to say that 
 Samuel Henderson was by no means an exception to the 
 general demoralization that ensued. Men who had been 
 forced to fly from the settlement during the reign of the 
 rebel government now returned to their homes, and for 
 some time it seemed probable that the sudden revulsion of 
 feeling, unrestrained by the presence of a civil power, would 
 lead to excesses against the late ruling faction ; but, with 
 one or two exceptions, things began to quiet down again, 
 and soon the arrival of the civil governor, the Hon. Mr. 
 Archibald, set matters completely to rights. Before ten 
 days had elapsed the regular troops had commenced their 
 long return march to Canada, and the two regiments of 
 Canadian militia had arrived to remain stationed for some 
 time in the settlement. But what work it was to get 
 the voyageurs away ! The Iroquois were terribly intoxicated, 
 and for a long time refused to get into the boats. There 
 was a bear (a trophy from Fort Garry), and a terrible 
 nuisance he proved at the embarkation ; for a long time 
 previous to the start he had been kept quiet with un- 
 limited sugar, but at last he seemed to have had enough 
 of that condiment, and, with a violent tug, he succeeded in 
 snapping his chain and getting away up the bank. What 
 a business it was ! drunken Iroquois tumbling about, and 
 the bear, with 100 men after him, scuttling in every direc- 
 tion. Then when the bear would be captured and put safely 
 back into his boat, half a dozen of the Iroquois would get 
 out and run a-muck through every thing. Louis (the 
 pilot) would fall foul of Jacques Sitsoli, and commence to 
 inflict severe bodily punishment upon the person of the 
 unoffending Jacques, until, by the interference of the mul- 
 titude, peace would be restored and both would be recon- 
 ducted to their boats. At length they all got away down 
 
 o
 
 194 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the liver. ThuS;, during the first week of September, the 
 whole of the regulars departed once more to try the torrents 
 of the Winnipeg, and on the 10th of the month the com- 
 mander also took his leave. I was left alone in Fort Garry. 
 The Red River Expedition was over, and I had to find my 
 way once more through the United States to Canada. 
 My long journey seemed finished, but I was mistaken, for 
 it was only about to begin.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ^7EST■WA■RD — N'eWS FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD — 1 RETRACE MY 
 
 Steps — An Offer — The West — The Kissaskatchewan — The 
 Inland Ocean — Preparations — Departure — A Terrible 
 Plague — A lonely Grave — Digressive — The Assinebolne 
 River — Eossette. 
 
 One nig-lit, it was the 19th of September, I was lying 
 out in the long prairie grass near the south shore of Lake 
 Manitoba, in the marshes of which I had been hunting 
 wild fowl for some days. It was apparently my last night 
 in Red River, for the period of my stay there had drawn 
 to its close. I had much to think about that night, for only 
 a few hours before a French half-breed named La Ronde 
 had brought news to the lonely shores of Lake Manitoba — 
 news such as men can hear but once in their lives : — 
 
 " The whole of the French army and the Emperor had 
 surrendered themselves prisoners at Sedan, and the Re- 
 l)ublic had been proclaimed in Paris/' 
 
 So dreaming and thinking over these stupendous facts, 
 I lay under the quiet stars, while around me my fellow- 
 travellers slept. The prospects of my own career seemed 
 gloomy enough too. I was about to go back to old asso- 
 ciations and life-rusting routine, and here was a nation, 
 whose every feeling my heart had so long echoed a response 
 to, beaten down and trampled under the heel of the German 
 whose legions must already be gathering around the walls 
 of Paris. Why not offer to France in the moment of her 
 
 o 3
 
 196 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 bitter adversity the sword and service of even one sym- 
 pathizing friend — not much of a gift, certainly, but one 
 which would be at least congenial to my own longing for a. 
 life of service, and ray hopeless prospects in a profession in 
 which wealth was made the test of ability. So as I lay 
 there in the quiet of the starlit prairie, my mind, running 
 in these eddying circles of thought, fixed itself upon this 
 idea : I would go to Paris. I would seek through one 
 well-known in other times the means of putting in execu- 
 tion my resolution. I felt strangely excited ; sleep seemed 
 banished altogether. I arose from the ground, and walked 
 away into the stillness of the night. Oh, for a sign, for 
 some guiding light in this uncertain hour of my life ! I 
 looked towards the north as this thought entered my brain. 
 The aurora was burning faint in the horizon ; Arcturus 
 lay like a diamond above the ring of the dusky prairie. 
 As I looked, a bright globe of light flashed from beneath 
 the star and passed slowly along towards the west, leaving 
 in its train a long track of rose-coloured light; in the 
 uttermost bounds of the west it died slowly away. Was 
 my wish answered ? and did my path lie to the west, not 
 east after all ? or was it merely that thing which men call 
 chance, and dreamers destiny ? 
 
 A few days from this time I found myself at the frontier 
 post of Pembina, whither the troublesome doings of the 
 escaped Provisional leaders had induced the new governor 
 Mr. Archibald to send me. On the last day of September 
 I again reached, by the steamer '' International,^' the well- 
 remembered Point of Frogs. I had left Red River for 
 good. When the boat reached the landing-place a gentle- 
 man came on board, a well-known member of the Canadian 
 bench. 
 
 "Where are you going?" he inquired of me.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 197 
 
 *' To Canada." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because there is nothing more to be done." 
 
 " Oh, you must come back." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 " Because we have a lot of despatches to send to Ottawa, 
 and the mail is not safe. Come back now, and you will be 
 here ag-ain in ten days time." 
 
 Go back again on the steam-boat and come up next trip 
 — would I ? 
 
 There are many men who pride themselves upon their 
 fixity of purpose, and a lot of similar fixidities and steadi- 
 ness ; but I don't. I know of nothing- so fixed as the 
 mole, so obstinate as the mule, or so steady as a stone 
 wall, but I don't particularly care about making their 
 general characteristics the rule of my life ; and so I decided 
 to go back to Fort Garry, just as I would have decided to 
 start for the North Pole had the occasion offered. 
 
 Early in the second week of October I once more drew 
 nigh the hallowed precincts of Fort Garry. 
 
 " I am so glad you have returned," said the governor, 
 Mr. Archibald, when I met him on the evening of my ar- 
 rival, " because I want to ask you if you will undertake a 
 much longer journey than any thing you have yet done. 
 I am going to ask you if you will accept a mission to the 
 Saskatchewan Valley and through the Indian countries of 
 the West. Take a couple of days to think over it, and let 
 me know your decision." 
 
 " There is no necessity, sir," I replied, " to consider the 
 matter, I have already made up my mind, and, if necessary, 
 will start in half an hour." 
 
 This was on the 10th of October, and winter was already 
 sending his breath over the yellow grass of the prairies.
 
 198 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 And now let us turn our glance to this great North- 
 west whither my wandering steps are about to le?.d me. 
 Pully 900 miles as bird would fly^ and 1200 as horse can 
 travel^ west of Red Ptiver an immense range of mountains^ 
 eternally capped with snow, rises in rugged masses from a 
 vast stream-seared plain. They who first beheld these 
 grand guardians of the central prairies named them the 
 Montagues des Rochers ; a fitting title for such vast ac- 
 cumulation of rugged magnificence. From the glaciers 
 and ice valleys of this great range of mountains innumer- 
 able streams descend into the plains. For a time they 
 wander, as if heedless of direction, through groves and 
 glades and green spreading declivities ; then, assuming 
 greater fixidity of purpose, they gather up many a wander- 
 ing rill, and start eastward upon a long journey. At length 
 the many detached streams resolve themselves into two 
 great water systems; through hundreds of miles these two 
 rivers pursue their parallel courses, now approaching, now 
 opening out from each other. Suddenly, the southern 
 river bends towards the north, and at a point some 600 
 miles from the mountains pours its volume of water into 
 the northern channel. Then the united river rolls in 
 vast majestic curves steadily towards the north-east, turns 
 once more towards the south, opens out into a g-reat reed- 
 covered marsh, sweeps on into a large cedar-lined lake, 
 and finally, rolling over a rocky ledge, casts its waters into 
 the northern end of the great Lake Winnipeg, fully 1300 
 miles from the glacier cradle where it took its birth. 
 Tliis river, which has along it every diversity of hill and 
 vale, meadow-land and forest, treeless plain and fertile 
 hill-side, is called by the wild tribes who dwell along its 
 glorious shores the Kissaskatehewan,or Rapid-flowing River. 
 But this Kissaskatchewan is not the only river which un-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 199 
 
 waters the great central region lying between Red River 
 and the Rocky Mountains. The Assineboine or Stony 
 River drains the rolling prairie lands 500 miles west from 
 Red River, and many a smaller stream and rushing, bub- 
 bHng brook carries into its devious channel the waters 
 of that vast country which lies between the American 
 boundary-line and the pine woods of the lower Sas- 
 katchewan. 
 
 So much for the rivers ; and kow for the land through 
 which they flow. How shall we picture it ? How shall 
 we tell the story of that great, boundless, solitary waste of 
 verdure ? 
 
 The old, old maps which the navigators of the sixteenth 
 century framed from the discoveries of Cabot and Castier, 
 of Varrazanno and Hudson, played strange pranks with the 
 geography of the New World. The coast-liue, with the 
 estuaries of large rivers, was tolerably accurate; but the 
 centre of America was represented as a vast inland sea 
 whose shores stretched far into the Polar North ; a sea 
 through which lay the much-coveted passage to the long- 
 sought treasures of the old realms of Cathay. Well, the 
 geographers of that period erred only in the description of 
 ocean which they placed in the central continent, for an 
 ocean there is, and an ocean through which men seek the 
 treasures of Cathay, even in our own times. But the ocean 
 is one of grass, and the shores are the crests of mountain 
 ranges, and the dark pine forests of sub-Arctic regions. The 
 great ocean itself does not present more infinite variety 
 than does this prairie-ocean of which we speak. In winter, 
 a dazzling surface of purest snow ; in early summer, a vast 
 expanse of grass and pale pink roses ; in autumn too often 
 a wild sea of rao:ine: fire. No ocean of water in the world 
 can vie with its gorgeous sunsets; no solitude can equal
 
 200 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the loneliness of a night- shadowed prairie : one feels the 
 stillness, and hears the silence, the wail of the prowling 
 wolf makes the voice of solitude audible, the stars look 
 down through infinite silence upon a silence almost as 
 intense. This ocean has no past — time has been nought 
 to it ; and men have come and gone, leaving behind them 
 no track, no vestige, of their presence. Some French wiiter, 
 speaking of these prairies, has said that the sense of this 
 utter negation of life, this complete absence of history, has 
 struck him with a loneliness oppressive and sometimes 
 terrible in its intensity. Perhaps so ; but, for my part, the 
 prairies had nothing terrible in their aspect, nothing op- 
 pressive in their loneliness. One saw here the world as it 
 had taken shape and form from the hands of the Creator. 
 Nor did the scene look less beautiful because nature alone 
 tilled the earth, and the unaided sun brought forth the 
 flowers. 
 
 October had reached its latest week : the wild geese and 
 swans had taken their long flight to the south, and their 
 wailing cry no more descended through the darkness ; ice 
 had settled upon the quiet pools and was settling upon the 
 quick-running streams ; the horizon glowed at night with 
 the red light of moving prairie fires. It was the close of 
 the Indian summer, and winter was coming qiiickly down 
 from his far northern home. 
 
 On the 24th of October I quitted Fort Garry, at ten 
 o'clock at night, and, turning out into the level prairie, 
 commenced a long journey towards the West. The night 
 was cold and moonless, but a brilliant aurora flashed 
 and trembled in many-coloured shafts across the starry 
 sky. Behind me lay friends and news of friends, civiliza- 
 tion, tidings of a terrible war, firesides, and houses ; before 
 me lay unknown savage tribes, long days of saddle-travel,
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 201 
 
 long- nights of chilling bivouac, silence, separation, and 
 
 space 
 
 I had as a companion for a portion of the journey an 
 officer of the Hudson Bay Company^s service who was 
 returning to his fort in the Saskatchewan, from whence he 
 had but recently come. As attendant I had a French half- 
 breed from Red River Settlement — a tall, active fellow, by 
 name Pierre Diome. My means of travel consisted of five 
 horses and one Red River cart. For my personal use I 
 had a small black Canadian horse, or pony, and an English 
 saddle. My companion, the Hudson Bay officer, drove his 
 own light spring-waggon, and had also his own horse. I 
 was well found in blankets, deer-skins, and moccassins ; all 
 the appliances of half-breed apparel had been brought into 
 play to fit me out, and I found myself possessed of ample 
 stores of leggings, buffalo '' mittaines " and capots, where- 
 with to face the biting breeze of the prairie and to stand 
 at night the icy bivouac. So much for personal costume ; 
 now for official kit. In the first place, I was the bearer 
 and owner of two commissions. By virtue of the first I 
 was empowered to confer upon two gentlemen in the 
 Saskatchewan the rank and status of Justice of the 
 Peace; and in the second I was appointed to that rank 
 and status myself. As to the matter of extent of juris- 
 d'ction comprehended under the name of Justice of the 
 Peace for Rupert's Land and the North-west, I believe that 
 the only parallel to be found in the world exists under the 
 title of '' Czar of all the Russias " and '^ Khan of Mongo- 
 lia;" but the northern limit of all the Russias has been 
 successfully arrived at, whereas the North-west is but a 
 general term for every thing between the 49th parallel 
 of north latitude and the North Pole itself. But docu- 
 mentary evidence of unlimited jurisdiction over Blackfeet,
 
 202 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Bloods, Big" Bellies (how much better this name sounds in 
 French !), Sircies, Peag-ins, Assineboines, Crees, Muskeg-oes, 
 Salteaux, Chipwayans, Loucheaux, and Dogribs, not in- 
 eluding Esquimaux, was not the only cartulary carried 
 by me into the prairies. A terrible disease had swept, for 
 some months previous to the date of my journey, the 
 Indian tribes of Saskatchewan. Small-pox, in its most 
 aggravated type, had passed- from tribe to tribe, leaving 
 in its track depopulated wigwams and vacant council- 
 lodges ; thousands (and there are not many thousands, 
 all told) had perished on the great sandy plains that lie 
 between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri. Why this 
 most terrible of diseases should prey with especial fury 
 upon the poor red man of America has never been 
 accounted for by medical authority ; but that it does 
 prey upon him with a violence nowhere else to be 
 found is an undoubted fact. Of all the fatal methods of 
 destroying the Indians which his white brother has 
 introduced into the West, this plague of small- pox is the 
 most deadly. The history of its annihilating progress is 
 written in too legible characters on the desolate expanses 
 of untenanted wilds, where the Indian graves are the sole 
 traces of the red man's former domination. Beneath this 
 awful scourge whole tribes have disappeared — the bravest 
 and the best have vanished, because their bravery forbade 
 that they should flee from the terrible infection, and, like 
 soldiers in some square plunged through and rent with 
 shot, the survivors only closed more despairingly together 
 when the death-stroke fell heaviest among them. They 
 knew nothing of this terrible disease ; it had come from 
 the white man and the trader ; but its speed had distanced 
 even the race for gold, and the Missouri Valley had l)een 
 swept by the epidemic before the men who carried the fire-
 
 THE GEEAT LONE L.\^^D. 203 
 
 water had crossed the Mississippi. For eighty years these 
 vast regions had known at intervals the deadly presence of 
 this disease, and through that lapse of time its history had 
 heen ever the same. It had commenced in the trading- 
 camp; but the white man had remained comparatively 
 secure, while his red brothers were swept away by hun- 
 dreds. Then it had travelled on, and every thing had gone 
 down before it — the chief and the brave, the medicine-man, 
 the squaw, the papoose. The camp moved away; but the 
 dread disease clung to it — dogged it with a perseverance 
 more deadly than hostile tribe or prowling war-party ; and 
 far over 'the plains the track was marked with the unburied 
 bodies and bleaching bones of the wild warriors of the 
 West. 
 
 The summer which had just passed had witnessed one of 
 the deadliest attacks of this disease. It had swept from 
 the Missouri through the Blackfeet tribes, and had run the 
 whole length of the North Saskatchewan, attacking indis- 
 criminately Ci'ees, half-breeds, and Hudson Bay employe's. 
 The latest news received from the Saskatchewan was one 
 long record of death. Carlton House, a fort of the Hudson 
 Bay Company, 600 miles north-west from Red River, had 
 been attacked in August. Late in September the disease 
 still raged among its few inhabitants. From farther west 
 tidings had also come bearing the same message of disaster. 
 Crees, half-breeds, and even the few Europeans had been 
 attacked; all medicines had been expended, and the officer 
 in charge at Carlton had perished of the disease. 
 
 " You are to ascertain as far as you can in what places and 
 among what tribes of Indians, and what settlements of 
 whites, the small-pox is now prevailing, including the 
 extent of its ravages, and every particular you can ascertain 
 in connexion with the rise and the spread of the disease.
 
 204 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 You are to take with you sucli small supply of medicines 
 as shall be deemed by the Board of Health here suitable 
 and proper for the treatment of small-pox, and you will 
 obtain written instructions for the proper treatment of the 
 disease, and will leave a copy thereof with the chief officer 
 of each fort you pass, and with any clergyman or other 
 intelligent person belonging to settlements outside the 
 forts/^ So ran this clause in my instructions, and thus it 
 came about that amongst many curious parts which a 
 wandering life had caused me to play, that of physician in 
 ordinary to the Indian tribes of the farthest west became 
 the most original. The preparation of these medicines and 
 the printing of the instructions and directions for the treat- 
 ment of small-pox had consumed many days and occasioned 
 considerable delay in my departure. At length the medicines 
 were declared complete, and I proceeded to inspect them. 
 Eight large cases met my astonished gaze. I was in despair; 
 eight cases would necessitate slow progression and extra 
 horses ; fortunately a remedy arose. A medical officer was 
 directed by the Board of Health to visit the Saskatchewan ; 
 he was to start at a later date. I handed over to him six 
 of the eight cases, and with my two remaining ones and 
 unlimited printed directions for small-pox in three stages, 
 departed, as we have already seen. By forced marching I 
 hoped to reach the distant station of Edmonton on the 
 Upper Saskatchewan in a little less than one month, but 
 much would depend upon the state of the larger rivers and 
 upon the snow-fall en route. The first week in November 
 is usually the period of the freezing in of rivers ; but cross- 
 ing large rivers partially frozen is a dangerous work, and 
 many such obstacles lay between me and the mountains. 
 If Edmonton was to be reached before the end of November 
 delays would not be possible, and the season of my journey
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 205 
 
 was one which made the question of rapid travel a question 
 of the change of temperature of a single night. On the 
 second day out we passed the Portage-la-Prairie, the last 
 settlement towards the West. A few miles farther on 
 we crossed the Rat Creek, the boundary of the new province 
 of iManitoba, and struck out into the solitudes. The first 
 sight was not a cheering one. Close beside the trail, just 
 where it ascended from the ravine of the Rat Creek, stood 
 a solitary newly-made grave. It was the grave of one who 
 had been left to die only a few days before. Thrown away 
 by his companions, who had passed on towards Red River, 
 he had lingered for three da\^s all exposed to dew and frost. 
 At length death had kindly put an end to his sufferings, 
 but three days more elapsed before any person would 
 approach to bury the remains. He had died from small- 
 pox brought from the Saskatchewan, and no one would go 
 near the fatal spot. A French missionary, however, passing 
 by stopped to dig a hole in the black, soft earth ; and so the 
 poor disfigured clay found at length its lonely resting-place. 
 That night we made our first camp out in the solitudes. It 
 was a dark, cold night, and the wind howled dismally 
 through some bare thickets close by. When the fire 
 flickered low and the wind wailed and sighed amongst the 
 dry white grass, it was impossible to resist a feeling of utter 
 loneliness. A long journey lay before me, nearly 3000 
 miles would have to be traversed before I could hope to 
 reach the neighbourhood of even this lonely spot itself, this 
 last verge of civilization ; the terrific cold of a winter of 
 which I had only heard, a cold so intense that travel ceases, 
 except in the vicinity of the forts of the Hudson Bay 
 Company — a cold which freezes mercury, and of which the 
 spirit registers 80° of frost — this was to be the thought 
 of many nights, the ever-present companion of many days.
 
 206 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Between this little camp-fire and the g-iant mountains tr 
 which my steps were turned, there stood in that long- 120G 
 miles but six houses, and in these houses a terrible malady 
 had swept nearly half the inhabitants out of life. So, lyin^ 
 down that night for the first time with all this before me, 
 I felt as one who had to face not a few of those things from 
 which is evolved that strange mystery called death, and 
 looking- out into the vague dark immensity around me, saw 
 in it the gloomy shapes and shadowy outlines of the by- 
 g-one which memory hides but to produce at such times. 
 Men whose lot in life is cast in that mould which is so aptly 
 described by the term of " having only their wits to depend 
 on," must accustom themselves to fling- aside quickly and 
 at will all such thoughts and gloomy memories ; for 
 assuredly, if they do not so habituate themselves, they had 
 better never try in life to race against those more favoured 
 individuals who have things other than their wits to rely 
 upon. The Wit will prove but a sorry steed unless its owner 
 be ever ready to race it against those more substantial horses 
 called Wealth and Interest, and if in that race, the prize 
 of which is Success, Wit should have to carry its rider into 
 strange and uncouth places, over rough and broken country, 
 while the other two horses have only plain sailing before 
 \hem, there is only all the more reason for throwing aside 
 all useless weight and extra incumbrance; and, with these 
 few digressive remarks, we will proceed into the solitudes. 
 
 The days that now commenced to pass were filled from 
 dawn to dark with unceasing travel ; clear, bright days of 
 mellow sunshine followed by nights of sharp frost which 
 almost imperceptibly made stronger the icy covering- of the 
 pools and carried farther and farther out into the running 
 streams the edging- of ice which so soon was destined to 
 cover completely the river and the rill. Our route lay
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 207 
 
 along- the left bank of the Assineboine, but at a considerable 
 distance from the river, whose winding- course could be 
 marked at times by the dark oak woods that fringed it. 
 Far away to the south rose the outline of the Blue Hills of 
 the Souris, and to the north the Riding Mountains lay 
 faintly u])on the horizon. The country was no long-er level, 
 fine rolling- hills stretched away before us over which the 
 wind came with a keenness that made our prairie-fare seem 
 delicious at the close of a hard day's toil. 36°, 2£°, 24", 
 20°; such were the readings of my thermometer as each 
 morning I looked at it by the fire-light as we arose from 
 our blankets before the dawn and shivered in the keen 
 hoarfrost while the kettle was being boiled. Perceptibly 
 getting colder, but still clear and fine, and with every breeze 
 laden with healthy and invigorating freshness, for four 
 days we journeyed without seeing man or beast; but on the 
 morning of the fifth day, while camped in a thicket on the 
 right of the trail, we heard the noise of horses passing- near 
 us. A few hours afterwards we passed a small band of 
 Salteaux encamped farther on ; and later in the day over- 
 took a half-breed trader on his way to the Missouri to 
 trade with the Sioux. This was a celebrated French half- 
 breed named Chaun^.on Rossette. Chaumon had been under- 
 going a severe course of drink since he had left the settle- 
 ment some ten days earlier, and his haggard eyes and 
 swollen features revealed the incessant orgies of his travels. 
 He had as companion and defender a young Sioux brave, 
 whose handsome face also bore token to his having been 
 busily employed in seeing Chaumon through it. Rossette 
 was one of the most noted of the Red River bullies, a 
 terrible drunkard, but tolerated for some stray tokens cf 
 a better nature which seemed at times to belong to him. 
 "When we came up to him he was encamped with his horses
 
 208 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 and carts on a piece of rising ground situated between two 
 clear and beautiful lakes. 
 
 " Well, Chaumon, going to trade again ? " 
 
 " 0\x\, Captain/' 
 
 " You had better not come to the forts, all liquor can be 
 confiscated now. No more whisky for Indian — all stopped." 
 
 " I go very far out on Coteau to meet Sioux. Long 
 before I get to Sioux I drink all my own liquor; drink 
 all, trade none. Sioux know me very well ; Sioux give me 
 plenty horses; plenty things ; I quite fond of Sioux.''' 
 
 Chaumon had that holy horror of the law and its ways 
 which every wild or semi-wild man possesses. There is 
 nothing so terrible to the savage as the idea of imprison- 
 ment ; the wilder the bird the harder he will feel the cage. 
 The next thing to imprisonment in Chaumon's mind was a 
 Government proclamation — a thing all the more terrible 
 because he could not read a line of it nor comprehend what 
 it could be about. Chaumon's face was a study when I 
 handed him three different proclamations and one copy of 
 " The Small-pox in Three Stages.'' Whether he ever reached 
 the Coteau and his friends the Sioux I don't know, for I 
 soon passed on my way ; but if that lively bit of literature, 
 entitled '^The Small-pox in Three Stages," had as con- 
 vincing an impression on the minds of the Sioux as it had 
 upon Chaumon, that he was doing something very repre- 
 hensible indeed, if he could only find out what it was, abject 
 terror must have been carried far over the Coteau and the 
 authority of the law fully vindicated along the Missouri. 
 
 On Sunday morning the 30th of October we reached a 
 high bank overlooking a deep valley through which rolled 
 the Assineboine River. On the opposite shore, 300 feet 
 above the current, stood a few white houses surrounded by 
 a wooden palisade. Around, the country stretched away
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 209 
 
 cn all sides in magnificent expanses. This was Fort 
 Ellice^ near the junction of the Qu'Appelle and Assine- 
 boine Rivers, 230 miles west from Fort Garry. Fording 
 the Assineboine, which rolled its masses of ice swiftly 
 against the shoulder and neck of my horse, we climbed 
 the steep hill, and gained the fort. I had ridden that 
 distance in five days and two hours.
 
 210 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Hin)soN Bay Company — Ftjks and Free Trade — Fort Ellicb 
 — Quick Travelling — Horses — Little Blackie — Touchwood 
 Hllls — A Snow-storm — The South Saskatchewan — Attempt 
 TO cross the Erv'ER — Death of poor Blackie — Carlton. 
 
 It may have occurred to some reader to ask^ What is this 
 company whose name so often, appears upon these pages ? 
 Who are the men composing* it, and what are the objects it 
 has in view ? You have glanced at its early history, its 
 rivalries, and its discoveries, but now, now at this present 
 time, while our giant rush of life roars and surges along, 
 what is the work done by this Company of Adventurers 
 trading into the Bay of Hudson ? Let us see if we can 
 answer. Of the two great monopolies which the impecuni- 
 osity of Charles II. gave birth to, the Hudson Bay Company 
 alone survives, but to-day the monopoly is one of fact, and 
 not of law. All men are now free to come and go, to trade 
 and sell and gather furs in the great Northern territory, 
 but distance and climate raise more formidable barriers 
 against strangers than law or protection could devise. Bold 
 would be the trader who would carry his goods to the far- 
 away Mackenzie River; intrepid would be the voyageur 
 who sought a profit from the lonely shores of the great Bear 
 Lake. Locked in their fastnesses of ice and distance, these 
 remote and friendless solitudes of the North must long re- 
 main, as they are at present, the great fur preserve of the
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 211 
 
 Hudson Bay Company. Dwellers within the limits of 
 European states can ill comprehend the vastness of territory 
 over which this Fur Company holds sway. I say holds sway, 
 for the north of North America is still as much in the pos- 
 session of the Company, despite all cession of title to Canada, 
 as Crusoe was the monarch of his island, or the man must be 
 the owner of the moon. From Pembina on Red River to 
 Fort Anderson on the Mackenzie is as great a distance as 
 from London to Mecca. From the King^s Posts to the Pelly 
 Banks is farther than from Paris to Samarcand, and yet to- 
 day throughout that immense region the Company is king. 
 And what a king ! no monarch rules his subjects with 
 half the power of this Fur Company. It clothes, feeds, and 
 utterly maintains nine-tenths of its subjects. From the Es- 
 quimaux at Ungava to the Loucheaux at Fort Simpson, all 
 live by and through this London Corporation. The earth 
 possesses not a wilder spot than the barren grounds of Fort 
 Providence; around lie the desolate shores of the great 
 Slave Lake. Twice in the year news comes from the out- 
 side world — news many, many months old — news borne by 
 men and dogs through 2000 miles of snow; and yet even 
 there the gun that brings down the moose and the musk-ox 
 has been forged in a London smithy ; the blanket that covers 
 the wild Indian in his cold camp has been woven in a 
 Whitney loom; that knife is from Sheffield; that string of 
 beads from Birmingham. Let us follow the ships that sail 
 annually from the Thames bound for the supply of this vast 
 region. It is early in June when she gets clear of the 
 Nore ; it is mid- June when the Orkneys and Stornaway are 
 left behind ; it is August when the frozen Straits of Hudson 
 are pierced ; and the end of the month has been reached 
 when the ship comes to anchor off the sand-barred mouth 
 of the Nelson River. For one year the stores that she has 
 
 f 2
 
 212 THE G2EAT LONE LAND. 
 
 brought lift m the warehouses of York factory; twelve 
 months later they reach Red River ; twelve months later 
 again they reach Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie. That 
 rough flint-gun, which might have done duty in the days of 
 the Stuarts, is worth many a rich sable in the country of 
 the Dogribs and the Loucheaux, and is bartered for skins 
 whose value can be rated at four times their weight in gold ; 
 but the gun on t^^.e banks of the Thames and the gun in the 
 pine woods of the Mackenzie are two widely different articles. 
 The old rough flint, whose bent barrel the Indians will often 
 straighten between the cleft of a tree or the crevice of a 
 rock, has been made precious by the long labour of many 
 men ; by the trackless wastes through which it has been 
 carried ; by winter-famine of those who have to vend it ; by 
 the years which elapse between its departure from the work- 
 shop and the return of that skin of sable or silver-fox for 
 which it has been bartered. They are short-sighted men 
 who hold that because the ' flint-gun and the sable possess 
 such difierent values in London, these articles should also 
 possess their relative values in North America, and argue 
 from this that the Hudson Bay Company treat the Indians 
 unfairly ; they are short-sighted men, I say, and know not 
 of what they speak. That old rough flint has often cost 
 more to put in the hands of that Dogrib hunter than the 
 best finished central fire of Boss or Purdey. But that is 
 not all that has to be said about the trade of this Company. 
 Free trade may be an admirable institution for some 
 nations— making them, amongst other things, very much 
 more liable to national destruction; but it by no means 
 follows that it should be adapted equally well to the savage 
 Indian. Unfortunately for the universality of British insti- 
 tutions, free trade has invariably been found to improve the 
 icd man from the face of the earth. Free trade in furs
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 213 
 
 means dear beavers, dear martens, dear minks, and dear 
 otters; and all these "dears'^ mean whisky, alcohol, hig-li wine, 
 and poison, which in their turn mean, to the Indian, murder, 
 disease, small-pox, and death. There is no use to tell mo 
 that these four dears and their four corollaries ought not to 
 be associated with free trade, an institution which is so pre- 
 eminently pure; I only answer that these things have ever 
 been associated with free trade in furs, and I see no reason 
 whatever to behold in our present day amongst traders, 
 Indian, or, for that matter, English, any very remarkable 
 reformation in the principles of trade. Now the Hudson 
 Bay Company are in the position of men who have taken a 
 valuable shooting for a very long term of years or for a per- 
 petuity, and who therefore are desirous of preserving for a 
 future time the game which they hunt, and also of preserv- 
 ing the hunters and trappers who are their servants. The 
 free trader is as a man who takes his shooting for the term 
 of a year or two and wishes to destroy all he can. He has 
 two objects in view ; first, to get the furs himself, second, 
 to prevent the other traders from getting them. "If I 
 cannot get them, then he shan^t. Hunt, hunt, hunt, kill,, 
 kill, kill ; next year may take care of itself.^' One word 
 more. Other companies and other means have been tried 
 to carry on the Indian trade and to protect the interests of 
 the Indians, but all have failed ; from Texas to the Saskat- 
 chewan there has been but one result, and that result has 
 been the destruction of the wild animals and the extinction, 
 partial or total, of the Indian race. 
 
 I remained only long enough at Fort Ellice to complete a 
 few changes in costume which the rapidly increasing cold 
 rendered necessary. Boots and hat were finally discarded, 
 the stirrup-irons were rolled in strips of buffalo skin, the 
 large moose-skin " mittaincs " taken into wear, and immense
 
 214 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 moccassins got ready. These precautions were necessary, 
 for before us there now lay a great open region with tree- 
 less expanses that were sixty miles across them — a vast tract 
 of rolling hill and plain over which, for three hundred miles, 
 there lay no fort or house of any kind. 
 
 Bidding adieu to my host, a young Scotch gentleman, at 
 Fort Ellice, my little party turned once more towards the 
 North-west and, fording the Qu^Appelle five miles above its 
 confluence with the Assineboine, struck out into a lovely coun- 
 try. It was the last day of October and almost the last of the 
 Indian summer. Clear and distinct lay the blue sky upon 
 the quiet sun-lit prairie. The horses trotted briskly on under 
 the charge of an English half-breed named Daniel. Pierre 
 Diome had returned to Red River, and Daniel was to bear 
 me company as far as Carlton on the North Saskatchewan. 
 My five horses were now beginning to show the efiect of 
 their incessant work, but it was only in appearance, and the 
 distance travelled each day was increased instead of dimi- 
 nished as we journeyed on. I could not have believed it 
 possible that horses could travel the daily distance which 
 mine did without breaking down altogether under it, still 
 less would it have appeared possible upon the food which 
 they had to eat. We had neither hay nor oats to give 
 them ; there was nothing but the dry grass of the prairie, 
 and no time to eat that but the cold frosty hours of the 
 night. Still we seldom travelled less than fifty miles a-day, 
 stopping only for one hour at midday, and going on again 
 until night began to wrap her mantle around the shivci'- 
 ing prairie. My horse was a wonderful animal ; day after 
 day would I fear that his game little limbs were growing 
 weary, and that soon he must give out ; but no, not a bit 
 of it; his black coat roughened and his flanks grew a little 
 leaner but still he went on as gamely and as pluckily as ever.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 215 
 
 Often during the long* day I would dismount and walk 
 along leading him by the bridle, while the other two men 
 and the six horses jogged on far in advance ; when they 
 had disappeared altogether behind some distant ridge of the 
 l^rairie my little horse would commence to look anxiously 
 around, whinnying and trying to get along after his com- 
 rades; and then how gamely he trotted on when I remounted, 
 watching out for the first sign of his friends again, far-away 
 little specks on the great wilds before us. When the camp- 
 ing place would be reached at nightfall the first care went 
 to the horse. To remove saddle, bridle, and saddle-cloth, 
 to untie the strip of soft buffalo leather from his neck and 
 twist it well around his fore-legs, for the purpose of hobbling, 
 was the work of only a few minutes, and then poor Blackie 
 hobbled away to find over the darkening expanse his night^s 
 provender. Before our own supper of pemmican, half-baked 
 bread, and tea had been discussed, we always drove the band 
 of horses down to some frozen lake hard by, and Daniel 
 cut with the axe little drinking holes in the ever-thicken- 
 ing ice ; then up would bubble the water and down went 
 the heads of the thirsty horses for a long pull at the too- 
 often bitter spring, for in this region between the Assine- 
 boine and the South Saskatchewan fully half the lakes 
 and pools that lie scattered about in vast variety are harsh 
 with salt and alkalis. Three horses always ran loose while 
 the other three worked in harness. These loose horses, one 
 might imagine, would be prone to gallop away when they 
 found themselves at liberty to do so : but nothing seems 
 farther from their thoughts; they trot along by the side of 
 their harnessed comrades apparently as though they knew 
 all about it ; now and again they stop behind, to crop a bit of 
 grass or tempting stalk of wild pea or vetches, but on they 
 come again until the party has been reached, then, with
 
 216 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 ears thrown back, the jog-trot is resumed, and the whole 
 band sweeps on over hill and plain. To halt and change 
 horses is only the work of two minutes — out comes one 
 horse, the other is standing close by and never stirs while 
 the hot harness is being put upon him ; in he goes into the 
 rough shafts, and, with a crack of the half-breed's whip 
 across his flanks, away we start again. 
 
 But my little Blackie seldom got a respite from 
 the saddle ; he seemed so well up to his work, so much 
 stronger and better than any of the others, that day after 
 day I rode him, thinking each day, " Well, to-morrow I will 
 let him run loose ; but when to-morrow came he used to 
 look so fresh and well, carrying his little head as high 
 as ever, that again I put the saddle on his back, and 
 another day^s talk and companionship would still further 
 cement our friendship, for I grew to like that horse as one 
 only can like the poor dumb beast that serves us. I know 
 not how it is, but horse and dog have worn themselves into 
 my heart as few men have ever done in life ; and now, as 
 day by day went by in one long scene of true companion- 
 ship, I came to feel for little Blackie a friendship not the 
 less sincere because all the service was upon his side, and I 
 was powerless to make his supper a better one, or give him 
 a more cosy lodging for the night. He fed and lodged 
 himself and he carried me — all he asked in return was a 
 water-hole in the frozen lake, and that I cut for him. 
 Sometimes the night came down upon us still in the midst 
 of a great open treeless plain, without shelter, water, or 
 grass, and then we would continue on in the inky darkness 
 as though our march was to last eternally, and poor Blackie 
 would step out as if his natural state was one of perpetual 
 motion. On the 4th November we rode over sixty miles ; 
 and when at length the camp was made in the lea of a little
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 217 
 
 clump of bare willows, the snow was lying cold upon the 
 prairies, and Blackie and his comrades went out to shiver 
 through their supper in the bleakest scene my eyes had 
 ever looked upon. 
 
 About midway between Fort Ellice and Carlton a sudden 
 and well-defined change occurs in the character of the 
 country; the light soil disappears, and its place is suc- 
 ceeded by a rich dark loam covered deep in grass and 
 vetches. Beautiful hills swell in slopes more or less abrupt 
 on all sides, while lakes fringed with thickets and clumps 
 of good-sized poplar balsam lie lapped in their fertile hollows. 
 
 This region bears the name of the Touchwood Hills. 
 Around it, far into endless space, stretch immense plains of 
 bare and scanty vegetation, plains seared with the tracks of 
 countless buffalo which, until a few years ago, were wont to 
 roam in vast herds between the Assineboine and the Saskat- 
 chewan. Upon whatever side the eye turns when crossing 
 these great expanses, the same wrecks of the monarch of the 
 prairie lie thickly strewn over the surface. Hundreds of 
 thousands of skeletons dot the short scant grass ; and when 
 fire has laid barer still the level surface, the bleached ribs 
 and ukulls of long-killed bison whiten far and near the dark 
 burnt prairie. There is something unspeakably melancholy 
 in the aspect of this portion of the North-west. From one 
 of the westward jutting spurs of the Touchwood Hills the 
 eye sees far away over an immense plain; the sun goes 
 down, and as he sinks upon the earth the straight line of 
 the horizon becomes visible for a moment across his blood- 
 red disc, but so distant, so far away, that it seems dream- 
 like in its immensity. There is not a sound in the air or on 
 the earth ; on every side lie spread the relics of the great 
 fight waged by man against the brute creation ; all is silent 
 and deserted — the Indian and the buffalo gone, the settler
 
 218 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 not yet come. You turn quickly to the right or left ; over 
 a hill-top, close by, a solitary wolf steals away. Quickly 
 the vast prairie begins to grow dim, and darkness forsakes 
 the skies because they light their stars, coming down to 
 seek in the utter solitude of the blackened plains a kindred 
 spirit for the night. 
 
