The Great Lone Land Part 9

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 coa.r.s.e 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 my mind, at least, the rock and the Windigo will always be a.s.sociated 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 become 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 beena 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 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. There 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 Rosseaui 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, and 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, and they laid a buffalo robe for his bed in the warmest corner of the wigwam. When night came, all slept; 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 tempestuous to allow the canoe to put out, and had lost his way in the vast maze of islands already spoken of. As we had received intelligence at the Portage-du-Rat of his having set out from the other side of the lake, and as hour after hour pa.s.sed 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 Devil's 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 engage 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 composing 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.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

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.

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 sh.o.r.es behind us, and saw the-lonely isles flit by as the powerful current swept us like a leaf upon its bosom!

It was late of the afternoon of the 15th August 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 first day in-sorting them as we swept along, 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, pa.s.sing 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 beheld 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 drenching. The old Indian cleared a s.p.a.ce in the dripping vegetation, and made me a rude 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 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 picnic, 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 mats soon attained the consistency, and in many instances the legibility, of a smoked herring, but as they had before presented a very fishy appearance that was not of much consequence.

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 pa.s.sed, 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 of Indian war. Thus the great Slave Fall tells by its name the fate of two Sioux 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; but the torture was a short one; the mighty rush, the wild leap, and the happy hunting-ground, where even Ojibbeways 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 voyageurs, from the fact that the 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 degenerated 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 pa.s.sing back over the shoulders support 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 portage, his bare or moca.s.sined feet enable him to pa.s.s nimbly over the slippery rocks in places where boots would 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 condenses intense nervous sensation into the shortest possible s.p.a.ce of time as does the work of shooting, or running an immense 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 watercan a.s.sume--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 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 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 commanding it and his staff 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 developed 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 sh.o.r.e to meet his men, a.s.sembled for the first time together since Lake Superior's distant sea had been left behind. It-was a meeting not devoid of those a.s.sociations 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 sh.o.r.es 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 a.s.suredly had never been rouse before by notes so strange. Sailing in a wide scattered ma.s.s before a favouring breeze, the fleet reached about noon the following day the mouth of the Red River, the river whose name was the name of the Expedition, and whose sh.o.r.es 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 of the lake. And now our course lay up along the reed fringed river and sluggish 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sed 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! Nevertheless, 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 possession--he would die in the ruins. These and many other schemes of a similar description were to be enacted by the Dictator in the last extremity of his despair. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sage 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 cla.s.sical name of Tacitus Struthers. Tacitus had also a.s.sisted me to swim the steed across the Red River in order to gain the right sh.o.r.e, 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 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 and storm then broke upon the Red River Expedition! till the tents flapped and fell and the drenched soldiers shiv'ered shelterless, 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 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 most miserable-looking animal, though belying his attenuated appearance by his performance. 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 cla.s.sical 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 upon Fort Garry. The preliminary arrangements were soon completed, and the little army, with its two bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed the half reed 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 little force drew near Fort Garry. There was no sign of occupation; no flag on the flag-staff, no men upon the 4 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 a.s.sineboine River, was found open. As the skirmish line neared the northside 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 enounced in no stinted terms one or two miserable-looking men who seemed to cower beneath his reproaches. This was an officer of the Hudson Bay Company, ell 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 frontier. 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 of Providence and the suffrage of his fellow-citizens to the highest position 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.

That he meditated opposition cannot be doubted. The muskets cast away by his guard were found loaded; ammunition 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 were 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 abandoned 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 revolting 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--it is unnecessary to say much.

He seems to have possessed all the vices of the Metis without any of his virtues or n.o.ble traits. A strange 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 Expedition. 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 Government 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 Pandemonium. No civil authority had been given to the commander 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 congratulation, 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 effects upon the brain and nervous system, that under its influence men became perfectly helpless, lying stretched upon the prairie for hours, as 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 stumbling about, and the bear, with 100 men after him, scuttling in every direction. 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 mult.i.tude, peace would be restored and both would be reconducted to their boats. At length they all got away down the river. 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 commander 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.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

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-Digressive--The a.s.sineboine River--Rossette.

One night, it was the 19th of September, I was lying out in the long prairie gra.s.s near the south sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.es 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 Republic 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 a.s.sociations 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 bitter adversity the sword and service of even one sympathizing 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 my 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 execution 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 pa.s.sed 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 gentleman came on board, a well-known member of the Canadian bench.

"Where are you going?" he inquired of me.

"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 again 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 steadiness; 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 arrival, "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 gra.s.s of the prairies.

And now let us turn our glance to this great North west whither my wandering steps are about to lead me. Fully 900 miles as bird would fly, and 1200 as horse can travel, west of Red River an immense range of mountains, eternally capped with snow, rises in rugged ma.s.ses from a vast stream-seared plain. They who first beheld these grand guardians of the central prairies named them the Montagnes des Rochers; a fitting t.i.tle for such vast acc.u.mulation of rugged magnificence. From the glaciers and ice valleys of this great range of mountains innumerable streams descend into the plains. For a time they wander, as if heedless of direction, through groves and glades and green spreading declivities; then, a.s.suming greater fixidity of purpose, they gather up many a wandering 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 great 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. This 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 sh.o.r.es the Kissaskatchewan, or Rapid-flowing River. But this Kissaskatchewan is not the only river which waters the great central region lying between Red River and the Rocky Mountains. The a.s.sineboine or Stony River drains the rolling prairie lands 500 miles west from Red River, and many a smaller stream and rushing, bubbling 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 Saskatchewan.

So much for the rivers; and now 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?