The Great Lone Land Part 13

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 a.s.semblage 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 his well-diluted liquor, was wont to become helplessly intoxicated. 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 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-abnegation 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 bearer of an Order 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 pa.s.sion for dress is strangely ill.u.s.trated 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 with 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 England. The addition of a little gold tinsel to the coat collar is of considerable consequence, but the presence of a nether garment is not at all requisite to the completeness of the general get-up. For this most ridiculous-looking costume a Blackfeet chief will readily exchange 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 buffalo 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 a.s.saults. The devotion which he has evinced towards these poor wild warriors has not been thrown away upon them, and Peere la Combe is the only man who can pa.s.s and repa.s.s 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 River. 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 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 nmore 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 feet of their enemies, then fire and rush back again, yelling all the time, and taunting their enemies. The pere spent the night in attending to the wounded Blackfeet. When day dawned the Crees drew off 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 fight, 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 pa.s.sed by, making the snow a little deeper and the cold a little colder, it was evident that the pa.s.sage of the 400 miles intervening between the Mountain House and the nearest American Fort had become almost an impossibility.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Eastward--A beautiful Light.

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 pa.s.sed quickly through the snow-covered country. One day later I looked my last look at the far-stretching 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 traveled--from Quebec to these Three Medicine Hills--has not a single mountain ridge in its long 3000 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 outlined 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, dear, if I could but see a wee bit of hill I thinking I might get well again."

Camped that night near a beaver lodge on the Pas-co-pe, the conversation turned upon the mountains we had just left.

"Are they the greatest mountains in the world?" asked Paul Foyale.

"No, there are others nearly as big again."

"Is the Company there, too?" again 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 alt.i.tude of the Himalayas in the estimation of my hearers.

About an hour before daybreak on the 16th of December a Very remarkable light was visible for some time in the zenith, A central orb, or heart of red and crimson light, became suddenly visible a little to the north of the zenith; around this most luminous centre was a great ring, or circle of bright light, and from this outer band there flashed innumerable rays far-into the surrounding darkness. As I looked at it, my thoughts traveled 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 supposed 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.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

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-koam the Blackfoot.

I was now making my way back to Edmonton, with the intention of there exchanging 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 gra.s.s 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 Saskatchewan. 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 rushing waters of the Saskatchewan.

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 for 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 have but one function--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 degrees, watching them closely on the track and in the camp during 1300 miles of travel, I may claim, I think, some right to a.s.sert that I possess no inconsiderable insight into 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," "Cariboos," "muskymotes," "Coffees," and "Nichina.s.sis" 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 a.s.sert that these dogs were not, many of them, great rascals and rank imposters; 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 cunning 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 different 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 which ill.u.s.trates this peculiar feature in dog-training. It is said that a high dignitary of the Church 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 whip and stick the dogs were unable 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 to 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 aducing 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 sh.o.r.es of Hudson Bay harness their dogs by many separate lines in a kind of band or pack, while in the Saskatchewan, and Mackenzie River 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 one 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 traces, which are kept from touching the ground by a back-band of leather b.u.t.toned under the dog's ribs or stomach. This back band is generally covered with little bra.s.s 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 appearance of so much finery upon the woefully frightened dog, who, when he is first put into his harness, usually looks the picture of fear. The fact is patent that in hauling 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 lasting hauler; longer than any other dog will his clean firm feet hold tough over the trying ice, and although other dogs will surpa.s.s 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-dogs 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 l.u.s.tre in the earliest dawn, the hauling-dog has his slumber rudely broken by the summons of his driver. Poor beast! All night long he has lain curled up in the roundest of round b.a.l.l.s hard by the camp; there, in the lea of tree-stumps or snow-drift, he has dreamt the dreams of peace and comfort. 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 himself; 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 treeless 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 is about to begin. He springs lightly up and watches eagerly these preparations for his supper. 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 campfire, 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 perspective 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 severity. 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 construction were simply these. Before leaving Red River 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 length and three in diameter. The skin of this deer is very light, but possesses, for some reason with which I am unacquainted, 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 canva.s.s. 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 opening, 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 was 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 under 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 as you can localize to your feet, or your fingers, or your nose, but cold all over, crushing cold. Putting on coat and mocca.s.sins 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 breakfast 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 hours 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 degrees 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 51th parallel of north lat.i.tude, and its elevation above the sea is about 1801 feet. During the whole day we journeyed on, the wind still kept dead against us, and at times it was impossible to face its terrible keenness. 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 impossible to select four good ones. Coffee, Tete Noir, Michina.s.s, and another whose name I forget, underwent repeated whalings at the hands of my driver, a half-breed from Edmonnton named Frazer. Early in the afternoon the head of Tete Noir was reduced to shapeless pulp from tremendous thrashings. Michina.s.s, 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 hauling 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!"

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 out; in spite of cold and frost the infection 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 scanty community. 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 opposite 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 pa.s.sion had been strong in death. In the end, the much-coveted horses were carried off 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, 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 settlement, the buffalo were far out in the great plains; so between 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 ringed,-deeply indented, and polished on the outer edges of the indentations 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 surpa.s.sing virtue among the Indians over a vast territory. No tribe or portion of a tribe would pa.s.s 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 which 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 misfortunes 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-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 sang 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 melancholy 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 cla.s.s.' As before, the beatings were incessant, and I witnessed the first example of a very common occurrence in dog-driving--I beheld the operation known as "sending a dog to Rome." 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 memory of the awful blows that took his consciousness away full upon him, he pulls franticly at his load. Oftentimes 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, p.r.o.ne to sulk if reproved; but at the risk of causing delay and inconvenience I had to interfere'