 On the night of the 4th November we made our camp 
 long after dark in a little clump of willows far out in the 
 plain which lies west of the Touchwood Hills. We had 
 missed the only lake that was known to lie in this part of 
 the plain, and after journeying far in the darkness halted 
 at length, determined to go supperless, or next to supperless, 
 to bed, for pemmican without that cup which nowhere tastes 
 more delicious than in the wilds of the North-west would 
 prove but sorry comfort, and the supper without tea would be 
 only a delusion. The fire was made, the frying-pan taken 
 out, the bag of dried buffalo meat and the block of pemmi- 
 can got ready, but we said little in the presence of such a 
 loss as the steaming kettle and the hot, delicious, fragrant 
 tea. Why not have provided against this evil hour by 
 bringing on from the last frozen lake some blocks of ice ? 
 Alas ! why not ? Moodily we sat down round the blazing 
 willows. Meantime Daniel commenced to unroll the oil- 
 cloth cart cover — and lo, in the ruddy glare of the fire, out 
 rolled three or four large pieces of thick, heavy ice, sufiicient 
 to fill our kettle three times over with delicious tea. Oh, 
 what a joy it was ! and how we relished that cup ! for re- 
 member, cynical friend who may be inclined to hold such 
 happiness cheap and light, that this wild life of ours is a 
 curious leveller of civilized habits — a cup of water to a 
 thirsty man can be more valuable than a cup of diamonds, 
 and the value of one article over the other is only the ques- 
 tion of a few hours^ privation. When the morning of the
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 219 
 
 5th dawned we were covered deep in snow, a storm had 
 burst in the night, and all around was hidden in a dense 
 sheet of driving- snow-flakes ; not a vestige of our horses 
 was to be seen, their tracks were obliterated by the fast- 
 falling snow, and the surrounding objects close at hand 
 showed dim and indistinct through the white cloud. After 
 a fruitless search, Daniel returned to camp with the tidings 
 that the horses were nowhere to be found ; so, when break- 
 fast had been tinished, all three set out in separate directions 
 to look again forthe missing steeds. Keeping the snow-storm 
 on my left shoulder, I went along through little clumps of 
 stunted bushes which frequently deceived me by their re- 
 semblance through the driving snow to horses grouped to- 
 gether. After awhile I bent round towards the wind and, 
 making a long sweep in that direction, bent again so as to 
 bring the drift upon my right shoulder. No horses, no 
 tracks any where — nothing but a waste of white drifting 
 flake and feathery snow-spray. At last I turned away from 
 the wind, and soon struck full on our little camp ; neither of 
 the others had returned. I cut down some willows and made 
 a blaze. After a while I got on to the top of the cart, and 
 looked out again into the waste. Presently I heard a distant 
 shout ; replying vigorously to it, several indistinct forms 
 came into view, and Daniel soon emerged from the mist, 
 driving before him the hobbled wanderers ; they had been 
 hidden under the lea of a thicket some distance off, all clus- 
 tered together for shelter and warmth. Our only difl[iculty 
 t\'as now the absence of my friend the Hudson Bay ofl^icer. 
 We waited some time, and at length, putting the saddle on 
 Blackie, I started out in the direction he had taken. Soon 
 I heard a faint far-away shout ; riding quickly in the direc- 
 tion from whence it proceeded,! heard the calls getting louder 
 and louder, and soon came up with a figure heading right
 
 220 THE GREAT LOlNi: LAND. 
 
 away into the immense plain^ going altogether in a direction 
 opposite to where our camp lay. I shouted^ and back came 
 my friend no little pleased to find his road again, for a snow- 
 storm is no easy thing to steer through, and at times it 
 will even fall out that not the Indian with all his craft and 
 instinct for direction will be able to find his way through 
 its blinding maze. Woe betide the wretched man who at 
 such a time finds himself alone upon the prairie, without fire 
 or the means of making it; not even the ship-wrecked sailor 
 clinging to the floating mast is in a more pitiable strait. 
 During the greater portion of this day it snowed hard, but 
 our track was distinctly marked across the plains, and we 
 held on all day. I still rode Blackie ; the little fellow had 
 to keep his wits at work to avoid tumbling into the badger 
 holes which the snow soon rendered invisible. These badger 
 holes in this portion of the plains were very numerous; it is 
 not always easy to avoid them when the ground is clear of 
 snow, but riding becomes extremely difficult when once the 
 winter has set in. The badger burrows straight down for two 
 or three feet, and if a horse be travelling at any pace his fall 
 is so sudden and violent that a broken leg is too often the 
 result. Once or twice Blackie went in nearly to the shoul- 
 der, but he invariably scrambled up again all right — poor 
 fellow, he was reserved for a worse fate, and his long journey 
 was near its end ! A clear cold day followed the day of 
 snow, and for the first time the thermometer fell below zero. 
 Day dawned upon us on the 6th November camped 
 in a little thicket of poplars some seventy miles from 
 the South Saskatchewan ; the thermometer stood 3° be- 
 low zero, and as I drew the girths tight on poor Blackie's 
 ribs that morning, I felt happy in the thought that I had 
 slept for the first time under the stars with 35° of 
 frost lying on the blanket outside. Another long day^s
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 221 
 
 ride, and the last great treeless plain was crossed and 
 evening- found us camped near the Minitchinass, or Solitary 
 Hill, some sixteen miles south-east of the South Saskatche- 
 wan. The g-rass again grew long and thick, the clumps 
 of willow, poplar, and birch had reappeared, and the soil, 
 when we scraped the snow away to make our sleeping 
 place, turned up black and rich-looking under the blows 
 of the axe. About midday on the 7 th November, in a 
 driving storm of snow, we suddenly emerged upon a high 
 plateau. Before us, at a little distance, a great gap or 
 valley seemed to open suddenly out, and farther off the 
 white sides of hills and dark tree-tops rose into view. 
 Riding to the edge of this steep valley I beheld a magnifi- 
 cent river flowing between great banks of ice and snow 
 300 feet below the level on which we stood. Upon each 
 side masses of ice stretched out far into the river, but in the 
 centre, between these banks of ice, ran a swift, black-look- 
 ing current, the sight of which for a moment filled us with 
 dismay. We had counted upon the Saskatchewan being 
 firmly locked in ice, and here was the river rolling along 
 between its icy banks forbidding all passage. Descending to 
 the low valley of the river, we halted for dinner, determined 
 to try some method by which to cross this formidable 
 barrier. An examination of the river and its banks soon 
 revealed the difficulties before us. The ice, as it approached 
 the open portion, was unsafe, rendering it impossible to 
 get within reach of the running water. An interval of 
 some ten yards separated the sound ice from the current, 
 while nearly 100 yards of solid ice lay between the true 
 bank of the river and the dangerous portion; thus our 
 first labour was to make a solid footing for ourselves from 
 v,-hich to launch any raft or make-shift boat which we 
 might construct. After a great deal of trouble and labour,
 
 222 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 we got the wag-gon-Lox roughly fashioned into a raft, 
 covered over with one of our large oil-cloths, and lashed 
 together with buffalo leather. This most primitive looking 
 craft we carried down over the ice to where the dangerous 
 portion commenced ; then Daniel, wielding the axe with 
 powerful dexterity, began to hew away at the ice until 
 space enough was opened out to float our raft upon. Into 
 this we slipped the waggon-box, and into the waggon-box 
 we put the half-breed Daniel. It floated admirably, and 
 on went the axe-man, hewing, as before, with might and 
 main. It was cold, wet work, and, in spite of every thing, 
 the water began to ooze through the oil-cloth into the 
 waggon-box. We had to haul it up, empty it, and launch 
 again ; thus for some hours we kept on, cold, wet, and 
 miserable, until night forced us to desist and make our 
 camp on the tree-lined shore. So we hauled in the waggon 
 and retired, baffled, but not beaten, to begin again next 
 morning. There were many reasons to make this delay 
 feel vexatious and disappointing; we had travelled a 
 distance of 560 miles in twelve days; travelled only to 
 fmd ourselves stopped by this partially frozen river at a 
 point twenty miles distant from Carlton, the first great 
 station on my journey. Our stock of provisions, too, was 
 not such as would admit of much delay; pemmican and 
 dried meat we had none, and flour, tea, and grease were 
 all that remained to us. However, Daniel declared that 
 he knew a most excellent method of making a combination 
 of flour and fat which would allay all disappointment — and 
 I must conscientiously admit that a more hunger-satiating 
 mixture than he produced out of the frying-pan it had 
 never before been my lot to taste. A little of it went 
 such a long way, that it would be impossible to find a 
 parallel for it in portability ; in fact, it went such a long
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 223 
 
 way^ that the person who dined off it found himself, by 
 common reciprocity of feeling', bound to go a long way in 
 return before he again partook of it; but Daniel was not 
 of that opinion, for he ate the greater portion of our united 
 shares, and slept peacefully when it was all gone. I would 
 particularly recommend this mixture to the consideration 
 of the guardians of the poor throughout the United King- 
 dom, as I know of nothing which would so readily conduce 
 to the satisfaction of the hungry element in our society. 
 Had such a combination been known to Bumble and his 
 Board, the hunger of Twist would even have been satisfied 
 by a single helping- ; but, perhaps, it might be injudicious 
 to introduce into the sister island any condiment so anti- 
 dotal in its nature to the removal of the Celt across the 
 Atlantic — that " consummation so devoutly wished for " by 
 the " leading journal.^' 
 
 Fortified by DanieFs delicacy, we set to work early next 
 morning at raft-making and ice-cutting; but we made 
 the attempt to cross at a portion of the river where the 
 open water was narrower and the bordering ice sounded 
 more firm to the testing blows of the axe. One part of the 
 river had now closed in, but the ice over it was unsafe. We 
 succeeded in getting the craft into the running water and, 
 having strung together all the available line and rope we 
 possessed, prepared for the venture. It was found that 
 the waggon-boat would only carry one passenger, and 
 accordingly I took my place in it, and with a make-shift 
 paddle put out into the quick-running stream. The 
 current had great power over the ill-shaped craft, and it 
 was no easy matter to keep her head at all against stream. 
 
 I had not got five yards out when the whole thing 
 commenced to fill rapidly with water, and I had just 
 time to get back again to ice before she was quite full.
 
 224 THE GEEAT LOXE LAJSTD. 
 
 AVe hauled her out once more, and found the oil-cloth 
 had been cut by the jagg-ed ice, so there was nothing 
 for it but to remove it altogether and put on another. 
 This was done, and soon our waggon-box was once again 
 afloat. This time I reached in safety the farther side ; 
 but there a difficulty arose which we had not foreseen. 
 Along this farther edge of ice the current ran with great 
 force, and as the leather line which was attached to the 
 back of the boat sank deeper and deeper into the water, 
 the drag upon it caused the boat to drift quicker and 
 quicker downstream ; thus, when I touched the opposite 
 ice, I found the drift was so rapid that my axe failed to 
 catch a hold in the yielding edge, which broke away at 
 every stroke. After several ineffectual attempts to stay 
 the rush of the boat, and as I was being borne rapidly into 
 a mass of rushing water and huge blocks of ice, I saw it 
 was all up, and shouted to the others to rope in the line ; 
 but this was no easy matter, because the rope had got foul 
 of the running ice, and was caught underneath. At last, 
 by careful handling, it was freed, and I stood once more 
 on the spot from w^hence I had started, having crossed the 
 E-iver Saskatchewan to no purpose. Daniel now essayed the 
 task, and reached the opposite shore, taking the precaution 
 to work up the nearer side before crossing; once over, his 
 vigorous use of the axe told on the ice, and he succeeded 
 in fixing the boat against the edge. Then he quickly clove 
 his way into the frozen mass, and, by repeated blows, finally 
 reached a spot from which he got on shore. 
 
 This success of our long labour and exertion was an- 
 nounced to the solitude by three ringing cheers, which we 
 gave from our side ; for, be it remembered, that it was now 
 our intention to use the waggon-boat to convey across all 
 our basrsragre, towing the boat from one side to the other
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 225 
 
 by means of our line; after which^ we would force the 
 horses to swim the river, and then cross ourselves in the 
 boat. But all our plans were defeated by an unlooked-for 
 accident ; the line lay deep in the water, as before, and to 
 raise it required no small amount of force. We hauled 
 and hauled, until snap went the long- rope somewhere 
 underneath the water, and all was over. With no little 
 difficulty Daniel g-ot the boat across again to our side, 
 and we all went back to camp wet, tired, and dispirited 
 by so much labour and so many misfortunes. It froze 
 hard that night, and in the morning the g-reat river had its 
 waters altog-ether hidden opposite our camp by a covering" 
 of ice. Would it bear? that was the question. We went 
 on it early, testing with axe and sharp -pointed poles. In 
 places it was very thin, but in other parts it rang hard 
 and solid to the blows. The dangerous spot was in the very 
 centre of the river, where the water had shown through in 
 round holes on the previous day, but we hoped to avoid 
 these bad places by taking a slanting course across the 
 channel. After walking backwards and forwards several 
 times, we determined to try a light horse. He was led 
 out with a long piece of rope attached to his neck. In 
 the centre of the stream the ice seemed to bend slightly 
 as he passed over, but no break occurred, and in safety 
 we reached the opposite side. Now came Blacklegs turn. 
 Somehow or other I felt uncomfortable about it and re- 
 marked that the horse ought to have his shoes removed 
 before the attempt was made. My companion, however, 
 demurred, and his experience in these matters had extended 
 over so many years, that I was foolishly induced to allow 
 him to proceed as he thought fit, even against my better 
 judgment. Blackie was taken out, led as before, tied by a long 
 line. I followed close behind him, to drive him if necessary, 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 He did not need much driving, but took tlie ice quite readily. 
 We had got to the centre of the river, when the surface 
 suddenly bent downwards, and, to my horror, the poor horse 
 plunged deep into black, quick-running water ! He was 
 not three yards in front of me when the ice broke. I 
 recoiled involuntarily from the black, seething chasm ; 
 the horse, though he plunged suddenly down, never let his 
 head under water, but kept swimming manfully round and 
 round the narrow hole, trying all he could to get upon the 
 ice. All his efforts were useless ; a cruel wall of sharp ice 
 struck his knees as he tried to lift them on the surface, 
 and the current, running with immense velocity, repeatedly 
 carried him back underneath. As soon as the horse had 
 broken through, the man who held the rope let it go, and 
 the leather line flew back about poor Blacklegs head. I 
 got up almost to the edge of the hole, and stretching out 
 took hold of the line again ; but that could do no good 
 nor give him any assistance in his struggles. I shall never 
 forget the way the poor brute looked at me — even now, as 
 I write these lines, the whole scene comes back in memory 
 v/ith all the vividness of a picture, and I feel again the 
 horrible sensation of being utterly unable, though almost 
 within touching distance, to give him help in his dire 
 extremity — and if ever dumb animal spoke with un- 
 utterable eloquence, that horse called to me in his agony ; 
 he turned to me as to one from whom he had a right to 
 exj)ect assistance. I could not stand the scene any longer. 
 
 " Is there no help for him?^' I cried to the other men. 
 
 " None whatever,'^ was the reply ; " the ice is dangerous 
 all around.^"* 
 
 Then I rushed back to the shore and up to the camp 
 where my rifle lay, then back again to the fatal spot where 
 the poor beast still struggled against his fate. As I raised
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 227 
 
 the rifle he looked at me so imploringly that my hand 
 shook and trembled. Another instant^ and the deadly bullet 
 crashed through his head^ and, with one look never to be 
 forgotten, he went down under the cold, unpitying ice ! 
 
 It may have been very foolish, perhaps, for poor Blackie 
 was only a horse, but for all that I went back to camp, 
 and, sitting down in the snow, cried like a child. "With my 
 own hand I had taken my poor friend's life ; but if there 
 should exist somewhere in the regions of space that happy 
 Indian paradise where horses are never hungry and never 
 tired, Blackie, at least, will forgive the hand that sent 
 him there, if he can but see the heart that long regretted 
 him. 
 
 Leaving Daniel in charge of the remaining horses, we 
 crossed on foot the fatal river, and with a single horse 
 set out for Carlton. From the high north bank I took 
 one last look back at the South Saskatchewan — it lay in its 
 broad deep A^alley glittering in one great baud of purest 
 snow ; but I loathed the sight of it, while the small round 
 open hole, dwarfed to a speck by distance, marked the spot 
 where my poor horse had found his grave, after having 
 carried me so faithfully through the long lonely wilds. 
 "VVe had travelled about six miles when a figure appeared 
 in sight, coming towards us upon the same track. The 
 new-comer proved to be a Cree Indian travelling to Fort 
 Pelly. He bore the name of the Starving Bull. Starving 
 Bull and his boy at once turned back with us towards 
 Carlton. In a little while a party of horsemen hove 
 in sight : they had come out from the fort to visit the 
 South Branch, and amongst them was the Hudson Bay 
 officer in charge of the station. Our first question had 
 reference to the plague. Like a fire, it had burned itself 
 out. There was no case then in the fort ; but out of the little
 
 228 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 garrison of some sixty souls no fewer than thirty-two had 
 perished ! Four only had recovered of the thirty-six who 
 had taken the terrible infection. 
 
 We halted for dinner by the edge of the Duck Lake, 
 midway between the North and South Branches of the 
 Saskatchewan. It was a rich, beautiful country, although 
 the snow lay some inches deep. Clumps of trees dotted the 
 undulating surface, and lakelets glittering in the bright 
 sunshine spread out in sheets of dazzling whiteness. 
 The Starving BuU set himself busily to work preparing 
 our dinner. What it would have been under ordinary 
 circumstances, I cannot state ; but, imfortunately for its 
 success on the present occasion, its preparation was 
 attended with unusual drawbacks. Starving Bull had 
 succeeded in killing a skunk during his journey. This per- 
 formance, while highly creditable to his energy as a hunter, 
 was by no means conducive to his success as a cook. 
 Bitterly did that skunk revenge himself upon us who had 
 borne no part in his destruction. Pemmican is at no time 
 a delicacy ; but pemmican flavoured with skunk was more 
 than I could attempt. However, Starving Bull proved 
 himself worthy of his name, and the frying-pan was soon 
 scraped clean under his hungry manipulations. 
 
 Another hour^s ride brought us to a high bank, at the 
 base of which lay the North Saskatchewan. In the low 
 ground adjoining the river stood Carlton House, a large 
 square enclosure, the wooden walls of which were more than 
 twenty feet in height. Within these palisades some dozen 
 or more houses stood crowded together. Close by, to the 
 right, many snow-covered mounds with a few rough wooden 
 crosses above them marked the spot where, only four weeks 
 before, the last victim of the epidemic had been laid. On 
 the very spot where I stood looking at this scene, a Black-
 
 THE GllEAT LONE LAND. 229 
 
 foot Indian, three years earlier, had stolen out from a thicket, 
 tired at, and grievously wounded the Hudson Bay officer 
 belonging- to the fort, and now close to the same spot a 
 small cross marked that officer's last resting-place. Strange 
 fate ! he had escaped the Blackfoot's bullet only to be the 
 first to succumb to the deadly epidemic. I cannot say that 
 Carlton was at all a lively place of sojourn. Its natural 
 gloom was considerably deepened by the events of the last 
 few months, and the whole place seemed to have received 
 the stamp of death upon it. To add to the general depres- 
 sion, provisions were by no means abundant, the few 
 Indians that had come in from the plains brought the same 
 tidings of unsuccessful chase — for the buffalo were "far 
 out" on the great prairie, and that phrase " far out/' 
 applied to buffalo, means starvation in the North-west.
 
 230 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 
 
 CPIAPTER XV. 
 
 The Saskatchewan — Start from Carlton — Wild Mares — Lose 
 OUR "Way — A long Ride — Battle Eiver — Mistawassis the 
 Cree — A Dance. 
 
 Two thiug-s strike the new-comer at Carlton. First, 
 he sees evidences on every side of a rich and fertile 
 country; and, secondly, he sees by many signs that war 
 is the normal condition of the wild men who have pitched 
 their tents in the land of the Saskatchewan — that 
 land from which we have taken the Indian prefix Kis, 
 without much improvement of leng-th or euphony. It is a 
 name but little known to the ear of the outside world, but 
 destined one day or other to fill its place in the long list of 
 lands whose surface yields back to man, in manifold, the 
 toil of his brain and hand. Its boundaries are of the 
 simplest description, and it is as well to begin with them. 
 It has on the north a huge forest, on the west a huge 
 mountain, on the south an immense desert, on the east an 
 immense marsh. From the forest to the desert there lies a 
 distance varying from 40 to 150 miles, and from the marsh 
 to the mountain, 800 miles of land lie spread in every vary- 
 ing phase of undulating fertility. This is the Fertile Belt, 
 the land of the Saskatchewan, the winter home of the 
 buffalo, the war country of the Crees and Black feet, 
 the future home of millions yet unborn. Few men have 
 looked on this land — but the thoughts of many in the New 
 World tend towards it, and crave for description and fact
 
 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 231 
 
 which in many instances can only be given to them at 
 second-hand. 
 
 Like all things in this world, the Saskatchewan has its 
 poles of opinion ; there are those who paint it a paradise^ 
 and those who picture it a hell. It is unfit for habitation, 
 it is to be the garden-spot of America — it is too cold, it is 
 too dry — it is too beautiful ; and, in reality, what is it ? I 
 answer in a few words. It is rich ; it is fertile ; it is fair 
 to the eye. Man lives long in it, and the children of his 
 body are cast in manly mould. The cold of winter is in- 
 tense, the strongest heat of summer is not excessive. The 
 autumn days are bright and beautiful ; the snow is seldom 
 deep, the frosts are early to come and late to go. All 
 crops flourish, though primitive and rude are the means by 
 which they are tilled ; timber is in places plentiful, in other 
 places scarce ; grass grows high, thick, and rich. Horses 
 winter out, and are round-carcased, and fat in spring. 
 The lake-shores are deep in hay; lakelets every where. 
 Rivers close in mid-November and open in mid-April. 
 The lakes teem with fish ; and such fish ! fit for the table of 
 a prince, but disdained at the feast of the Indian. The 
 river-heads lie all in a forest region ; and it is midsummer 
 when their water has reached its highest level. Through 
 the land the red man stalks ; war, his unceasing toil — 
 horse-raiding, the pastime of his life. How long has the 
 Indian thus warred? — since he has been known to the 
 white man, and long before. 
 
 In 1776 the earliest English voyager in these regions 
 speaks of war between the Assineboines and their trouble- 
 some western neighbours, the Snake and Blackfeet Indians. 
 But war was older than the era of the earliest white man, 
 older probably than the Indian himself; for, from what- 
 ever branch of the human race his stock is sprung, the
 
 232 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 lesson of warfare was in all cases the same to him. To say 
 he fig-hts isj after all^ but to say he is a man ; for whether it 
 be in Polynesia or in Paris, in the Saskatchewan or in Sweden, 
 in Bundelcund or in Bulg-aria, fig'hting' is just the one uni- 
 versal " touch of nature which makes the whole world kin/'' 
 
 " My g-ood brothers,"" said a missionary friend of mine, 
 some little while ago, to an assemblage of Crees — " My 
 good brothers, why do you carry on this unceasing war 
 with the Blackfeet and Peaginoos, with Sircies and Bloods ? 
 It is not good, it is not right ; the great Manitou does not 
 like his children to kill each other, but he wishes them to 
 live in peace and brotherhood/^ 
 
 To which the Cree chief made answer — " My friend, 
 what you say is g-ood ; but look, you are white man and 
 Christian, we are red men and worship the Manitou ; but 
 what is the news we hear" from the traders and the black- 
 robes ? Is it not always the news of war ? The Kitchi- 
 Mokamans (i.e. the Americans) are on the war-path against 
 their brethren of the South, the English are fighting some 
 tribes far away over the big lake ; the French, and all the 
 other tribes are fighting too ! My brother, it is news of 
 war, always news of war ! and we — we go on the war-path 
 in small numbers. We stop when we kill a few of our 
 enemies and take a few scalps ; but your nations go to war 
 in countless thousands, and we hear of more of your braves 
 killed in one battle than all our tribe numbers together. 
 So, my brother, do not say to us that it is wrong to go on 
 the war-path, for what is right for the white man cannot 
 be wrong in his red brother. I have done ! " 
 
 During the seven days which I remained at Carlton the 
 winter was not idle. It snowed and froze, and looked 
 dreary enough within the darkening walls of the fort. A 
 French missionary had come down from the northern lake
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 233 
 
 of Tsle-a-la-Crosse, butj unlike liis brethren, he appeared shy 
 and uncommunicative. Two of the stories which he re- 
 lated, however, deserve record. One was a singular magnetic 
 storm which took place at Isle-a-la-Crosse during the 
 preceding winter. A party of Indians and half-breeds 
 were crossing the lake on the ice when suddenly their hair 
 stood up on end ; the hair of the dogs also turned the wrong 
 way, and the blankets belonging to the party even evinced 
 signs of acting in an upright manner. I wall not pretend 
 to account for this phenomenon, but merely tell it as the 
 worthy j??P;-e told it to me, and I shall rest perfectly satisfied if 
 my readers^ hair does not follow the example of the Indians' 
 dogs and blankets and proceed generally after the manner of 
 the "■ frightful porcupine." The other tale told by the joere 
 was of a more tragical nature. During a storm in the 
 prairies near the South Branch of the Saskatchewan a 
 rain of fire suddenly descended upon a cam;;? of Cree-Indians 
 and burned everything around. Thirty-two Crees perished in 
 the flames; the ground was burned deeply for a considerable 
 distance, and only one or two of the party who happened to 
 stand close to a lake were saved by throwing themselves 
 into the water. " It was," said my informant, " not a flash 
 of lightning-, but a rain of fire which descended for some 
 moments." 
 
 The increasing severity of the frost hardened into a solid 
 mass the surface of the Saskatchewan, and on the morning of 
 the 14th November we set out again upon our Western jour- 
 ney. The North Saskatchewan which I now crossed for the 
 first time, is a river 400 yards in width, lying between banks 
 descending steeply to a low alluvial valley. These outer banks 
 are some 200 feet in height, and in some by-gone age were 
 doubtless the boundaries of the majestic stream that then 
 rolled between them. I had now a new band of horses num-
 
 234 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 bering altogether nine head, but three of them were wild 
 brood mares that had never before been in harness, and laugh- 
 able was the scene that ensued at starting. The snow was 
 now sufficiently deep to prevent wheels running with ease, so 
 we substituted two small horse-sleds for the Red River cart, 
 and into these sleds the wild mares were put. At first they 
 refused to move an inch — no, not an inch ; then came loud 
 and prolonged thwacking from a motley assemblage of Crees 
 and half-breeds. Ropes, shanganappi, whips, and sticks 
 were freely used; then, like an arrow out of a bow, away 
 went the mare; then suddenly a dead stop, two or three 
 plunges high in air, and down flat upon the ground. Again 
 the thwacking, and again suddenly up starts the mare 
 and off like a rocket. Shanganappi harness is tough stuff 
 and a broken sled is easily set to rights, or else we would 
 have been in a bad way. But for all horses in the North-west 
 there is the very simplest manner of persuasion : if the horse 
 lies down, lick him until he gets up; if he stands up on his 
 hind-legs, lick him until he reverts to his original position; 
 if he bucks, jibs, or kicks, lick him, lick him, lick him; when 
 you are tired of licking him, get another man to continue 
 the process; if you can use violent language in three 
 different tongues so much the better, but if you cannot 
 imprecate freely at least in French, you will have a bad time 
 of it. Thus we started from Carlton, and, crossing the wide 
 Saskatchewan, held our way south-west for the Eagle 
 Hills. It was yet the dusk of the early morning, but as 
 we climbed the steep northern bank the sun was beginning to 
 lift himself above the horizon. Looking back, beneath lay 
 the wide frozen river, and beyond the solitary fort still 
 wrapped in shade, the trees glistened pure and white on the 
 high-rolling bank beside me, and the untrodden snow 
 stretched far away in dazzling brilliancy. Our course now
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 235 
 
 laj' to the south of west^ and our pace was even faster than 
 it haa been in the days of poor Blackie. About midday 
 we entered upon a vast tract of burnt country, the unbroken 
 snow filling the hollows of the ground beneath it. For- 
 tunately, just at camping-time we reached a hill-side 
 whose grass and tangled vetches had escaped the fire, and 
 here we pitched our camp for the night. Around rose hills 
 whose sides were covered with the traces of fire — destroyed 
 forests, and a lake lay close beside us, wrapped in ice and 
 snow. A small winter-station had been established by the 
 Hudson Bay Company at a point some ninety miles 
 distant from Carlton, opposite the junction of the Battle 
 River with the North Saskatchewan. There, it was said, 
 a large camp of Crees had assembled, and to this post we 
 were now directing our steps. 
 
 On the morning of the second day out from Carlton, the 
 guide showed symptoms of haziness as to direction : he 
 began to bend greatly to the south, and at sunrise he 
 ascended a high hill for the purpose of taking a general 
 survey of the surrounding country. From this hill the 
 eye ranged over a vast extent of landscape, and although 
 the guide failed altogether to correct his course, the hill-top 
 yielded such a glorious view of sun rising from a sea of 
 snow into an ocean of pale green barred with pink and crimson 
 streaks, that I felt well repaid for the trouble of the long 
 ascent. When evening closed around us that day, I found 
 myself alone amidst a wild, weird scene. Far as the eye 
 could reach in front and to the right a boundless, treeless 
 plain stretched into unseen distance ; to the left a range of 
 steep hills rose abruptly from the plain; over all the night 
 was coming down. Long before sunset I had noticed a 
 clump of trees many miles ahead, and thought that in this 
 solitary thicket we would make our camp for the night.
 
 236 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Hours passed away^ and yet the solitary clump seemed as dis- 
 tant as ever — nay, more, it even appc ved to grow smaller as 
 I approached it. At last, j ust at dusk, I d rew near the wished- 
 for camping-place; but lo ! it was nothing but a single bush. 
 My clump had vanished, my camping-place had gone, the 
 mirage had been playing tricks with the little bush and 
 magnifying it into a grove of aspens. When night fell 
 there was no trace of camp or companions, but the snow- 
 marks showed that I was still upon the right track. On 
 again for two hours in darkness — often it was so dark that 
 it was only by giving the horse his head that he was able 
 to smell out the hoofs of his comrades in the partially- 
 covered grass of frozen swamp and moorland. No living 
 thing stirred, save now and then a prairie owl flitting 
 through the gloom added to the sombre desolation of the 
 scene. At last the trail turned suddenly towards a deep 
 ravine to the left. Kiding to the edge of this ravine, the 
 welcome glare of a fire glittering through a thick screen of 
 bushes struck my eye. The guide had hopelessly lost his 
 way, and after thirteen hours' hard riding we were lucky to 
 find this cosy nook in the tree-sheltered valley. The 
 Saskatchewan was close beside us, and the dark ridges 
 beyond were the Eagle Hills of the Battle River. 
 
 Early next forenoon we reached the camp of Crees and 
 the winter post of the Hudson Bay Company some distance 
 above the confluence of the Battle River with the Saskatche- 
 wan. A wild scene of confusion followed our entry into the 
 camp; braves and squaws, dogs and papooses crowded round, 
 and it was difficult work to get to the door of the little shanty 
 where the Hudson Bay officer dwelt. Fortunately, there 
 was no small-pox in this crowded camp, although many 
 traces of its effects were to be seen in the seared and dis- 
 figured faces around, and in none more than my host^ who had
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 237 
 
 been one of the four that had recovered at Carlton. He 
 was a splendid specimen of a half-breed, but his handsome 
 face was awfully marked by the terrible scourg-e. This 
 assemblage of Crees was under the leadership of Mistawassis, 
 a man of small and slight stature, but whose bravery had 
 often been tested in fight against the Blackfeet. He was 
 a man of quiet and dignified manner, a good listener, a 
 fluent speaker, as much at his ease and as free from restraint 
 as any lord in Christendom. He hears the news I have to 
 tell him through the interpreter, bending his head in assent 
 to every sentence ; then he pauses a bit and speaks. " He 
 wishes to know if aught can be done against the Blackfeet ; 
 they are troublesome, they are fond of war j he has seen 
 war for many years, and he would wish for peace ; it is 
 only the young men, who want scalps and the soft words 
 of the squaws, who desire war.""^ I tell him that " the Great 
 Mother wishes her red children to live at peace ; but what 
 is the use? do they not themselves break the peace when 
 it is made, and is not the war as often commenced by the 
 Crees as by the Blackfeet?" He says that ''men have 
 told them that the white man was coming to take their 
 lands, that the white braves were coming to the country, 
 and he wished to know if it was true.'''' " If the white braves 
 did come," I replied, " it would be to protect the red man, and 
 to keep peace amongst all. So dear was the red man to 
 the heart of the chief whom the Great Mother had sent, that 
 the sale of all spirits had been stopped in the Indian country, 
 and henceforth, when he saw any trader bringing whisky 
 or fire-water into the camp, he could tell his young men 
 to go and take the fire-water by force from the trader." 
 
 "That is good !" he repeated twice, " that is good !" but 
 whether this remark of approval had reference to the 
 stoppage of the fire-water or to the prospective seizure of
 
 238 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 liquor by his braves^ I cannot say. Soon after the depar- 
 ture of Mistawassis from the hut^ a loud drumming- outside 
 was suddenly struck up, and going to the door I found the 
 young men had assembled to dance the dance of welcome in 
 my honour ; they drummed and danced in different stages 
 of semi-nudity for some time, and at the termination of the 
 performance I gave an order for tobacco all round. 
 
 "When the dancing-party had departed, a very garrulous 
 Indian presented himself, saying that he had been informed 
 that the Ogima was possessed of some " great medicines/' 
 and that he wished to see them. I have almost forgotten 
 to remark that my store of drugs and medicines had under- 
 gone considerable delapidation from frost and fast travelling. 
 An examination held at Carlton into the contents of the two 
 eases had revealed a sad state of affairs. Frost had smashed 
 many bottles ; powders badly folded up had fetched way in 
 a deplorable manner ; tinctures had proved their capability 
 for the work they had to perform by tincturing every thing 
 that came within their reach ; hopeless confusion reigned in 
 the department of pills. A few glass-stoppered bottles had 
 indeed resisted the general demoralization ; but, for the rest, 
 it really seemed as though blisters, pills, powders, scales, 
 and disinfecting fluids had been wildly bent upon blistering, 
 pilling, powdering, weighing, and disinfecting one another 
 ever since they had left Fort Garry. I deposited at Carlton 
 a considerable quantity of a disinfecting fluid frozen solid, 
 and as highly garnished with pills as the exterior of that 
 condiment known as a cliancellor's pudding is resplendent 
 with rasins. Whether this conglomerate really did disinfect 
 the walls of Carlton I cannot state, but from its appearance 
 and general medicinal aspect I should say that no disease, 
 however virulent, had the slightest chance against it. Having 
 repacked the other things as safely as possible into one
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 239 
 
 large box, I still found that I was the possessor of medicine 
 amply sufficient to poison a very large extent of territory, 
 and in particular I had a small leather medicine-chest in 
 which the glass-stoppered bottles had kept intact. This chest 
 I now f)roduced for the benefit of my garrulous friend ; one 
 very strong essence of smelling-salts particularly delighted 
 him ; the more it burned his nostrils the more he laughed 
 and hugged it, and after a time declared that there could 
 be no doubt whatever as to that article, for it was a very 
 " great medicine " indeed.
 
 24:0 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Eed Man — Leave Battle River — The Eed Deer Hills — 
 A LONG Ride — Fort Pitt — The Plague — Hauling by the 
 Tail — A pleasant Companion — A-N easy Method of Divorce 
 — Reach Edmonton. 
 
 Ever towards the setting- sun drifts the flow of Indian 
 migration; ever nearer and nearer to that glorious rang-e 
 of snow-elad peaks which the red man has so aptly named 
 " the Mountains of the Setting Sun." It is a mournful 
 task to trace back through the long list of extinct tribes 
 the history of this migration. Turning over the leaves 
 of books belonging to that " oli colonial time '' of which 
 Longfellow speaks, we find strange names of Indian tribes 
 now utterly unknown, meetings of council and treaty- 
 making with Mohawks and Oneidas and Tuscaroras. 
 
 They are gone, and scarcely a ti-ace remains of them. 
 Others have left in lake and mountain-top the record of 
 their names. Erie and Ottawa, Seneca and Cayuga tell of 
 forgotten or almost forgotten nations which a century ago 
 were great and powerful. But never at any time since first 
 the white man was welcomed on the newly-discovered shores 
 of the Western Continent by his red brother, never has such 
 disaster and destruction overtaken these poor wild, wander- 
 in o- sons of nature as at the moment in which we write. Of 
 ■ yore it was the pioneers of France, England, and Spain 
 with whom they had to contend, but now the whole white 
 world is leagued in bitter strife ag-ainst the Indian. The
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAXD. 241 
 
 American and Canadian are only names that hide beneath 
 them the greed of united Europe. Terrible deeds have 
 been wrought out in that western land; terrible heart- 
 sickening deeds of cruelty and rapacious infamy — have been, 
 I say? no, are to this day and hour, and never perhaps more 
 sickening than now in the full blaze of nineteenth-century 
 civilization. If on the long line of the American frontier, 
 from the Gulf of Mexico to the British boundary, a single 
 life is taken by an Indian, if even a horse or ox be stolen 
 from a settler, the fact is chronicled in scores of journals 
 throughout the United States, but the reverse of the story 
 we never know. The countless deeds of perfidious robbery, 
 of ruthless murder done by white savages out in these 
 Western wilds never find the light of day. The poor red 
 man has no telegraph, no newspaper, no type, to tell his 
 sufferings and his woes. My God, what a terrible tale 
 could I not tell of these dark deeds done by the white savage 
 against the far nobler red man ! From southernruost Texas 
 to most northern Montana there is but one universal remedy 
 for Indian difficulty — kill him. Let no man tell me that 
 such is not the case. I answer, I have heard it hundreds of 
 times : " Never trust a redskin unless he be dead.''^ " Kill 
 every buflfalo you see," said a Yankee colonel to me one day 
 in Nebraska; "every buffalo dead is an Indian gone;^' such 
 things are only trifles. Listen to this ^cute feat of a Mon- 
 tana trader. A store-keeper in Helena City had some 
 sugar stolen from him. He poisoned the sugar next night 
 and left his door open. In the morning six Indians were 
 found dead outside the town. That was a 'cute notion, I 
 guess ; and yet there are other examples worse than that, 
 but they are too revolting to tell. Never mind; I suppose 
 they have found record somewhere else if not in this world, 
 and in one shape or another they will speak in due time.
 
 242 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 The Crees are perhaps the only tribe of prairie Indians who 
 have as yet suffered no injustice at the hands of the white 
 man. The land is still theirs, the hunting-grounds remain 
 almost undisturbed; but their days are numbered, and already 
 the echo of the approaching" wave of Western immigration is 
 sounding through the solitudes of the Cree country. 
 
 It is the same story from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 First the white man was the welcome guest, the honoured 
 visitor ; then the greedy hunter, the death-dealing vender of 
 fire-water and poison ; then the settler and exterminator — 
 every where it has been the same story. 
 
 This wild man who first welcomed the new-comer is the 
 onlyperfect socialist or communist in the world. He holds all 
 things in common with his tribe — the land, the bison, the 
 river, and the moose. He is starving, and the rest of the 
 tribe want food. Well, he kills a moose, and to the last bit 
 the coveted food is shared by all. That war-party has taken 
 one hundred horses in the last raid into Blackfoot or Peagin 
 territory ; well, the whole tribe are free to help themselves to 
 the best and fleetest steeds before the captors will touch one 
 out of the band. There is but a scrap of beaver, a thin 
 rabbit, or a bit of sturgeon in the lodge ; a stranger comes, 
 and he is hungry ; give him his share and let him be first 
 served and best attended to. If one child starves in an 
 Indian camp you may know that in every lodge scarcity is 
 universal and that every stomach is hungry. Poor, poor 
 fellow! his virtues are all his own; crimes he-may have, and 
 plenty, but his noble traits spring from no book-learning, 
 from no schoolcraft, from the preaching of no pulpit ; they 
 come from the instinct of good which the Great Spirit has 
 taught him; they are the whisperings from tha'j lost world 
 whose glorious shores beyond the Mountains of the Setting 
 Sun are the long dream of his life. The most curious
 
 THE GREAT LOXE L.OD. 243 
 
 anomaly among the race of man, the red man of America, is 
 passing" away beneath our eyes into the infinite solitude. 
 The possession of the same noble qualities which we affect 
 to reverence among our nations makes us kill him. If he 
 would be as the African or the Asiatic it would be all right 
 for him ; if he would be our slave he might live, but as he 
 won^t be that, won't toil and delve and hew for us, and will 
 persist in hunting, fishing, and roaming over the beautiful 
 prairie land which the Great Spirit gave him ; in a word, 
 since he will be free — we kill him. Why do I call this 
 wild child the great anomaly of the human race ? I will 
 tell you. Alone amongst savage tribes he has learnt the 
 lesson which the great mother Nature teaches to her sons 
 through the voices of the night, the forest, and the solitude. 
 This river, this mountain, this measureless meadow speak 
 to him in a language of their own. Dwelling with them, he 
 learns their varied tongues, and his speech becomes the 
 echo of the beauty that lies spread around him. Every 
 name for lake or river, for mountain or meadow, has its pe- 
 culiar significance, and to tell the Indian title of such things 
 is generally to tell the nature of them also. Ossian never 
 spoke with the voice of the mist-shrouded mountain or the 
 wave-beat shores of the isles more thoroughly than does this 
 chief of the Blackfeet or the Sioux speak the voices of the 
 things of earth and air amidst which his wild life is cast. 
 
