CHAPTER XXII
THE CHIPPEWYANS OF THE COLUMBIAN MOUNTAINS
In a former volume[4] the writer has related a hunting adventure which befell the late Lieutenant John Keast Lord; but, as the career of this intrepid traveller was so full of romantic and striking episodes, the reader may be glad to hear a little more about him.
After his eventful mule-buying expedition into the States, he returned to British Columbia, where he was acting as naturalist to the Canadian Boundary Commission; but he had no sooner reached New Westminster than he found other instructions awaiting him; this time, to report on the fauna of the coast Ranges. This was in 1858, when already the Chippewyans and Kuchins had been unsettled and rendered ripe for assault and murder by the newly-arrived gold-diggers; and Mr. Lord wisely decided to take with him a bodyguard of half a dozen young Canadian hunters, whose bravery, judgment, and fidelity he had many times proved.
New Westminster was indeed new in those days; in fact, it was not a year old; and much of the ride from 278 there to the Cascade Mountains was a pathless, hilly waste, dotted with mountain-like rocks of granite, and occasionally varied by chasms and cañons; and in this cheerful neighbourhood many Indians who feared the vengeance of the Government, for some of their various crimes, had taken up their abode. The soldier-naturalist’s intention was to reach the seaward slopes of the range, which had been but very little explored, and were known to be covered to a great extent by dense forests.
By the second day of his journey he had begun to have serious thoughts of sending back at least three of his companions, realising that a troop of seven mounted men, fully armed, and accompanied by five baggage-mules, had very much the appearance of a punitive expedition on a small scale. Certainly this must have been the view of the first few parties of redskins with whom he met; for these either fled hastily as though to warn their friends, or else defiantly threatened the strangers with their bows or muskets. Lord’s absolutely perfect knowledge of the Athapascan tongue, and of the character and customs of the Chippewyans, was really the surest weapon of defence for him to rely on now; and, bidding his men conceal all arms but their rifles, and endeavour to look as much as possible like a peaceful hunting or travelling party, he resolved that, whenever they met with Indians, he would get in first blow with his tongue and conciliate the savages.
This very soon proved to be a promising plan; for on the third morning, not long after the little troop had begun its day’s march, a score of Indians burst out 279 from the shelter of one of the huge boulders and, in a chorus of wild yells, ordered the white men to throw down their rifles. Signing to his companions to stay where they were, Lord cantered across the strip of broken ground, and, with no sign of anxiety, pulled up before the noisiest of the Indians and gave him a laughing good morning.
“Have you not yet learned to distinguish between friends and enemies?” he asked. The redskins ceased their clamour and looked at each other in a puzzled manner. They had been prepared for violence on the part of the new-comers; or they would even have beheld their meek surrender without betraying great astonishment; but that the white leader should treat them and their demands as a huge joke, and further, should speak their tongue with an accent as pure and natural as their own, were facts not to be grappled with hurriedly. And, while they hesitated, Lord continued airily, “What do you fear, my brothers? We have not come to hurt you. Why did you beseech us to drop our guns?”
“You have tracked some of our tribe from the mines, have you not?” said the chief cautiously, and more, perhaps, to gain time than because he sought information.
“No; we have nothing to do with the mines, nor do we wish to poach on your hunting or your fishing. We are going to look for beasts in the forest on the distant slopes. If you will guide us to a place where we can cross the range with our horses and mules, we will pay you well.”
To do him justice, though the Indian may be 280 treacherous, he is seldom a liar; consequently he is less prone than the rest of the world to doubt another man’s word. From the chief’s increasing hesitation it was clear enough that he believed the Englishman’s statement, and was not unwilling to be friendly. All the same, Lord’s mind was not entirely at ease; none of the Indians had horses; few of them had firearms; and the covetous glances cast at his horse and his rifle showed plainly enough that at least the majority of his new neighbours would like the opportunity of robbing him and his men. Some of them began to consult in low tones, but he turned on these with a sudden severity, partly assumed and partly real.
“What?” he shouted. “Do you make a stranger of me? Do you exclude from your palaver one who speaks your tongue; who has smoked the peace-pipe and hunted with your brethren everywhere, from the Nipigon Lake to these very mountains, and from the white man’s gold-camps to the country of the Apaches and the Navajos; who has taught even the wisest of your tribe; who can charm away pains in the jaws, and can put new life into horses and dogs and cattle when they are sick?”
The muttered conversation broke off abruptly, and, with some approach to deference, the chief explained that it only related to the price which they should ask for guiding the Big White Chief, and to the doubts that some of them had as to the good faith of his followers. The Big White Chief (he stood six feet four) answered curtly that he would be answerable for his men, and, by way of payment, would give a supply of tobacco and rum to each Indian, and a revolver, with fifty 281 cartridges, to the leader. The last item clinched the bargain in a moment, and the chief at once agreed to show the way to a gorge through which the travellers and their beasts could pass with ease to the other side. This, he said, was more than a day’s journey away; if the white braves would stay the night at his camp, which they would reach by sundown, he would undertake to bring them to the gorge by noon on the following day.
