“Silence, gentlemen,” roars McLeod to the drunken roomful of partners and clerks and Indians. “Silence! Mr. McFarlane, your song.”
Remembering that the power of the Northwest Company with the Indians depended on the frightened savages being kept ignorant of Lord Selkirk’s victories, the Hudson’s Bay man’s thin voice piped up these words to the same tune:
“But Selkirk brave went up a hill, and to Fort William came,
When in he popped—and out from thence—could not be driven—a-g-a-i-n!”
Before the last words had died in the appalling silence that fell on the rowdies, or the Indians could quite grasp what the song meant, McLeod had jumped from his chair yelling:
“I’ll give you a hundred guineas if you’ll tell the name of the man who brought news of that here.”
But McFarlane had no wish to see some faithful coureur’s back ripped open with the lash. “Tut-tut,” says he, “a hundred guineas for twa lines of me ain compaesin’—Extravagant, Mr. McLeod, Sir!”
October saw Robertson at last on the field of action—in Athabasca. “Well may the Nor’Westers boast of success in the North,” he writes. “Not an Indian dare speak to the Hudson’s Bay. At Isle a la Crosse, a clerk and a few of our men were in a hut surrounded by the sentinels of our opponents. Apart from no intercourse with the Indians, they were thankful to be able to procure mere subsistence for themselves. All their fish nets and canoes had been destroyed by the Nor’Westers in prowling excursions. The only canoe on which their escape depended was hidden in a bedroom. No Indian dared to approach. The windows were covered by damaged table cloths. Wild fowl shot flying over the house had to be plucked with the door shut.... Not an Indian could be found.... As we voyaged up to Athabasca, we began firing and kept our men singing a voyageur’s song to let the Indians know we were passing.” Finally, an Indian was seen hiding behind brush of the river bank, and was bribed to go and bring his tribe. The truth was told to the Chippewyans about the Nor’Westers’ defeat on Red River and Lake Superior. Peace pipes were whiffed, and a treaty made.
The consternation of the Nor’Westers when they saw Robertson, and Clarke whom they had abused in captivity three years before, now draw up on Athabasca Lake before Fort Chippewyan with a force of one hundred and thirty armed men, at once gave place to plots for the ruin of the intruders. Black, who had been the chief tormentor of Clarke, dashed down to the waterside shouting: “Mr. Robertson! Mr. Robertson! To avoid trouble, let me speak to our Indians before you land! You are an honorable man—give us justice!”