 I know that it is the fashion to hold in derision and mockery 
 the idea that nobility, poetry, or eloquence exist in the wild 
 Indian. I know that with that low brutality which has ever 
 made the Anglo-Saxon race deny its enemy the possession 
 of one atom of generous sensibility, that dull enmity which 
 prompted us to paint the Maid of Orleans a harlot, and to 
 call Napoleon the Corsican robber — I know that that same 
 instinct glories in degrading the savage, whose chief crime 
 
 E 2.
 
 244 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 is that he prefers death to slavery; g-lories in painting him 
 devoid of every trait of manhood, worthy only to share the 
 fate of the wild heast of the wilderness — to be shot down 
 mercilessly when seen. But those brig-ht spirits who have 
 redeemed the America of to-day from the dreary waste of 
 vulgar greed and ignorant conceit which we in Europe have 
 flung so heavily upon her ; those men whose writings have 
 come back across the Atlantic, and have become as house- 
 hold words among us — Irving, Cooper, Longfellow — have 
 they not found in the rich store of Indian poetry the source 
 of their choicest thought ? Nay, I will go farther, because 
 it may be said that the poet would be prone to drape with 
 poetry every subject on which his fancy lighted, as the sun 
 turns to gold and crimson the dullest and the dreariest 
 clouds : but search the books of travel amongst remote In- 
 dian tribes, from Columbus to Catlin, from Charlevoix to 
 Carver, from Bonneville to Pallisser, the story is ever the 
 same. The traveller is welcomed and made much of; he is 
 free to come and go ; the best food is set before him ; the 
 lodge is made warm and bright ; he is welcome to stay his 
 lifetime if he pleases. " I swear to your majesties," writes 
 Columbus — alas ! the red man's greatest enemy — "1 swear 
 to your majesties that there is not in the world a better 
 people than these, more affectionate, affable, or mild." "At 
 this moment,'" writes an American officer only ten years 
 back, " it is certain a man can go about throughout the 
 Blackfoot territory without molestation, except in the con- 
 tingency of being mistaken at night for an Indian."" No, 
 they are fast going, and soon they will be all gone, but in 
 after-times men will judge more justly the poor wild crea- 
 tures whom to-day we kill and villify ; men will go back 
 again to those old books of travel, or to those pages of 
 " Hiawatlia " and " Mohican," to find that far away from
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 245 
 
 the border-land of civilization the wild red n\,u), if more of 
 the savag"e, was infinitely less of the brute than was the 
 white ruffian who destroyed him. 
 
 I quitted the camp at Battle River on the 17tli Novem- 
 ber, with a larg-e band of horses and a young Cree brave 
 who had volunteered his services for some reason of his own 
 which he did not think necessary to impart to us. The 
 usual crowd of squaws, braves in buffalo robes, naked chil- 
 dren, and howling' dogs assembled to see us start. The Cree 
 led the way mounted on a ragged-looking pony, then came 
 the baggage-sleds, and I brought up the rear on a tall 
 horse belonging to the Company. Thus we held our way 
 in a north-west direction over high-rolling plains along 
 the north bank of the Saskatchewan towards Fort Pitt. 
 
 On the morning of the 18th we got away from our 
 camping thicket of poplars long before the break of day. 
 There was no track to guide us, but the Cree went straight 
 as an arrow over hill and dale and frozen lake. The hour 
 that preceded the dawn was brilliant with the flash and 
 flow of meteors across the North-western sky. I lagged so 
 far behind to watch them that when day broke I found 
 myself alone, miles from the party. The Cree kept the pace 
 so well that it took me some hours before I again caught 
 sight of them. After a hard ride of six-and-thirty miles, 
 we halted for dinner on the banks of English Creek. Close 
 beside our camping-place a large clump of spruce-pine 
 stood in dull contrast to the snowy surface. They looked 
 like old friends to me — friends of the Winnipeg and the 
 now distant Lake of the Woods; for from Red River to 
 English Creek, a distance of 750 miles, I had seen but a 
 solitary pine-tree. After a short dinner we resumed our rapid 
 way, forcing the pace with a view of making Fort Pitt by 
 night-fall. A French half-breed declared he knew a short
 
 246 TUE GEEAT LOXE LAXD. 
 
 cut across tlie hills of the Red Deer, a wild rugg-ed tract of 
 country lying on the north of the Saskatchewan. Cross- 
 ing these hills, he said, we would strike the river at their 
 farther side, and then, passing over on the ice, cut the bend 
 which the Saskatchewan makes to the north, and, emerging 
 r.gain opposite Fort Pitt, finally re-cross the river at that 
 station. So much for the plan, and now for its fulfilment. 
 We entered the region of the Red Deer Hills at about 
 two o'clock in the afternoon, and continued at a very rapid 
 pace in a westerly direction for three hours. As we pro- 
 ceeded the country became more broken, the hills rising 
 steeply from narrow V-shaped valleys, and the ground in 
 many places covered with fallen and decaying trees — the 
 vv^recks of fire a id tempest. Every where throughout this 
 wild region lay the au tiers and heads of moose and elk ; 
 but, with the exception of an occasional large jackass-rabbit, 
 nothing living moved through the silent hills. The ground 
 was free from badger-holes; tha day, though dark, was 
 fine ; and, with a good horse under me, that two hours' 
 gallop over the Red Deer Hills was glorious work. It 
 Avanted yet an hour of sunset when we came suddenly upon 
 the Saskatchewan flowing in a deep narrow valley between 
 steep and lofty hills, which were bare of trees and bushes 
 and clear of snow. A very wild desolate scene it looked as 
 I surveyed it from a projecting spur upon whose summit I 
 rested my blown horse. I was now far in advance of the party 
 who occupied a parallel ridge behind me. By signs thej'^ in- 
 timated that our course now lay to the north ; in fact, 
 Daniel had steered very much too far south, and we had 
 struck the Saskatchewan river a long distance below the 
 intended place of crossing. Away we went again to the 
 north, soon losing sight of the party ; but as I kept the 
 river on my left far below in the valley I knew they could
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 247 
 
 not cross without my being aware of it. Just before sun- 
 set they appeared again in sights making signs that they 
 were about to descend into the valley and to cross the river. 
 The valley here was five hundred feet in depth^ the slope 
 being one of the steepest I had ever seen. At the bottom 
 of this steep descent the Saskatchewan lay in its icy bed, 
 a large majestic-looking river three hundred j^ards in width. 
 We crossed on the ice without accident, and winding up the 
 steep southern shore gained the level plateau above. The 
 sun was going down, right on our onward track. In the 
 deep valley below the Cree and an English half-breed were 
 getting the horses and baggage-sleds over the river. We 
 made signs to them to camp in the valley, and we ourselves 
 turned our tired horses towards the west, determined at all 
 hazards to reach the fort that night. The Frenchman led 
 the way riding, the Hudson Bay officer followed in a 
 horse-sled, I brought up the rear on horseback. Soon it got 
 quite dark, and we held on over a rough and bushless plateau 
 seamed with deep gullies into which we descended at hap- 
 hazard forcing our weary horses with difficulty up the op- 
 posite sides. The night got later and later, and still no sign 
 of Fort Pitt ; riding in rear I was able to mark the course 
 taken by our guide, and it soon struck me that he was steer- 
 ing wrong; our correct course lay west, but he seemed to 
 be heading gradually to the North, and finally began to 
 veer even towards the East. I called out to the Hudson 
 Bay man that I had serious doubts as to DanieFs know- 
 ledge of the track, but I was assured that all was correct. 
 Still we went on, and still no sign of fort or river. At length 
 the Frenchman suddenly pulled up and asked us to halt 
 while he rode on and surveyed the country, because he had 
 lost the track, and didn^t know where he had got to. Here 
 was a pleasant prospect ! without food, fire, or covering.
 
 248 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 out on the Lleak plains, with the thermometer at 20'' 
 of frost ! After some time the Frenchman returned and 
 declared that he had altog-ether lost his way, and that there 
 was nothing" for it but to camp where we were, and wait for 
 daylight to proceed. I looked around in the darkness. The 
 ridge on which we stood was bare and bleak, with the snow 
 drifted off into the valleys. A few miserable stunted willows 
 were the only signs of vegetation, and the wind whistling 
 through their ragged branches made up as dismal a pro- 
 spect as man could look at. I certainly felt in no very 
 amiable mood with the men who had brought me into this 
 predicament, because I had been overruled in the matter of 
 leaving our baggage behind and in the track we had been 
 pursuing. My companion, however, accepted the situation 
 with apparent resignation, and I saw him commence to un- 
 harness his horse from the sled with the aspect of a man 
 who thought a bare hill-top without food, fire, or clothes 
 was the normal state of happiness to which a man might 
 reasonably aspire at the close of an eighty-mile march, with- 
 out laying himself open to the accusation of being over- 
 effeminate. 
 
 Watching this for some seconds in silence, I determined 
 to shape for myself a different course. I dismounted, and 
 taking from the sled a shirt made of deer-skin, mounted 
 again my poor weary horse and turned off alone into the 
 darkness. " Where are you going to ?" I heard my com- 
 panions calling out after me. I was half inclined not to 
 answer, but turned in the saddle and holloaed back, " To 
 Fort Pitt, that^s all.''^ I heard behind me a violent bustle, as 
 though they were busily engaged in yoking up the horses 
 again, and then I rode off as hard as my weary horse could 
 go. My friends took a very short time to harness up again, 
 and they were soon powdering along through the wilder-
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAXD. 249 
 
 ncss. I kept on for about half an hour, steering by the 
 stars due west; suddenly I came out upon the edge of a 
 deep valley, and by the broad white band beneath recog- 
 nized the frozen Saskatchewan again. I had at least found 
 the river, and Fort Pitt, we knew, lay somewhere upon the 
 bank. Turning away from the river, I held on in a south- 
 westerly direction for a considerable distance, passing up 
 along a bare snow-covered valley and crossing a high ridge 
 at its end. I could hear my friends behind in the dark, but 
 they had got, I think, a notion that I had taken leave of my 
 senses, and they were afraid to call out to me. After a bit 
 I bent my course again to the west, and steering by my 
 old guides, the stars, those truest and most unchanging 
 friends of the wanderer, I once more struck the Saskatche- 
 wan, this time descending to its level and crossing it on the 
 ice. 
 
 As I walked along, leading my horse, I must admit to 
 experiencing a sensation not at all pleasant. The memory 
 of the crossing of the South Branch was still too strong 
 to admit of over-confidence in the strength of the ice, and 
 as every now and again my tired horse broke through the 
 upper crust of snow and the ice beneath cracked, as it always 
 will when weight is placed on it for the first time, no matter 
 how strong it may be, I felt by no means as comfortable 
 asl would have wished. At last the long river was passed, and 
 there on the opposite shore lay the cart track to Fort Pitt. 
 "We were close to Pipe-stone Creek, and only three miles 
 from the Fort. 
 
 It was ten o^clock when we reached the closely-barred 
 gate of this Hudson Bay post, the inhabitants of which 
 had gone to bed. Ten o'clock at night, and we had started 
 at six o'clock in the morning. I had been fifteen hours in 
 the saddle, and not less than ninety miles had passed uudei*
 
 250 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 my horse's hoofs, but so accustomed had I grown to travel 
 that I felt just as ready to set out ag-ain as though only 
 twenty miles had been traversed. The excitement of the 
 last few hours' steering by the stars in an unknown country, 
 and its most successful denouement, had put fatigue and 
 weariness in the background ; and as we sat down to a 
 well-cooked supper of buffalo steaks and potatoes, with the 
 brightest eyed little lassie, half Cree, half Scotch, in the 
 North-west to wait upon us, while a great fire of pine- 
 wood blazed and crackled on the open hearth, I couldn't 
 help saying to my companions, " Well, this is better than 
 your hill-top and the fireless bivouac in the rustling willows/' 
 
 Fort Pitt was free from small-pox, but it had gone 
 through a fearful ordeal : more than one hundred Crees had 
 perished close around its stockades. The unburied dead 
 lay for days by the road-side, till the wolves, growing bold 
 with the impunity which death among the hunters ever 
 gives to the hunted, approached and fought over the decay- 
 ing bodies. From a spot many marches to the south the 
 Indians had come to the fort in midsummer, leaving behind 
 them a long track of dead and dying men over the waste 
 of distance. " Give us help," they cried, " give us help, 
 our medicine-men can do nothing against this plague ; from 
 the white man we got it, and it is only the white man who 
 can take it away from us." 
 
 But there was no help to be given, and day by day the 
 wretched band gi-ew less. Then came another idea into the 
 red man's brain : " If we can only give this disease to the 
 v/hite man and the trader in the fort," thought they, " we 
 will cease to suffer from it ourselves ;" so they came into the 
 houses dying and disfigured as they were, horrible beyond 
 description to look at, and sat down in the entrances of the 
 wooden houses, and stretched themselves on the floors and
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 251 
 
 ?pat upon the door-handles. It was no use, the fell disease 
 held them in a grasp from which there was no escape, and 
 just six weeks before my arrival the living remnant fled 
 away in despair. 
 
 Fort Pitt stands on the left or north shore of the 
 Saskatchewan River, which is here more than four hun- 
 dred yards in width. On the opposite shore immense 
 hare, bleak hills raise their wind-swept heads seven hun- 
 dred feet above the river level. A few pine-trees show their 
 tops some distance away to the north, but no other trace 
 of wood is to be seen in that vast amphitheatre of dry 
 grassy hill in which the fort is built. It is a singularly 
 wild- looking scene, not without a certain beauty of its own, 
 but difficult of association with the idea of disease or epidemic, 
 so pure and bracing is the air which sweeps over those 
 great grassy uplands. On the 20th November I left Fort 
 Pitt, having exchanged some tired horses for fresher ones, 
 but still keeping the same steed for the saddle, as nothing 
 better could be procured from the band at the fort. The 
 snow had now almost disappeared from the ground, and a 
 Red River cart was once more taken into use for the bag- 
 gage. Still keeping along the north shore of the Saskatche- 
 wan, we now held our way towards the station of Victoria, a 
 small half-breed settlement situated at the most northerly 
 bend which the Saskatchewan makes in its long course 
 from the mountains to Lake Winnipeg. The order of march 
 was ever the same; the Cree, wrapped in a loose blanket, with 
 his gun balanced across the shoulder of his pony, jogged 
 on in front, then came a young half-breed named Batte- 
 notte, who will be better known perhaps to the English 
 reader when I say that he was the son of the Assineboine 
 guide who conducted Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle through 
 the pine forests of the Thompson River. This youngster
 
 252 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 
 
 employed himself by continually shouting" the name of the 
 horse he was driving- — thus " Rouge !" would be vigorously 
 yelled out by his tongue^ and Rouge at the same moment 
 would be vigoi'ously belaboured by his whip; "Noir!"he 
 would again shout, when that most ragged animal would be 
 within the shafts ; and as Rouge and Noir invariably had 
 this ejaculation of their respective titles coupled with the 
 descent of the whip upon their respective backs, it followed 
 that after a while the mere mention of the name conveyed 
 to the animal the sensation of being licked. One horse, re- 
 joicing in the title of " Jean THereux," seemed specially 
 selected for this mode of treatment. He was a brute of 
 surpassing" obstinacy, but, as he bore the name of his 
 former owner, a French semi-clerical maniac who had 
 fled from Canada and joined the Blackfeet, and who was 
 regarded by the Crees as one of their direst foes, I rather 
 think that the youthful Battenotte took out on the horse 
 some of the grudges that he owed to the man. Be that as it 
 may, Jean THereux got many a trouncing as he laboured 
 along the sandy pine-covered ridges which rise to the north- 
 west of Fort Pitt, 
 
 On the night of the 21st November we reached the shore 
 of the Egg Lake, and made our camp in a thick clump 
 of aspens. About midday on the following day we 
 came in sight of the Saddle Lake, a favourite camp- 
 ing-ground of the Crees, owing to its inexhaustible stores 
 of finest fish. Nothing struck me more as we thus pushed 
 on rapidly along the Upper Saskatchewan than the absence 
 of all authentic information from stations farther west. 
 Every thing was rumour, and the most absurd rumour. 
 " If you meet an old Indian named Pinguish and a boy 
 without a name at Saddle Lake," said the Hudson Bay 
 officer at Fort Pitt to me, " they may give you letters from
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 2-53 
 
 Edmonton^ and you may get some news from them, because 
 they lost letters near the lake three weeks ag-o, and perhaps 
 they may have found them by the time you get there." It 
 struck me very forcibly, after a little while, that this " boy 
 without a name " was a most puzzling individual to go in 
 search of. The usual interrogatory question of " What's 
 your name ? " would not be of the least use to find such a 
 personage, and to ask a man if he had no name, as a preli- 
 minary question, might be to insult him, I therefore fell 
 back upon Pinguish, but could obtain no intelligence of him 
 whatever. Pinguish had apparently never been heard of. 
 It then occurred to me that the boy without the name 
 might perhaps be a remarkable character in the neighbour- 
 hood, owing to his peculiar exception from the lot of 
 humanity; but no such negative person had ever been 
 known, and I was constrained to believe that Pinguish and 
 his mysterious partner had fallen victims to the small-pox or 
 had no existence; for at Saddle Lake the small-pox had 
 worked its direst fury, it was still raging in two little huts 
 close to the track, and when we halted for dinner near the 
 south end of the lake the first man who approached was 
 marked and seared by the disease. It was fated that this 
 day we were to be honoured by peculiar company at our 
 dinner. In addition to the small-pox man, there came an ill- 
 looking fellow of the name of Favel, who at once proceeded 
 to make himself at his ease beside us. This individual bore 
 a deeper brand than that of small-pox upon him, inasmuch 
 as a couple of years before he had foully murdered a com- 
 rade in one of the passes of the Rocky Mountains when 
 returning from British Columbia. But this was not the 
 only intelligence as to my companions that I was des- 
 tined to receive upon my arrival on the following day at 
 Victoria.
 
 254 THE GHEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 " You have got Louis Battenotte, with you, I see/' said 
 the Hudson Bay officer in charg-e. 
 
 " Yes/' I replied. 
 
 " Did he tell you any thing about the small-pox ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; a great deal ; he often spoke about it.^^ 
 
 " Did he say he had had it himself? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, he had/' continued my host, " only a month ago, 
 and the coat and trousers that he now wears were the 
 same articles of clothing in which he lay all the time he 
 had it," was the pleasant reply. 
 
 After this little revelation concerning Battenotte and 
 his habiliments, I must admit that I was not quite as 
 ready to look with pleasure upon his performance of the 
 duties of cook, chambermaid, and general valet as I 
 had been in the earlier stage of our acquaintance ; but a 
 little reflection made the whole thing right again, con- 
 vincing one of the fact that travelling, like misery, " makes 
 one acquainted with strange bedfellows," and that luck 
 has more to say to our lives than we are wont to admit. 
 After leaving Saddle Lake we entered upon a very rich and 
 beautiful country, completely clear of snow and covered 
 deep in grass and vetches. We ti*avelled hard, and reached 
 at nightfall a thick wood of pines and spruce-trees, in which 
 we made a cosy camp. I had brought with me a bottle of 
 old brandy from Red River in case of illness, and on this 
 evening, not feeling all right, I drew the cork while the 
 Cree was away with the horses, and drank a little with my 
 companion. Before we had quite finished, the Cree returned 
 to camp, and at once declared that he smelt grog. He 
 became very lively at this discovery. We had taken the 
 precaution to rinse out the cup that had held the spirit, but 
 he nevertheless commenced a series of brewing which ap-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. ZOO 
 
 peared to give him infinite satisfaction. Two or three times 
 did he fill the empty cup with water and drain it to the 
 bottom, laughing and rolling his head each time with de- 
 light, and in order to be sure that he had got the right one, 
 he proceeded in the same manner with every cup we pos- 
 sessed ; then he confided to Battenotte that he had not tasted 
 grog for a long time before, the last occasion being one on 
 which he had divested himself of his shirt and buffalo robe, 
 in other words, gone naked, in order to obtain the coveted 
 fire-water. 
 
 The weather had now become beautifully mild, and 
 on the 23rd of November the thermometer did not show 
 even one degree of frost. As we approached the neighbour- 
 hood of the White Earth River the aspect of the country 
 became very striking : groves of spruce and pine crowned 
 the ridges ; rich, well-watered valleys lay between, deep in 
 the long white grass of the autumn. The track wound in 
 and out through groves and wooded declivities, and all 
 nature looked bright and beautiful. Some of the ascents 
 from the river bottoms were so steep that the united eflPorts 
 of Battenotte and the Cree were powerless to induce Rouge 
 or Noir, or even Jean FHereux, to draw the cart to the 
 summit. But the Cree was equal to the occasion. With a 
 piece of shanganapjDi he fastened L^Hereux^s tail to the shafts 
 of the cart — shafts which had already between them the 
 redoubted Noir. This new method of harnessing had a 
 marked eflfect upon L'Hereux ; he strained and hauled with 
 a persistency and vigour which I feared must prove fatal to 
 the permanency of his tail in that portion of his body in which 
 nature had located it, but happily such was not the case, and 
 by the united efforts of all parties the summit was reached. 
 
 I only remained one day at Victoria, and the 25th of 
 November found me ae-ain en route for Edmonton. Our
 
 256 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Cree had, however, disappeared. One night when he wag 
 eating his supper with his sealping-knife — a knife, by the 
 way, with which he had taken, he informed us, three Black- 
 feet scalps — I asked him why he had come away with us 
 from Battle Biver. Because he wanted to get rid of his 
 wife, of whom he was tired, he replied. He had come off 
 without saying any thing to her. " And what will happen 
 to the wife ? " 1 asked. " Oh, she will marry another brave 
 when she finds me gone," he answered, laughing at the 
 idea. I did not enter into the previous domestic events 
 which had led to this separation, but I presume they were of 
 a nature similar to those which are not altogether unknown 
 in more civilized society, and I make no hesitation in offering 
 to our legislators the example of my friend the Cree as 
 tending to simplify the solution, or rather the </?'5solution, of 
 that knotty point, the separation of couples who, for reasons 
 best known to themselves, have ceased to love. Whether it 
 was that the Cree found in Victoria a lady suited to his 
 fancy, or whether he had heard of a war-party against the 
 Sircies, I cannot say, but he vanished during the night of 
 our stay in the fort, and we saw him no more. 
 
 As we journeyed on towards Edmonton the country main- 
 tained its rich and beaxitiful appearance, and the weather con- 
 tinued fine and mild. Every where nature had written in 
 unmistakable characters the story of the fertility of the soil 
 over which we rode — every where the eye looked upon pano- 
 ramas filled with the beauty of lake and winding river, and 
 grassy slope and undulating woodland. The whole face of the 
 country was indeed one vast park. For two days we passed 
 through this beautiful land, and on the evening of the 26th 
 November drew near to Edmonton. My party had been 
 increased by the presence of two gentlemen from Victoria 
 — a Wesleyan minister and the Hudson Bay official in
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 257 
 
 charge of tlie Company^s post at that place. Both of these 
 gentlemen had resided long in the Upper Saskatchewan, and 
 were intimately acquainted with the tribes who inhabit the 
 vast territory from the Rocky Mountains to Carlton House. 
 It was late in the evening, just one month after I had started 
 from the banks of the Red River, that I approached the high 
 palisades of Edmonton. As one who looks back at evening 
 from the summit of some lofty ridge over the long track 
 which he has followed since the morning, so now did my 
 mind travel back over the immense distance through which 
 I had ridden in twenty-two days of actual travel and in 
 thirty-three of the entire journey — that distance could not 
 have been less than 1000 miles; and as each camp scene 
 rose again before me, with its surrounding of snow and 
 storm-swept prairie and lonely clump of aspens, it seemed 
 as though something like infinite space stretched between me 
 and that far-away land which one word alone can picture, 
 that one word in which so many others centre — Home.
 
 258 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Edmonton — The Euffian Tahakooch — Feench Mission aktes — 
 Westward still — A beautiful Land — The Blackfeet — Horses 
 — ^A "Bell-ox" Soldier — A Blackfoot Speech — The Indian 
 Land — First Sight of the Eocky Mountains — The Mountain 
 House — The Mountain Assineboines — ^An Indian Trade — 
 M. LA Combe — Fire-water — A Night Assault. 
 
 Edmonton, the head-quarters of the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany's Saskatchewan trade, and the residence of a chief 
 factor of the corporation, is a larg-e five-sided fort with the 
 usual flanking bastions and hig-h stockades. It has within 
 these stockades many commodious and well-built wooden 
 houses, and difiers in the cleanliness and order of its arrange- 
 ments from the general run of trading forts in the Indian 
 country. It stands on a high level bank 100 feet above 
 the Saskatchewan River, which rolls below in a broad 
 majestic stream, 300 yards in width. Farming operations, 
 boat-building, and flour-milling are carried on extensively 
 at the fort, and a blacksmith's forge is also kept going. 
 My business with the officer in charge of Edmonton was 
 soon concluded. It principally consisted in conferring upon 
 him, by commission, the same high judicial functions 
 which I have already observed had been entrusted to me 
 before setting out for the Indian territories. There was 
 one very serious drawback, however, to the possession of 
 magisterial or other authority in the Saskatchewan, in 
 as much as there existed no means whatever of putting 
 that authority into force.
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 259 
 
 The Lord High Chancellor of England, tog-ether with 
 the Master of the Rolls and the twenty-four judges of dif- 
 ferent degrees, would be perfectly useless if placed in the 
 Saskatchewan to put in execution the authority of the 
 law. The Crees, Blaekfeet, Peagins, and Sircies would 
 doubtless have come to the conclusion that these high 
 judicial functionaries were " very great medicines ; " but 
 beyond that conclusion, which they would have drawn 
 more from the remarkable costume and head-gear worn by 
 those exponents of the law than from the possession of any 
 legal acumen, much would not have been attained. These 
 considerations somewhat mollified the feelings of disap- 
 pointment with which I now found myself face to face 
 with the most desperate set of criminals, while I was 
 utterly unable to enforce against them the majesty of my 
 commission. 
 
 First, there was the notorious Tahakooch — murderer, 
 robber, and general scoundrel of deepest dye ; then there 
 was the sister of the above, a maiden of some twenty 
 summers, who had also perpetrated the murder of two Black- 
 foot children close to Edmonton ; then there was a youthful 
 French half-breed who had killed his uncle at the settle- 
 ment of Grand Lac, nine miles to the north-west; and, 
 finally, there was my dinner companion at Saddle Lake, 
 whose crime I only became aware of after I had left that 
 locality. But this Tahakooch was a ruffian too desperate. 
 Here was one of his murderous acts. A short time previous 
 to my arrival two Sircies came to Edmonton. Tahakooch 
 and two of his brothers were camped near the fort. Taha- 
 kooch professed friendship for the Sircies, and they went to 
 his lodge. After a few days had passed the Sircies thought 
 it was time to return to their tribe. Rumour said that the 
 charms of the sister of Tahakooch had captivated either one 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 or both of them, and that she had not been insensible to 
 their admiration. Be this as it may, it was time to go ; 
 and so they prepared for the journey. An Indian will 
 travel by night as readily as by day, and it was night when 
 these men left the tent of Tahakooch. 
 
 " We will go to the fort/' said the host, " in order to get 
 provisions for your journey." 
 
 The party, three in number, went to the fort, and knocked 
 at the gate for admittance. The man on watch at the gate, 
 before unbarinng, looked from the bastion over the stock- 
 ades, to see who might be the three men who sought an 
 entrance. It was bright moonlight, and he noticed the 
 shimmer of a gun-barrel under the blanket of Tahakooch. 
 The Sircies were provided with some dried meat, and the 
 party went away. The Sircies marched first in single file, 
 then followed Tahakooch close behind them ; the three 
 formed one line. Suddenly, Tahakooch drew from beneath 
 his blanket a short double-barrelled gun, and discharged 
 both barrels into the back of the nearest Sircie. The 
 bullets passed through one man into the body of the other, 
 Villing the nearest one instantly. The leading Sircie, 
 though desperately wounded, ran fleetly along the moonlit 
 path until, faint and bleeding, he fell. Tahakooch was 
 close behind ; but the villain's hand shook, and four times 
 his shots missed the wounded wretch upon the ground. 
 Summoning up all his strength, the Sircie sprung upon his 
 assailant ; a hand-to-hand struggle ensued ; but the despe- 
 rate wound was too much for him, he grew faint in his 
 efforts, and the villain Tahakooch passed his knife into his 
 victim's body. All this took place in the same year during 
 which I reached Edmonton, and within sight of the walls 
 of the fort. Tahakooch lived only a short distance away, 
 and was a daily visitor at the fort.
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 261 
 
 But to recount the deeds of blood enacted around the 
 wooden walls of Edmonton would be to fill a volume. 
 Edmonton and Fort Pitt both stand within the war country 
 of the Crees and Blackfeet, and are consequently the scenes 
 of many conflicts between these fierce and implacable 
 enemies. Hitherto my route has led through the Cree 
 country, hitherto we have seen only the prairies and woods 
 throug-h which the Crees hunt and camp; but my wanderings 
 are yet far from their end. To the south-west, for many 
 and many a mile, lie the wide regions of the Blackfeet 
 and the mountain Assineboines ; and into these regions I am 
 about to push my way. It is a wild, lone land guarded by 
 the giant peaks of mountains whose snow-capped summits 
 lift themselves 17,000 feet above the sea level. It is the 
 birth-place of waters which seek in four mighty streams the 
 four distant oceans — the Polar Sea, the Atlantic, the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and the Pacific. 
 
 A few miles north-west of Edmonton a settlement com- 
 posed exclusively of French half-breeds is situated on the 
 shores of a rather extensive lake which bears the name of 
 the Grand Lac, or St. Albert. This settlement is presided 
 over by a mission of French Roman Catholic clergymen 
 of the order of Oblates, headed by a bishop of the same 
 order and nationality. It is a curious contrast to find in 
 this distant and strano-e land men of culture and high 
 mental excellence devoting their lives to the task of civi- 
 lizing the wild Indians of the forest and the prairie — going 
 far in advance of the settler, whose advent they have but too 
 much cause to dread. I care not what may be the form of 
 belief which the on-looker may hold — whether it be in uni- 
 son or in antagonism with that faith preached by these men ; 
 out he is only a poor semblance of a man who can behold 
 such a sight through the narrow glass of sectarian feeling.
 
 262 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 and see in it nothing but the self-interested labour of persons 
 holding opinions foreign to his own. He who has travelled 
 through the vast colonial empire of Britain — that empire 
 which covers one third of the entire habitable surface of 
 the globe and probably half of the lone lands of the world — 
 must often have met with men dwelling in the midst of 
 wildj savage peoples whom they tended with a strange 
 and mother-like devotion. If you asked who was this 
 stranger who dwelt thus among wild men in these lone 
 places^ you were told he was the French missionary ; and if 
 you sought him in his lonely hut, you found ever the same 
 surroundings, the same simple evidences of a faith which 
 seemed more than human. I do not speak from hearsay 
 or book-knowledge. I have myself witnessed the scenes 
 I now try to recall. And it has ever been the same. East 
 and West, far in advance of trader or merchant, of sailor 
 or soldier, has gone this dark-haired, fragile man, whose 
 earliest memories are thick with sunny scenes by bank of 
 Loire or vine-clad slope of Rhone or Garonne, and whose 
 vision in this life, at least, is never destined to rest again 
 upon these oft-remembered places. Glancing through a 
 pamphlet one day at Edmonton, a pamphlet which recorded 
 the progress of a Canadian Wesley an Missionary Society, I 
 read the following extract from the letter of a Western mis- 
 sionary: — "These representatives of the Man of Sin, these 
 priests, are hard-workers; summer and winter they follow 
 the camps, suffering great privations. They are indefati- 
 gable in their efforts to make converts. But their converts,^' 
 he adds, " have never heard of the Holy Ghost.'''' "The man 
 of sin''' — which of us is without it? To these French 
 missionaries at Grand Lac I was the bearer of terrible 
 tidings. I carried to them the story of Sedan, the over- 
 whelming rush of armed Germany into the heart of France
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 263 
 
 — the closing" of the high-schooled hordes of Teuton 
 savagery around Paris ; all that was hard home news to 
 hear. Fate had leant heavily upon their little congrega- 
 tion; out of 900 souls more than 300 had perished of 
 small-pox up to the date of my arrival^ and others were 
 still sick in the huts along the lake. Well might the 
 bishop and his priests bow their heads in the midst of 
 such manifold tribulations of death and disaster. 
 
 By the last day of November my preparations for further 
 travel into the regions lying west of Edmonton were com- 
 pleted^ and at midday on the 1st December I set out for 
 the Rocky Mountain House. This station^ the most western 
 and southern held by the Hudson Bay Company in the 
 Saskatchewan, is distant from Edmonton about 180 miles 
 by horse trail, and 211 miles by river. I was provided 
 with five fresh horses, two good guides, and I carried letters 
 to merchants in the United States, should fortune permit 
 me to push through the great stretch of Blackfoot country 
 lying on the northern borders of the American territory ; 
 for it was my intention to leave the Mountain House as 
 soon as possible, and to endeavour to cross by rapid marches 
 the 400 miles of plains to some of the mining cities of 
 Montana or Idaho ; the principal difficulty lay, however, in 
 the reluctance of men to come with me into the country 
 of the Blackfeet. At Edmonton only one man spoke the 
 Blackfoot tongue, and the offer of high wages failed to 
 induce him to attempt the journey. He was a splendid 
 specimen of a half-breed ; he had married a Blackfoot 
 squaw, and spoke the difficult language with fluency ; but 
 he had lost nearly all his relations in the fatal plague, and 
 his answer was full of quiet thought when asked to be my 
 guide. 
 
 " It is a work of peril/' he said^ " to pass the Blackfoot
 
 264 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 country at this season of the year ; their camps are now 
 all ' pitching ' along the foot of the mountains ; they will 
 see our trail in the snow, follow it, and steal our horses, 
 or perhaps worse still. At another time I would attempt 
 it, but death has been too heavy upon my friends, and I 
 don't feel that I can go." 
 
 It was still possible, however, that at the Mountain 
 House I might find a guide ready to attempt the journey, 
 and my kind host at Edmonton provided me with letters 
 to facilitate my procuring all supplies from his subordinate 
 officer at that station. Thus fully accoutred and prepared 
 to meet the now rapidly increasing severity of the winter, 
 I started on the 1st December for the mountains. It was 
 a bright, beautiful day. I was alone with my two re- 
 tainers ; before me lay an uncertain future, but so many 
 curious scenes had been passed in safety during the last 
 six months of my life, that I recked little of what was 
 before me, drawing a kind of blind confidence Irom the 
 thought that so much could not have been in vain. Cross- 
 ing the now fast-frozen Saskatchewan, we ascended the 
 southern bank and entered upon a rich country watered 
 with many streams and wooded with park-like clumps of 
 aspen and pine. My two retainers were first-rate fellows. 
 One spoke English very fairly : he was a brother of the 
 bright-eyed little beauty at Fort Pitt. The other, Paul 
 Foyale, was a thick, stout-set man, a good voyageur, and 
 excellent in camp. Both were noted travellers, and both 
 had suffered severely in the epidemic of the small-pox. 
 Paul had lost his wife and child, and Rowland's children 
 had all had the disease, but had recovered. As for any 
 idea about taking infection from men coming out of places 
 where that infection existed, that would have been the merest 
 foolishness; at least, Paul and Rowland thought so, and
 
 THE GEE AT LOXE LAXD. 265 
 
 as they were destined to be my close companions for some 
 days, cooking for me, tying- up my blankets, and sleeping 
 beside me, it was just as well to put a good face upon the 
 matter and trust once more to the glorious doctrine of 
 chance. Besides, they were really such good fellows, princes 
 among voi/ageurs, that, small-pox or no small-pox, they 
 were first-rate company for any ordinary mortal. For two 
 days we jogged merrily along. The Musquashis or Bears 
 Hill rose before us and faded away into blue distance 
 behind usf. After sundown on the 2nd we camped in a 
 thicket of large aspens by the high bank of the Battle 
 River, the same stream at whose mouth nearly 400 miles 
 away I had found the Crees a fortnight before. On the 
 3rd December we crossed this river, and, quitting the 
 Blackfeet trail, struck in a south-westerly direction through 
 a succession of grassy hills with partially wooded valleys 
 and small frozen lakes. A glorious country to ride over — 
 a country in which the eye ranged across miles and miles 
 of fair-lying hill and long-stretching valley ; a silent, 
 beautiful land upon which summer had stamped so many 
 traces, that December had so far been powerless to efface 
 their beauty. Close by to the south lay the country of 
 the great Blackfeet nation — that wild, restless tribe whose 
 name has been a terror to other tribes and to trader and 
 trapper for many and many a year. Who and what are 
 these wild dusky men who have held their own against 
 all comers, sweeping like a whirlwind over the arid de- 
 serts of the central continent ? They speak a tongue-dis- 
 tinct from all other Indian tribes ; they have ceremonies 
 and feasts wholly different, too, from the feasts and cere- 
 monies of other nations ; they are at war with every 
 nation that toiiches the wide circle of their boundaries ; the 
 Crows, the Flatheads, the Kootenies, the Rocky Mountain
 
 266 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 AssineboineSj the Crees, the Plain AssineboineSj the Min- 
 nitarrees, all are and have been the inveterate enemies of 
 the five confederate nations which form tog-ether the great 
 Blackfeet tribe. Long- years ag-o, when their g-reat fore- 
 father crossed the Mountains of the Setting Sun and settled 
 along the sources of the Missouri and the South Saskatche- 
 wan, so runs the legend of their old chiefs^ it came to pass 
 that a chief had three sons, Kenna, or The Blood, Pea- 
 ginou, or The Wealth, and a third who was nameless. The 
 two first were great hunters, they brought to their father^s 
 lodge rich store of moose and elk meat, and the buflPalo fell 
 before their unerring arrows ; but the third, or nameless 
 one, ever returned empty-handed from the chase, until his 
 brothers mocked him for his want of skill. One day the 
 old chief said to this unsuccessful hunter, " My son, you 
 cannot kill the moose, your arrows shun the buffalo^ the 
 elk is too fleet for your footsteps, and your brothers mock 
 you because you bring no meat into the lodge ; but see, 
 I will make you a great hunter.^'' And the old chief took 
 from the lodge-fire a piece of burnt stick, and, wetting it, he 
 rubbed the feet of his son with the blackened charcoal, and 
 he named him Sat-Sia-qua, or The Blackfeet, and evermore 
 Sat-Sia-qua was a mighty hunter, and his arrows flew 
 straight to the bufialo, and his feet moved swift in the 
 chase. From these three sons are descended the three tribes 
 of Blood, Peaginou, and Blackfeet, but in addition, for many 
 generations, two other tribes or portions of tribes have been 
 admitted into the confederacy. These are the Sircies, on 
 the north, a branch, or offshoot from the Chipwayans of the 
 Athabasca ; and the Gros Ventres, or Atsinas, on the south- 
 east, a branch from the Arrapahoe nation who dwelt along 
 the sources of the Platte. How these branches became 
 detached from the parent stocks has never been determined,
 
 TEE GREAT LONE LAND. 267 
 
 but to this day they speak the languages of their original 
 tribe in addition to that of the adopted one. The parent 
 tongue of the Sircies is harsh and guttural, that of the 
 Blackfeet is rich and musical ; and while the Sircies always 
 speak Blackfeet in addition to their own tongue, the Black- 
 feet rarely master the language of the Sircies. 
 
 War, as we have already said, is the sole toil and thought 
 of the red man's life. He has three great causes of fight : to 
 steal a horse, take a scalp, or get a wife. I regret to have to 
 write that the possession of a horse is valued before that of 
 a wife — and this has been the case for many years. " A 
 horse," writes McKenzie, " is valued at ten guns, a woman 
 is only worth one gun •/' but at that time horses were scarcer 
 than at present. Horses have been a late importation, 
 comparatively speaking, into the Indian country. They 
 travelled rapidly north from Mexico, and the prairies soon 
 became covered with the Spanish mustang, for whose pos- 
 session the red man killed his brother with singular perti- 
 nacity. The Indian to-day believes that the horse has ever 
 dwelt with him on the Western deserts, but that such is not 
 the case his own language undoubtedly tells. It is curious 
 to compare the different names which the wild men gave 
 the new-comer who was destined to work such evil among 
 them. In Cree, a dog is called " Atim," and a horse, " Mist- 
 atim,'' or the " Big Dog." In the Assineboine tongue the 
 horse is called "Sho-a-thin-ga," "Thongatch shonga," a 
 great dog. In Blackfeet, " Po-no-ka-mi-taa " signifies 
 the horse; and "Po-no-ko" means red deer, and ^^Emita," 
 a dog — the "Red-deer Dog.'' But the Sircies made the best 
 name of all for the new-comer; they called him the ''Chistli" 
 — " Chis,'^ seven, " Li," dogs — " Seven Dogs." Thus we 
 have him called the big dog, the great dog, the red-deer dog, 
 the seven dogs, and the red dog, or " It-shou-ma-shungu/'
 
 268 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 by the Gros Ventres. The dog- was their universal beast of 
 burthen, and so they multiplied the name in many ways to 
 enable it to define the superior powers of the new beast. 
 