“Go on, then,” said the Englishman. “I will inform my men and we will follow you”; and in a very few words he explained the situation to the Canadians, warning everyone to be on his guard.
The Indians, though laden with the spoils of a brief hunting expedition, set off at a rapid jog-trot, seeming quite heedless of the broken and ever-rising ground, over which the white men’s horses had much ado to keep pace with them. At times this difficult road gave place to a winding but well-worn track that seemed as though it would eventually lead, corkscrew fashion, to the summit of a mountain nearly ten thousand feet high.
Some distance up this, Lord called a halt for dinner, and, when it was ended, he had one of the mules disburthened, and, with much show of friendly condescension, insisted upon placing it at the chief’s disposal for the remainder of their climb. By this means he gained as it were a hostage in case of treachery; for it would be easy for one or other of his party to place himself between the now mounted chief and the rest of the Indians, with whom he had for a long time been carrying on a mysterious and disquieting conversation in an 282 undertone. Lord was a poor hand at playing eavesdropper, even had his life or liberty depended on that form of acquiring information; but, from odd syllables he had overheard from time to time, it had not been difficult to gather that his guides had become two factions, the one strongly disagreeing with the policy of the other.
Late in the afternoon the path wound suddenly into a thick grove of red and yellow cedars and Douglas firs; and the half-muffled sounds of life in the distance told the travellers that the Indian camp, or some other, could not be far away. The sounds soon separated themselves so that the barking of dogs, the blows of an axe on a tree-trunk, etc., could easily be distinguished; then lights peeped out among the trees, and the chatter of women and screaming of babies grew plainly audible.
Since he had been compelled to ride among the white men, the chief had become more and more moodily silent and ill at ease; and now the Indians ahead were throwing apprehensive glances back, and renewing their whispered arguments.
“What is it? What do they fear?” asked Lord of the chief, who was then riding abreast of him.
He answered nervously, “I will not deceive my great brother. They fear lest you or your companions should tell other white men what you will have seen at our camp.”
“And if we did?”
“You would no longer be the red man’s friend. If harm should come to us through any of you, my tribe would take a fearful vengeance.”
The big veterinary surgeon laughed negligently, and remarked that the chief need not be uneasy. Whatever curiosity he might feel was soon to be satisfied; for one more twist of the path brought them on to a large clearing, dotted everywhere with fires and wigwams. Lord had half expected to see a considerable reinforcement of Indians here; and was much relieved to find the camp guarded only by women and six or seven elderly men.
The guides separated, each going to his own wigwam, and the chief signified that the strangers would be expected to share a banquet with him over his particular fire. The food was good, the chief and his own special cronies who sat with him very hospitable and entertaining. Bed-time came, and two tents were placed at the guests’ disposal, Lord, of course, arranging a system of “watches” to guard against surprise. But no surprise came; the night passed quietly and peacefully, and the Englishman was at a loss to understand the fears and suspicions of the Indians. But while he was washing at a stream close at hand, one of the Canadians joined him.
“I’ve got at their mystery, I think,” he said in a whisper.
“Ah?”
“Chinese prisoners; three of ’em. I’ve been talking to one while you were having your breakfast. I take it that this is a refuge-camp for all the rascality of the neighbourhood. John Chinaman tells me that the whole crew are ‘wanted’ at Vancouver for sundry attacks on the mining camps. Why, these are some of the varmints who burnt Thomson’s store last year.”
Lord finished his ablutions and sat down to discuss the position, which was certainly not a pleasant one. In a sense, he was on his honour not to betray his entertainers; yet, as a Government servant, it seemed to be his duty either to arrest the chief or else lay information against him. Moreover, though the few Chinamen he had met had not impressed him favourably, his blood boiled at the notion of slavery on British soil, and of the unnameable cruelties to a captive of which the redskins were capable. Before he could arrive at any decision, however, a terrible scream resounded through the camp, and both men rushed towards the wigwams.
On the ground lay a Chinaman, pierced by an arrow, and Lord saw at a glance that he was dead.
“The brutes,” muttered his companion. “That’s the poor beggar’s punishment for breaking out and speaking to me.” Lord called to his men and then rounded on the chief, who was hurriedly approaching.
“Where are the other two prisoners?” he said. “You must hand them over to me. I am a warrior of the White Queen’s, and can have every one of you hanged.—No, no; I’ll have no secret discussions. If you disobey the Queen you are no longer my friends. (Look out, you fellows!)” In another moment he had pulled a revolver from his pocket and was covering the chief. “I give you one minute in which to bring out the other prisoners.”