 But a far more formidable enemy than Crow or Cree 
 has lately come in contact with the Blackfeet — an enemy 
 before whom all his stratagem, all his skill with lance 
 or arrow, all his dexterity of horsemanship is of no avail. 
 The "Moka-manus" (the Big-knives), the white men, have 
 pushed up the great Missouri River into the heart of 
 the Blackfeet country, the fire-canoes have forced their 
 way along the muddy waters, and behind them a long 
 chain of armed posts have arisen to hold in check the wild 
 roving races of Dakota and the Montana. It is a useless 
 struggle that which these Indians wage ag-ainst their latest 
 and most deadly enemy, but nevertheless it is one in which 
 the sympathy of any brave heart must lie on the side of the 
 savage. Here, at the head-waters of the great Biver Mis- 
 souri which finds its outlet into the Gulf of Mexico — here, 
 pent up against the barriers of the " Mountains of the 
 Setting Sun,'^ the Blackfeet offer a last despairing struggle 
 to the ever-increasing tide that hems them in. It is not 
 yet two years since a certain citizen soldier of the United 
 States made a famous raid against a portion of this tribe at 
 the head- waters of the Missouri. It so happened that I had 
 the opportunity of hearing this raid described from the 
 rival points of view of the Indian and the white man, and, 
 if possible, the brutality of the latter — brutality which 
 was gloried in — exceeded the relation of the former. Here 
 is the story of the raid as told me by a miner whose 
 " pal " was present in the scene. " It was a little afore day 
 when the boys came upon two redskins in a gulf near- 
 away to the Sun River'' (the Sun River flows into the 
 Missouri, and the forks lie below Beaton). " They caught
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 269 
 
 the darned red devils and strapped tliem on a horse, and 
 swore that if they didn't just lead the way to their camp 
 
 that they'd blow their b brains out ; and Jim Baker 
 
 wasn't the coon to go under if he said he'd do it — no, you 
 bet he wasn't. So the red devils showed the trail, and 
 soon the boys came out on a wide gulf, and saw down 
 below the lodges of the 'Pagans/ Baker just says, ^Now, 
 boys/ says he, ' thar's the devils, and just you go in and 
 clear them out. No darned prisoners, you know ; Uncle 
 Sam ain't agoin' to keep prisoners, I guess. No darned 
 squaws or young uns, but just kill 'em all, squaws and. all ; 
 it's them squaws what breeds 'em, and them young uns will 
 only be horse-thieves or hair-lifters when they grows up ; 
 so just make a clean shave of the hull brood.' Wall, mister, 
 ye see, the boys jist rode in among the lodges afore daylight, 
 and they killed every thing that was able to come out of the 
 tents, for, you see, the redskins had the small-pox bad, they 
 had, and a heap of them couldn't come out nohow ; so the 
 boys jist turned over the lodges and fixed them as they lay 
 on the ground. Thar was up to 170 of them Pagans wiped 
 out that mornin', and thar was only one of the boys sent 
 under by a redskin firing out at him from inside a lodge. I 
 say, mister, that Baker's a bell-ox among sodgers, you bet." 
 One month after this slaughter on the Sun River a 
 band of Peagins were met on the Bow Biver by a 
 French missionary priest, the only missionary whose 
 daring spirit has carried him into the country of these 
 redoubted tribes. They told him of the cruel loss their 
 tribe had suffered at the hands of the " Long-knives ;" but 
 they spoke of it as the fortune of war, as a thing to 
 be deplored, but to be also revenged : it was after the 
 manner of their own war, and it did not strike them as 
 brutal or cowardly; for, alas! they knew no better. But
 
 270 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 what sliall be said of these heroes — the outscourings of 
 Europe — who, under the congenial guidance of that " bell- 
 ox " soldier Jim Baker, " wiped out them Pagan redskins " ? 
 This meeting of the missionary with the Indians was in 
 Its way singular. The priest, thinking that the loss of so 
 Qiany lives would teach the tribe how useless must be a war 
 carried on against the Americans, and how its end must 
 inevitably be the complete destruction of the Indians, asked 
 the chief to assemble his band to listen to his counsel and 
 advice. They met together in the council-tent, and then 
 the priest began. He told them that " their recent loss was 
 only the beginning of their destruction, that the Long- 
 knives had countless braves, guns and rifles beyond number, 
 fleet steeds, and huge war-canoes, and that it was useless 
 for the poor wild man to attempt to stop their progress 
 through the great Western solitudes. '^ He asked them 
 " why were their faces black and their hearts heavy ? was it 
 not for their relatives and friends so lately kiUed, and would 
 it not be better to make peace while yet they could do it, 
 and thus save the lives of their remaining friends?'" 
 
 While thus he spoke there reigned a deep silence through 
 the council-tent, each one looked fixedly at the ground 
 before him ; but when the address was over the chief rose 
 quietly, and, easting around a look full of dignity, he 
 asked, " My brother, have you done, or is there aught you 
 would like yet to say to us '^" 
 
 To this the priest made answer that he had no more 
 to say. 
 
 " It is well," answered the Indian ; " and listen now to 
 what I say to you ; but first,'' he said, turning to his men, 
 "you, my brethren, you, my sons, who sit around me, if 
 there should be aught in my words from which you differ, 
 if I say one word that you would not say yourselves, stop
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 271 
 
 me, and say to this black-robe I speak witb a forked 
 tong-ue/' Then, turning again to the priest, he continued, 
 " You have spoken true, your words come straight ; the 
 Long-knives are too many and too strong for us ; their 
 guns shoot farther than ours, their big guns shoot twice " 
 (alluding to shells which exploded after they fell) ; " their 
 numbers are as the buffalo were in the days of our fathers. 
 But what of all that ? do you want us to starve on the 
 land which is ours? to lie down as slaves to the white 
 man, to die away one by one in misery and hunger ? It 
 is true that the Long-knives must kill us, but I say still, 
 to my children and to my tribe, fight on, fight on, fight 
 on ! go on fighting- to the very last man ; and let that last 
 man go on fighting too, for it is better to die thus, as a 
 brave man should die, than to live a little time and then 
 die like a coward. So now, my brethren, I tell you, as I 
 have told you before, keep fighting still. When you see 
 these men coming along the river, digging holes in the 
 ground and looking for the little bright sand" (gold), "kill 
 them, for they mean to kill you ; fight, and if it must be, 
 die, for you can only die once, and it is better to die than 
 to starve." 
 
 He ceased, and a universal hum of approval running 
 through the dusky warriors told how truly the chief had 
 spoken the thoughts of hig followers. Again he said, 
 " What does the white man want in our land ? You tell us 
 he is rich and strong, and has plenty of food to eat ; for 
 what then does he come to our land ? We have only the 
 buffalo, and he takes that from us. See the buffalo, how 
 they dwell with us ; they care not for the closeness of our 
 lodges, the smoke of our camp-fires does not fright them, the 
 shouts of our young men will not drive them away ; but 
 behold how they flee from the sight, the sound, and the
 
 272 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 smell of the white man ! Why does he take the land from 
 us ? who sent him here ? He puts up sticks, and he calls 
 the land his land, the river his river, the trees his trees. 
 Who gave him the ground, and the water, and the trees ? 
 was it the Great Spirit ? No ; for the Great Spirit gave to 
 us the beasts and the fish, and the white man comes to 
 take the waters and the ground where these fishes and 
 these beasts live — why does he not take the sky as well 
 as the ground ? We who have dwelt on tl^ese prairies ever 
 since the stars felF^ (an epoch from which the Blackfeet are 
 fond of dating their antiquity) " do not put sticks over the 
 land and say. Between these sticks this land is mine ; you 
 shall not come here or go there/^ 
 
 Fortunate is it for these Blackfeet tribes that their hunt- 
 ing grounds lie partly on British territory — from where 
 our midday camp was made on the 2nd December to the 
 boundary-line at the 49th parallel, fully 180 miles of 
 plain knows only the domination of the Blackfeet tribes. 
 Here, around this midday camp, lies spi-ead a fair and 
 fertile land; but close by, scarce half a day^s journey to 
 the south, the sandy plains begin to supplant the rich 
 grass-covered hills, and that immense central desert 
 commences to spread out those ocean-like expanses which 
 find their southern limits far down by the waters of the 
 Canadian River, 1200 miles due south of the Saskatchewan. 
 This immense central sandy plateau is the true home of the 
 bison. Here were raised for countless ages these huge 
 herds whose hollow tramp shook the solid roof of America 
 during the countless cycles which it remained unknown to 
 man. Here, too, was tlie true home of the Indian : the 
 Commanehe, the Apache, the Kio-wa, the Arapahoe, the 
 Shienne, the Crow, the Sioux, the Pawnee, the Omahaw, 
 the Mandan^ the Manatarree^ the Blackfeet, the Cree, and
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 273 
 
 the Assineboine divided between them the immense region, 
 warring and wandering through the vast expanses until 
 the white race from the East pushed their way into the 
 land, and carved out states and territories from the 
 Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. How it came to 
 pass in the building of the world that to the north of that 
 great region of sand and waste should spread out suddenly 
 the fair country of the Saskatchewan, I must leave to the 
 guess-work of other and more scientific writers ; but the 
 fact remains, that alone, from Texas to the sub-Arctic forest, 
 the Saskatchewan Valley lays its fair length for 800 miles 
 in unmixed fertility. 
 
 But we must resume our Western way. The evening of 
 the 3rd December found us crossing a succession of wooded 
 hills which divide the water system of the North from 
 that of the South Saskatchewan. These systems come so 
 close together at this region, that while my midday kettle 
 was filled with water which finds its way through Battle 
 Biver into the North Saskatchewan, that of my evening 
 meal was taken from the ice of the Pas-co-pee, or Blindman^s 
 River, whose waters seek through Red Deer River the 
 South Saskatchewan. 
 
 It was near sunset when we rode by the lonely shores of 
 the Gull Lake, whose frozen surface stretched beyond the 
 horizon to the north. Before us, at a distance of some 
 ten miles, lay the abrupt line of the Three Medicine Hills, 
 from whose gorges the first view of the great range of the 
 Rocky Mountains was destined to burst upon my sight. 
 But not on this day was I to behold that long-looked-for 
 vision. Night came quickly down upon the silent wilder- 
 ness ; and it was long after dark when we made our camps 
 by the bank of the Pas-co-pec, or Blindman^s River, and 
 turned adrift the weary horses to graze in a well-grassed 
 
 T
 
 27-4 THE GREAT LONE LANi,. 
 
 meadow lying In one of tbe curves of the river. We had 
 ridden more than sixty miles that day. 
 
 About midnig-ht a heavy storm of snow burst upon us, 
 and daybreak revealed the whole camp buried deep in snow. 
 As I threw back the blankets from my head (one always 
 lies covered up completely), the wet, cold mass struck 
 chillily upon my face. The snow was wet and sticky, and 
 therefore things were much more wretched than if the tem- 
 perature had been lower ; but Vje hot tea made matters 
 seem brighter, and about breakfast-time the snow ceased to 
 fall and the clouds began to clear away. Packing our wet 
 blankets together, we set out for the Three Medicine Hills, 
 through whose defiles our course lay; the snow was deep in 
 the narrow valleys, making travelling slower and more 
 laborious than before. It was midday when, having rounded 
 the highest of the three hills, we entered a narrow gorge 
 fringed with a fire-ravaged forest. This gorge wound through 
 the hills, preventing a far-reaching view ahead; but at 
 length its western termination was reached, and there lay 
 before me a sight to be long remembered. The great chain 
 of the Rocky Mountains rose their snow-clad sierras in 
 endless succession. Climbing one of the eminences, I gained 
 a vantage-point on the summit from which some by-gone 
 fire had swept the trees. Then, looking west, I beheld the 
 great range in unclouded glory. The snow had cleared 
 the atmosphere, the sky was coldly bright. An immense 
 plain stretched from my feet to the mountain — a plain so 
 vast that every object of hill and wood and lake lay dwarfed 
 into one continuous level, and at the back of this level, 
 beyond the pines and the lakes and the river-courses, 
 rose the giant range, solid, impassable, silent — a mighty 
 barrier rising midst an immense land, standing sentinel 
 over the plains and prairies of America, over the measure-
 
 iiiiit'iiiii' UNiiiiiifiliiiniiiaiiiiJiiiiiiii'ii' I' 'iliHill;iillliilprw,;:ii!i;is.- , ■ ; "v.i.aii'iis iiiiiii iii/.jiijiiiiiiiiiiiiMuuiii'iiiiiiuibBiin^iMiajiiiiiiiLiiiifiiiw 
 
 lililifta __.. . r.Jti,: *IL IiUlI
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 275 
 
 less solitudes of this Great Lone Land. Here, at last, lay the 
 Rocky Mountains. 
 
 Leaving- behind the Medicine Hills, we descended into the 
 plain and held our way until sunset towards the west. It was 
 a calm and beautiful evening"; far-away objects stood out sharp 
 and distinct in the pure atmosphere of these elevated regions. 
 For some hours we had lost sight of the mountains, but shortly 
 before sunset the summit of a long- ridg-e was gained, and they 
 burst suddenly into view in greater magnificence than at 
 midday. Telling my men to go on and make the camp at 
 the Medicine River, I rode through some fire-wasted forest 
 to a lofty grass-covered height which the declining sun was 
 bathing in floods of glory. I cannot hope to put into the 
 compass of words the scene which lay rolled beneath from 
 this sunset-lighted eminence; for, as I looked over the 
 immense plain and watched the slow descent of the evening 
 sun upon the frosted crest of these lone mountains, it 
 seemed as if the varied scenes of my long journey had 
 woven themselves into the landscape, filling with the music 
 of memory the earth, the sky, and the mighty panorama 
 of mountains. Here at length lay the barrier to my onward 
 wanderings, here lay the boundary to that 4000 miles of 
 unceasing travel which had carried me by so many varied 
 scenes so far into the lone land ; and other thoughts were 
 not wanting. The peaks on which I gazed were no 
 pigmies; they stood the culminating monarchs of the 
 mighty range of the Rocky Mountains. From the estuary 
 of the Mackenzie to the Lake of Mexico no point of the 
 American continent reaches nigher to the skies. That 
 eternal crust of snow seeks in summer widely-severed 
 oceans. The Mackenzie, the Columbia, and the Saskatche- 
 wan spring from the peaks whose teeth-like summits lie 
 grouped from this spot into the compass of a single glance. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE GKEAT LOXE LAND. 
 
 The clouds that cast their moisture upon this long line 
 of upheaven rocks seek ag-ain the ocean which gave them 
 birth in its far-separated divisions of Atlantic, Pacific, and 
 Arctic. The sun sank slowly behind the range and dark- 
 ness began to fall on the immense plain, but aloft on the 
 topmost edge the pure white of the jagged crest-line 
 glowed for an instant in many-coloured silver, and then 
 the lonely peaks grew dark and dim. 
 
 As thus I watched from the silent hill-top this great 
 mountain-chain, whose summits slept in the glory of the 
 sunset, it seemed no stretch of fancy which made the red 
 man place his paradise beyond their golden peaks. The 
 " Mountains of the Setting Sun,'' the "Bridge of the World," 
 thus he has named them, and beyond them the soul first 
 catches a glimpse of that mystical land where the tents are 
 pitched midst everlasting verdure and countless herds and 
 the music of ceaseless streams. 
 
 That night there came a frost, the first of real severity that 
 had fallen upon us. At daybreak next morning, the 5th De- 
 cember, my thermometer showed 22° below zero, and, in spite 
 of buffalo boots and moose " mittaines,-" the saddle proved a 
 freezing affair ; many a time I got down and trotted on in 
 front of my horse until feet and hands, cased as they were, 
 began to be felt again. But the morning, though piercingly 
 cold, was bright with sunshine, and the snowy range was 
 lighted up in many a fair hue, and the contrasts of pine 
 wood and snow and towering wind-swept cliff showed in 
 rich beauty. As the day wore on we entered the pine 
 forest which stretches to the base of the mountains, and 
 emerged suddenly upon the high banks of the Saskatchewan. 
 The river here ran in a deep, wooded valley, over the 
 western extremity of which rose the Rocky Mountains ; the 
 windings of the river showed distinctly from the height on
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 277 
 
 which we stood; and in mid-distance the light blue smoke 
 of the Mountain House curled in fair contrast from amidst 
 a mass of dark g-reen pines. 
 
 Leaving- my little party to get my baggage across the 
 Clear Water E-iverj I rode on ahead to the fort. While 
 j-et a long way off we had been descried by the watchful 
 eyes of some Rocky Mountain Assineboines, and our 
 arrival had been duly telegraphed to the officer in charge. 
 As usualj the excitement was intense to know what 
 the strange party could mean. The denizens of the 
 place looked upon themselves as closed up for the winter, 
 and the arrival of a party with a baggage-cart at such a time 
 betokened something unusual. Nor was this excitement at 
 all lessened when in answer to a summons from the opposite 
 bank of the Saskatchewan I announced my name and place 
 of departure. The river was still open, its rushing waters 
 had resisted so far the efforts of the winter to cover them 
 up, but the ice projected a considerable distance from either 
 shore ; the open water in the centre was, however, shallow, 
 and when the rotten ice had been cut away on each side I 
 was able to force my horse into it. In he went with a great 
 splash, but he kept his feet nevertheless ; then at the other 
 side the people of the fort had cut away the ice too, and 
 again the horse scrambled safely up. The long ride to the 
 West was over ; exactly forty-one days earlier I had left 
 Red River, and in twenty-seven days of actual travel I had 
 ridden 1180 miles. 
 
 The Rocky Mountain House of the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany stands in a level meadow which is clear of trees, 
 although dense forest lies around it at some little dis- 
 tance. It is indifferently situated with regai-d to the 
 Indian trade, being too far from the Plain Indians, who 
 seek in the American posts along the Missouri a nearer
 
 278 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 and more profitable exchange for their goods; while the 
 wooded district in which it lies produces furs of a second- 
 class quality, and has for years been deficient in game. The 
 neighbouring forest, however, supplies a rich store of the 
 white spruce for boat-building, and several full-sized 
 Hudson Bay boats are built annually at the fort. Coal 
 of very fair quality is also plentiful along the river banks, 
 and the forge glows with the ruddy light of a real coal fire 
 — a friendly sight when one has not seen it during many 
 months. The Mountain House stands within the limits of 
 the E-ocky Mountain Assineboines, a branch of the once 
 famous Assineboines of the Plains whose wars in times not 
 very remote made them the terror of the prairies which lie 
 between the middle Missouri and the Saskatchewan. The 
 Assineboines derive their name, which signifies "stone- 
 heaters,^^ from a custom in vogue among them before the 
 advent of the traders into their country. Their manner of 
 boiling meat was as follows : a round hole was scooped in 
 the earth, and into the hole was sunk a piece of raw hide ; 
 this was filled with water, and the buffalo meat placed in it, 
 then a fire was lighted close by and a number of round stones 
 made red hot ; in this state they were dropped into, or held 
 in, the water, which was thus raised to boiling temperature 
 and the meat cooked. When the white man came he sold 
 his kettle to the storue-heaters, and henceforth the practice 
 disappeared, while the name it had given rise to remained — 
 a name which long after the final extinction of the tribe 
 will still exist in the River Assineboine and its surrounding-s. 
 Nothing testifies more conclusively to the varied changes 
 and vicissitudes of Indian tribes than the presence of this 
 branch" of the Assineboine nation in the pine forests of the 
 Rocky Mountains. It is not yet a hundred years since the 
 "Ossinepoilles^^ were found by one of the earliest traders
 
 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 279 
 
 inhabiting" the country between the head of the Pasquayah 
 or Saskatchewan and the country of the Sioux, a stretch 
 of territory fully 900 miles in length. 
 
 Twenty years later they still were numerous along- the 
 whole line of the North Saskatchewan, and their lodges 
 were at intervals seen along a river line of 800 miles in 
 length, but even then a great change had come upon them. 
 In 1780 the first epidemic of small-pox swept over the 
 Western plains, and almost annihilated the powerful Ass ine- 
 boines. The whole central portion of the tribe was destroyed, 
 but the outskirting portions drew together and again 
 made themselves a terror to trapper and trader. In 1821 
 they were noted for their desperate forays, and for many 
 years later a fierce conflict raged between them and the 
 Blackfeet ; under the leadership of a chief still famous in 
 Indian story — Tchatka, or the " Left-handed ;" they for a 
 longtime more than held their own against these redoubtable 
 warriors. Tchatka was a medicine-man of the first order, 
 and by the exercise of his superior cunning and dream 
 power he was implicitly relied on by his followers ; at length 
 fortune deserted him, and he fell in a bloody battle with 
 the Gros Ventres near the Knife E-iver, a branch of the 
 Missouri, in 1837. About the same date small-pox again 
 swept the tribe, and they almost disappeared from the 
 prairies. The Crees too pressed down from the North and 
 East, and occupied a great portion of their territory ; the 
 relentless Blackfeet smote them hard on the south-west 
 frontier; and thus, between foes and disease, the Assineboinen 
 of to-day have dwindled down into far-scattered remnants 
 of tribes. Warned by the tradition of the frightful losses; 
 of earlier times from the ravages of small-pox, the Assine- 
 boines this year kept far out in the great central prairie 
 along the coteau, and escaped the infection altogether^ but
 
 280 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 their cousins, the Rocky Mountain Stonies, were not so for- 
 tunate, they lost some of their bravest men during the pre- 
 ceding summer and autumn. Even under the changed 
 circumstances of their present lives, dwelling amidst the 
 forests and rocks instead of in the plains and open country, 
 these Assineboines of the Mountains retain many of the 
 better characteristics of their race ; they are brave and skil- 
 ful men, good hunters of red deer, moose, and big horn, 
 and are still held in dread by the Blackfeet, who rarely 
 venture into their country. They are well acquainted with 
 the valleys and passes through the mountains, and will 
 probably take a horse over as rough ground as any men in 
 creation. 
 
 At the ford on the Clear Water River, half a mile from 
 the Mountain House, a small clump of old pine-trees 
 stands on the north side of the stream. A few years ago 
 a large band of Blood Indians camped round this clump 
 of pines during a trading expedition to the Mountain 
 House. They were under the leadership of two young 
 chiefs, brothers. One evening a dispute about some trifling 
 matter arose, words ran high, there was a flash of a scalping- 
 knife, a plunge, and one brother reeled back with a fearful 
 gash in his side, the other stalked slowly to his tent and 
 sat down silent and impassive. The wounded man loaded 
 his gun, and keeping the fatal wound closed together with 
 one hand walked steadily to his brother^s tent j pulling back 
 the door-casing, he placed the muzzle of his gun to the 
 heart of the man who sat immovable all the time, and shot 
 him dead, then, removing his hand from his own mortal 
 wound, he fell lifeless beside his brother's body. They 
 buried the two brothers in the same grave by the shadow of 
 the dark pine-trees. The band to which the chiefs belonged 
 broke up and moved away into the great plains — the reckoning
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 281 
 
 of blood had been paid, and tbe account was closed. Many- 
 tales of Indian war and reveng-e could I tell — tales gleaned 
 from trader and missionary and voyageur, and told by 
 camp-fire or distant trading post, but there is no time 
 to recount them now, a long period of travel lies before me 
 and I must away to enter upon it ; the scattered thread 
 must be gathered up and tied together too quickly, perhaps, 
 for the success of this wandering story, but not an hour too 
 soon for the success of another expedition into a still farther 
 and more friendless region. Eight days passed pleasantly 
 at the Mountain House ; rambles by day into the neigh- 
 bouring hills, stories of Indian life and prairie scenes told 
 at the evening fire filled up the time, and it was near 
 mid-December before I thought of moving my quarters. 
 
 The Mountain Houseis perhaps the most singular specimen 
 of an Indian trading post to be found in the wide territory 
 of the Hudson Bay Company. Every precaution known 
 to the traders has been put in force to prevent the possibility 
 of surprise during " a trade." Bars and bolts and places 
 to fire down at the Indians who are trading abound in 
 every direction; so dreaded is the name borne by the Black- 
 feet, that it is thus their trading post has been constructed. 
 Some fifty years ago the Company had a post far south on 
 the Bow River in the very heart of the Blackfeet country. 
 Despite of all precautions it was frequently plundered and 
 at last burnt down by the Blackfeet, and since that date 
 no attempt has ever been made to erect another fort in 
 their country. 
 
 Still, I believe the Blackfeet and their confederates are 
 not nearly so bad as they have been painted, those among 
 the Hudson Bay Company who are best acquainted with 
 them are of the same opinion, and, to use the words of Pe- 
 to-pee, or the Perched Eagle, to Dr. Hector in 1857, '^We
 
 282 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 see but little of the white man/' he said, "and our young men 
 do not know how to behave ; but if you come among- us, the 
 chiefs will restrain the young men, for we have power over 
 them. But look at the Crees, they have long lived in the 
 company of white men, and nevertheless they are just 
 like dogs, they try to bite when your head is turned — they 
 have no manners ; but the Blaekfeet have large hearts and 
 they love to show hospitality/'' Without going the length 
 of Pe-to-pee in this estimate of the virtues of his tribe, I am 
 still of opinion that under proper management these wild 
 wandering men might be made trusty friends. We have 
 been too much inclined to believe all the bad things said of 
 them by other tribes, and, as they are at war with every 
 nation around them, the wickedness of the Blaekfeet has 
 grown into a proverb among men. But to go back to the 
 trading house. When the Blaekfeet arrive on a trading 
 visit to the Mountain House they usually come in large 
 numbers, prepared for a brush with either Crees or Stonies. 
 The camp is fo"rmed at some distance from the fort, and 
 the braves, having piled their robes, leather, and provisions 
 on the backs of their wives or their horses, approach in long 
 cavalcade. The officer goes out to meet them, and the gates 
 are closed. Many speeches are made, and the chief, to 
 show his "big heart,^"* usually piles on top of a horse 
 a heterogeneous mass of buffalo robes, peramican, and 
 dried meat, and hands horse and all he carries over to the 
 trader. After such a present no man can possibly enter- 
 tain for a moment a doubt upon the subject of the big- 
 heartedness of the donor, but if, in the trade which ensues 
 after this present has been made, it should happen that fifty 
 horses are bought by the Company, not one of all the band 
 will cost so dear as that which demonstrates the large- 
 heartedness of the brave.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 283 
 
 Money-values are entirely unknown in these trades. The 
 values of articles are computed by " skins /^ for instance^ a 
 horse will be reckoned at 60 skins; and these 60 skins will be 
 given thus : a gun, 15 skins; a capote, 10 skins ; a blanket, 
 10 skins; ball and powder, 10 skins; tobacco, 15 skins — 
 total, 60 skins. The Bull Ermine, or the Four Bears, or the 
 Red Daybreak, or whatever may be the brave^s name, hands 
 over the horse, and gets in return a blanket, a gun, a 
 capote, ball and powder, and tobacco. The term " skin " is 
 a very old one in the fur trade; the original standard, 
 the beaver skin — or, as it was called, " the made beaver^'' — 
 was the medium of exchange, and every other skin and 
 article of trade was graduated upon the scale of the beaver ; 
 thus a beavei*, or a skin, was reckoned equivalent to 1 mink 
 skin, one marten was equal to 2 skins, one black fox 20 
 skins, and sO on ; in the same manner, a blanket, a capote, a 
 gun, or a kettle had their different values in skins. This 
 being explained, we will now proceed with the trade. 
 Sapoomaxica, or the Big Crowds Foot, having demonstrated 
 the bigness of his heart, and received in return a tangible 
 proof of the corresponding size of the trader^s, addresses his 
 braves, cautioning them against violence or rough behaviour 
 — the braves, standing ready with their peltries, are in a 
 high state of excitement to begin the trade. Within the fort 
 all the preparations have been completed, communication 
 cut off between the Indian room and the rest of the buildings, 
 guns placed up in the loft overhead, and men all get ready 
 for any thing that might turn up; then the outer gate is 
 thrown open, and a large throng enters the Indian room. 
 Three or four of the first-comers are now admitted through 
 a narrow passage into the trading-shop, from the shelves of 
 which most of the blankets, red cloth, and beads have been 
 removed, for the red man brought into the presence of so
 
 284 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 much finery would unfortunately behave very much after 
 the manner of a hungry boy put in immediate juxtaposition 
 to bath-buns, cream-cakes, and jam-fritters, to the com- 
 plete collapse of profit upon the trade to the Hudson 
 Bay Company. The first Indians admitted hand in their 
 peltries through a wooden grating, and receive in exchange 
 so many blankets, beads, or strouds. Out they go to the 
 large hall where their comrades are anxiously awaiting 
 their turn, and in rush another batch, and the doors are 
 locked again. The reappearance of the fortunate braves 
 with the much-coveted articles of finery adds immensely 
 to the excitement. What did they see inside ? " Oh, not 
 much, only a few dozen blankets and a few guns, and a 
 little tea and sugar ;'^ this is terrible news for the outsiders, 
 and the crush to get in increases tenfold, under the belief that 
 the good things will all be gone. So the trade progresses, 
 until at last all the peltries and provisions have changed 
 hands, and there is nothing more to be traded; but some- 
 times things do not run quite so smoothly. Sometimes, 
 when the stock of pemmican or robes is small, the braves ob- 
 ject to see their "pile" go for a little parcel of tea or sugar. 
 The steelyard and weighing-balance are their especial 
 objects of dislike. " What for you put on one side tea or 
 sugar, and on the other a little bit of iron ?^' they say; " we 
 don^t know what that medicine is — but, look here, put on 
 one side of that thing that swings a bag of pemmican, and 
 put on the other side blankets and tea and sugar, and then, 
 when the two sides stop swinging, you take the bag of 
 pemmican and we will take the blankets and the tea : that 
 would be fair, for one side will be as big as the other.'" 
 This is a very bright idea on the part of the Four 
 Bears, and elicits universal satisfaction all round. Four 
 Bears and his brethren are, however, a little bit put out of
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 285 
 
 conceit when the trader observes, "Well, let be as you 
 say. We will make the balance swing level between the 
 bag" of pemmican and the blankets, but we will carry out the 
 idea still further. You will put your marten skins and 
 your otter and fisher skins on one side, I will put ag-ainst 
 them on the other my blankets, and my gun and ball and 
 powder ; then, when both sides are level, you will take the 
 ball and powder and the blankets, and I will take the 
 marten and the rest of the fine furs." This proposition 
 throws a new light upon the question of weighing-machines 
 and steelyards, and, after some little deliberation, it is 
 resolved to abide by the old plan of letting the white trader 
 decide the weight himself in his own way, for it is clear 
 that the steelyard is a great medicine which no brave 
 can understand, and which can only be manipulated by 
 a white medicine-man. 
 
 This white medicine-man was in olden times a terrible 
 demon in the eyes of the Indian. His power reached far 
 into the plains ; he possessed three medicines of the very 
 highest order : his heart could sing, demons sprung from 
 the light of his candle, and he had a little box stronger 
 than the strongest Indian. When a large band of the 
 Blackfeet would assemble at Edmonton, years ago, the 
 Chief Factor would wind up his musical box, get his magic 
 lantern ready, and take out his galvanic battery. Im- 
 parting with the last-named article a terrific shock to the 
 frame of the Indian chief, he would warn him that far out 
 in the plains he could at will inflict the same medicine upon 
 him if he ever behaved badly. " Look," he would say, 
 " now my heart beats for you," then the spring of the little 
 musical box concealed under his coat would be touched, and 
 lo! the heart of the white trader would sing with the strength 
 of his love for the Blackfeet. " To-morrow I start to cross
 
 286 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 the mountains against the Nez Perces/' a chief would say, 
 " what says my white brother, don't he dream that my arm 
 will be strong- in battle, and that the scalps and horses of 
 the Nez Perces will be ours?" "I have dreamt that you 
 are to draw one of these two little sticks which I hold in 
 my hand. If you draw the right one, your arm will be 
 strong, your eye keen, the horses of the Nez Perces will be 
 yours ; but, listen, the fleetest horse must come to me; you 
 Avill have to give me the best steed in the band of the Nez 
 Perces. Woe betide you if you should draw the wrong 
 stick ! " Trembling with fear, the Blackfoot would approach 
 and draw the bit of wood. " My brother, you are a great 
 chief, you have drawn the right stick — your fortune is 
 assured, go." Three weeks later a magnificent horse, the 
 pride of some Nez Perce chief on the lower Columbia, would 
 be led into the fort on the Saskatchewan, and when next 
 the Blackfoot chief came to visit the white medicine-man a 
 couple of freshly taken scalps would dangle from his spear- 
 shaft. 
 
 In former times, when rum was used in the trade, the most 
 frightful scenes were in the habit of occurring in the Indian 
 room. The fire-water, although freely diluted with water 
 soon reduced the assemblage to a state of wild hilarity, 
 quickly followed by stupidity and sleep. The fire-water for 
 the Crees was composed of three parts of water to one of 
 spirit, that of the Blackfeet, seven of water to one of spirit, 
 but so potent is the power which alcohol in any shape 
 exercises over the red man, that the Blackfeet, even upon 
 his well-diluted liquor, was wont to become helplessly in- 
 toxicated. The trade usually began with a present of fire- 
 water all round — then the business went on apace. Horses, 
 robes, tents, provisions, all would be proffered for one more 
 drink at the beloved poison. Nothing could exceed the
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LiiND. • 287 
 
 excitement inside the tent, except it was the excitement 
 outside. There the anxious crowd could only learn by 
 hearsay what was going" on within. Now and then a brave, 
 with an amount of self-abneg-ation worthy of a better cause, 
 would issue from the tent with his cheeks distended and 
 his mouth full of the fire-water, and going* along the ranks 
 of his friends he would squirt a little of the liquor into the 
 open mouths of his less fortunate brethren. 
 
 But things did not always go so smoothly. Knives 
 were wont to flash, shots to be fired — even now the walls of 
 the Indian rooms at Fort Pitt and Edmonton show many 
 traces of bullet marks and knife hacking done in the wild 
 fury of the intoxicated savage. Some ten years ago this 
 most baneful distribution was stopped by the Hudson Bay 
 Company in the Saskatchewan district, but the free 
 traders still continued to employ alcohol as a means of 
 acquiring the furs belonging to the Indians. I was the 
 bearerof anOrder in Council from the Lieutenant-Governor 
 prohibiting, under heavy penalties, the sale, distribution, or 
 possession of alcohol, and this law, if hereafter enforced, 
 will do much to remove at least one leading source of Indian 
 demoralization. 
 
 The universal passion for dress is strangely illustrated in 
 the Western Indian. His ideal of perfection is the English 
 costume of some forty years ago. The tall chimney-pot 
 hat with round narrow brim, the coat wdth high collar 
 going up over the neck, sleeves tight-fitting, waist narrow. 
 All this is perfection, and the chief who can array himself 
 in this ancient garb struts out of the fort the envy and 
 admiration of all beholders. Sometimes the tall felt 
 chimney-pot is graced by a large feather which has done 
 duty in the turban of a dowager thirty years ago in Eng- 
 land. The addition of a little gold tinsel to the coat
 
 288 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 collar is of considerable consequence, but the presence 
 of a netlier garment is not at all requisite to the 
 completeness of the general get-up. For this most ridicu- 
 lous-looking costume a Blackfeet chief will readily ex- 
 change his beautifully-dressed deerskin Indian shirt — 
 embroidered with porcupine quills and ornamented with the 
 raven locks of his enemies — his head-dress of ermine skins, 
 his flowing buffalo robe : a dress in which he looks every 
 inch a savage king for one in which he looks every inch a 
 foolish savage. But the new dress does not long survive— 
 bit by bit it is found unsuited to the wild work which its 
 owner has to perform ; and although it never loses the 
 high estimate originally set upon it, it, nevertheless, is 
 discarded by virtue of the many inconveniences arising out 
 of running buffiilo in a tall beaver, or fighting in a tail- 
 coat against Crees. 
 
 During the days spent in the Mountain House I enjoyed 
 the society of the most enterprising and best informed 
 missionary in the Indian countries — M. la Combe. This 
 gentleman, a native of Lower Canada, has devoted himself 
 for more than twenty years to the Blackfeet and Crees of 
 the far -West, sharing their sufferings, their hunts, their 
 summer journeys, and their winter camps — sharing even, 
 unwillingly, their war forays and night assaults. The 
 devotion which he has evinced towards these poor wild 
 warriors has not been thrown away upon them, and Pere 
 la Combe is the only man who can pass and repass from 
 Blackfoot camp to Cree camp with perfect impunity when 
 these long-lasting enemies are at war. On one occasion he 
 was camped with a small party of Blackfeet south of the 
 Red Deer Biver. It was night, and the lodges were silent 
 and dark, all save one, the lodge of the chief, who had 
 invited the black-robe to his tent for the night and was
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 289 
 
 conversing with him as they lay on the buffalo robes, while 
 the fire in the centre of the lodge burned clear and bright. 
 Every thing was quiet, and no thought of war-party or 
 lurking enemy was entertained. Suddenly a small dog 
 put his head into the lodge. A dog is such an ordinary and 
 inevitable nuisance in the camp of the Indians, that the 
 missionary never even noticed the partial intrusion. Not 
 so the Indian ; he hissed out, " It is a Cree dog. We are 
 surprised ! run \" then, catching his gun in one hand and 
 dragging his wife by the other, he darted from his tent 
 into the darkness. Not one second too soon, for instantly 
 there crashed through the leather lodge some score of 
 bullets, and the wild war-whoop of the Crees broke forth 
 through the sharp and rapid detonation of many muskets. 
 The Crees were upon them in force. Darkness, and the 
 want of a dashing leader on the part of the Crees, saved 
 the Blackfeet from total destruction, for nothing could 
 have helped them had their enemies charged home ; but 
 as soon as the priest had reached the open — which he did 
 when he saw how matters stood — he called loudly to the 
 Blackfeet not to run, but to stand and return the fire of 
 their attackers. This timely advice checked the onslaught of 
 the Crees, who were in numbers more than sufficient to make 
 an end of the Blackfeet party in a few minutes. Mean- 
 time, the Blackfeet women delved busily in the earth 
 with knife and finger, while the men fired at random into 
 the darkness. The lighted, semi-transparent tent of the 
 chief had given a mark for the guns of the Crees ; but that 
 was quickly overturned, riddled with balls ; and although 
 the Crees continued to fire without intermission, their shots 
 generally went high. Sometimes the Crees would charge 
 boldly up to within a few leet of their enemies, then fire 
 and rush back again, yelling all the time, and taunting 
 
 u
 
 290 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 their enemies. The pere spent the night in attending to 
 the wounded Blackfeet. When day dawned the Crees 
 drew aff to count their losses ; but it was afterwards 
 ascertained that eighteen of their braves had been killed or 
 wounded, and of the small party of Blackfeet twenty had 
 fallen — but who cared ? Both sides kept their scalps, and 
 that was every thing. 
 
 This battle served not a little to increase the reputation 
 in which the missionary was held as a " great medicine- 
 man/^ The Blackfeet ascribed to his '^ medicine ^^ what was 
 really due to his pluck ; and the Crees, when they learnt 
 that he had been with their enemies during the figbt, at 
 once found in that fact a satisfactory explanation for the 
 want of courage they had displayed. 
 
 But it is time to quit the Mountain House, for winter 
 has run on into mid-December, and 1500 miles have yet 
 to be travelled, but not travelled towards the South. The 
 most trusty guide, Piscan Munro, was away on the plains ; 
 and as day after day passed by, making the snow a little 
 deeper and the cold a little colder, it was evident that the 
 passage of the 400 miles intervening between the Mountain 
 House and the nearest American Fort had become almost 
 an impossibility.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 291 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Eastward — A beautiful Liget. 
 
 On the 12th of December I said '^ Good-bye ^' to my 
 friends at the Mountain House^ and, crossing the now 
 ice-bound torrent of the Saskatchewan, turned my steps, 
 for the first time during many months, towards the East. 
 With the same two men, and eight horses, I passed 
 quickly through the snow-covered country. One day later 
 I looked my last look at the far-stretcliing range of the 
 Rocky Mountains from the lonely ridges of the Medicine 
 Hills. Henceforth there would be no mountains. That 
 immense region through which I had travelled — from 
 Quebec to these Three Medicine Hills — has not a single 
 mountain ridge in its long oOOO miles; woods, streams, 
 and mighty rivers, ocean-lakes, rocks, hills, and prairies, 
 but no mountains, no rough cloud-seeking summit on 
 which to rest the eye that loves the bold outline of peak 
 and precipice. 
 
 " Ah ! doctor, dear," said an old Highland woman, 
 dying in the Red River Settlement long years after she 
 had left her Highland home — ''Ah! doctor, deai-, if I 
 could but see a wee bit of a hill, I think I might get well 
 again." 
 
 Camped that night near a beaver lodge on the Pas-co-pe, 
 the cciversation turned upon the mountains we had just 
 left. 
 
 02
 
 292 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 "Are they tlie greatest mountains in the world ?" asked 
 Paul Foyale. 
 
 " 'No, there are others nearly as Vig ag-ain." 
 
 "Is the Company there^ too?^^ ag'ain inquired the 
 faithful Paul. 
 
 I was obliged to admit that the Company did not exist 
 in the country of these very big- mountains, and I rather 
 fear that the admission somewhat detracted from the 
 altitude of the Himalayas in the estimation of my 
 hearers. 
 
 About an hour before daybreak on the 16th of December 
 a very remarkable lig-ht was visible for some time in the 
 zenith. A central orb, or heart of red and crimson 
 lig-htj became suddenly visible a little to the north of the 
 zenith ; around this most luminous centre was a great ring 
 or circle of bright lig'ht, and from this outer band there 
 flashed innumerable rays far into the surrounding darkness. 
 As I looked at it, my thoughts travelled far away to the 
 proud city by the Seine. Was she holding herself bravely 
 against the German hordes ? In olden times these weird 
 lights of the sky were suj^posed only to flash forth when 
 " kings or heroes '' fell. Did the sky mirror the earth, 
 even as the ocean mirrors the sky ? While I looked at the 
 gorgeous spectacle blazing above me, the great heart of 
 France was red with the blood of her sons, and from the 
 circles of the German league there flashed the glare of 
 cannon round the doomed but defiant city.
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I STAET moM Edmonton with Dogs — DoG-TKAVELLrNG — The Cabri 
 Sack — A cold Day — Victoria — ■" Sent to Eome " — Reach Fort 
 Pitt — The blind Oree — A Feast or a Famine — Death of Pe- 
 na-koam the Blackfoot. 
 
 I WAS now making my way back to Edmonton, with the 
 intention of there exchang-ing- my horses for dogs, and 
 then endeavouring to make the return journey to Red 
 River upon the ice of the River Saskatchewan. Dog- 
 travelling was a novelty. The cold had more than reached 
 the limit at which the saddle is a safe mode of travel, and 
 the horses suffered so much in pawing away the snow to 
 get within reach of the grass lying underneath, that I 
 longed to exchange them for the train of dogs, the painted 
 cariole, and little baggage-sled. It took me four days to 
 complete the arrangements necessary for my new journey ; 
 and, on the afternoon of the 20th December, I set out upon 
 a long journey, with dogs, down the valley of the Saskatche- 
 wan. I little thought then of the distance before me ; of the 
 intense cold through which I was destined to travel during 
 two entire months of most rigorous winter ; how day by day 
 the frost was to harden, the snow to deepen, all nature to 
 sink more completely under the breath of the ice-king. 
 And it was well that all this was hidden from me at the 
 time, or perhaps I should have been tempted to remain 
 during the winter at Edmonton, until the spring had set 
 free once more the rushins^ waters of the Saskatchewan.
 
 294 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Behold me then on the 20th of December starting from 
 Edmonton with three trains of dogs — one to carry myself, 
 the other two to drag provisions, baggage, and blankets 
 and all the usual paraphernalia of winter travel. The cold 
 which, with the exception of a few nights^ severe frost, had 
 been so long delayed now seemed determined to atone fo. 
 lost time by becoming suddenly intense. On the night of 
 the 21st December we reached, just at dusk, a magnificent 
 clump of large pine-trees on the right bank of the river. 
 During the afternoon the temperature had fallen below 
 zero ; a keen wind blew along the frozen river, and the dogs 
 and men were glad to clamber up the steep clayey bank 
 into the thick shelter of the pine bluff, amidst whose 
 dark-green recesses a huge fire was quickly alight. While 
 here we sit in the ruddy blaze of immense dry pine 
 logs it will be well to say a few words on dogs and dog- 
 driving. 
 
 Dogs in the territories of the North-west havebut one func- 
 tion — to haul. Pointer, setter, lurcher, foxhound, greyhound, 
 Indian mongrel, miserable cur or beautiful Esquimaux, all 
 alike are destined to pull a sled of some kind or other during 
 the months of snow and ice : all are destined to howl under the 
 driver^s lash; to tug wildly at the moose-skin collar; to drag 
 until they can drag no more, and then to die. At what age 
 a dog is put to haul I could never satisfactorily ascertain, 
 but I have seen dogs doing some kind of hauling long be- 
 fore the peculiar expression of the puppy had left their 
 countenances. Speaking now with the experience of nearly 
 fifty days of dog travelling, and the knowledge of some 
 twenty different trains of dogs of all sizes, ages, and de- 
 grees, jvatchiiig them closely on the track and in the camp 
 during 1300 miles of travel, I may claim, I think, some 
 right to assert that I j^ossess no inconsiderable insight into
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 295 
 
 the habits, customs, and thoughts (for a dog thinks far 
 better than many of his masters) of the " hauling dog." 
 When I look back again upon the long list of " Whiskies/^ 
 "Brandies/"' Chocolats/' " Corbeaus/' " Tigres/' "Tete 
 Noirs/' " Cerf Volants/' " Pilots/' " Capitaines/' " Cari- 
 boos/' " Muskymotes/' " Coffees/' and " Michinassis " who 
 individually and collectively did their best to haul me and my 
 baggage over that immense waste of snow and ice, what a 
 host of sadly resigned faces rises up in the dusky light of 
 the fire ! faces seared by whip-mark and blow of stick, faces 
 mutely conscious that that master for whom the dog gives 
 up every thing in this life was treating him in a most brutal 
 manner. I do not for an instant mean to assert that these 
 dogs were not, many of them, great rascals and rank impos- 
 tors ; but just as slavery produces certain vices in the slave 
 which it would be unfair to hold him accountable for, so 
 does this perversion of the dog from his true use to that of 
 a beast of burthen produce in endless variety traits of cun- 
 ning and deception in the hauling-dog. To be a thorough 
 expert in dog-training a man must be able to imprecate 
 freely and with considerable variety in at least three diffe- 
 rent languages. But whatever number of tongues the driver 
 may speak, one is indispensable to perfection in the art, and 
 that is French : curses seem useful adjuncts in any language, 
 but curses delivered in French will get a train of dogs through 
 or over any thing. There is a good story told wliich illustrates 
 this peculiar feature in dog-training. It is said that a high 
 dignitary of the Chui'ch was once making a winter tour 
 through his missions in the North-west. The driver, out of 
 deference for his freight's profession, abstained from the use 
 of forcible language to his dogs, and the hauling was very 
 indifferently performed. Soon the train came to the foot of 
 a hill, and notwithstanding all the efforts of the driver with
 
 296 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 whip and stick the dogs were uuaLle to draw the cariole to 
 the summit. 
 
 " Oh/'' said the Church dignitary, " this is not at all as 
 good a train of dogs as the one you drove last year ; why, 
 they are unable ta pull me up this hill ! " 
 
 "No, monseigneur,^' replied the owner of the dogs, "but 
 I am driving them differently ; if you will only permit me 
 to drive them in the old way you will see how easily they 
 will pull the cariole to the top of this hill ; they do not 
 understand my new method/^ 
 
 " By all means,^^ said the bishop ; " drive them then in 
 the usual manner.^^ 
 
 Instantly there rang out a long string of " sacre chien,'' 
 " sacre diable,^^ and still more unmentionable phrases. The 
 effect upon the dogs was magical ; the cariole flew to the 
 summit ; the progress of the episcopal tour was undeniably 
 expedited, and a practical exposition was given of the poet^s 
 thought, " From seeming evil still educing good.""' 
 
 Dogs in the Hudson Bay territories haul in various 
 ways. The Esquimaux in the far-North run their dogs 
 abreast. The natives of Labrador and along the shores of 
 Hudson Bay harness their dogs by many separate lines in 
 a kind of band or pack, while in the Saskatchewan, and 
 Mackenzie Biver territories the dogs are put one after the 
 other, in tandem fashion. The usual number allowed to a 
 complete train is four, but three, and sometimes even two 
 are used. The train of four dogs is harnessed to the 
 cariole, or sled, by means of two long traces; between 
 these traces the dogs stand one after the other, the head of 
 Jne dog being about a foot behind the tail of the dog in front 
 of him. They are attached to the traces by a round collar 
 which slips on over the head and ears and then lies close on 
 the swell of the neck ; this collar buckles on each side to the
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 297 
 
 traces, which are kept from touching the ground by a back 
 band of leather buttoned under the dog's ribs or stomach. 
 This back band is generally covered with little brass bells ; 
 the collar is also hung with larger bells, and tufts of gay- 
 coloured ribbons or fox-tails are put upon it. Great pride 
 is taken in turning out a train of dogs in good style. Beads, 
 bells, and embroidery are freely used to bedizen the poor 
 brutes, and a most comical effect is produced by the ap- 
 pearance of so much finery upon the wofully frightened dog, 
 who, when he is first put into his harness, usually looks the 
 picture of fear. The fact is patent that in haiiling the dog 
 is put to a work from which his whole nature revolts, that 
 is to say the ordinary dog; with the beautiful dog of the 
 Esquimaux breed the case is very different. To haul is as 
 natural to him as to point is natural to the pointer. He 
 alone looks jolly over the work and takes to it kindly, and 
 consequently he alone of all dogs is the best and most last- 
 ing hauler ; longer than any other dog will his clean firm 
 feet hold tough over the trying ice, and although other dogs 
 will surpass him in the speed which they will maintain for 
 a few days, he alone can travel his many hundreds of miles 
 and finish fresh and hearty after all. It is a pleasure to sit 
 behind such a train of dogs ; it is a pain to watch the other 
 poor brutes toiling at their traces. But, after all, it is the 
 same with dog-driving as with every other thing ; there are 
 dogs and there are dogs, and the distance from one to the 
 other is as great as that between a Thames' barge and a 
 Cowes' schooner. 
 
 The hauling-dog^s day is a long tissue of trial. While 
 yet the night is in its small hours, and the aurora is 
 beginning to think of hiding its trembling lustre in the 
 earliest dawn, the hauling-dog has his slumber rudely 
 broken by the summons of his driver. Poor beast ! all
 
 298 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 night long he has lain curled up in the roundest of round 
 balls hard by the camp ; there^ in the lea of tree-stumps or 
 snow-drift, he has dreamt the dreams of peace and com- 
 fort. If the night has been one of storm, the fast-falling 
 flakes have added to his sense of warmth by covering him 
 completely beneath them. Perhaps, too, he will remain 
 unseen by the driver when the fatal moment comes for 
 harnessing-up. Not a bit of it. He lies ever so quiet 
 under the snow, but the rounded hillock betrays his hiding- 
 place, and he is dragged forth to the gaudy gear of bells 
 and moose-skin lying ready to receive him. Then comes 
 the start. The pine or aspen bluff is left behind, and under 
 the grey starlight we plod along through the snow. Day 
 dawns, sun rises, morning wears into midday, and it is 
 time to halt for dinner ; then on again in Indian file, as 
 before. If there is no track in the snow a man goes in 
 front on snow-shoes, and the leading dog, or " foregoer,^'' as 
 he is called, trots close behind him. If there should be a 
 track, however faint, the dog will follow it himseL ; and 
 when sight fails to show it, or storm has hidden it beneath 
 drifts, his sense of smell will enable him to keep straight. 
 Thus through the long waste we journey on, by frozen 
 lakelet, by willow copse, through pine forest, or over tree- 
 less prairie, until the winter's day draws to its close and the 
 darkening landscape bids us seek some resting-place for the 
 night. Then the hauling-dog is taken out of the harness, 
 and his day's work is at an end ; his whip-marked face 
 begins to look less rueful, he stretches and rolls in the dry 
 powdery snow, and finally twists himself a bed and goes 
 fast asleep. But the real moment of pleasure is still in 
 store for him. When our supper is over the chopping of 
 the axe on the block of pemmican, or the unloading of the 
 frozen white-fish from the provision-sled, tells him that his
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 299 
 
 is about to begin. He springs liglitly up and watches 
 eagerly these preparations for his suj)per. On the plains 
 he receives a daily ration of 2 lbs. of pemmican. In the 
 forest and lake country, where fish is the staple food, he 
 gets two large white-fish raw. He prefers fish to meat, and 
 will work better on it too. His supper is soon over ; there 
 is a short after-piece of growling and snapping at hungry 
 comrade, and then he lies down out in the snow to dream 
 that whips have been abolished and hauling is discarded for 
 ever, sleeping peacefully until morning, unless indeed some 
 band of wolves should prowl around and, scenting camp or 
 fire, howl their long chorus to the midnight skies. ' 
 
 And now, with this introductory digression on dogs, let 
 us return to our camp in the thick pine- bluff on the river 
 bank. 
 
 The night fell very cold. Between supper and bed 
 there is not much time when present cold and perspec- 
 tive early-rising are the chief features of the night and 
 morning. I laid down my buffalo robe with more care 
 than usual, and got into my sack of deer-skins with a 
 notion that the night was going to be one of unusual seve- 
 rity. My sack of deer-skins — so far it has been scarcely 
 mentioned in this journal, and yet it played no insignificant 
 part in the nightly programme. Its origin and construc- 
 tion were simply these. Before leaving Bed Biver I had 
 received from a gentleman, well known in the Hudson Bay 
 Company, some most useful suggestions as to winter travel. 
 His residence of many years in the coldest parts of Labrador, 
 and his long journey into the interior of that most wild and 
 sterile land, had made him acquainted with all the vicissitudes 
 of northern travel. Under his direction I had procured a 
 number of the skins of the common cabri, or small deer, 
 had them made into a large sack of some seven feet in
 
 300 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 length and three in diameter. The skin of this deer is very 
 light^ hut possesses, for some reason with which I am unac- 
 quainted, a power of giving great warmth to the person it 
 covers. The sack was made with the hair turned inside, 
 and was covered on the outside with canvass. To make my 
 bed, therefore, became a very simple operation : lay down a 
 buffalo robe, unroll the sack, and the thing was done. To 
 get into bed was simply to get into the sack, pull the hood 
 over one^s head, and go to sleep. Remember, there was no 
 tent, no outer covering of any kind, nothing but the trees 
 — sometimes not many of them — the clouds, or the stars. 
 
 During the journey with horses I had generally found 
 the bag too warm, and had for the most part slept on it, 
 not in it ; but now its time was about to begin, and this 
 night in the pine-bluff was to record a signal triumph for 
 the sack principle applied to shake-downs. 
 
 About three o^clock in the morning the men got up, 
 unable to sleep on account of the cold, and set the fire 
 going. The noise soon awoke me, but I lay quiet inside 
 the bag, knowing what was going on outside. Now, 
 amongst its other advantages, the sack possessed one of no 
 small value. It enabled me to tell at once on awaking what 
 the cold was doing outside ; if it was cold in the sack, or if 
 the hood was fastened down by frozen breath to the open- 
 ing, then it must be a howler outside ; then it was time 
 to get ready the greasiest breakfast and put on the thickest 
 duffel-socks and mittens. On the morning of the 22nd 
 all these symptoms were manifest; the bag wa? not warm, 
 the hood was frozen fast against the opening, and one or 
 two smooth-haired dogs were shivering close beside my feet 
 and on top of the bag. Tearing asunder the frozen mouth of 
 the sack, I got out into the open. Beyond a doubt it was 
 cold; I don^t mean cold in the ordinary manner, cold such
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 301 
 
 as you can localize to your feet^ or your fingers^ or your 
 nosGj but cold all over, crushing cold. Putting on coat and 
 moccassins as close to the fire as possible, I ran to the tree on 
 which I had hung the thermometer on the previous evening ; 
 it stood at 37° below zero at 3.30 in the morning. I had 
 slept well; the cabri sack was a very Ajax among roosts; 
 it defied the elements. Having eaten a tolerably fat break- 
 fast and swallowed a good many cups of hot tea^ we packed 
 the sleds^ harnessed the dogs, and got away from the pine 
 bluff two hours before daybreak. Oh, how biting cold it 
 was ! On in the grey snow light with a terrible wind 
 sweeping up the long reaches of the river ; nothing spoken, 
 for such cold makes men silent, morose, and savage. After 
 four homV travelling, we stopped to dine. It was only 9.30, 
 but we had breakfasted six hours before. We were some 
 time before we could make fire, but at length it was set 
 going, and we piled the dry driftwood fast upon the flames. 
 Then I set up my thermometer again; it registered 39° 
 below zero, 71° of frost. What it must have been at day- 
 break I cannot say ; but it was sensibly colder than at ten 
 o'clock, and I do not doubt must have been 45° below zero. 
 I had never been exposed to any thing like this cold before. 
 Set full in the sun at eleven o''clock, the thermometer rose 
 only to 26° below zero, the sun seemed to have lost all power 
 of warmth ; it was very low in the heavens, the day being 
 the shortest in the year; in fact, in the centre of the river 
 the sun did not show above the steep south bank, while the 
 wind had full sweep from the north-east. This portion of 
 the Saskatchewan is the farthest north reached by the 
 river in its entire course. It here runs for some distance a 
 little north of the 54th parallel of north latitude, and its 
 elevation above the sea is about 1800 feet. During the 
 whole day we journeyed on, the wind still kept dead against
 
 302 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 us, and at times it was impossible to face its terrible keen- 
 ness. The dogs began to tire out ; the ice cut their feet, 
 and the white surface was often speckled with the crimson 
 icicles that fell from their wounded toes. Out of the twelve 
 dogs composing my cavalcade, it would have been impossi- 
 ble to select four good ones. Coffee, Tete Noir, Michinass, 
 and another whose name I forget, underwent repeated 
 whalings at the hands of my driver, a half-breed from 
 Edmonton named Frazer. Early in the afternoon the 
 head of Tete Noir was reduced to shapeless pulp from 
 tremendous thrashings. Michinass, or the " Spotted One," 
 had one eye wherewith to watch the dreaded driver, and 
 Coffee had devoted so much strength to wild lurches and 
 sudden springs in order to dodge the descending whip, that he 
 had none whatever to bestow upon his legitimate toil of haul- 
 ing me. At length, so useless did he become, that he had to 
 be taken out altogether from the harness and left to his fate 
 on the river. "And this," I said to myself, " is dog-driving ; 
 this inhuman thrashing and varied cursing, this frantic 
 howling of dogs, this bitter, terrible cold is the long-talked- 
 of mode of winter travel V To say that I was disgusted and 
 stunned by the prospect of such work for hundreds of miles 
 would be only to speak a portion of what I felt. Was the 
 cold always to be so crushing ? were the dogs always to be 
 the same wretched creatures ? Fortunately, no ; but it was 
 only when I reached Victoria that night, long after dark, 
 that I learned that the day had been very exceptionally 
 severe, and that my dogs were unusually miserable ones. 
 
 As at Edmonton so in the fort at Victoria the small-pox 
 had again broken outj in spite of cold and frost the infec* 
 tion still lurked in many places, and in none more fatally 
 than in this little settlement where, during the autumn, 
 it had wrought so much havoc among the scant}' com-
 
 THE GREAT LOXE LAND. 303 
 
 munity. In this distant settlement I spent the few days 
 of Christmas; the weather had become suddenly milder, 
 although the thermometer still stood below zero. 
 
 Small-pox had not been the only evil from which 
 Victoria had suffered during- the year which was about 
 to close ; the Sircies had made many raids upon it during* 
 the summer, stealing down the sheltering banks of a 
 small creek which entered the Saskatchewan at the oppo- 
 site side, and then swimming the broad river during the 
 night and lying hidden at day in the high corn-fields 
 of the mission. Incredible though it may appear, they 
 continued this practice at a time when they were being 
 swept away by the small-pox ; their bodies were found in 
 one instance dead upon the bank of the river they had 
 crossed by swimming when the fever of the disease had been 
 at its height. Those who live their lives quietly at home, 
 who sleep in beds, and lay up when sickness comes upon 
 them, know but little of what the human frame is capable 
 of enduring if put to the test. With us, to be ill is to lie 
 down ; not so with the Indian ; he is never ill with the casual 
 illnesses of our civilization : when he lies down it is to sleep 
 for a few hours, or — for ever. Thus these Sircies had literally 
 kept the war-trail till they died. "When the corn-fields 
 were being cut around the mission, the reapers found 
 unmistakable traces of how these wild men had kept the 
 field undaunted by disease. Long black hair was found 
 where it had fallen from the head of some brave in the lairs 
 from which he had watched the horses of his enemies ; the 
 ruling passion had been strong in death. In the end, the 
 much-coveted horses were carried oif by the few survivors, 
 and the mission had to bewail the loss of some of its best 
 steeds. One, a mare belonging to the missionary himself, 
 had returned to her home after an absence of a few days.
 
 304 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 but she carried in her flank a couple of Sircie arrows. She 
 had broken away from the band, and the braves had sent 
 their arrows after her in an attempt to kill what they 
 could not keep. To add to the misfortunes of the settle- 
 ment, the buffalo were far out in the great plains ; so be- 
 tween disease, war, and famine, Victoria had had a hard 
 time of it. 
 
 In the farmyard of the mission-house there lay a curious 
 block of metal of immense weight; it was rugged, deeply 
 indented, and polished on the outer edges of the indenta- 
 tions by the wear and friction of many years. Its history 
 was a curious one. Longer than any man could say, it had 
 lain on the summit of a hill far out in the southern prairies. 
 It had been a medicine-stone of surpassing virtue among 
 the Indians over a vast territory. No tribe or portion of a 
 tribe would pass in the vicinity without paying a visit to 
 this great medicine : it was said to be increasing yearly in 
 weight. Old men remembered having heard old men say 
 that they had once lifted it easily from the ground. Now, 
 no single man could carry it. And it was no wonder that 
 this metallic stone should be a Manito-stone and an object 
 of intense veneration to the Indian ; it had come down from 
 heaven ; it did not belong to the earth, but had descended out 
 of the sky ; it was, in fact, an aerolite. Not very long before 
 my visit this curious stone had been removed from the hill 
 upon Avhich it had so long rested and brought to the 
 Mission of Victoria by some person from that place. When 
 the Indians found that it had been taken away, they were 
 loud in the expression of their regret. The old medicine- 
 men declared that its removal would lead to great misfor- 
 tunes, and that war, disease, and dearth of buffalo would 
 afflict the tribes of the Saskatchewan. This was not a 
 prophecy made after the occurrence of the plague of small-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 305 
 
 pox, for in a magazine published by the "Wesleyan Society 
 in Canada there appears a letter from the missionary, setting" 
 forth the predictions of the medicine-men a year prior to 
 my visit. The letter concludes with an expression of thanks 
 that their evil prognostications had not been attended with 
 success. But a few months later brought all the three evils 
 upon the Indians ; and never, probably, since the first trader 
 had reached the country had so many afflictions of war, 
 famine, and plague fallen upon the Crees and the Blackfeet 
 as during the year which succeeded the useless removal of 
 their Manito-stone from the lone hill-top upon which the 
 skies had cast it. 
 
 I spent the evening of Christmas Day in the house of the 
 missionary. Two of his daughters saug very sweetly to the 
 music of a small melodian. Both song and strain were sad 
 — sadder, perhaps, than the words or music could make 
 them; for the recollection of the two absent ones, whose 
 newly-made graves, covered with their first snow, lay close 
 outside, mingled with the hymn and deepened the melan- 
 choly of the music. 
 
 On the day after Christmas Day I left Victoria, with 
 three trains of dogs, bound for Fort Pitt. This time the 
 drivers were all English half-breeds, and that tongue was 
 chiefly used to accelerate the dogs. The temperature had 
 risen considerably, and the snow was soft and clammy, 
 making the " hauling " heavy upon the dogs. For my own 
 use I had a very excellent train, but the other two were of 
 the useless class. As before, the beatings were incessant, 
 and I witnessed the first example of a very common occur- 
 rence in dog-driving — I beheld the operation known as 
 " sending a dog to Eome.''^ This consists simply of striking 
 him over the head with a large stick until he falls perfectly 
 senseless to the ground ; after a little he revives, and, with 
 
 X
 
 SOQ THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 memory of the awful blows that took his consciousness 
 away full upon him, he pulls franticly at his load. Often- 
 times a dog" is " sent to Rome " because he will not allow 
 the driver to arrange some hitch in the harness ; then, while 
 he is insensible, the necessary alteration is carried out, and 
 when the dog- recovers he receives a terrible lash of the whip 
 to set him going- again. The half-breeds are a race easily 
 offended, prone to sulk if reproved; but at the risk of 
 causing delay and inconvenience I had to interfere with a 
 peremptory order that "sending to Rome" should be at 
 once discontinued in my trains. The wretched " Whisky/' 
 after his voyage to the Eternal City, appeared quite over- 
 come with what he had there seen, and continued to stagger 
 along the trail, making feeble efforts to keep straight. This 
 tendency to wobble caused the half-breeds to indulge in 
 ^mmj/ remarks, one of them calling the track a " drunken 
 trail.''^ Finally, " Whisky^ was abandoned to his fate. 
 I had never been a believer in the pluck and courage of the 
 men who are the descendants of mixed European and 
 Indian parents. Admirable as guides, unequalled as 
 voyageurS) trappers, and hunters, they nevertheless are 
 wanting in those qualities which give courage or true 
 manhood. " Tell me your friends and I will tell you what 
 you are " is a sound proverb, and in no sense more true than 
 when the bounds of man's friendships are stretched wide 
 enough to admit those dumb companions, the horse and the 
 dog. I never knew a man yet, or for that matter a woman, 
 worth much who did not like dogs and horses, and I would 
 always feel inclined to suspect a man who was shunned by 
 a dog. The cruelty so systematically practised upon dogs by 
 their half-breed drivers is utterly unwarrantable. In winter 
 the poor brutes become more than ever the benefactors of 
 man^ uniting in themselves all the services of horse and
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 307 
 
 dog" — by day they work, by night they watch, and the man 
 must be a very cur in nature who would inflict, at such a 
 time, needless cruelty upon the aniroal that renders him so 
 much assistance. 
 
 On this day, the 29th December, we made a night march 
 in the hope of reaching- Fort Pitt. For four hours we 
 walked on through the dark until the trail led us suddenly 
 into the midst of an immense band of animals, which com- 
 menced to dash around us in a high state of alarm. At 
 first we fancied in the indistinct moonlight that they were 
 buffalo, but another instant sufficed to prove them horses. 
 We had, in fact, struck into the middle of the Fort Pitt 
 band of horses, numbering some ninety or a hundred head. 
 We were, however, still a long way from the fort, and as 
 the trail was utterly lost in the confused medley of tracks 
 all round us, we were compelled to halt for the night near 
 midnight. In a small clump of willows we made a hasty 
 camp and lay down to sleep. Daylight next morning 
 showed that conspicuous landmark called the Frenchman's 
 Knoll rising north-east ; and lying in the snow close beside 
 us was poor " Whisky.^' He had follo.wed on during the 
 night from the place where he had been abandoned on the 
 previous day, and had come up again with his persecutors 
 whUe they lay asleep ; for, after all, there was one fate worse 
 than being '^sent to Rome,''' and that was being left to 
 starve. After a few hours' run we reached Fort Pitt, having 
 travelled about 150 miles in three days and a half. 
 
 Fort Pitt was destitute of fresh dogs or drivers, and conse- 
 quently a delay of some days became necessary before my 
 onward journey could be resumed. In the absence of dogs and 
 drivers Fort Pitt, however, offered small-pox to its visitors. 
 A case had broken out a few days previous to my arrival 
 impossible to trace in any way, but probably the result of 
 
 X 2
 
 308 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 some infection conveyed into the fort during the terrible 
 visitation of the autumn. I have ah'eady spoken of the 
 power which the Indian possesses of continuing the ordinary- 
 avocations of his life in the presence of disease. This power 
 he also possesses under that most terrible affliction — the 
 loss of sight. Blindness is by no means an uncommon 
 occurrence among the tribes of the Saskatchewan. The 
 blinding glare of the snow-covered plains, the sand in 
 summer, and, above all, the dense smoke of the tents, where 
 the fire of wood, lighted in the centre, fills the whole lodge 
 with a smoke which is peculiarly trying to the sight — all 
 these causes render ophthalmic affections among the Indians 
 a common misfortune. Here is the story of a blind Cx'ee 
 who arrived at Fort Pitt one day weak with starvation : — 
 From a distant camp he had started five days before, in 
 company with his wife. They had some skins to trade, so 
 they loaded their dog and set out on the march — the woman 
 led the way, the blind man followed next, and the dog 
 brought up the rear. Soon they approached a plain upon 
 which buflPalo were feeding. The dog, seeing the buffalo, 
 left the trail, and, carrying the furs with him, gave chase. 
 Away out of sight he went, until there was nothing for it but 
 to set out in pursuit of him. Telling her husband to wait in 
 this spot until she returned, the woman now started after the 
 dog. Time passed, it was growing late, and the wind swept 
 coldly over the snow. The blind man began to grow un- 
 easy ; " She has lost her way,^^ he said to himself; " I will go 
 on, and we may meet." He walked on — he called aloud, but 
 there was no answer ; go back he could not ; he knew by the 
 coldness of the air that night had fallen on the plain, but 
 day and night were alike to him. He was alone — he was 
 lost. Suddenly he felt against his feet the rustle of long 
 sedgy grass — he stooped down and found that he had
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 309 
 
 reached the margin of a frozen lake. He was tired^ and it 
 was time to rest ; so with his knife he cut a quantity of 
 long dry grass, andj making a bed for himself on the 
 margin of the lake, lay down and slept. Let us go back 
 to the woman. The dog had led her a long chase^ and it 
 was very late when she got back to the spot where she had 
 left her husband — he was gone, but his tracks in the snow 
 were visible, and she hurried after him. Suddenly the 
 wind arose, the light powdery snow began to drift in clouds 
 over the surface of the plain, the track was speedily obli- 
 terated and night was coming on. Still she followed the 
 general direction of the footprints, and at last came to the 
 border of the same lake by which her husband was lying 
 asleep, but it was at some distance from the spot. She too 
 was tired, and, making a fire in a thicket, she lay down 
 to sleep. About the middle of the night the man awoke 
 and set out again on his solitary way. It snowed all night 
 — the morning came, the day passed, the night closed 
 again — again the morning dawned, and still he wandered 
 on. For three days he travelled thus over an immense 
 plain, without food, and having only the snow wherewith to 
 quench his thirst. On the third day he walked into a 
 thicket; he felt around, and found that the timber was dry; 
 with his axe he cut down some wood, then struck a lis-ht 
 and made a fire. When the fire was alig-ht he laid his s-un 
 down beside it, and went to gather more wood ; but fate was 
 heavy against him, he was unable to find the fire which he 
 had lighted, and by which he had left his gun. He made 
 another fire, and again the same result. A third time he 
 set to work ; and now, to make certain of his getting back 
 again, he tied a line to a tree close beside his fire, and then 
 set out to gather wood. Again the fates smote him — his 
 line broke, and he had to grope his way in weary search.
 
 310 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 But chance, tired of ill-treating him so long", now stood his 
 friend — he found the first fire, and with it his gun and 
 blanket. Again he travelled on, but now his strength 
 began to fail, and for the first time his heart sank within 
 him — blind, starving, and utterly lost, there seemed no 
 hope on earth for him. " Then,^' he said, " I thought of 
 the Great Spirit of whom the white men speak, and I 
 called aloud to him, ' O Great Spirit ! have pity on me, and 
 show me the path V and as I said it I heard close by the 
 calling of a crow, and I knew that the road was not far off". 
 I followed the call ; soon I felt the crusted snow of a path 
 under my feet, and the next day reached the fort.''^ He 
 had been five days without food. 
 
 No man can starve better than the Indian — no man 
 can feast better either. For long days and nights he 
 will go without sustenance of any kind ; but see him 
 when the buffalo are near, when the cows are fat; see 
 him then if you want to know what quantity of food 
 it is possible for a man to consume at a sitting. Here 
 is one bill of fare : — Seven men in thirteen days con- 
 sumed two buffalo bulls, seven cabri, 40 lbs. of pemmi- 
 can, and a great many ducks and geese, and on the 
 last day there was nothing to eat. I am perfectly aware 
 that this enormous quantity could not have weighed less 
 than 1600 lbs. at the very lowest estimate, which would 
 give a daily ration to each man of 18 lbs. ; but, incredible as 
 this may appear, it is by no means impossible. During the 
 entire time I remained at Fort Pitt the daily ration issued 
 to each man was 10 lbs. of beef. Beef is so much richer 
 and coarser food than buffalo meat, that 10 lbs. of the 
 former would be equivalent to 151bs. or 16 lbs. of the latter, 
 and yet every scrap of that 10 lbs. was eaten by the man 
 who received it. The women got 5 lbs., and the children^
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 311 
 
 no matter how small, 3 lbs. each. Fancy a child in arms 
 getting- 3 lbs. of beef for its daily sustenance ! The old 
 Orkney men of the Hudson Bay Company servants must 
 have seen in such a ration the realization of the poet^s lines, 
 
 " O Caledonia, stern and wild ! 
 Meat nurse for a poetic child," &c. 
 
 All these people at Fort Pitt were idle, and therefore 
 were not capable of eating as much as if they had been 
 on the plains. 
 
 The wild hills that surround Fort Pitt are frequently 
 the scenes of Indian ambush and attack, and on more 
 than one occasion the fort itself has been captured by 
 the Blackfeet. The region in which Fort Pitt stands 
 is a favourite camping-ground of the Crees, and the 
 Blackfeet cannot be persuaded that the people of the 
 fort are not the active friends and allies of their enemies — 
 in fact. Fort Pitt and Carlton are looked upon by them as 
 places belonging to another company altogether from the 
 one which rules at the Mountain House and at Edmonton. 
 " If it was the same company,'^ they say, " how could they 
 give our enemies, the Crees, guns and powder ; for do they 
 not give us guns and powder too?'^ This mode of argu- 
 ment, which refuses to recognize that species of neutrality 
 so dear to the English heai-t, is eminently calculated to lay 
 Fort Pitt open to Blackfeet raid. It is only a few years since 
 the place was plundered by a large band, but the general 
 forbearance displayed by the Indians on that occasion is 
 nevertheless remarkable. Here is the story : — 
 
 One morning the people in the fort beheld a small 
 party of Blackfeet on a high hill at the opposite side 
 of the Saskatchewan. The usual flag carried by the 
 chief was waved to denote a wish to trade, and accord- 
 ingly the officer in charge pushed off in his boat, to
 
 312 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 meet and hold converse with the party. When he reached 
 the other side he found the chief and a few men drawn 
 up to receive him. 
 
 " Are there Crees around the fort ? " asked the chief- 
 " No/^ replied the trader ; " there are none with us.^* 
 '* You speak with a forked tong-ue/^ answered the 
 Blackfoot, dividing" his fing-ers as he spoke to indicate that 
 the other was speaking falsely. 
 
 Just at that moment something caught the trader's eye in 
 the bushes along the river bank ; he looked again and saw, 
 close alongside, the willows swarming with naked Blackfeet. 
 He made one spring back into his boat, and called to his men 
 to shove off; but it was too late. In an instant two hundred 
 braves rose out of the grass and willows and rushed into the 
 water ; they caught the boat and brought hor back to the 
 shore ; then, filling her as full as she would hold with men, 
 they pushed off for the other side. To put as good a face 
 upon matters as possible, the trader commenced a trade, and 
 at first the batch that had crossed, about forty in number, 
 kept quiet enough, but some of their number took the boat 
 back again to the south shore and brought over the entire 
 band ; then the wild work commenced, bolts and bars were 
 broken open, the trading-shop was quickly cleared out, and 
 in the highest spirits, laughing loudly at the glorious fun 
 they were having, the braves commenced to enter the 
 houses, ripping up the feather beds to look for guns and 
 tearing down calico curtains for finery. The men of the 
 fort were nearly all away in the plains, and the women and 
 children were in a high state of alarm. Sometimes the 
 Indians would point their guns at the women, then drag 
 them ofi" the beds on which they were sitting and rip open 
 bedding and mattress, looking for concealed weapons; but 
 no further violence was attempted, and the whole thing was
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 313 
 
 accompanied by such peals of laughter that it was evident 
 the braves had not enjoyed such a "hig-h old time^^ for a 
 very long- period. At last the chief, thinkings perhaps, 
 that things had gone quite far enough, called out, in a loud 
 voice, " Crees ! Crees ! " and, dashing out of the fort, was 
 quickly followed by the whole band. 
 
 Still in high good humour, the braves recrossed the river, 
 and, turning round on the farther shore, fired a volley to- 
 wards the fort; but as the distance was at least 500 yards, 
 this parting salute was simply as a bravado. This band 
 was evidently bent on mischief. As they retreated south to 
 their own country they met the carts belonging to the fort 
 on their way from the plains ; the men in charge ran off 
 with the fleetest horses, but the carts were all captured and 
 ransacked, and an old Scotchman, a servant of the Company, 
 who stood his ground, was reduced to a state bordering upon 
 nudity by the frequent demands of his captors. 
 
 The Blackfeet chiefs exercise great authority over their 
 braves; someof themare men of considerable natural abilities, 
 and all must be brave and celebrated in battle. To disobey 
 the mandate of a chief is at times to court instant death at his 
 hands. At the present time the two most formidable chiefs 
 of the Blackfeet nations are Sapoo-max-sikes, or "The Great 
 Crow's Claw;" and Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu, or " The Great 
 Swan.''' These men are widely difi^erent in their characters ; 
 the Crow's Claw being a man whose word once given can 
 be relied on to the death ; but the other is represented as a 
 man of colossal size and savage disposition, crafty and 
 treacherous. 
 
 During the year just past death had struck heavily 
 among the Blackfeet chiefs. The death of one of their 
 greatest men, Pe-na-koam, or " The Far-off Dawn," was 
 worthy of a great brave. When he felt that his last night
 
 314 . THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 l:ad come^ he ordered his best horse to be brought to the 
 door of the tent, and mounting- him he rode slowly around 
 the camp ; at each corner he halted and called out, in a loud 
 voice to his people, " The last hour of Pe-na-koam has 
 come ; but to his people he says. Be brave ; separate into 
 small parties, so that this disease will have less power to kill 
 you ; be strong to fight our enemies the Crees, and be able 
 to destroy them. It is no matter now that this disease has 
 come upon us, for our enemies have got it too, and they will 
 also die of it. Pe-na-koam tells his people before he dies to 
 live so that they may fight their enemies, and be strong.''^ It 
 is said that, having spoken thus, he died quietly. Upon the 
 top of a lonely hill they laid the body of their chief beneath 
 a tent hung round with scarlet cloth ; beside him they put 
 six revolvers and two American repeating rifles, and at the 
 door of his tent twelve horses were slain, so that their 
 spirits would carry him in the green prairies of the happy 
 hunting-grounds; four hundred blankets were piled around 
 as offerings to his memory, and then the tribe moved away 
 from the spot, leaving the tomb of their dead king to the 
 winds and to the wolves.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Buffalo — His Limits and favourite Grounds — Modes o? 
 Hunting — A Fight — His inevitable End — I become a Medi- 
 cine-man — Great Cold — Carlton — Family Eesponsibilities. 
 
 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 Missis- 
 sippi^ 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
 
 316 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 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 
 wandering's of the herds since the New World hasbeenknown 
 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 destruc- 
 tion 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 cojises 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 kdled 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
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 317 
 
 pushed his adventurous way into the fur regions of the 
 Norths the herds of the Saskatchewan plains began to ex- 
 perience 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 servicCj 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, some- 
 times 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 i;ntil not a living thing 
 is left ; then, when there is nothing more to kill, the
 
 318 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 cutting-up commences, and pemmican-making goes on 
 apace. 
 