Bows or muskets were hastily raised, but the Canadians had unslung their rifles like lightning, and were grouped behind Lord ready to fire on the first man who dared to aim at him. The chief shrugged his 285 shoulders, smiled, and ordered the prisoners to be produced. They soon appeared, unbound but strongly guarded, and, in pidgin English, told how, a few days before, their camp near the sea had been raided, their employers put to flight, and themselves brought away to slavery.
“Can you guide us to the sea?” asked Lord. Yes; they could. It was but a few miles distant. “Very well, then,” he continued, turning to the chief. “If you will give me these men, and will swear by the Great Spirit that you will not again trouble the white men’s camps, we will promise not to betray your hiding-place.”
A rapid exchange of glances took place between the Indians, and then the chief said emphatically:
“I give up the prisoners, and I swear that my tribe will keep faith with yours.” Lord then swore to his part of the bargain, and, anxious to escape from the Indians at once, paid the guides and set off immediately in the wake of the liberated prisoners.
“What do you think about it?” he asked the eldest of the Canadians, when they were well on the road through the wood.
“I think they were a sight too ready to give way. We haven’t seen the last of ’em, I reckon.”
“Well; we shall be in open country directly, according to the Chinamen,” said Lord. He was disposed towards a hopeful view, the more so that he had given the Indians plainly to understand that they would pay dearly for any attempt at treachery. Once or twice, on looking back, he perceived men walking slowly behind them, but as these were only armed with bows, and 286 made no pretence of secrecy, he took little notice; and, in another hour, the wood came to an end. But where was the promised gorge? The only path he could see was a granite ridge, which on one side was bounded by a stretch of rough rising ground, and on the other became a precipice. The guides, however, remained confident, and, after hinting that it would be bad for them if they led him wrong, he followed them.
“What’s that?” he cried suddenly, when they had travelled about half a mile along the ridge in single file. All reined up at a sound similar to that of a “moose-trumpet,” or bark horn. Then they saw that three Indians had appeared from the wood behind them, had come to a stop on the edge of the cliff, and were looking across the chasm towards a precipice twice the height of that on which they stood. Evidently their trumpeting was intended to rouse somebody across the chasm, for two or three indistinct figures soon appeared on the farther cliff. Then one of the Indians who had followed Lord’s party raised his arms and began to make signs to those on the other side.
“Signalling, eh?” said one of the men. “Can you read it, Mr. Lord?”
The redskin was, in fact, transmitting a message across the chasm, employing a system of telegraphy similar to that used in Japan, or among our own sailors: a form of “deaf and dumb alphabet” not uncommon among the Indians of the hills and prairies.
“I can read enough to see that these rascals are warning someone to stop us,” said Lord. “Though how they reckon to do that remains to be seen. Let’s get on as fast as possible.”
A Primitive System of Telegraphy
The Indians are able to transmit messages by movements of their arms and fingers at greater distances than the voice would carry. In this case the question is “Who are you?” The answer “Pani,” transmitted from the lofty crags of a wide gorge.
They moved swiftly up the ridge, till the ground began to slope downwards again, and very steeply; then a final bend brought them almost opposite the mouth of the long looked-for gorge, which was wide enough for all the horsemen to ride abreast in comfort. The road was now beautifully level, and but that the Chinamen would not risk their necks on mule-back and knew nothing about horses, the whole party could have galloped. The gorge proved to be some six miles in length, and, at the end of a couple of hours, the travellers knew that they had come to the outlet.
The fact was made known in a not very pleasing manner, for all at once two musket-shots echoed down the ravine, and the Chinamen, who were some ten yards ahead of the horsemen, fell prostrate.
“Charge for it,” shouted Lord, though he could not as yet see the mysterious assailants. “Don’t give ’em time to load or aim”; and the seven men, pistol in hand, galloped to the mouth of the gorge.
Here they were greeted by a flight of arrows, launched so hastily that no one was hit. The ambush consisted of a dozen redskins, who, in obedience to the signalling, had hastened round the head of the chasm, easily arriving in time to cut off the more slowly moving party. Fortunately, only two of them had firearms; and the majority, seeing at once what chance they would stand against mounted men who were desperate and well armed, fled like chamois down the slopes. Three of the party were, however, speedily stopped by revolver-bullets from the horsemen, and so rendered an easy capture.
Then the truth, or something like it, came out. The 288 Chinamen were gold-thieves who had escaped from the mines and had fallen into the hands of the Chippewyans, who cared nothing for their stolen gold but a good deal for the labour which they would have been able to extort from them. Lord had neither time nor inclination to sift the matter. Finding that the Celestials were not so badly injured but that they could ride back to prison, he had them bound on to baggage-mules, made the three wounded Indians mount behind three of his men, and so conveyed all the prisoners in triumph to the coast, where he handed them over to a military picket for a journey to Vancouver jail.