 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 buf- 
 falo were plenty, and five tongues dangling to the saddle 
 told that horse, man, and rifle had not been idle. Cross- 
 ing a grassy ridge, I suddenly came in sight of three buf- 
 falo 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- 
 pouch, and then remounting rode slowly over the inter-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 319 
 
 vening 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 dis- 
 tance 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 aftei 
 such a fight, so I 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
 
 320 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 me, but now his rag-e 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 i-emember 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, ad- 
 vancing 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
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 321 
 
 Pitt and Battle River, travelling' rapidly over tlie ice down 
 the centre of the stream. The dogs were good ones, the 
 drivers well versed in their work, and although the thermo- 
 meter stood at 20° 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 ap- 
 pi'oached 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 
 
 Y
 
 322 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 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 con- 
 vulsion powder/^ being "a whale at the treatment of con- 
 vulsions." 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, however, 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 I took my departure from Battle 
 Kiver with the rej^utation 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°,
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 323 
 
 or 70° 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 againnext morning over the track- 
 less plain, thermometer at — 20° in morning, and — 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 
 dogs 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 j)emmican 
 at every meal. After four days of very arduous travel we 
 reached Carlton at sunset on the 12th January. The ther- 
 mometer had kept varying between 20° and 38° 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 ther- 
 mometer showed — 20° on the table close to my bed. At 
 half-past ten o^clock,when placed outside, facing north, it fell 
 to — 44^, 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° below zero at 
 daybreak that morning, 83° 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 veiy much longer than the trail via fort 
 
 y 2
 
 324 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 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 
 Winnipegoosis, 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 his 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, Norwegian salmon river, or more homely 
 coverside ; the retired grocer, in his snug retreat at Toot- 
 ing, 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
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 325 
 
 at his rocketers draw their instincts of pleasure from th^ 
 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 
 w^atched 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.
 
 326 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 Carlton stands on the edge of the great forest region 
 whose shores, if we may use the expression, are wasted 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 Pi*esbyterian 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 ofiicers, 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° of frost. I 
 must candidly admit to having entertained very grave feelings
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 327 
 
 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. Wins- 
 low 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 aban- 
 doned 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° 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 peiwersity 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 
 show^ed more than 60° 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
 
 328 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 — a rich and fertile landj 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 E-iver. On some low ground at the far- 
 ther 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 pota- 
 toes from Fort-a-la-Corne, eighteen miles below the forks ; 
 and with so many delicacies our supper a-la-fourchette, 
 despite a snow-storm, was a decided success.
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 329 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Great Sub- Arctic Forest — The " Forks " of the Saskat- 
 chewan — An Iroquois — Fort-a-la-Corne — News from the 
 OUTSIDE "World — All haste for Home — The solitary Wigwam 
 — Joe Miller's Death. 
 
 At the " forks " of the Saskatchewan the traveller to the 
 east enters the Great Sub-Arctic Forest. Let us look for a 
 moment at this region where the earth dwells in the per- 
 petual gloom of the pine-trees. Travelling north from the 
 Saskatchewan River at any portion of its course from 
 Carlton to Edmonton^ one enters on the second day's 
 journey this region of the Great Pine Forest. We have 
 before compared it to the shore of an ocean^ and like a 
 shore it has its capes and promontories which stretch far 
 into the sea-like prairie, the indentations caused by the fires 
 sometimes forming large bays and open spaces won from 
 the domain of the forest by the fierce flames which beat 
 against it in the dry days of autumn. Some 500 or 600 
 miles to the north this forest ends, giving place to that 
 most desolate region of the earth, the barren grounds of the 
 extreme north, the lasting home of the musk-ox and the 
 summer haunt of the reindeer ; but along the valley of the 
 Mackenzie River the wooded tract is continued close to the 
 Arctic Sea, and on the shores of the great Bear Lake a slow 
 growth of four centuries scarce brings a circumference of 
 thirty inches to the trunks of the white spruce. Swamp and 
 lake, muskeg and river rocks of the earliest formations, wild
 
 B30 THE GREAT LONE KiXD. 
 
 wooded tracks of impenetrable wilderness combine to make 
 this region the great preserve of the rich fur-bearing- 
 animals whose skins are rated in the marts of Europe at 
 four times their weight in gold. Here the darkest mink, the 
 silkiest sable, the blackest otter are trapped and traded ; 
 here are bred these rich furs whose possession women prize 
 as second only to precious stones. Into the extreme north 
 of this region only the fur trader and the missionary have 
 as yet penetrated. The sullen Chipwayan, the feeble Dog- 
 rib, and the fierce and warlike Kutchin dwell along the 
 systems which carry the waters of this vast forest into 
 Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. 
 
 This place, the " forks ^^ of the Saskatchewan, is des- 
 tined at some time or other to be an important centre 
 of commerce and civilization. When men shall have cast 
 down the barriers which now intervene between the 
 shores of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Superior, what a 
 highway will not these two great river systems of the 
 St. Lawrence and the Saskatchewan offer to the trader ! 
 Less than 100 miles of canal through low alluvial soil 
 have only to be built to carry a boat from the foot of 
 the Rocky Mountains to the head of Eainy Lake, within 
 100 miles of Lake Superior. With inexhaustible supplies of 
 water held at a level high above the current surface of the 
 height of land, it is not too much to say, tliat before many 
 years have rolled by, boats will float from the base of the 
 Rocky Mountains to the harbour of Quebec. But long 
 before that time the Saskatchewan must have risen to 
 importance from its fertility, its beauty, and its mineral 
 wealth. Long before the period shall arrive when the 
 Saskatchewan will ship its products to the ocean, another 
 period will have come, when the mining populations of 
 Montana and Idaho wiU seek in the fertile glades of the
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAx\D. 331 
 
 middle Saskatchewan a siipply of those necessaries of life 
 which the arid soil of the central States is powerless to yield. 
 It is impossible that the wave of life which rolls so un- 
 ceasing-lj into America can leave unoccupied this great 
 fertile tract; as the river valleys farther east have all been 
 peopled long- before settlei's found their way into the coun- 
 tries lying at the back, so must this great valley of the 
 Saskatchewan, when once brought within the reach of 
 the emigrant, become the scene of numerous settlements. 
 As I stood in twilight looking down on the silent rivers 
 merging into the great single stream which here enters 
 the forest region, the mind had little difficulty in seeing 
 another picture, when the river forks would be a busy scene 
 of commerce, and man^s labour would waken echoes now 
 answering only to the wild things of plain and forest. 
 At this point, as I have said, we leave the plains and the 
 park-like country. The land of the prairie Indian and 
 the buffalo-hunter lies behind us — of the thick- wood Indian 
 and moose-hunter before us. 
 
 As far back as 1780 the French had pushed their way into 
 the Saskatchewan and established forts along its banks. It 
 is generally held that their most western post was situated 
 below the junction of the Saskatchewans, at a place called 
 Nippoween ; but I am of opinion that this is an error, and 
 that their pioneer settlements had even gone west of Carl- 
 ton. One of the earliest English travellers into the country, 
 in 1776, speaks of Fort-des-Prairies as a post twenty-four 
 days^ journey from Cuml^erland on the lower river, and as 
 the Hudson Bay Company only moved west of Cumberland 
 in 1774, it is only natural to suppose that this Fort-des- 
 Prairies had originally been a French post. Nothing proves 
 more conclusively that the whole territory of the Saskatche- 
 wan was supposed to have belonged by treaty to Canada,
 
 332 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 and not to England, than does the fact that it was only 
 at this date — 1774 — that the Hudson Bay Company took 
 possession of it. 
 
 Durino- the bitter rivalry between the North-west and 
 the Hudson Bay Companies a small colony of Iroquois 
 Indians was broug-ht from Canada to the Saskatchewan and 
 planted near the forks of the river. The descendants of 
 these men are still to be found scattered over different 
 portions of the country; nor have they lost that boldness 
 and skill in all the wild works of Indian life which made 
 their tribe such formidable warriors in the early contests of 
 the French colonists; neither have they lost that gift of 
 eloquence which was so much prized in the days of 
 Champlain and Frontinac. Here are the concluding words 
 of a speech addressed by an Iroquois against the establish- 
 ment of a missionary station near the junction of the 
 Saskatchewan : " You have spoken of your Great Spirit," 
 said the Indian ; " you have told us He died for all men — 
 for the red tribes of the West as for the white tribes of 
 the East ; but did He not die with His arms stretched forth 
 in different directions, one hand towards the rising sun and 
 the other towards the setting sun ? " 
 
 " Well, it is true.'' 
 
 " And now say, did He not mean by those outstretched 
 arms that for evermore the white tribes should dwell in the 
 East and the red tribes in the West? when the Great 
 Spirit could not speak, did He not still point out where His 
 children should live ? " What a curious compound must be 
 the man who is capable of such a strange, beautiful metaphor 
 and yet remain a savage ! 
 
 Fort-a-la-Corne lies some twenty miles below the point 
 of junction of the rivers. Towards Fort-a-la-Corne I bent 
 my steps with a strange anxiety, for at that point I was to
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 333 
 
 intercept the "Winter Express" carrying from Red River 
 its burden of news to the far-distant foi'ts of the Mac- 
 kenzie River. This winter packet had left Fort Garry in 
 mid-December, and travelling by way of Lake Winnipeg, 
 Norway House and Cumberland, was due at Fort-a-la- 
 Corne about the 21st Januaiy. Anxiously then did I 
 press on to the little fort, where I expected to get tidings 
 of that strife whose echoes during the past month had been 
 powerless to pierce the solitudes of this lone land. With 
 tired dogs whose pace no whip or call could accelerate, we 
 reached the fort at midday on the 21st. On the river, 
 cio&e by, an old Indian met us. Has the packet arrived ? 
 "Ask him if the packet has come," I said. He only 
 stared blankly at me and shook his head. I had for- 
 gotten, what was the packet to him ? the capture of a 
 musk-rat was of more consequence than the captiire of Metz. 
 The packet had not come, I found when we reached the 
 fort, but it was hourly expected, and I determined to 
 await its arrival. 
 
 Two days passed away in wild storms of snow. The wind 
 howled dismally through the pine woods, but within the 
 logs crackled and flew, and the board of my host was always 
 set with moose steaks and good things, although outside, 
 and far down the river, starvation had laid his hand 
 heavily upon the red man. It had fallen dark some hours 
 on the evening of the 22nd January when there came a 
 knock at the door of our house ; the raised latch gave ad- 
 mittance to an old travel-worn Indian who held in his hand a 
 small bundle of papers. He had cached the packet, he said, 
 many miles down the river, for his dogs were utterly tired 
 out and unable to move ; he had come on himself with a 
 few papers for the fort : the snow was very deep to 
 Cumberland ; he had been eight days in travelling, alone^
 
 334 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 200 miles; lie was tired and starving, and white with drift 
 and storm. Such was his tale. I tore open the packet — 
 it was a paper of mid-November, Metz had surrendered ; 
 Orleans been retaken; Paris, starving, still held out; for 
 the rest, the Russians had torn to pieces the Treaty of 
 Paris, and our millions and our priceless blood had been 
 spilt and spent in vain on the Peninsula of the Black Sea 
 ■ — perhaps, after all, we would fig-ht ? So the night drew 
 itself out, and the pine-tops began to jag the horizon before 
 1 ceased to read. 
 
 Early on the following morning the express was hauled 
 from its cache and brought to the fort ; but it failed to 
 throw much later light upon the meagre news of the 
 previous evening. Old Adam was tried for verbal intelli- 
 gence, but he too proved a failure. He had carried the 
 packet from Norway House on Lake "Winnipeg to Carlton 
 for more than a score of winters, and, from the fact of his 
 being the bearer of so much news in his lifetime, was looked 
 upon by his compeers as a kind of condensed electric tele- 
 graph; but when the question of war was fairly put to 
 him, he gravely replied that at the forts he had heard 
 there was war, and " England,^' he added, " was gaining 
 the day.^^ This latter fact was too much for me, for I 
 was but too well aware that had war been declared in 
 November, an army organization based upon the Parlia- 
 mentary system was not likely to have " gained the day" 
 in the short space of three weeks. 
 
 To cross with celerity the 700 miles lying between me 
 and Fort Garry became now the chief object of my life. I 
 lightened my baggage as much as possible, dispensing with 
 many comforts of clothing and equipment, and on the morn- 
 ing of the 23rd January started for Cumberland. I will not 
 dwell on the seven days that now ensued, or how from long
 
 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 335 
 
 before dawn to verge of evening* we toiled down the great 
 silent river. It was the close of January, the very depth of 
 winter. With heads bent down to meet the crushing blast, we 
 plodded on, ofttimes as silent as the river and the forest, from 
 whose bosom no sound ever came, no ripple ever broke, no 
 bird, no beast, no human face, but ever the same great 
 forest-fringed river whose majestic turns bent always 
 to the north-east. To tell, day after day, the extreme of cold 
 that now seldom varied would be to inflict on the reader 
 a tiresome record ; and, in truth, there would be no use in 
 attempting it; 40° below zero means so many things im- 
 possible to picture or to describe, that it would be a hopeless 
 task to enter upon its delineation. After one has gone 
 through the list of all those things that freeze ; after one has 
 spoken of the knife which burns the hand that would touch 
 its blade, the tea that freezes while it is being drunk, 
 there still remains a sense of having said nothing ; a sense 
 which may perhaps be better understood by saying that 
 40° below zero means just one thing more than all these 
 items — it means death, in a period whose duration would 
 expire in the hours of a winter^s daylight, if there was no 
 fire or means of making it on the track. 
 
 Conversation round a camp-fire in the North-west is 
 limited to one subject — dogs and dog-driviug. To be 
 a good driver of dogs, and to be able to run fifty miles 
 in a day with ease, is to be a great man. The 
 fame of a noted dog-driver spreads far and wide. Night 
 after night would I listen to the prodigies of running per- 
 formed by some Ba^tiste or Angus, doughty champions of 
 the rival races. If Ba^tiste dwelt at Cumberland, I would 
 begin to hear his name mentioned 200 miles from that place, 
 and his fame would still be talked of 200 miles beyond it. 
 With delight would I hear the name of this celebrity dying
 
 336 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 gradually away in distance, for by the disappearance of some 
 oft-heard name and the rising of some new constellation of 
 dog-driver, one could mark a stage of many hundred miles 
 on the long road upon which I was travelling. 
 
 On the 29th January we reached the shore of Pine Island 
 Lake, and saw in our track the birch lodge of an Indian. It 
 was before sunrise, and we stopped the dogs to warm our 
 fingers over the fire of the wigwam. Within sat a very old 
 Indian and two or three women and children. The old man 
 was singing to himself a low monotonous chant; beside him 
 some reeds, marked by the impress of a human form, were 
 spread upon the ground ; the fire burned brightly in the 
 centre of the lodge, while the smoke escaped and the light 
 entered through the same round aperture in the top of the 
 conical roof. When we had entered and seated ourselves, 
 the old man still continued his song. "What is he 
 saying?''' I asked, although the Indian etiquette forbids 
 abrupt questioning. " He is singing for his son," a man 
 answered, " who died yesterday, and whose body they have 
 taken to the fort last night." It was even so. A French 
 Canadian who had dwelt in Indian fashion for some years, 
 marrying the daughter of the old man, had died from the 
 effects of over-exertion in running down a silver fox, and 
 the men from Cumberland had taken away the body a few 
 hours before. Thus the old man mourned, while his 
 daughter, the widow, and a child sat moodily looking at 
 the flames. " He hunted for us ; he fed us," the old man 
 said. " I am too old to hunt ; I can scarce see the light ; 
 I would like to die too." Those old words which the pre- 
 sence of the great mystery forces from our lips — those 
 words of consolation which some one says are " chaff" well 
 meant for grain" — were changed into their Cree equi- 
 valents and duly rendered to him, but he only shook his
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 337 
 
 head, as though the change of language had not altered the 
 value of the commodity. But the name of the dead hunter 
 was a curious anomaly — Joe Miller. What a strange anti- 
 thesis appeared this name beside the presence of the child- 
 less father, the fatherless child, and the mateless woman ! 
 One service the death of poor Joe Miller conferred on me — 
 the dog-sled that had carried his body had made a track 
 over the snow-covered lake, and we quickly glided along it 
 to the Fort of Cumberland.
 
 338 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CUMBERLAND — "We BURY POOR JOE — A GOOD TraIN OF DoGS — TojS 
 
 Great Marsh — Mutiny — Chicag the Sturgeon-fisher — A 
 Night with a Medicine-man — Lakes Winnipegoosis and Mani- 
 toba — Muskeymote eats his Boots — We beach the Settle- 
 ment — From the Saskatchewan to the Seine. 
 
 Cumberland House, the oldest post of the Company 
 in the interior, stands on the south shore of Pine Island 
 Lake, the waters of which seek the Saskatchewan by- 
 two channels — Tearing River and Big-stone River. 
 These two rivers form, together with the Saskatchewan 
 and the lake, a large island, upon which stands Cum- 
 berland. Time moves slowly at such places as Cumber- 
 land, and change is almost unknown. To-day it is 
 the same as it was 100 years ago. An old list of goods 
 sent to Cumberland from England in 1783 had precisely 
 the same items as one of 1870. Strouds, cotton, beads, 
 and trading-guns are still the wants of the Indian, and are 
 still traded for marten and musquash. In its day Cumber- 
 land has had distinguished visitors. Franklin, in 1819, 
 wintered at the fort, and a sun-dial still stands in rear 
 of the house, a gift from the great explorer. We buried 
 Joe Miller in the pine-shadowed graveyard near the fort. 
 Hard work it was with pick and crowbar to prise up the 
 ice-locked earth and to get poor Joe that depth which the 
 frozen clay would seem to grudge him. It was long after 
 dark when his bed was ready, and by the light of a couple
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAXD. 339 
 
 of lanterns we laid him down in the great rest. The 
 graveyard and the funeral had few of those accessories of 
 the modern mortuary which are supposed to be the charac- 
 teristics of civilized sorrow. There was no mute^ no crape, 
 no parade — nothing of that imposing array of hat-bands and 
 horses by which man^ even in the face of the mighty 
 mystery, seeks still to glorify the miserable conceits of life ; 
 but the silent snow-laden pine-trees, the few words of 
 prayer read in the flickering light of the lantern, the 
 hush of nature and of night, made accessions full as fitting 
 as all the muffled music and craped sorrow of church and 
 city. 
 
 At Cumberland I beheld for the first time a genuine 
 train of dogs. There was no mistake about them in shape 
 or form, from fore-goer to hindermost hauler. Two of 
 them were the pure Esquimaux breed, the bush-tailed, 
 fox-headed, long- furred, clean-legged animals whose ears, 
 sharp-pointed and erect, sprung from a head embedded in 
 thick tufts of woolly hair; Pomeranians multiplied by 
 four ; the other two were a curious compound of Esquimaux 
 and Athabascan, with hair so long that eyes were scarcely 
 visible. I had suffered so long from the wretched condition 
 and descrijition of the dogs of the Hudson Bay Company, 
 that I determined to become the possessor of those animals, 
 and, although I had to pay considerably more than had 
 ever been previously demanded as the price of a train of 
 dogs in the North, I was still glad to get them at any 
 figure. Five hundred miles yet lay between me and 
 Red River — five hundred miles of marsh and frozen lakes, 
 the delta of the Saskatchewan and the great Lakes Winni- 
 pegoosis and Manitoba. 
 
 It was the last day of January when I got away from 
 Cumberland with this fine train of dogs and anothei 
 
 z 2
 
 340 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 serviceable set which belonged to a Swampy Indian 
 named Bear, who had agreed to accompany me to 
 Red River. Bear was the son of the old man whose 
 evolutions with the three pegs had caused so much com- 
 motion among the Indians at Red River on the occasion 
 of my visit to Fort Garry eight months earlier. He was 
 now to be my close companion during many days and 
 nights, and it may not be out of place here to anticipate 
 the verdict of three weeks, and to award him as a vogageiir 
 snow-shoer and camp-maker a place second to none in 
 the long list of my employes. Soon after quitting Cumber- 
 land we struck the Saskatchewan River, and, turning east- 
 ward along it, entered the great region of marsh and 
 swamp. During five days our course lay through vast 
 expanses of stiff frozen reeds, whose corn-like stalks rattled 
 harshly against the parchment sides of the cariole as the 
 dog-trains wound along through their snow-covered roots. 
 Bleak and dreary beyond expression stretched this region 
 of frozen swamp for fully 100 miles. The cold remained 
 all the time at about the same degree — 20° below zero. 
 The camps were generally poor and miserable ones. Stunted 
 willow is the chief timber of the region, and fortunate did 
 we deem ourselves when at nightfall a low line of willows 
 would rise above the sea of reeds to bid us seek its shelter 
 for the night. The snow became deeper as we proceeded. 
 At the Pasquia three feet lay level over the country, and 
 the dogs sank deep as they toiled along. Through this 
 great marsh the Saskatchewan winds in tortuous course, 
 its flooded level in summer scarce lower than the alluvial 
 shores that line it. The bends made by the river would 
 have been too long to follow, so we held a straight track 
 through the marsh, cutting the points as we travelled. It 
 was difficult to imagine that this many-channelled, marsh-
 
 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 341 
 
 lined river could be the same noble stream whose mountain- 
 birth I had beheld far away in the Rocky Mountains, and 
 whose central course had lain for so many miles through 
 the bold precipitous bank of the Western prairies. 
 
 On the 7th February we emerged from this desolate region 
 of lake and swamp, and saw before us in the twilight a ridge 
 covered with dense woods. It was the west shore of the 
 Cedar Lake, and on the wooded promontory towards which 
 we steered some Indian sturgeon-fishers had pitched their 
 lodges. But I had not got thus far without much trouble and 
 vexatious resistance. Of the three men from Cumberland, 
 one had utterly knocked up, and the other two had turned 
 mutinous. What cared they for my anxiety to push on for 
 Red River ? What did it matter if the whole world was at 
 war ? Nay, must I not be the rankest of impostors ; for if 
 there was war away beyond the big sea, was that not the 
 very reason why any man possessing a particle of sense 
 should take his time over the journey, and be in no hurry 
 to get back again to his house ? 
 
 One night I reached the post of Moose Lake a few hours 
 before daybreak, havingbeen induced to make the flank march 
 by representations of the wonderful train of dogs at that sta- 
 tion, and being anxious to obtain them in addition to my own. 
 It is almost needless to remark that these dogs had no exist- 
 ence except in the imagination of Bear and his companion. 
 Arrived at Moose Lake (one of the most desolate spots I had 
 ever looked upon), I found out that the dog-trick was not the 
 only one my men intended playing upon me, for a message 
 was sent in by Bear to the efiect that his dogs were unable 
 to stand the hard travel of the past week, and that he could 
 no longer accompany me. Here was a pleasant prospect — 
 stranded on the wild shores of the Moose Lake with one 
 train of dogs, deserted and deceived ! There was but one
 
 342 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 course to pursue, and fortunately it proved the riglit one. 
 " Can you give me a guide to Norway House ? " 1 asked 
 the Hudson Bay Company's half-breed clerk. "Yes.'' 
 " Then tell Bear that he can go," I said, " and the quicker 
 he goes the better. I will start for Norway House with 
 my single train of dogs, and though it will add eighty 
 miles to my journey I will get from thence to Red River 
 down the length of Lake Winnipeg. Tell Bear he has the 
 whole North-west to choose from except Red River. He had 
 better not go there ; for if I have to wait for six months for 
 his arrival, 1^11 wait, just to put him in prison for breach of 
 contract.'" What a glorious institution is the law ! The 
 idea of the prison, that terrible punishment in the eyes of 
 the wild man, quelled the mutiny, and I was quickly as- 
 sured that the whole thing was a mistake, and that Bear 
 and his dogs were still at my service. Glad was I then, on . 
 the night of the 7th, to behold the wooded shores of the 
 Cedar Lake rising out of the reeds of the great marsh, and 
 to know that by another sunset I would have reached the 
 Winnipegoosis and looked my last upon the valley of the 
 Saskatchewan. 
 
 The lodge of Chicag the sturgeon-fisher was small ; one 
 entered almost on all-fours, and once inside matters were 
 not much bettered. To the question, " Was Chicag at 
 home ? " one of his ladies replied that he was attending 
 a medicine-feast close by, and that he would soon be in. A 
 loud and prolonged drumming corroborated the statement 
 of the medicine, and seemed to indicate that Chicag was 
 putting on the steam with the Manito, having got an 
 inkling of the new arrival. Meantime I inquired of Bear as 
 to the ceremony which was being enacted. Chicag, or the 
 " Skunk,'' I was told, and his friends were bound to de- 
 vour as many sturgeon and to drink as much sturgeon oil as
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 343 
 
 it was possible to contain. When that point had been at- 
 tained the ceremony mig-ht be considered over^ and if the 
 morrow^s dawn did not show the sturgeon nets filled with 
 fish, all that could be said upon the matter was that the 
 !^[anito was oblivious to the efforts of Chicag and his com- 
 rades. The drumming" now reached a point that seemed to 
 indicate that either Chicag or the sturg-eon was having a 
 bad time of it. Presently the noise ceased, the low door 
 opened, and the " Skunk " entered, followed by some ten or 
 a dozen of his friends and relations. How they all found 
 room in the little hut remains a mystery, but its eight-by- 
 ten of superficial space held some eighteen persons, the 
 greater number of whom were greasy with the oil of the 
 sturgeon. Meantime a supper of sturgeon had been pre- 
 pared for me, and great was the excitement to watch me eat 
 it. The fish was by no means bad ; but I have reason to 
 believe that my performance in the matter of eating it was 
 not at all a success. It is true that stifling atmosphere, in- 
 tense heat, and many varieties of nastiness and nudity are 
 not promoters of appetite ; but even had I been given a 
 clearer stage and niore favourable conducers towards vora- 
 city, I must still have proved but a mere nibbler of sturgeon 
 in the eyes of such a whale as Chicag. 
 
 Glad to escape from the suffocating hole, I emptied my 
 fur-bag of tobacco among the group and got out into the cold 
 ni»ht-air. What a change ! Over the silent snow-sheeted 
 lake, over the dark isles and the cedar shores, the moon was 
 shining amidst a deep blue sky. Around were grouped a few 
 birch-bark wigwams. My four dogs, now well known and 
 trusty friends, were holding high carnival over the heads and 
 tails of Chicag's feast. In one of the wigwams, detached from 
 the rest, sat a very old man wrapped in a tattered blanket. 
 He was splitting wood into little pieces, and feeding a small
 
 344 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 fire in the centre of the lodge,, while he chattered to himself 
 all the time. The place was clean, and as I watched the 
 little old fellow at his work I decided to make my bed in his 
 lodge. He was no other than Parisiboy, the medicine-man 
 of the camp, the quaintest little old savage I had ever en- 
 countered. Tu^o small white mongrels alone shared his 
 wigwam. " See/' he said, " I have no one with me but 
 these two dogs." The curs thus alluded to felt themselves 
 bound to prove that they were cognizant of the fact by 
 shoving forward their noses one on each side of old Parisi- 
 boy, an impertinence on their part which led to their sudden 
 expulsion by being pitched headlong out of the door. 
 Parisiboy now commenced a lengthened exposition of his 
 woes. " His blanket was old and full of holes, through which 
 the cold found easy entrance. He was a very great medi- 
 cine-man, but he was very poor, and tea was a luxury which 
 he seldom tasted.'''' I put a handful of tea into his little 
 kettle, and his bright eyes twinkled with delight under their 
 shaggy brows. " I never go to sleep,'' he continued ; " it 
 is too cold to go to sleep ; I sit up all night splitting wood 
 and smoking and keeping the fire alight; if I had tea I 
 Avould never lie down at all." As I made my bed he con- 
 tinued to sing to himself, chatter and laugh with a peculiar 
 low chuckle, watching me all the time. His first brew of 
 tea was quickly made ; hot and strong, he poured it into a 
 cup, and drank it with evident delight ; then in weut more 
 water on the leaves and down on the fire again went the 
 little kettle. But I was not permitted to lie down without 
 interruption. Chicag headed a deputation of his brethren, 
 and grew loud over the recital of his grievances. Between 
 the sturgeon and the Company he appeared to think himself 
 a victim, but I was unable to gather whether the balance of 
 ill-treatment lay on the side of the fish or of the corporation.
 
 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 345 
 
 Finally I got rid of the lot, and crept into my bag-. Parisi- 
 boy sat at the other side of the fire, grinning- and chuckling 
 and sipping his tea. All night long I heard through my 
 fitful sleep his harsh chuckle and his song. Whenever I 
 opened my eyes^, there was the little old man in the same 
 attitude, crouching over the fire, which he sedulously kept 
 alight. How many brews of tea he made, I can't say ; but 
 when daylight came he was still at the work, and as I re- 
 plenished the kettle the old leaves seemed well-nigh bleached 
 by continued boilings. 
 
 That morning I got away from the camp of Chicag, and 
 crossing one arm of Cedar Lake reached at noon the Mossy 
 Portage. Striking into the Cedar Forest at this point, I 
 quitted for good the Saskatchewan. Just three months 
 earlier I had struck its waters at the South Branch, and 
 since that day fully 1600 miles of travel had carried me 
 far along its shores. The Mossy Portage is a low swampy 
 ridge dividing the waters of Cedar Lake from those of Lake 
 "VVinnipegoosis. From one lake to the other is a distance 
 of about four miles. Coming from the Cedar Lake the por- 
 tage is quite level until it reaches the close vicinity of the 
 Winnipegoosis, when there is a steep descent of some forty 
 feet to gain the waters of the latter lake. These two lakes 
 are supposed to lie at almost the same level, but I shall not 
 be surprised if a closer examination of their respective 
 heights proves the Cedar to be some thirty feet higher than 
 its neighbour the Winnipegoosis, The question is one of 
 considerable interest, as the Mossy Portage will one day or 
 other form the easy line of communication between the 
 waters of Red River and those of Saskatchewan. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when we got the dogs on the 
 broad bosom of Lake Winnipegoosis, whose immense surface 
 spread out south and west until the sky alone bounded the
 
 346 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 prospect. But there were many islands scattered over the 
 sea of ice that lay rolled before us ; islands dark with the 
 pine-trees that covered them, and standing- out in strong re- 
 lief from the dazzling whiteness amidst which they lay. On 
 one of these islands we camped, spreading the robes under 
 a large pine-tree and building up a huge fire from the 
 wi'ccks of bygone storms. This Lake Winnipegoosis, or the 
 " Small Sea," is a very large expanse of water measuring 
 about 120 miles in length and some 30 in width. Its shores 
 and islands are densely wooded with the white spruce, the 
 juniper, the banksian pine, and the black spruce, and as the 
 traveller draws near the southern shores he beholds again 
 the dwarf white-oak which here reaches its northern limit. 
 This growth of the oak-tree may be said to mark at present 
 the line between civilization and savagery. Within the 
 limit of the oak lies the country of the white man ; without 
 lies that Great Lone Land through which my steps have 
 wandered so far. Descending the Lake Winnipegoosis to 
 Shoal Lake, I passed across the belt of forest which lies 
 between the two lakes, and emerging again upon Winni- 
 pegoosis crossed it in a long day^s journey to the Waterhen 
 River. This river carries the surplus water of Winnipegoo- 
 sis into the large expanse of Lake Manitoba. For another 
 hundred miles this lake lays its length towai'ds the south, 
 but here the pine-trees have vanished, and birch and poplar 
 alone cover the shores. Along the whole line of the western 
 shores of these lakes the bold ridges of the Pas, the Porcu- 
 pine, Duck, and Riding Mountains rise over the forest- 
 covered swamps which lie immediately along the water. 
 These four mountain ranges never exceed an elevation of 
 1600 feet above the sea. They are wooded to the summits, 
 and long ages ago their rugged clitTs formed, doubtless, a 
 fitting shore-line to that great lake whose fresh-water bil-
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 347 
 
 lows were nursed in a space twice larger than even Superior 
 itself can boast of; but^ as has been stated in an earlier 
 chapter, that inland ocean has long" since shrunken into the 
 narrower limits of Winnipeg-, Winnipegoosis, and INIani- 
 toba — the Great Sea, the Little Sea, and the Straits of 
 the God. 
 
 I have not dwelt upon the days of travel during 
 which we passed down the length of these lakes. From 
 the camp of Chicag I had driven my own train of dogs, 
 with Bear the sole companion of the journey. Nor were 
 these days on the great lakes by any means the dullest 
 of the journey, Cerf Volant, Tigre, Cariboo, and Muskey- 
 mote gave ample occupation to their driver. Long before 
 Manitoba was reached they had learnt a new lesson — that 
 men were not all cruel to dogs in camp or on the road. 
 It is true that in the learning of that lesson some little 
 difficulty was occasioned by the sudden loosening and dis- 
 ruption of ideas implanted by generations of cruelty in the 
 dog-mind of my train. It is true that Muskeymote, in 
 particular, long held aloof from offers of friendship, and then 
 suddenly passed from the excess of caution to the extreme 
 of imprudence, imagining, doubtless, that the millennium 
 had at length arrived, and that dogs w^ere henceforth no 
 more to haul. But Muskeymote was soon set right upon 
 that point, and showed no inclination to repeat his mistake. 
 Then there was Cerf Volant, tliat most perfect Esquimaux. 
 Cerf Volant entered readily into friendship, upon an under- 
 standing of an additional half-fish at supper every evening. 
 No alderman ever loved his turtle better than did CerF Volant 
 love his white fish ; but I rather think that the white fish was 
 better earned than the tui-tle — however we will let that be a 
 matter of opinion. Having satisfied his hunger, which, by- 
 the-way, is a luxury only allowed to the hauling-dog once a
 
 348 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 day, Cerf Volant would generally establish himself in close 
 proximity to my feet, frequently on the top of the bag", 
 from which coigne of vantage he would exchange fierce 
 growls with any dog who had the temerity to approach us. 
 None of our dogs were harness-eaters, a circumstance that 
 saved us the nightly trouble of placing harness and cariole 
 in the branches of a tree. On one or two occasions 
 Muskeymote, however, ate his boots. '^ Boots \" the reader 
 will exclaim ; " how came Muskeymote to possess boots ? 
 We have heard of a puss in boots, but a dog, that is some- 
 thing new." Nevertheless Muskeymote had his boots, and 
 ate them, too. This is how a dog is put in boots. When the 
 day is very cold — I don't mean in your reading of that word, 
 reader, but in its North-west sense — when the morning, 
 then, comes very cold, the dogs travel fast, the drivers run 
 to try and restore the circulation, and noses and cheeks 
 which grow white beneath the bitter blast are rubbed with 
 snow caught quickly from the ground without pausing in 
 the rapid stride; on such mornings, and they are by no means 
 uncommon, the particles of snow which adhere to the feet 
 of the dog form sharp icicles between his toes, which grow 
 larger and larger as he travels. A knowing old hauler will 
 stop every now and then, and tear out these icicles with his 
 teeth, but a young dog plods wearily along leaving his foot- 
 prints in crimson stains upon the snow behind him. When 
 he comes into camp, he lies down and licks his poor 
 wounded feet, but the rest is only for a short time, and tbe 
 next start makes them worse than before. Now comes the 
 time for boots. The dog-boot is simply a fingerless glove 
 drawn on over the toes and foot, and tied by a running 
 string of leather round the wrist or ancle of the animal ; the 
 boot itself is either made of leather or strong white cloth. 
 Thus protected, the dog will travel for days and days with
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 349 
 
 wounded feet, and get no worse, in fact he will frequently 
 recover while still on the journey. Now Muskeymote, being" 
 a young dog, had not attained to that degree of wisdom 
 which induces older dogs to drag the icicles from their toes, 
 and consequently Muskeymote had to be duly booted every 
 morning — a cold opei'ation it was too, and many a run had 
 I to make to the fire while it was being performed, holding 
 my hands into the blaze for a moment and then back again 
 to the dog. Upon arrival in camp these boots should 
 always be removed from the dog's feet, and hung up in the 
 smoke of the fire, with moccassins of the men, to dry. It 
 was on an occasion when this custom had been forgotten 
 that Muskeymote performed the feat we have already 
 mentioned, of eating his boots. 
 
 The night-camps along the lakes were all good ones; 
 it took some time to clear away the deep snow and 
 to reach the ground, but wood for fire and young spruce- 
 tops for bedding were plenty, and fifteen minutes' axe- 
 work sufficed to fell as many trees as our fire needed 
 for night and morning. From wooded point to wooded 
 point we- journeyed on over the frozen lakes ; the snow 
 lying packed into the crevices and uneven places of the ice 
 formed a compact level surface, upon which the dogs scarce 
 marked the impress of their feet, and the sleds and cariole 
 bounded briskly after the train, jumping the little wavelets 
 of hardened snow to the merry jingling of innumerable 
 bells. On snow such as this dogs will make a run of forty 
 miles in a day, and keep that pace for many days in succes- 
 sion, but in the soft snow of the woods or the river thirty 
 miles will form a fair day's work for continuous travel. 
 
 On the night of the 19 th of February we made our 
 last camp on the ridge to the south of Lake Manitoba, 
 fifty miles from Fort Garry. Not without a feeling of
 
 350 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 regret was the old work gone through for the last time 
 — the old work of tree-cutting, and fire-making, and 
 supper-frying, and dog-feeding. Once more I had reached 
 those confines of civilization on whose limits four months 
 earlier I had made my first camp on the shivering Prairie 
 of the Lonely Grave ; then the long journey lay before me, 
 now the unnumbered scenes of nigh 3000 miles of travel 
 were spread out in that picture which memory sees in the 
 embers of slow-burning fires, when the night- wind speaks 
 in dreamy tones to the willow branches and waving grasses. 
 And if there be those among my readers who can ill com- 
 prehend such feelings, seeing only in this return the escape 
 from savagery to civilization — from the wild Indian to the 
 Anglo-American, from the life of toil and hardship to that 
 of rest and comfort — then words would be useless to throw 
 light upon the matter, or to better enable such men to 
 understand that it was possible to look back with keen re- 
 gret to the wild days of the forest and the prairie. Natures, 
 no matter how we may mould them beneath the vmiform 
 pressure of the great machine called civilization, are not all 
 alike, and many men^s minds echo in some shape or other 
 the voice of the Kirghis woman, which says, " Man must 
 keep moving ; for, behold, sun, moon, stars, water, beast, 
 bird, fish, all are in movement : it is but the dead and the 
 earth that remain in one place.*' 
 
 There are many who have seen a prisoned lark sitting on 
 its perch, looking listlessly through the bars, from some 
 brick wall against which its cage was hung ; but at times, 
 when the spring comes round, and a bit of grassy earth is 
 put into the narrow cage, and, in spite of smoke and mist, 
 the blue sky looks a moment on the foul face of the city, 
 the little prisoner dreams himself free, and, with eyes fixed 
 on the blue sky and feet clasping the tiny turf of green
 
 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 351 
 
 sod, he pours forth into the dirty street those notes which 
 nature taught him in the never-to-be-forgotten days of 
 boundless freedom. So I have seen an Indian, far down in 
 Canada, listlessly watching the vista of a broad river whose 
 waters and whose shores once owned the dominion of his 
 race ; and when I told him of regions where his brothers 
 still built their lodges midst the wandering herds of the 
 stupendous wilds, far away towards that setting sun upon 
 which his eyes were fixed, there came a change over his 
 listless look, and when he spoke in answer there was in his 
 voice an echo from that bygone time when the Five 
 Nations were a mighty power on the shores of the Great 
 Lakes. Nor are such as these the only prisoners of our 
 civilization. He who has once tasted the unworded free- 
 dom of the Western wilds must ever feel a sense of con- 
 straint within the boundaries of civilized life. The Russian 
 is not the only man who has the Tartar close underneath 
 his skin. That Indian idea of the earth being free to all 
 men catches quick and lasting hold of the imagination — 
 the mind widens out to grasp the reality of the lone space 
 and cannot shrink again to suit the requirements of fenced 
 divisions. There is a strange fascination in the idea, 
 " Wheresoever my horse wanders there is my home ;•" 
 stronger perhaps is that thought than any allurement of 
 wealth, or power, or possession given us by life. Nor can 
 after- time ever wholly remove it ; midst the smoke and hum 
 of cities, midst the prayer of churches, in street or salon, it 
 needs but little cause to recall again to the wanderer the 
 image of the immense meadows where, far away at the 
 portals of the setting sun, lies the Great Lone Land. 
 
 It is time to close. It was my lot to shift the scene of 
 life with curious rapidity. In a shorter space of time than
 
 352 THE GKEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 it had taken to traverse the length of the Saskatchewanj I 
 stood by the banks of that river whose proud city had just 
 paid the price of conquest in blood and ruin — yet I wit- 
 nessed a still heavier ransom than that paid to German 
 robbers. I saw the blank windows of the Tuileries red 
 with the light of flames fed from five hundred years of his- 
 tory, and the flagged courtyard of La Roquette running 
 deep in the blood of Frenchmen spilt by France, while the 
 common enemy smoked and laughed, leaning lazily on the 
 ramparts of St. Denis.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 GOVERNOR ARCHIBALD'S INSTRUCTIONS. 
 
 FoET Gaeey, 10th October, 1870. 
 
 W. F. Butler, Esq., 6dth Regiment. 
 
 SiE, — Adverting to the intervdews between liis honour the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor and yourself on the subject of the proposed 
 mission to the Saskatchewan, I have it now in command to acquaint 
 you with the objects his honour has in view in asking you to 
 undertake the mission, and also to define the duties he desires you 
 to perform. 
 
 In the first place, I am to say that representations have been 
 made from various quarters that within the last two years much 
 disorder has prevailed in the settlements along the hne of the 
 Saskatchewan, and that the local authorities are utterly powerless 
 for the protection of Ufe and property within that region. It is 
 asserted to be absolutely necessary for the protection, not only of 
 the Hudson Bay Company's Forts, but for the safety of the 
 settlements along the river, that a small body of troops should be 
 sent to some of the forts of the Hudson Bay Company, to assist 
 the local authorities in the maintenance of peace and order. 
 
 I am to enclose you a copy of a communication on this subject 
 from Donald A. Smith, Esq., the Governor of the Hudson Bay 
 Company, and also an extract of a letter from W. J. Christie, Esq., 
 a chief factor stationed at Fort Carlton, which will give you some 
 of the facts which have been adduced to show the representations 
 to be well grounded. 
 
 The statements made in these papers come from the ofiicers of 
 the Hudson Bay Company, whose views may be supposed to be 
 in some measure affected by their pecuniary interests. 
 
 It is the desire of the Lieutenant-Governor that you should examine 
 
 A a
 
 354 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 the matter entirely from an independent point of view, giving his 
 honour for the benefit of the Government of Canada your views of 
 the state of matters on the Saskatchewan in reference to the necessity 
 of troops being sent there, basing your report upon what you shall 
 find by actual examination. 
 
 You will be expected to report upon the whole question of the 
 existing state of affairs in that territory, and to state your views 
 on what may be necessary to be done in the interest of peace 
 and order. 
 
 Secondly, you are to ascertain, as far as you can, in what places 
 and among what tribes of Indians, and what settlements of whites, 
 the small-pox is now prevailing, including the extent of its ravages 
 and every particular you can ascertain in connexion with the rise 
 and the spread of the disease. You are to take with you such 
 small supply of medicines as shall be considered by the Board of 
 Health here suitable and proper for the treatment of small-pox, 
 and you will obtain written instructions for the proper treatment 
 of the disease, and will leave a copy thereof with the chief ofiicer of 
 each fort you pass, and with any clergyman or other intelligent 
 person belonging to settlements outside the forts. 
 
 You will also ascertain, as far as in your power, the number of 
 Indians on the line between Red River and the Rocky Mountains ; 
 the different nations and tribes into which they are divided and 
 the particular locality inhabited, and the language spoken, and 
 also the names of the principal chiefs of each tribe. 
 
 In doing this you will be careful to obtain the information 
 without in any manner leading the Indians to suppose you are 
 acting under authority, or inducing them to form any expectations 
 based on your inquiries. 
 
 You will also be expected to ascertain, as far as possible, the 
 nature of the trade in furs conducted upon the Saskatchewan, the 
 number and nationality of the persons employed in what has been 
 called the Free Trade there, and what portion of the supplies, if 
 any, come from the United States territory, and what portion of 
 the furs are sent thither ; and generally to make such inquiries as 
 to the source of trade in that region as may enable the Lieutenant- 
 Governor to form an accurate idea of the commerce of the Sas- 
 katchewan. 
 
 You are to report from time to time as you proceed westward, 
 and forward your communications by such opportunities as may 
 occur. The Lieutenant-Governor will rely upon your executing 
 this mission with aU reasonable despatch. 
 
 (Signed) S. W. Hill, P. Secretary.
 
 APPENDIX. 355 
 
 LIEUTENANT BUTLER^S REPORT. 
 Introductory. 
 
 The Hon. Adams G. Archibald, 
 
 Lieut.- Governor, Manitoba. 
 
 Sm, — Before entering into the questions contained in the written 
 instructions under which I acted, and before attempting to state an 
 opinion upon the existing situation of affairs in the Saskatchewan, 
 I will briefly allude to the time occupied in travel, to the route fol- 
 lowed, and to the general circujtnstances attending my journey. 
 
 Starting from Fort Garry on the •25th October, I reached Fort 
 Ellice at junction of Qu'Appelle and Assineboine Rivers on the 30th 
 of the same month. On the following day I continued my journey 
 towards Carlton, which place was reached on the 9th November, a 
 detention of two days having occurred upon the banks of the South 
 Saskatchewan River, the waters of which were only partially frozen. 
 After a delay of five days in Carlton, the North Branch of the Sas- 
 katchewan was reported fit for the passage of horses, and on the 
 morning of the 14th November I proceeded on my western journey 
 towards Edmonton. By this time snow had fallen to the depth of 
 about sis inches over the country, which rendered it necessary to 
 abandon the use of wheels for the transport of baggage, substituting 
 a Light sled in place of the cart which had hitherto been used, 
 although I still retained the same mode of conveyance, namely the 
 saddle, for personal use. Passing the Hudson Bay Company Posts 
 of Battle River, Fort Pitt and Victoria, I reached Edmonton on the 
 night of the 26th November. For the last 200 miles the country had 
 become clear of snow, and the frosts, notwithstanding the high alti- 
 tude of the region, had decreased in severity. Starting again on 
 the afternoon of the 1st December, I recrossed the Saskatchewan 
 River below Edinonton and continued in a south-westerly direction 
 towards the Rocky Mountain House, passing through a country 
 which, even at that advanced period of the year, still retained many 
 traces of its summer beauty. At midday on the 4th December, 
 having passed the gorges of the Three Medicine Hills, I came in sight 
 of the Rocky Mountains, which rose from the western extremity of 
 
 A a 2.
 
 356 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 an immense plain and stretched their great snow-clad peaks far 
 away to the northern and southern horizons. 
 
 Finding it impossible to procure guides for the prosecution of my 
 journey south to Montana, I left the Eocky Mountain House on the 
 12th December and commenced my return travels to Red Eiver along 
 the valley of the Saskatchewan. Snow had now fallen to the depth 
 of about a foot, and the cold had of late begun to show symptoms of 
 its winter intensity. Thus on the morning of the 5th December my 
 thermometer indicated 22° below zero, and again on the 13th 18° 
 below zero, a degree of cold which in itself was not remarkable, but 
 which had the effect of rendering the saddle by no means a com- 
 fortable mode of transport. 
 
 Arriving at Edmonton on the 16th December, I exchanged my 
 horses for dogs, the saddle for a small cariole, and on the 20th 
 December commenced in earnest the winter journey to Red River. 
 The cold, long delayed, now began in all its severity. On the 22nd 
 December my thermometer at ten o'clock in the morning indicated 
 39° below zero, later in the day a biting wind swept the long reaches 
 of the Saskatchewan River and rendered travelling on the ice almost 
 insupportable. To note here the long days of travel down the great 
 valley of the Saskatchewan, at times on the frozen river and at 
 times upon the neighbouring plains, would prove only a tiresome 
 record. Little by Httle the snow seemed to deepen, day by day the 
 frost to obtain a more lasting power and to bind in a stiU more sohd 
 embrace all visible Nature. No human voice, no sound of bird or 
 beast, no ripple of stream to break the intense sUence of these vast 
 sohtudes of the Lower Saskatchewan. At length, early in the month 
 of February, I quitted the valley of Saskatchewan at Cedar Lake, 
 crossed the ridge which separates that sheet of water from Lake 
 Winnipegoosis, and, descending the latter lake to its outlet at 
 Waterhen River, passed from thence to the northern extremity of 
 the Lake Manitoba. Finally, on the 18th February, I reached the 
 settlement of Oak Point on south shore of Manitoba, and two days 
 later arrived at Fort Garry. 
 
 In following the river and lake route from Carlton, I passed 
 in succession the Mission of Prince Albert, Forts-a-la-Come and 
 Cumberland, the Posts of the Pas, Moose Lake, Shoal River and 
 Manitoba House, and, with a few exceptions, travelled upon ice the 
 entire way. 
 
 The journey from first to last occupied 119 days and embraced a 
 distance of about 2700 miles. 
 
 I have uQw to offer the expression of my best acknowledgments to 
 the officers of the various posts of the Hudson Bay Company passed 
 en route. To Mr. W. J. Christie, of Edmonton, to Mr. Richard 
 Hardistry, of Victoria, as well as to Messrs. Hackland, Sinclair, 
 Ballenden, Trail, Turner, Belanger, Matheison, McBeath, Munro,
 
 APPENDIX. 357 
 
 and McDonald, I am indebted for much kindness and hospitality 
 and I have to thank Mr. W. J. Christie for information of much 
 value regarding statistics connected with his district. I have also 
 to offer to the Rev. Messrs. Lacombe, McDougall, and Nisbet the 
 expression of the obUgations which I am under towards them for 
 uniform kindness and hospitality. 
 
 General Report. 
 
 Having in the foregoing pages briefly alluded to the time occupied 
 in travel, to the route followed, and to the general circumstances 
 attending my journey, I now propose entering upon the subjects 
 contained in the written instructions under which I acted, and in the 
 first instance to lay before you the views which I have formed upon 
 the important question of the existing state of afi'airs in the Sas- 
 katchewan. 
 
 The institutions of Law and Order, as understood in civilized 
 communities, are wholly unknown in the regions of the Saskat- 
 chewan, insomuch as the country is without any executive organi- 
 zation, and destitute of any means to enforce the authority of the 
 law. 
 
 I do not mean to assert that crime and outrage are of habitual oc- 
 cun-ence among the people of this territory, or that a state of anarchy 
 exists in any particular portion of it, but it is an undoubted fact that 
 crimes of the most serious nature have been committed, in various 
 places, by persons of mixed and native blood, without any vindica- 
 tion of the law being possible, and that the position of affairs rests 
 at the present moment not on the just power of an executive 
 authority to enforce obedience, but rather upon the passive acquies- 
 cence of the majority of a scant population who hitherto have lived 
 in ignorance of those conflicting interests which, in more populous 
 and civilized communities, tend to anarchy and disorder. 
 
 But the question may be asked. If the Hudson Bay Company 
 represent the centres round which the half-breed settlers have 
 gathered, how then does it occur that that body should be destitute 
 of governing power, and unable to repress crime and outrage ? _To 
 this question I would reply that the Hudson Bay Company, being 
 a commercial corporation dependent for its profits on the suffrages 
 of the people, is of necessity cautious in the exercise of repressive 
 powers ; that, also, it is exposed in the Saskatchewan to the evil 
 influence which free trade has ever developed among the native 
 races ; that, furthermore, it is brought in contact wi);h tribes long
 
 358 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 remarkable for their lawlessness and ferocity ; and that, lastly, the 
 elements of disorder in the whole territory of Saskatchewan are 
 for many causes, yearly on the increase. But before entering upon 
 the subject into which this last consideration would lead me, it will 
 be advisable to glance at the various elements which comprise the 
 population of this Western region. In point of numbers, and in the 
 power which they possess of committing depredations, the aboriginal 
 races claim the foremost place among the inhabitants of the Sas- 
 katchewan. These tribes, like the Indians of other portions of 
 Rupert's Land and the North-west, carry on the pursuits of hunt- 
 ing, bringing the produce of their hunts to barter for the goods of 
 the Hudson Bay Company ; but, unlike the Indians of more 
 northern regions, they subsist almost entirely upon the buffalo, and 
 they carry on among themselves an unceasing warfare which has 
 long become traditional. Accustomed to regard mui'der as honour- 
 able war, robbery and pillage as the traits most ennobling to man- 
 hood, free from all restraint, these warruig tribes of Crees, Assine- 
 boines, and Blackfeet form some of the most savage among even the 
 wild races of Western America. 
 
 Hitherto it may be said that the Crees have looked upon the white 
 man as their friend, but latterly indications have not been wanting 
 to foreshadow a change in this respect — a change which I have 
 found many causes to account for, and which, if the Saskatchewan 
 remains in its present condition, must, I fear, deepen into more 
 positive enmity. The buffalo, the red man's sole means of subsist- 
 ence, is rapidly disappearing ; year by year the prairies, which once 
 shook beneath the tread of countless herds of bisons, are becoming 
 denuded of animal life, and year by year the affliction of starvation 
 comes with an ever-increasing intensity upon the land. There are 
 men still hving who remember to have hunted buffalo on the shores 
 of Lake Manitoba. It is scarcely twelve years since Fort ElUce, on 
 the Assineboine River, formed one of the principal posts of supply 
 for the Hudson Bay Company ; and the vast prairies which flank 
 the southern and western spurs of the Touchwood Hills, now utterly 
 silent and deserted, are still white with the bones of the migratory 
 herds which, until lately, roamed over their surface. Nor is this 
 absence of animal life confined to the plains of the Qu' Appelle and 
 of the Upper Assineboine — all along the Line of the North Sas- 
 katchewan, fiom Carlton to Edmonton House, the same scarcity 
 prevails ; and if further illustration of this decrease of buffalo be 
 wanting, I would state that, during the present winter, I have 
 traversed the plains from the Red River to the Rocky Mountains 
 without seeing even one solitary animal upon 1200 miles of prairie. 
 The Indian is not slow to attribute this lessening of his principal food 
 to the presence of the white and half-breed settlers, whose active com- 
 petition for pemmican (valuable as supplying the transport sei-vice
 
 APPENDIX. 359 
 
 of tlie Hudson Bay Company) has led to this all but total extinc- 
 tion of the bison. 
 
 Nor does he fail to trace other grievances — some real, some 
 imaginary — to the same cause. AVherever the half-breed settler 
 or hunter has established himself he has resorted to the use of poison 
 as a means of destroying the wolves and foxes which were numerous 
 on the prairies. This most pernicious practice has had the effect of 
 greatly embittering the Indians against the settler, for not only have 
 large numbers of animals been uselessly destroyed, inasmuch as 
 fully one-half the animals thus killed are lost to the trapper, but 
 also the poison is frequently communicated to the Indian dogs, and 
 thus a very important mode of winter transport is lost to the red 
 man. It is asserted, too, that horses are sometimes poisoned by 
 eating grasses which have become tainted by the presence of strych- 
 nine ; and although this latter assertion may not be true, yet its 
 effects are the same, as the Indian fully believes it. In consequence 
 of these losses a threat has been made, very generally, by the 
 natives against the hall-breeds, to the effect that if the use of poison 
 was persisted in, the horses belonging to the settlers would be 
 shot. 
 
 Another increasing source of Indian discontent is to be found in 
 the policy pursued by the American Government in their settlement 
 of the countries lying south of the Saskatchewan. Throughout the 
 ten-itories of Dakota and Montana a state of hostility has long 
 existed between the Americans and the tribes of Sioux, Black- 
 feet, and Peagin Indians. This state of hostility has latterly 
 degenerated, on the part of the Americans, into a war of extermi- 
 nation ; and the policy of " clearing out " the red man has now 
 become a recognized portion of Indian warfare. Some of these acts 
 of extermination tind their way into the public records, many of 
 them never find pubUcity. Among the former, the attack made 
 during the spring of 1870 by a large party of troops upon a camp 
 of Peagin Indians close to the British boundary-line will be fresh 
 in the recollection of your Excellency. The tribe thus attacked 
 was suffering severely from small-pox, was surprised at daybreak by 
 the soldiers, who, rushing in upon the tents, destroyed 170 men, 
 women, and children in a few moments. This tribe forms one of 
 the four nations comprised in the Blackfeet league, and have their 
 hunting-grounds partly on British and partly on American territory. 
 I have mentioned the presence of small-pox in connexion with these 
 Indians. It is very generally believed in the Saskatchewan that 
 this disease was originally communicated to the Blackfeet tribes by 
 Missouri traders with a view to the accumulation of robes ; and 
 this opinion, monstrous though it may appear, has been somewhat 
 verified by the Western press when treating of the epidemic last 
 year. As I propose to entei at some length into the question of this
 
 360 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 disease at a later portion of this report, I now only make allusion to 
 it as forming one of the grievances which the Indian affirms he 
 suffers at the hands of the white man. 
 
 In estimating the causes of Indian discontent as bearing upon 
 the future preservation of peace and order in the Saskatchewan, 
 and as illustrating the growing difficulties which a commercial 
 corporation Hke the Hudson Bay Company have to contend against 
 when acting in an executive capacity, I must now allude to the sub- 
 ject of Free Trade. The policy of a free trader in furs is essentially 
 a short-sighted one — he does not care about the future — the con- 
 tinuance and partial weU-being of the Indian is of no consequence 
 to him. His object is to obtain possession of all the furs the 
 Indian may have at the moment to barter, and to gain that end 
 he spares no effort. Alcohol, discontinued by the Hudson Bay 
 Company in their Saskatchewan district for many years, has been 
 freely used of late by free traders from Red Eiver ; and, as great 
 competition always exists between the traders and the employes of 
 the Company, the former have not hesitated to circulate among 
 the natives the idea that they have suffered much injustice in their 
 intercourse with the Company. The events which took place in 
 the Settlement of Bed River during the winter of '69 and '70 
 have also tended to disturb the minds of the Indians — they have 
 heard of changes of Government, of rebelhon andpillage of property, 
 of the occupation of forts belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, 
 and the stoppage of trade and ammunition. Many of these events 
 have been magnified and distorted — evil-disposed persons have not 
 been wanting to spread abroad among the natives the idea of the 
 downfall of the Company, and the threatened immigration of 
 settlers to occui:)y the hunting-grounds and drive the Indian from 
 the land. All these rumours, some of them vague and wild in 
 the extreme, have found ready credence by camp-fires and in 
 council-lodge, and thus it is easy to perceive how the red man, 
 with many of his old convictions and beliefs rudely shaken, should 
 now be more disturbed and discontented than he has been at any 
 former period. 
 
 In endeavouring to correctly estimate the present condition of 
 Indian affairs in the Saskatchewan the efforts and influence of the 
 various missionary bodies must not be overlooked. It has only 
 been during the last twenty years that the Plain Tribes have been 
 brought into contact with the individuals whom the contributions 
 of European and Colonial communities have sent oiit on missions 
 of religion and civihzation. Many of these individuals have toUed 
 with untiring energy and undaunted perseverance in the work to 
 which they have devoted themselves, but it is unfortunately true 
 that the jarring interests of different religious denominations have 
 sometimes induced them to introduce into the field of Indian
 
 APPENDIX. 361 
 
 tteology that polemical rancour which so unhappily distinguishes 
 more civilized communities. 
 
 To fully understand the question of missionary enterprise, as 
 hearing upon the Indian tribes of the Saskatchewan valley, I must 
 glance for a moment at the ^peculiarities in the mental condition of 
 the Indians which render extreme caution necessary in all inter- 
 course between him and the white man. It is most difficult to 
 make the Indian comprehend the true nature of the foreigner with 
 whom he is brought in contact, or rather, I should say, that having 
 his own standard by which he measures truth and falsehood, misery 
 and happiness, and all the accompaniments of Hfe, it is almost 
 impossible to induce him to look at the white man from any point 
 of view but his own. From this point of view every thing is Indian. 
 Enghsh, French, Canadians, and Americans are so many tribes 
 inhabiting various parts of the world, whose land is bad, and who 
 are not possessed of buffalo — for this last desideratum they (the 
 strangers) send goods, missions, &c., to the Indians of the Plains. 
 " Ah ! " they say, " if it was not for our buffalo where would you be ? 
 You would staiwe, your bones would whiten the prairies." It is 
 useless to tell them that such is not the case, they answer, " Where 
 then does all the pemmican go to that you take away in your boats 
 and in your carts ? " With the Indian, seeing is beHeving, and 
 his world is the visible one in which his wild life is cast. This 
 being understood, the necessity for caution in communicating with 
 the native will at once be apparent — yet such caution on the part 
 of those who seek the Indians as missionaries is not always 
 observed. Too fi'equently the language suitable for civihzed society 
 has been addressed to the red man. He is told of governments, 
 and changes in the political world, successive reUgious systems are 
 laid before him by their various advocates. To-day he is told to 
 beheve one religion, to-morrow to have faith in another. Is it 
 any wonder that, applying his own simple tests to so much 
 conflicting testimony, he becomes utterly confused, unsettled, 
 and suspicious? To the white man, as a white man, the 
 Indian has no dislike ; on the contrary, he is pretty certain 
 to receive him with kindness and friendship, provided always 
 that the new-comer will adopt the native system, join the 
 hunting-camp, and live on the plains ; but to the white man 
 as a settler, or hunter on his own account, the Crees and Black- 
 feet are in direct antagonism. Ownership in any particular 
 portion of the soil by an individual is altogether foreign to men 
 who, in the course of a single summer, roam over 600 mdes of 
 prairie. In another portion of this report I hope to refer again 
 to the Indian question, when treating upon that clause in my 
 instructions which relates exclusively to Indian matters. I have 
 alluded here to missionary enterprise, and to the Indian generally,
 
 362 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 as both subjects are very closely comiected with the state of affairs 
 in the Saskatchewan. 
 
 Next in importance to the native race is the half-breed element 
 in the population which now claims our attention. 
 
 The persons composing this class are chiefly of French descent — 
 originally of no fixed habitation, they have, within the last few 
 years, been induced by their clergy to form scattered settlements 
 along the line of the North Saskatchewan. Many of them have 
 emigrated from Red River, and others are either the discharged 
 servants of the Hudson Bay Company or the relatives of persons 
 stiU ir the employment of the Company. In contradistinction to 
 this latter class they bear the name of " free men " — and if freedom 
 from all restraint, general inaptitude for settled employment, and 
 love for the pursuits of hunting be the characteristics of free men, 
 then they are eminently entitled to the name they bear. With 
 very few exceptions, they have preferred adopting the excitiug but 
 precarious means of living, the chase, to following the more certain 
 methods of agriculture. Almost the entire summer is spent by 
 them upon the plains, where they carry on the pursuit of the buffalo 
 in large and well organized bands, bringing the produce of their 
 hunt to trade with the Hudson Bay Company. 
 
 In winter they generally reside at their settlements, going to 
 the nearer plains in small parties and dragging in the frozen 
 buffalo meat for the supply of the Company's posts. This prefer- 
 ence for the wild Hfe of the prairies, by bringing them more in 
 contact with their savage brethren, and by removing them from 
 the means of acquiring knowledge and civilization, has tended in 
 no small degree to throw them back in the social scale, and to 
 make the estabHshment of a prosperous colony almost an impossi- 
 biUty — even starvation, that most potent inducement to toil, seems 
 powerless to promote habits of industry and agriculture. During 
 the winter season they frequently undergo periods of great priva- 
 tion, but, like the Indian, they refuse to credit the gradual extinction 
 of the buffalo, and persist in still depending on that animal for 
 their food. Were I to sum up the general character of the Saskat- 
 chewan half-breed population, I would say: They are gay, idle, 
 dissipated, unreliable, and ungrateful, in a measure brave, hasty to 
 form conclusions and quick to act upon thom, possessing extra- 
 ordinary power of endui-ance, and capable of undergoing immense 
 fatigue, yet scarcely ever to be depended on in critical moments, 
 superstitious and ignorant, having a very deep-rooted distaste to 
 any fixed employment, opposed to the Indian, yet widely separated 
 from the white man — altogether a race presenting, I fear, a hope- 
 less prospect to those who would attempt to frame, from such 
 materials, a future nationality. In the api^endix will be found a 
 statement showing the population and extent of the half-breed
 
 APPENDIX. 363 
 
 settlements in the West. I will here merely remark that the 
 principal settlements are to be found in the Upper Saskatchewan, 
 in the vicinity of Edmonton House, at which post their trade is 
 chiefly earned on. 
 
 Among the Trench half-breed population there exists the same 
 
 Solitical feehng which is to be found among their brethren in 
 [anitoba, and the same sentiments which produced the oiitbreak 
 of 1869-70 are undoubtedly existing in the small commimities of 
 the Saskatchewan. It is no easy matter to understand how the 
 feeling of distrust towards Canada, and a certain hesitation to 
 accept the Dominion Government, first entered into the mind of 
 the half-breed, but undoubtedly such distrust and hesitation have 
 made themselves apparent in the UiDper Saskatchewan, as in Eed 
 River, though in a much less formidable degree ; in fact, I may fairly 
 close this notice of the half-breed population by observing that an ex- 
 act counterpart of French political feeling in Manitoba may be found 
 in the territory of the Saskatchewan, but kept in abeyance both by 
 the isolation of the various settlements, as well as by a certain dread 
 of Indian attack which presses equally upon all classes. 
 
 The next element of which I would speak is that composed of the 
 white settler, European and American, not being servants of the Hud- 
 son Bay Company. At the present time this class is numerically insig- 
 nificant, and were it not that causes might at any moment arise which 
 would rapidly develope it into consequence, it would not now claim 
 more than a passing notice. These causes are to be found in the 
 existence of gold throughout a large extent of the territory lying at 
 the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, and in the effect which 
 the discovery of gold-fields would have in inducing a rapid move- 
 ment of miners from the already over-worked fields of the Pacific 
 States and British Columbia. For some years back indications of 
 gold, in more or less quantities, have been found in almost every 
 river running east from the mountains. On the Peace, Arthabasca, 
 McLeod, and Pembina Rivers, all of which drain their waters into 
 the Arctic Ocean, as well as on the North Saskatchewan, Red 
 Deer, and Bow Rivers, which shed to Lake "Winnipeg, gold has 
 been discovered. The obstacles which the miner has to contend 
 with are, however, very great, and preclude any thing but the most 
 partial examination of the country. The Blackfeet are especially 
 hostile towards miners, and never hesitate to attack them, nor is the 
 miner slow to retaliate ; indeed he has been too frequently the 
 aggressor, and the records of gold discovery are full of horrible 
 atrocities committed upon the red man. It has only been in the 
 neighbourhood of the forts of the Hudson Bay Company that 
 continued washing for gold could be carried on. In the neighbour- 
 hood of Edmonton from three to twelve dollars of gold have fre- 
 quently been " washed " in a single day by one man ; but the miner
 
 364 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 is not satisfied with, what he calls " dirt washing," and craves for 
 the more exciting work in the diy diggings where, if the " strike " is 
 good, the yield is sometimes enormous. The difficulty of procuring 
 provisious or supplies of any kiad has also prevented "prospecting" 
 parties from examining the head-waters of the numerous streams 
 which form the sources of the North and South Saskatchewan. It 
 is not the high price of provisions that deters the miner from pene- 
 trating these regions, but the absohite impossibility of procuring 
 any. Notwithstanding the many difficulties which I have enume- 
 rated, a very determined effort will in all probabiHty be made, during 
 the coming summer, to examine the head-waters of the North Branch 
 of the Saskatchewan. A party of miners, four in number, crossed 
 the mountains late in the autumn of 1870, and are now wintering 
 between Edmonton and the Mountain House, having laid in large 
 sui^plies for the coming season. These men speak with confidence 
 of the existence of rich diggings in some portion of the country lying 
 within the outer range of the mountains. From conversations 
 which I have held with these men, as well as with others who have 
 partly investigated the country, I am of opinion that there exists a 
 very strong probability of the discovery of gold-fields in the Upper 
 Saskatchewan at no distant period. Should this opinion be well 
 founded, the effect which it will have upon the whole Western terri- 
 tory will be of the utmost consequence. 
 
 Despite the hostihty of the Indians inhabiting the neighbourhood 
 of such discoveries, or the plains or passes leading to them, a 
 general influx of miners will take place into the Saskatchewan, 
 and in their track will come the waggon or pack-horse of the 
 merchant from the towns of Benton or Kootenais, or Helena. It is 
 impossible to say what effect such an influx of strangers would have 
 upon the plain Indians; but of one fact we may rest assured, 
 namely, that should these tribes exhibit their usual spirit of robbery 
 and murder they would quickly be exterminated by the miners. 
 
 Every where throughout the Pacific States and along the central 
 territories of America, as well as in our own colony of British 
 Columbia, a war of extermination has arisen, under such circum- 
 stances, between the miners and the savages, and there is good 
 reason to suppose that similar results would follow contact with the 
 proverbially hostile tribe of Blackfeet Indians. 
 
 Having in the foregoing remarks reviewed the various elements 
 which compose the scanty but widely extended population of the 
 Saskatchewan, outside the circle of the Hudson Bay Company, I 
 have now to refer to that body, as far as it is connected with the 
 present condition of affairs in the Saskatchewan. 
 
 As a governing body the Hudson Bay Company has ever had to 
 contend against the evils which are inseparable from monopoly of 
 trade combined with monopoly of judicial power, but so long as the
 
 APPENDIX. 365 
 
 aboriginal inlaabitaiits were tlie only people witli whom it came in 
 contact its authority could be preserved ; and as it centred within 
 itself whatever knowledge and enlightenment existed in the country, 
 its officials were regarded by the aboriginals as persons of a superior 
 nature, nay, even in bygone times it was by no means unusual for 
 the Indians to regard the possession of some of the most ordinary 
 inventions of civihzation on the part of the officials of the Company 
 as clearly demonstrating a close affinity between these gentlemen 
 and the Manitou, nor were these attributes of divinity altogether 
 distasteful to the officers, who found them both remunerative as to 
 trade and conducive to the exercise of authority. When, however, 
 the Free Traders and the Missionary reached the Saskatchewan 
 this primitive state of affiiirs ceased — with the enlightenment of the 
 savage came the inevitable discontent of the Indian, until there arose 
 the condition of things to which I have already alluded. I am 
 aware that there are persons who, while admitting the present un- 
 satisfactory state of the Saskatchewan, ascribe its evils more to mis- 
 takes committed by officers of the Company, in their management 
 of the Indians, than to any material change in the character of the 
 jjeople ; but I beheve such opinion to be founded in error. It would 
 be impossible to revert to the old management of affairs. The 
 Indians and the half-breeds are aware of their strength, and openly 
 sjjeak of it ; and although I am far from asserting that a more deter- 
 mined policy on the part of the officer in charge of the Saskatche- 
 wan District would not be attended by better results, stUl it is 
 apparent that the great isolation of the posts, as well as the absence 
 of any fighting element in the class of servants belonging to the 
 Company, render the forts on the Upper Saskatchewan, to a very 
 great degree, helpless, and at the mercy of the people of that country. 
 Nor are the engaged servants of the Company a class of ijersons 
 with whom it is at aU easy to deal. Recruited j^rincipally from the 
 French half-breed population, and exposed, as I have already shown, 
 to the wild and lawless life of the prairies, there exists in reahty 
 only a very slight distinction between them and their Indian bre- 
 thren, hence it is not surprising that acts of insubordination should 
 be of frequent occurrence among these servants, and that i^ersonal 
 violence towards superior officers should be by no means an unusual 
 event in the forts of the Saskatchewan ; indeed it has only been by 
 the exercise of manual force on the part of the officials in charge 
 that the semblance of authority has sometimes been preserved. 
 This tendency towards insubordination is still more obseiwable 
 among the casual servants or "trip men" belonging to the Com- 
 pany. These persons are in the habit of engaging for a trip or 
 journey, and frequently select the most critical moments to demand 
 an increased rate of pay, or to desert en masse. 
 At Edmonton House, the head-quarters of the Saskatchewan
 
 366 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 District, and at the posts of Victoria and Fort Pitt, tMs state of 
 lawlessness is more ajjparent than on the lower portion of the river. 
 Threats are frequently made use of by the Indians and half-breeds 
 as a means of extorting favourable terms from the officers in charge, 
 the cattle belonging to the posts are uselessly kUled, and altogether 
 the Hudson Bay Company may be said to retain their tenure of 
 the Upper Saskatchewan upon a base which appears insecure and 
 unsatisfactory. 
 
 In the foregoing remarks I have entered at some length into the 
 question of the materials comprising the population of the Sas- 
 katchewan, with a view to demonstrate that the condition of 
 affairs in that territory is the natural result of many causes, which 
 have been gradually developing themselves, and which must of 
 necessity undergo still further developments if left in their present 
 state. I have endeavoured to point out how from the growing wants 
 of the aboriginal inhabitants, from the conflicting nature of the 
 interests of the half-breed and Indian population, as well as from 
 the natural constitution of the Hudson Bay Company, a state of 
 society has arisen in the Saskatchewan which threatens at no 
 distant day to give rise to grave complications ; and which now has 
 the effect of rendering life and property insecure and preventing 
 the settlement of those fertile regions which in other respects are so 
 admirably suited to colonization. 
 
 As matters at present rest, the region of the Saskatchewan, is 
 without law, order, or security for life or property; robbery and 
 murder for years have gone unpunished ; Indian massacres are 
 unchecked even in the close vicinity of the Hudson Bay Company's 
 posts, and all civil and legal institutions are entirely unknown. 
 
 I now enter upon that portion of your Excellency's instructions 
 which has reference to the epidemic of small-pox in the Saskatche- 
 wan. It is about fifty years since the first great epidemic of small- 
 pox swept ovei che regions of the Missouri and the Saskatchewan, 
 committing great ravages among the tribes of Sioux, Gros-Ventres, 
 and Flatheads upon American territory ; and among the Crees and 
 Assineboines of the British. The Blackfeet Indians escaped that 
 epidemic, while, on the other hand, the Assineboines, or Stonies of 
 the Qu'Appelle Plains, were almost entirely destroyed. Since 
 that period the disease appears to have visited some of the tribes at 
 intervals of greater or less duration, but until this and the previous 
 year its ravages were confined to certain localities and did not 
 extend universally throughout the country. During the summer 
 and early winter of '69 and '70 reports reached the Saskatchewan 
 of the prevalence of small-pox of a very malignant type among the 
 South Peagin Indians, a branch of the great Blackfeet nation. It 
 was hoped, however, that the disease would be confined to the 
 Missouri River, and the Crees who, as usual, were at war with their
 
 APPENDIX. 367 
 
 traditional enemies, were warned by Missionaries and others that 
 the prosecutions of their predatory expeditions into the Blackfeet 
 country would in all probability carry the infection into the JS^orth 
 Saskatchewan. From the South Peagin tribes, on the head-waters 
 of the Missouri, the disease spread rapidly through the kindred 
 tribes of Blood, Blackfeet, and Lurcee Indians, all which new tribes 
 have their hunting -grounds north oi the boundary -line. Unfortu- 
 nately for the Crees, they failed to listen to the advice of those 
 persons who had recommended a suspension of hostilities. With 
 the opening of spring the war-parties commenced their raids ; 
 a band of seventeen Crees penetrated, in the month of April, into 
 the Blackfeet country, and coming uj^on a deserted camp of their 
 enemies in which a tent was still standing, they proceeded to ran- 
 sack it. This tent contained the dead bodies of some Blackfeet, and 
 although th ese bodies presented a very revolting spectacle, being in 
 an advanced stage of decomposition, they were nevertheless subjected 
 to the usual process of mutilation, the scalps and clothing being 
 also carried away. 
 
 For this act the Crees paid a terrible penalty ; scarcely had they 
 reached their own country before the disease appeared among them 
 in its most virulent and infectious form. Nor were the consequences 
 of this raid less disa^strous to the whole Cree nation. At the period 
 of the year to which I allude, the early summer, these Indians 
 usually assemble together from different directions in large numbers, 
 and it was towards one of those numerous assemblies that the 
 returning war-party, still carrying the scalps and clothing of the 
 Blackfeet, directed their steps. Almost immediately upon their 
 arrival the disease broke out amongst them in its most malignant 
 form. Out of the seventeen men who took part in the raid, it is 
 asserted that not one escaped the infection, and only two of the 
 number appear to have survived. The disease, once introduced iuto 
 the camp, spread with the utmost rapidity ; numbers of men, women, 
 and children fell victims to it during the month of June ; the cures 
 of the medicine-men were found utterly unavailing to arrest it, and, 
 as a last resource, the camp broke up into small parties, some 
 directing their march towards Edmonton, and others to Victoria, 
 Saddle Lake, Fort Pitt, and along the whole line of the North 
 Saskatchewan. Thus, at the same period, the beginning of July, 
 small-pox of the very worst descrijation was spread throughout 
 some 500 miles of territory, appearing almost simultaneously at the 
 Hudson Bay Company's posts from the Rocky Mountain House to 
 Carlton. 
 
 It is difficult to imagiue a state of pestilence more terrible than 
 that which kept pace with these moving parties of Crees during the 
 summer months of 1870. By streams and lakes, in willow copses, 
 and upon bare hiU-sides, often shelterless from the fierce rays of the
 
 368 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 summer sun and exposed to the rains and dews of night, tlie poor 
 plague -stricken wretches lay down to die — no assistance of any 
 kind, for the ties of family were quickly loosened, and mothers 
 abandoned their helpless children upon the wayside, fleeing onward 
 to some fancied place of safety. The district lying between Fort 
 Pitt and Victoria, a distance of about 140 miles, was perhaps the 
 scene of the greatest suffering. 
 
 In the immediate neighbourhood of Fort Pitt two camps of Creea 
 established themselves, at first in the hope of obtaining medical 
 assistance, and failing in that — for the officer in charge soon ex- 
 hausted his slender store — they appear to have endeavoured to 
 convey the infection into the fort, in the behef that by doing so they 
 would cease to suffer from it themselves. The dead bodies were 
 left unburied close to the stockades, and frequently Indians in the 
 worst stage of the disease might be seen trying to force an entrance 
 into the houses, or rubbing portions of the infectious matter from 
 their persons against the door-handles and window-frames of tho 
 dwellings. It is singular that only three persons within the foi-t 
 should have been infected with the disease, and I can only attribute 
 the comparative immunity enjoyed by the residents at that post to 
 the fact that Mr. John Sinclair had taken the precaution early in the 
 summer to vaccinate all the persons residing there, having obtained 
 the vaccine matter from a Salteaux Indian who had been vaccinated 
 at the Mission of Prince Albert, presided over by Rev. Mr. Nesbit, 
 sometime during the spring. In this matter of vaccination a very 
 important difference appears to have existed between the Upper 
 and Lower Saskatchewan. At the settlement of St. Albert, near 
 Edmonton, the opinion prevails that vaccination was of little or no 
 avail to check the spread of the disease, while, on the contrary, resi- 
 dents on the lower portion of the Saskatchewan assert that they 
 cannot trace a single case in which death had ensued after vaccina- 
 tion had been properly performed. I attribute this difference of 
 opinion upon the benefits resulting from vaccination to the fact that 
 the vaccine matter used at St. Albert and Edmonton was of a 
 spurious description, having been brought from Fort Benton, on the 
 Missouri River, by traders diu-ing the early summer, and that also 
 it was used when the disease had reached its height, while, on the 
 other hand, the vaccination carried on fi-om Mr. Nesbit's Mission 
 appears to have been commenced early in the spring, and also to 
 have been of a genuine descrij)tion. 
 
 At the Mission of St. Albert, called also " Big Lake," the disease 
 assumed a most maUgnant form ; the infection appears to have | 
 been introduced into the settlement from two different sources 
 almost at the same period. The summer hunting-party met the 
 Blackfeet on the plains and visited the Indian camp (then infected 
 with small -pox) for the purpose of making peace and trading. A
 
 APPENDIX. 369 
 
 few days later the disease appeared among them and swept off 
 half their number in a very short space of time. To such a degree 
 of helplessness were they reduced that when the prairie fires broke 
 out in the neighbourhood of their camp they were unable to do any 
 thing towards arresting its progress or saving their property. The 
 fire swept through the camp, destroying a number of horses, carts, 
 and tents, and the unfortunate people returned to their homes at 
 Big Lake carrying the disease with them. About the same time 
 some of the Crees also reached the settlement, and the infection 
 thus communicated from both quarters spread with amazing rai^idity. 
 Out of a total population numbering about 900 souls, 600 caught 
 the disease, and up to the date of my departure from Edmonton 
 (•22nd December) 311 deaths had occurred. Nor is this enormous 
 percentage of deaths very much to be wondered at when we consider 
 the circumstances attending this epidemic. The peoj^le, huddled 
 together in small hordes, were destitute of medical assistance or of 
 even the most ordinary requirements of the hospital. During the 
 period of delirium incidental to small-pox, they fi'equently wandered 
 forth at night into the open air, and remained exposed for hours to 
 dew or rain ; in the latter stages of the disease they took no pre- 
 cautions against cold, and fi-equently died from relapse produced 
 by exposure ; on the other hand, they appear to have suffered but 
 little pain after the primary fever passed away. " I have fre- 
 quently," says Pere Andre, " asked a man in the last stages of small- 
 pox, whose end was close at hand, if he was sufferiug much pain ; 
 and the almost invariable reply was, ' None whatever.' " They seem 
 also to have died without suffering, although the fearfully swoUeu 
 appearance of the face, upon which scarcely a feature was visible, 
 would lead to the supposition that such a condition must of neces- 
 sity be accompanied by great pain. 
 
 The circumstances attending the progress of the epidemic at 
 Carlton House are worthy of notice, both on account of the extreme 
 virulence which characterized the disease at that post, and also as 
 no official record of this visitation of small-pox would be complete 
 which failed to bring to the notice of your Excellency the undaunted 
 heroism displayed by a young ofiicer of the Hudson Bay Company 
 who was in temporary charge of the station. At the breaking out 
 of the disease, early in the month of August, the population of 
 Carlton numbered about seventy souls. Of thest, thirty -two persons 
 caught the infection, and twenty-eight persons died. Throughout the 
 entire period of the epidemic the ofiicer already alluded to, Mr, 
 Wm. Traill, laboured with untiring perseverance in ministering to 
 the necessities of the sick, at whose bedsides he was to be found 
 both day and night, undeterred by the fear of infection, and undis- 
 mayed by the unusually loathsome nature of the disease. To esti- 
 mate with any thing like accuracy the losses caused among the
 
 370 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 Indian tribes is a matter of considerable difficulty. Some tribes 
 and portions of tribes suffered much more severely than others. 
 That most competent authority, Pere Lacombe, is of opinion that 
 neither the Blood nor Blackfeet Indians had, in proportion to their 
 numbers, as many casualties as the Crees, whose losses may be 
 safely stated at from 600 to 800 persons. The Lurcees, a small 
 tribe in close alUance with the Blackfeet, suffered very severely, the 
 number of their tents being reduced from fifty to twelve. On the 
 other hand, the Assineboines, or Stonies of the Plains, warned by the 
 memory of the former epidemic, by which they were almost anni- 
 hilated, fled at the first approach of the disease, and, keeping far out 
 in the south-eastern prairies, escaped the infection altogether. 
 The very heavy loss suffered by the Lurcees to which I have just 
 alluded was, I apprehend, due to the fact tliat the members of this 
 tribe have long been noted as persons possessing enfeebled consti- 
 tutions, as evidenced by the prevalence of goitre almost universally 
 amongst them. As a singular illustration of the intractable nature 
 of these Indians, I would mention that at the period when the 
 small-pox was most destructive among them they still continued to 
 carry on their horse-steaHng raids against the Crees and half-breeds 
 in the neighbourhood of Victoria Mission. It was not unusual to 
 come ujDon traces of the disease in the corn-fields around the settle- 
 ment, and even the dead bodies of some Lurcees were discovered in 
 the vicinity of a river which they had been in the habit of swimming 
 while in the prosecution of their predatory attacks. The Rocky 
 Mountain Stonies are stated to have lost over fifty souls. The 
 losses sustained by the Blood, Blackfeet, and Peagin tribes are 
 merely conjectural ; but, as their loss in leading men or chiefs has 
 been heavy, it is only reasonable to presume that the casualties 
 suffered generally by those tribes have been proportionately severe. 
 Only three white persons appear to have fallen victims to the disease 
 — one an officer of the Hudson Bay Comj^any service at Carlton, 
 and two members of the family of the Eev. Mr. McDougall, at Vic- 
 toria. Altogether, I should be inclined to estimate the entire loss 
 along the North Saskatchewan, not including Blood, Blackfeet, or 
 Peagin Indians, at about 1200 persons. At the period of my depar- 
 ture from the Saskatchewan, the beginning of the j^resent year, the 
 disease which committed such terrible havoc among the scanty 
 population of that region still lingered in many localities. On my 
 upward journey to the Rocky Mountains I had found the forts of 
 the Hudson Bay Company free from infection. On my return 
 journey I found cases of small-pox in the Forts of Edmonton, Vic- 
 toria, and Pitt — cases which, it is true, were of a milder description 
 than those of the autumn and summer, but which, nevertheless, 
 boded ill for the hoped-for disapi^earance of the plague beneath the 
 Bnows and cold of winter. With regard to the supply of medicine
 
 APPENDIX. 371 
 
 sent Ly direction of the Board of HealtH in Manitoba to the Sas- 
 katchewan, I have only to remark that I conveyed to Edmonton the 
 portion of the supply destined for that station. It was found, how- 
 ever, that many of the bottles had been much injm-ed by frost, and 
 I cannot in any way favourably notice either the composition or 
 general selection of these supplies. 
 
 Amongst the many sad traces of the epidemic existing in the 
 Upper Saskatchewan I know of none so touching as that which is 
 to be found in an assemblage of some twenty little orphan children 
 gathered together beneath the roof of the sisters of charity at the 
 settlement of St. Albert. These children are of all races, and even 
 in some instances the sole survivors of what was lately a numerous 
 family. They are fed, clothed, and taught at the expense of the 
 Mission ; and when we consider that the war which is at present 
 raging in France has dried up the sources of charity from wh(!nce 
 the Missions of the North-west derived their chief support, and ■l;hat 
 the present winter is one of unusual scarcity and distress along the 
 North Saskatchewan, then it will be perceived what a fitting object 
 for the assistance of other communities is now existing in tliis 
 distant orphanage of the North. 
 
 I cannot close this notice of the epidemic without alluding to the 
 danger which will arise in the spring of introducing the infection 
 into Manitoba. As soon as the prairie route becomes practicable 
 there will be much traffic to and from the Saskatchewan — furs and 
 robes will be introduced into the settlement despite the law which 
 prohibits their importation. The present quarantine establishment 
 at Rat Creek is situated too near to the settlement to admit of a 
 strict enforcement of the sanitary regulations. It was only in the 
 month of October last year that a man coming direct from Carlton 
 died at this Eat Creek, while his companions, who were also from 
 the same place, and from whom he caught the infection, passed on 
 into the province. If I might su.ggest the course which appears 
 to me to be the most efficacious, I would say that a constable 
 stationed at Fort Ellice during the spring and summer months, who 
 would examine freighters and others, giving them bills of health to 
 enable them to enter the province, would effectually meet the 
 requirements of the situation. All persons coining from the West 
 are obliged to pass close to the neighbourhood of Fort Ellice. This 
 station is situated about 170 miles west of the provincial boundary, 
 and about 300 miles south-east of the South Saskatchewan, forming 
 the only post of call upon the road between Carlton and Portage- 
 la-Prairie. I have only to add that, unless vaccination is made 
 compulsory among the half-breed inhabitants, they will, I fear, be 
 slow to avail themselves of it. It must not be forgotten that with 
 the disappearance of the snow from the plains a quantity of infected 
 matter — clothing, robes, and portions of skeletons — will again be- 
 
 B.b2
 
 372 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 come exposed to t"he atmosphere, and also that the skins of wolves, 
 &c., collected during the jjresent winter will be very liable to contain 
 infection of the most virulent description. 
 
 The portion of your Excellency's instructions which has reference 
 to the Indian tri^bes of the Assineboine and Saskatchewan regions 
 now claims my attention. 
 
 The aboriginal inhabitants of the country lying between Red 
 Eiver and the Rocky Mountains are divided into tribes of Salteaux, 
 Swampies, Crees, Assineboines, or Stonies of the Plains, Blackfeet 
 and Assineboines of the Mountains. A simpler classification, and 
 one which will be found more useful when estimating the relative 
 habits of these tribes, is to divide them into two great classes of 
 Prairie Indians and Thickwood Indians — ^the first comprising the 
 Blackfeet with their kindred tribes of Bloods, Lurcees, and Peagins, 
 as also the Crees of the Saskatchewan and the Assineboines of the 
 Qu' Appelle ; and the last being comiDosed of the Rocky Mountain 
 Stonies, the Swampy Crees, and the Salteaux of the country lying 
 between Manitoba and Fort EUice. This classification marks in 
 reality the distinctive characteristics of the Western Indians. On 
 the one hand, we find the Prairie tribes subsisting almost entu-ely 
 upon the buffalo, assembling together in large camj^s, acknow- 
 ledging the leadership and authority of men conspicuous by their 
 abilities in war or in the chase, and carrying on a perpetual state of 
 warfare with the other Indians of the plains. On the other hand, 
 we find the Indians of the woods subsisting by fishing and by the 
 pui'suit of moose and deer, living together in small parties, admitting 
 only a very nominal authority on the part of one man, professing to 
 entertain hostile feelings towards certain races, but rarely developing 
 such feelings into jDOsitive hostilities — altogether a much more 
 peacefully disposed people, because less exposed to the dangerous 
 influence of large assemblies. 
 
 Commencing with the Salteaux, I find that they extend westward 
 from Portage-la-Prairie to Fort Ellice, and from thence north to 
 Fort Pelly and the neighbourhood of Fort-a-la-Corne, where they 
 border and mix with the kindred race of Swampy or Muskego Crees. 
 At Portage-la-Prairie and in the vicinity of Fort Ellice a few Sioux 
 have appeared since the outbreak in Mitinesota and Dakota in 1862. 
 It is probable that the number of this tribe on British territory will 
 annually increase with the jDrosecution of railroad enterprise and 
 settlement in the northern portion of the United States. At pre- 
 sent, however, the Siovix are strangers at Fort EUice, and have not 
 yet assumed those rights of proprietorship which other tribes, longer 
 resident, aiTOgate to themselves. 
 
 The Salteaux, who inhabit the country lying west of Manitoba, 
 partake partly of the character of Thickwood and partly of Prairie 
 Indians — the buffalo no longer exists in that portion of the country,
 
 APPENDIX. 373 
 
 the Indian camps are small, and the authority of the chief merely 
 nominal. The language spoken by this tribe is the same dialect of 
 the Algonquin tongue which is used in the Lac-la-Pluie District 
 and throughout the greater poi'tion of the settlement. 
 
 Passing north-west from Fort Elhce, we enter the country of the 
 Cree Indians, having to the north and east the Thickwood Crees, 
 and to the south and west the Plain Crees. The former, under the 
 various names of Swampes or Muskego Indians, inhabit the country 
 west of Lake Winnipeg, extending as far as Forts Pelly and a-la- 
 Cornie, and fi'om the latter place, in a north-westerly direction, to 
 Carlton and Fort Pitt. Their language, which is similar to that 
 spoken by their cousins, the Plain Crees, is also a dialect of the Al- 
 gonquin tongue. They are seldom found in large numbers, usually 
 forming camps of from four to ten families. They carry on the 
 pursuit of the moose and red deer, and are, generally speaking, 
 expert hunters and trappers. 
 
 Bordering the Thickwood Crees on the south and west lies the 
 country of the Plain Crees — a land of vast treeless expanses, of high 
 rolling prairies, of wooded tracts lying in valleys of many-sized 
 streams, in a word, the land of the Saskatchewan. A line running 
 direct from the Touchwood Hills to Edmonton House would mea- 
 sure 600 miles in length, yet would lie altogetherwithin the country 
 of the Plain Crees. They inhabit the prairies which extend from 
 the Qu'Appelle to the South Saskatchewan, a portion of territory 
 which was formerly the land of the Assineboine, but which became 
 the country of the Crees through lapse of time and chance of war. 
 From the elbow of the South Branch of the Saskatchewan the Cree 
 nation extends in a west and north-west direction to the vicinity 
 of the Peace Hills, some fifty miles south of Edmonton. Along the 
 entire line there exists a state of perpetual warfare during the months 
 of summer and autumn, for here commences the ten'itory over which 
 roams the great Blackfeet tribe, whose southern boundary lies be- 
 yond the Missouri River, and whose western hmits are guarded by 
 the giant peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Ever since these tribes 
 became kno^vn to the fur-traders of the North-west and Hudson 
 Bay Companies there has existed this state of hostility amongst 
 them. The Crees, having been the first to obtain fire-arms from the 
 white traders, quickly extended their boundaries, and moving from 
 the Hudson Bay and the region of the lakes overran the plains 
 of the Upper Saskatchewan. Fragments of other tribes scattered 
 at long intervals through the present country of the Crees attest 
 this conquest, and it is probable that the whole Indian territory 
 lying between the Saskatchewan and the American boundary-Une 
 would have been dominated over by this tribe had they not found 
 themselves opposed by the great Blackfeet nation, which dwell 
 along the sources of the Missouri.
 
 374 THE GEE AT LONE LAND. 
 
 Passing west from Edmonton, we enter the country of the Rocky 
 Mountain Stonies, a small tribe of Thickwood Indians dwelling 
 along the source of the North Saskatchewan and in the outer ranges 
 of the Rocky Mountains, — a fragment, no doubt, from the once 
 powerful Assineboine nation which has found a refuge amidst the 
 forests and mountains of the West. This tribe is noted as possess- 
 ing hunters and mountain guides of great energy and skill. Al- 
 though at war with the Blackfeet, collisions are not frequent between 
 them, as the Assineboines never go upon war -parties ; and the 
 Blackfeet rarely venture into the wooded country. 
 
 Having spoken in detail of the Indian tribes inhabiting the line 
 oi fertile country lying between Red River and the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, it only remains for me to allude to the Blackfeet with the con- 
 federate tribes of Blood, Lurcees and Peagins. These tribes inhabit 
 the great plains lying between the Red Deer River and the Mis- 
 eouri, a vast tract of country which, with few exceptions, is arid, 
 \ reeless, and sandy — a portion of the true American desert, which 
 extends from the fertile belt of the Saskatchewan to the borders of 
 Texas. With the exception of the Lurcees, the other confederate 
 tribes speak the same language — the Lurcees, being a branch of the 
 Chipwayans of the North, speak a language peculiar to themselves, 
 ■while at the same time understanding and speaking the Blackfeet 
 tongue. At war with their hereditary enemies, the Crees, upon 
 their northern and eastern boundaries — at war with Kootanais and 
 Flathead tribes on south and west — at war with Assineboines on 
 south-east and north-west — carrying on predatory excursions 
 against the Americans on the Missouri, this Blackfeet nation forms 
 a people of whom it may truly be said that they are against eveiy 
 man, and that every man is against them. Essentially a wild, law- 
 less, erring race, whose natures have received the stamps of the re- 
 gion in which they dwell ; whose knowledge is read from the great 
 book which Day, Night, and the Desert unfold to them ; and who 
 yet possess a rude eloquence, a savage pride, and a wild love of free- 
 dom of their own. Nor are there other indications wanting to lead 
 to the hope that this tribe may yet be found to be capable of yield- 
 ing to influences to which they have heretofore been strangers, 
 namely. Justice and Kindness. 
 
 Inhabiting, as the Blackfeet do, a large extent of country which 
 from the arid nature of its soil must ever prove useless for pm-poses 
 of settlement and colonization, I do not apprehend that much diffi- 
 culty will arise between them and the whites, provided always that 
 measures are taken to guard against certain possibilities of danger, 
 and that the Crees are made to understand that the forts and settle- 
 ments along the Upper Saskatchewan must be considered as neutral 
 ground upon which hostilities cannot be waged against the Black- 
 feet. As matters at present stand, whenever the Blackfeet venture
 
 APPENDIX. 375 
 
 in upon a trading expedition to the forts of the Hudson Bay 
 Company they are generally assaulted by the Crees, and savagely 
 murdered. Pere Lacombe estimates the number of Blackfeet killed 
 in and around Edmonton alone during his residence in the West, at 
 over forty men, and he has assured me that to his knowledge the 
 Blackfeet have never killed a Cree at that place, except in self- 
 defence. Mr. AV. J. Christie, chief factor at Edmonton House, 
 confirms this statement. He says, " The Blackfeet respect the 
 whites more than the Crees do, that is, a Blackfoot will never at- 
 tempt the life of a Cree at our forts, and bands of them are more 
 easily controlled in an excitement than Crees. It would be easier 
 for o!ne of us to sa^e the life of a Cree among a band of Blackfeet 
 thai) it would be to save a Blackfoot in a band of Crees." In con- 
 seqVence of these repeated assaults in the vicinity of the forts, the 
 Blaickfeet can with difficulty be persuaded that the whites are not 
 in active alliance with the Crees. Any person who studies the geo- 
 gi'aphical jjcsition of the posts of the Hudson Bay Company can- 
 not fail to notice the immense extent of country intervening between 
 the North Saskatchewan and the American boundary-Line in 
 which there exists no fort or trading post of the Company. This 
 blank space upon the maps is the country of the Blackfeet. Many 
 years ago a post was established upon the Bow River, in the heart 
 of the Blackfeet country, but at that time they were even more law- 
 less than at present, and the position had to be abandoned on ac- 
 count of the expenses necessary to keep up a large garrison of ser- 
 vants. Since that time (nearly forty years ago) the Blackfeet have 
 only had the Rocky Mountain House to depend on for supplies, and 
 as it is situated far from the centre of their country it only receives 
 a portion of their trade. Thus we find a veiy active business carried 
 on by the Americans upon the Upper Missouri, and there can be little 
 doubt that the greater portion of robes, buffalo leather, &c., traded by 
 the Blackfeet finds its way down the waters of the Missouri. There is 
 also another point connected with American trade amongst the Black- 
 feet to which I desire to draw special attention. Indians visiting the 
 Eocky Mountain House during the fall of 1870 have spoken of 
 the existence of a trading post of Americans from Fort Benton, 
 upon the Belly River, sixty miles within the British boundary- 
 line. They have asserted that two American traders, well-known 
 on the Missouri, named Culverston and Healy, have established 
 themselves at this post for the pui-pose of trading alcohol, whiskey, 
 and arms and ammunition of the most imi^roved description, with 
 the Blackfeet Indians ; and that an active trade is being carried 
 on in all these articles, which, it is said, are constantly smuggled 
 across the boundary-line by people from Fort Benton. This story 
 is apparently confirmed by the absence of the Blackfeet from the 
 Rocky Mountain House this season, and also from the fact of the
 
 176 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 arms in qaestion (repeating rifles) being found in possession of 
 these Indians. Tlie town of Benton on the Missouri Eiver has 
 long been noted for supplying the Indians with arms and ammuni- 
 tion ; to such an extent has this trade been can-ied on, that miners 
 in Montana, who have suffered from Indian attack, have threatened 
 on some occasions to bum the stores belonging to the traders, if 
 the practice was continued. I have already spoken of the great 
 extent of the Blackfeet country ; some idea of the roamings of 
 these Indians may be gathered from a circumstance connected with 
 the trade of the Rocky Mountain House. Duiing the spring and 
 summer raids which the Blackfeet make upon the Crees of the 
 Middle Saskatchewan, a number of horses belonging to the Hudson 
 Bay Company and to settlers are yearly carried away. It is a 
 general practice for persons whose horses have been stolen to send 
 during the fall to the Rocky Mountain House for the missing 
 animals, although that station is 300 to 600 miles distant from 
 the places where the thefts have been committed. If the horse 
 has not perished from the ill treatment to which he has been 
 subjected by his captors, he is usually found at the above-named 
 station, to which he has been brought for bai-ter in a terribly worn- 
 out condition. In the Appendix marked B will be found information 
 regarding the localities occupied by the Indian tribes, the names 
 of the piTQcipal chiefs, estimate of numbers in each tribe, and other 
 infoi-mation connected with the aboriginal inhabitants, which for 
 sake of clearness I have arranged in a tabular form. 
 
 It now only remains for me to refer to the last clause in the 
 instructions under which I acted, before entering into an expression 
 of the views which I have formed upon the subject of what appears 
 necessary to be done in the interests of peace and order in the 
 Saskatchewan. The fur trade of the Saskatchewan District has 
 long been in a declining state, great scarcity of the richer de- 
 scriptions of furs, competition of free traders, and the very heavy 
 expenses incurred in the maintenance of large establishments, have 
 combined to render the district a source of loss to the Hudson 
 Bay Company. This loss has, I believe, varied annually fi-om 
 2000Z. to 6000^., but heretofore it has been somewhat counter- 
 balanced by the fact that the Inland Transport Line of the Company 
 was dependent for its supply of provisions upon the buffalo meat, 
 which of late years has only been procurable in the Saskatchewan. 
 Now, however, that buffalo can no longer be procured in numbers, 
 the Upper Saskatchewan becomes more than ever a bui'den to 
 the Hudson Bay Company ; still the abandonment of it by the 
 Company might be attended by more serious loss to the trade than 
 that which is incurred in its retention. Undoubtedly the Saskat- 
 chewan, if abandoned by the Hudson Bay Company, would be 
 speedily occupied by traders from the Missoui-i, who would also
 
 APPENDIX. 377 
 
 tap the trade of the riclier fiir-producing districts of Lesser Slave 
 Lake and the North. The products of the Saskatchewan proper 
 principally consists of provisions, including pemmican and dry meat, 
 buffalo robes and leather, Hnx, cat, and wolf skins. The richer 
 furs, such as otters, minks, beavers, martias, &c., are chiefly pro- 
 cured in the Lesser Slave Lake Division of the Saskatchewan 
 District. With regard to the subject of Free Trade in the Saskat- 
 chewan, it is at present conducted upon principles quite different 
 from those existing in Manitoba. The free men or " winterers " 
 are, strictly speaking, free traders, but they dispose of the greater 
 portion of their furs, robes, &c., to the Company. Some, it is true, 
 carry the produce of their trade or hunt (for they are both hunters 
 and traders) to Red River, disposing of it to the merchants in 
 Winnipeg, but I do not imagine that more than one-third of their 
 trade thus finds its way into the market. These free men are 
 nearly all French half-breeds, and are mostly outfitted by the 
 Company. It has frequently occun-ed that a very considerable 
 trade has been carried on with alcohol, brought by free men from 
 the Settlement of Red River, and distributed to Indians and others 
 in the Upper Saskatchewan. This trade has been productive of 
 the very worst consequences, but the law prohibiting the sale or 
 possession of Hquor is now widely known throughout the Western 
 territory, and its beneficial effects have already been experienced. 
 
 I feel convinced that if the proper means are taken the sup- 
 pression of the liquor trafiic of the West can be easily accom- 
 plished. 
 
 A very important subject is that which has reference to the 
 communication between the Upper Saskatchewan and IVIissouri 
 Rivers. 
 
 Fort Benton on the Missouri has of late become a place of very 
 considerable importance as a post for the supply of the mining 
 districts of Montana. Its geographical position is favourable. 
 Standing at the head of the navigation of the Missouri, it commands 
 the trade of Idaho and Montana. A steamboat, without breaking 
 bulk, can go from New Orleans to Benton, a distance of 4000 miles. 
 Speaking from the recollection of information obtained at Omaha 
 three years ago, it takes about thirty days to ascend the river from 
 that town to Benton, the distance being about 2000 miles. Only 
 boats di'awing two or three feet of water can perform the journey, 
 as there are many shoals and shifting sands to obsti-uct heavier 
 vessels. It has been estimated that between thirty or forty steam- 
 boats reached Benton during the course of last summer. The 
 season, for purposes of navigation, may be reckoned as having a 
 duration of about four months. Let us now travel north of the 
 American boundary-line, and see what effect Benton is likely to 
 produce upon the trade of the Saskatchewan. Edmonton lies
 
 378 THE GREAT LONE LAXD. 
 
 N.N.W. from Benton about 370 miles. Carlton about tbe same 
 distance north-east. From botb Carlton and Edmonton to Fort 
 Benton tbe country presents no obstacle whatever to the passage 
 of loaded carts or waggons, but the road from Edmonton is free 
 from Blackfeet dui-ing the summer months, and is better provided 
 with wood and water. For the first time in the history of the 
 Saskatchewan, carts passed safely from Edmonton to Benton during 
 the course of last summer. These carts, ten in number, started 
 from Edmonton in the month of May, bringing furs, robes, &c., to 
 the Missouri. They returned in the month of June with a cargo 
 consisting of flour and alcohol. 
 
 The furs and robes realized good prices, and altogether the 
 journey was so siiccessful as to hold out high inducements to other 
 persons to attempt it during the coming summer. Already the 
 merchants of Benton are bidding high for the possession of the 
 trade of the Upper Saskatchewan, and estimates have been received 
 by missionaries offering to deliver goods at Edmonton for 7 
 (American currency) per 100 lbs., all risks being insured. In fact 
 it has only been on account of the absence of a frontier custom- 
 house that importations of bonded goods have not already been 
 made via Benton. 
 
 These facts speak for themselves. 
 
 "Without doubt, if the natural outlet to the trade of the Saskat- 
 chewan, namely the River Saskatchewan itself, remains in its pre- 
 sent neglected state, the trade of the Western territory will seek 
 a new source, and Benton wiU become to Edmonton what St. Paul 
 in Minnesota is to Manitoba. 
 
 With a view to bringing the regions of the Saskatchewan into 
 a state of order and security, and to establish the authority and 
 jurisdiction of the Dominion Government, as well as to promote 
 the colonization of the country known as the " Fertile Belt," and 
 particularly to guard against the deplorable evils arising out of an 
 Indian war, I would recommend the following course for the 
 consideration of your Excellency. 1st — The appointment of a 
 Civil Magistrate or Commissioner, after the model of similar ap- 
 pointments in Ireland and in India. This official would be required 
 to make semi-annual tours through the Saskatchewan for the 
 purpose of holding courts ; he would be assisted in the discharge 
 of his judicial functions by the civil magistrates of the Hudson 
 Bay Company who have been already nominated, and by others yet 
 to be appointed from amongst the most influential and respected 
 persons of the French and English half-breed population. This 
 officer should reside in the Upper Saskatchewan. 
 
 2nd. The organization of a well-equipped force of from 100 to 150 
 men, one-third to be mounted, sj^ecially recruited and engaged for 
 fciCi vice in the Saskatchewan ; enlisting for two or three years' service,
 
 APPENDIX. 379 
 
 and at expiration of that period to become military settlers, receiving 
 grants of land, but still remaining as a reserve force should their 
 services be required. 
 
 3rd. The establishment of two Government stations, one on the 
 Upper Saskatchewan, in the neighbourhood of Edmonton, the other 
 at the junctions of the North and South Branches of the River Sas- 
 katchewan, below Carlton. The establishment of these stations to 
 be followed by the extinguishment of the Indian title, within certain 
 limits, to be determined by the geographical features of the locality ; 
 for instance, say from longitude of Carlton House eastward to 
 junction of two Saskatchewans, the northern and southern limits 
 being the river banks. Again, at Edmonton, I would recommend 
 the Government to take possession of both banks of the Saskatche- 
 wan River, from Edmonton House to Victoria, a distance of about 
 80 miles, with a depth of, say, from six to eight miles. The districts 
 thus taken possession of would immediately become available for 
 settlement, Government titles being given at rates which would 
 induce immigration. These are the three general propositions, with 
 a few additions to be mentioned hereafter, which I beUeve will, if 
 acted upon, secure peace and order to the Saskatchewan, encourage 
 settlement, and open up to the influences of civilized man one of the 
 fairest regions of the earth. For the sake of clearness, I have em- 
 bodied these three suggestions in the shortest possible forms. I 
 will now review the reasons which recommend their adoption and 
 the benefits likely to accrue from them. 
 
 With reference to the first suggestion, namely, the appointment 
 of a resident magistrate, or civil commissioner. I would merely 
 observe that the general report which I have already made on the 
 subject of the state of the Saskatchewan, as well as the particular 
 statement to be found in the Appendix marked D, will be sufficient 
 to prove the necessity of that appointment. With regard, however, 
 to this appointment as connected with the other suggestion of 
 military force and Government stations or districts, I have much 
 to advance. The first pressing necessity is the establishment, as 
 speedily as possible, of some civil authority which will give a distinct 
 and tangible idea of Government to the native and half-breed poj^u- 
 lation, now so totally devoid of the knowledge of what law and civil 
 government may pertain to. The establishment of such an autho- 
 rity, distinct from, and independent of, the Hudson Bay Comj)any, 
 as well as from any missionary body situated in the country, would 
 inaugurate a new series of events, a commencement, as it were, of 
 civiUzation in these vast regions, free from all associations connected 
 with the former history of the country, and separate from the rival 
 systems of missionary enterprise, while at the same time lending 
 countenance and support to all. Without some material force to 
 render obligatory the ordinances of such an authority matters would,
 
 380 THE GREAT LONE LAND. 
 
 I believe, become even worse than tbey are at present, where the 
 wrong-doer does not appear to violate any law, because there is no 
 law to violate. On the other hand, I am strongly of oj^inion that 
 any military force which would merely be sent to the forts of the 
 Hudson Bay Company would prove only a source of useless expen- 
 diture to the Dominion Government, leaving matters in very much 
 the same state as they exist at present, affording little protection 
 outside the immediate circle of the forts in question, holding out no 
 inducements to the establishment of new settlements, and liable to 
 be mistaken by the ignorant people of the country for the hired 
 defenders of the Hiidson Bay Company. Thus it seems to me that 
 force without distinct civil government would be useless, and that 
 civil government would be powerless without a material force. 
 Again, as to the purchase of Indian rights upon certain localities 
 and the formation of settlements, it must be borne in mind that no 
 settlement is possible in the Saskatchewan until some such plan is 
 adopted. 
 
 People will not build houses, rear stock, or cultivate land in places 
 where their cattle are liable to be killed and their crops stolen. It 
 must also be remembered that the Saskatchewan offers at present 
 not only a magnificent soil and a fine climate, but also a market for 
 all farming produce at rates which are exorbitantly high. For in- 
 stance, flour sells from 21. lOs. to bl. per 100 lbs. ; potatoes from 
 6*. to '7s. a bushel; and other commodities in proportion. ISTo 
 apprehension need be entertained that such settlements would 
 remain isolated establishments. There are at the present time 
 many persons scattered through the Saskatchewan who wish to 
 become farmers and settlers, but hesitate to do so in the absence of 
 protection and security. These persons are old servants of the 
 Hudson Bay Company who have made money, or hunters whose 
 lives have been jjassed in the great West, and who now desu-e to settle 
 down. Nor would another class of settler be absent. Several of the 
 missionaries in the Saskatchewan have been in corresiDondence with 
 persons in Canada who desire to seek a home in this western land, 
 but who have been advised to remain m their present country until 
 matters have become more settled along the Saskatchewan. The 
 advantages of the localities which I have specified, the junction of 
 the branches of the Saskatchewan River and the neighboiirhood of 
 Edmonton, may be stated as follows : — Junction of north and south 
 branch — a place of great future military and commercial import- 
 ance, commanding navigation of both rivers ; enjoys a climate 
 suitable to the production of all cereals and roots, and a soil of 
 unsurpassed fertility ; is situated about midway between Red River 
 and the Rocky Mountains, and possesses abundant and excellent 
 supphes of timber for building and fuel; is heloio the presumed 
 interruption to steam navigation on Saskatchewan River known
 
 APPENDIX. 381 
 
 as " Coal Falls," and is situated on direct cart-road from Manitoba 
 to Carlton. 
 
 Edmonton, tlie centre of the Upper Sastatcliewan, also the centre 
 of a large population (half-breed) — country lying between it and 
 Victoria very fertile, is within easy reach of Blackfeet, Cree, and 
 Assineboine country ; summer frosts often injui'ious to wheat, but 
 all other crops thrive well, and even wheat is frequently a large and 
 productive crop ; timber for fuel plenty, and for building can be 
 obtained in large quantities ten miles distant ; coal in large quan- 
 tities on bank of river, and gold at from three to ten dollars a day 
 in sand bars. 
 
 Only one other subject remains for consideration (I presume that 
 the establishment of regular mail communication and steam navi- 
 gation would follow the adoption of the course I have recommended, 
 and, therefore, have not thought fit to introdiice them), and to that 
 subject I will now allude before closing this Report, which has 
 already reached proportions very much larger than I had anti- 
 cipated. I refer to the Indian question, and the best mode of dealing 
 with it. As the miHtary protection of the line of the Saskatchewan 
 against Indian attack would be a practical impossibihty without a 
 very great expenditure of money, it becomes necessary that all pre- 
 cautions should be taken to prevent the outbreak of an Indian war, 
 which, if once commenced, could not fail to be productive of evil 
 consequences. I would urge the advisabiUty of sending a Commis- 
 sioner to meet the tribes of the Saskatchewan dui-ing their summer 
 assembhes. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the real Indian Question exists 
 many hundred miles west of Manitoba, in a region where the red 
 man wields a power and an influence of his own. Upon one point 
 I would recommend particular caution, and that is, in the selection 
 of the individual for this purpose. I have heard a good deal_ of 
 persons who were said to possess great knowledge of the Indian 
 character, and I have seen enough of the red man to estimate at its 
 real worth the possession of this knowledge. Knowledge of Indian 
 character has too long been synonymous with knowledge of how to 
 cheat the Indian — a species of cleverness which, even in the science 
 of chicanery, does not require the exercise of the highest abilities. 
 I fear that the Indian has already had too many dealings with 
 persons of this class, and has now got a very shrewd idea that those 
 who possess this knowledge of his character have also managed to 
 possess themselves of his property. 
 
 With regard to the objects to be attended to by a Commission 
 ■){ the kind I have referred to, the principal would be the esta- 
 ">lishment of peace between the warriug tribes of Crees and Black- 
 feet. I beheve that a peace duly entered into, and signed by the 
 chiefs of both nations, in the presence and under the authority
 
 382 THE GEE AT LONE LAND, 
 
 of a Government Commissioner, witli that show of ceremony and 
 display so dear to the mind of the Indian, would be lasting 
 in its effects. Such a peace should be made on the basis of resti- 
 tution to Government in case of robbery. For instance, during 
 time of peace a Cree steals five horses from a Blackfoot. In that 
 case the particular branch of the Cree nation to which the thief 
 belonged would have to give up ten horses to Government, which 
 would be handed over to the Blackfeet as restitution and atonement. 
 The idea of peace on some such understanding occurred to me in the 
 Saskatchewan, and I questioned one of the most influential of the 
 Cree chiefs uijon the subject. His answer to me was that his band 
 ■would agree to such a proposal and abide by it, but that he could 
 not speak for the other bands. I would also recommend that medals, 
 such as those given to the Indian chiefs of Canada and Lake 
 Superior many years ago, be distributed among the leading men of 
 the Plain Tribes. It is astonishing with what religious veneration 
 these large silver medals have been preserved by their owners 
 through all the vicissitudes of war and time, and with what pride 
 the well-poUshed effigy is still pointed out, and the words " King 
 George" shouted by the Indian, who has yet a firm belief in the 
 present existence of that monarch. If it should be decided that a 
 body of troops should be despatched to the West, I think it very 
 advisable that the officer in command of such body should make 
 himself thoroughly acquainted with the Plain Tribes, visiting them 
 at least annually in their camps, and conferring with them on points 
 connected with their interest. I am also of opinion that if the 
 Government establishes itself in the Saskatchewan, a third post 
 should be formed, after the lapse of a year, at the junction of the 
 Medicine and Red Deer Rivers in latitude 52° 18' north, and 
 longitude 114° 15' west, about 90 miles south of Edmonton. This 
 position is well within the Blackfeet country, possesses a good soil, 
 excellent timber, and commands the road to Benton. This post need 
 not be the centre of a settlem.ent, but merely a military, customs, 
 missionary, and trading establishment. 
 
 Such, Sir, are the views which I have formed upon the whole 
 question of the existing state of affairs in the Saskatchewan. They 
 result from the thought and experience of many long days of travel 
 through a large portion of the region to which they have reference. 
 If I were asked from what point of view I have looked upon this 
 question, I would answer — From that point which sees a vast 
 country lying, as it were, silently awaiting the approach of the 
 immense wave of human life which rolls unceasingly from Europe to 
 America. Far off as lie the regions of the Saskatchewan fi-om the 
 Atlantic sea-board on which that wave is thrown, remote as are the 
 fertile glades which fringe the eastern slopes of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, still that wave of human life is destined to reach those beauti-
 
 APPENDIX. 383 
 
 fill solitudes, and to convert tlie wild lurariance of their now useless 
 vegetation into aU the requirements of civilized existence. And if 
 it be matter for desire that across this immense continent, resting 
 upon the two greatest oceans of the world, a powerful nation should 
 arise -nath the strength and the manhood which race and climate and 
 tradition would assign to it — a nation which would look with no 
 evil eye upon the old mother land from whence it sprung, a nation 
 which, having no bitter memories to recall, would have no idle preju- 
 dices to perpetuate — then surely it is worthy of all toil of hand and 
 brain, on the part of those who to-day rule, that this great Unk in 
 the chain of such a future nationahty should no longer remain un- 
 developed, a prey to the confhcts of savage races, at once the 
 garden and the wilderness of the Central Continent. 
 
 W. F. BUTLEK, 
 
 Lieutenant, Q9th Megiment. 
 Manitoba, lOtli March, 1871. 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 Settlements {ILalf-hreed) in SasTcatcheican, 
 
 Prince Albert. — English half-breed. A Presbyterian Mis- 
 sion presided over by Rev. Mr. Nesbit. Small post of Hudson Bay 
 Company with large farm attached. On North Branch of Sas- 
 katchewan Biver, .35 miles above junction of both branches ; a fine 
 soil, plenty of timber, and good wintering ground for stock ; 60 miles 
 east of Carlton, and 60 west of Fort-a-la-Corne. 
 
 Whitefish Lake. — English. Wesleyan Mission — only a few 
 settlers — soil good — timber plenty. Situated north-east of Victoria 
 60 miles. 
 
 Lac la Biche. — French haK-breed. Roman Catholic Mission. 
 Large farm attached to mission vnth. water grist miU, &c. Soil 
 very good and timber abundant ; excellent fishei-y. Situated at 70 
 miles north-west from Fort Pitt. 
 
 YiCTORLi. — Eughsh half-breed. Wesleyan Mission. Large farm, 
 soil good, altogether a rising little colony. Situated on North 
 Branch of Saskatchewan River, 8-t miles below Edmonton Mission, 
 presided over by Rev. J. McDougall. 
 
 St. Albert. — French half-breed. Roman Catholic Mission and 
 residence of Bishop (Grandin) ; fine church building, school and 
 convent, &c. Previous to epidemic, 900 French, the largest settle-
 
 884 THE GEEAT LONE LAND. 
 
 ment in Saskatcliewan ; very little farming done, all hunters, &c. 
 Situated 9 miles north of Edmonton ; orphanage here. 
 
 Lac St. Anne. — French half-breed. Eoman Catholic. Settlers 
 mostly emigrated to St. Albert. Good fishery; a few farms existing 
 and doing well. Timber plenty, and soil (as usual) very good ; 50 
 xuiles north-west from Edmonton.
 
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 '686 THE GEEAT LONE LAXD. 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Names of persons wliose appointment to the Commission of the 
 Peace would be recommended : — 
 
 All officers of Hudson Bay Company in charge of posts. 
 
 Mr. Chanletain, of St. Albert Mission, Edmonton. 
 
 Mr. Brazeau, „ „ 
 
 Mr. McKenzie, of Victoria. 
 
 Mr. Ecarpote, Sen., residing near Carlton. 
 
 Mr. Wm. Borwick, St. Albert Mission, Edmonton. 
 
 Mr. McGillis, residing near Fort Pitt. 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 List of some of the crimes which have been committed in Sas- 
 katchewan without investigation or punishment : — 
 
 Murder of a man named Whitford near Eocky Mountains. 
 
 Murder of George Daniels by George Robertson at White Mud 
 River, near Victoria. 
 
 Murder of French half-breed by his nephew at St. Albert. 
 
 Murder of two Lurcee Indians by half-breed close to Edmonton 
 House. 
 
 Murderous attack upon a small party of Blackfeet Indians (men, 
 women, and children), made by Crees, near Edmonton, in April, 
 1870, by which several of the former were killed and wounded. This 
 attack occurred after the safety of these Indians had been purchased 
 from the Crees by the officer of the Hudson Bay Company in charge 
 at Edmonton, and a guard provided for their safe passage across the 
 rivers. This guard, composed of French half-breeds from St. Albert, 
 opened out to right and left when the attack commenced, and did 
 nothing towards saving the lives of the Blackfeet, who were nearly 
 all killed or wounded. There is now living close to Edmonton a 
 woman who beat out the brains of a little child aged two years on 
 this occasion ; also a half-breed man who is the foremost instigator 
 to all these atrocities. Besides these murders and acts of violence, 
 robbery is of continual occurrence in the Saskatchewan. The out- 
 rages specified above have aU taken place during the last fe^ years. 
 
 GILBERT AND RXVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN S S(iUARE, LONDON.
 
 Catalogues of American and Foreign Books Published or 
 
 Imported by Messrs. S. Low & Co. can 
 
 be had on application. 
 
 Crown Buildings, i88, Fleet Street, London, 
 yaniiary, 1876. 
 
 a List of IBookS 
 
 PUBLISHING BY 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE^ & RIVINGTON. 
 
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 -j,.„^« CLASSIFIED Educational Catalogfue of Works 
 
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 1^^^ Ablett (H.) Reminiscences of an Old Draper. 
 
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 List of Publications. 23 
 
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 List of Publications . 25 
 
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 List of Publications. 27 
 
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 late Chief Justice of Ceylon. 
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 Sir Garnet Wolselev, K.C.B. 
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 J. A. Froude. 
 
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 Sir W. Fergusson, Bart. 
 Samuel Plimsoll, M.P. 
 Archdeacon Denison. 
 
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