Examining one of the queer contrivances, Walter found that Louis had spoken the simple truth. No metal had been used in its construction. Wooden pegs and rawhide lashings took the place of nails and spikes. Even the harness was guiltless of a buckle. The carts were far from beautiful, but they were strong and serviceable. The Swiss boy, who knew something of woodworking, admired the ingenuity and skill that had gone into their making. Enough vehicles had been supplied to transport the few belongings of the Swiss and to allow the women and children to ride. Now other carts,—with the families and baggage of the Scotch settlers who were leaving for Pembina,—began to arrive at the rendezvous, the discordant squeaking and screeching of their wooden axles announcing their approach some time before they came in sight.
It took so long to gather the cart train together and make everything ready for departure, that Walter kept hoping for the appearance of the boat brigade. But not a craft, except a canoe or two, came into view around the bend of the river, and no songs or shouts of voyageurs were heard in the distance. The boy, still determined to plead his cause, kept a lookout for Governor McDonnell, but he did not appear. He left the carrying out of his commands to his assistants.
The start was made at last. At the sharp “Marche donc!” of the drivers, the sleepy looking ponies woke into life and were off at a brisk trot. The carts pitched and wobbled, each with a gait of its own, over the rough, hard ground, the ungreased axles groaning and screeching in every key. The discord set Walter’s teeth on edge, as he walked with Louis beside the vehicle the latter was driving.
At the head of the column the guide in charge, Jean Baptiste Lajimonière, rode horseback, followed closely by the cart carrying his wife and younger children. The whole family had come from Pembina a short time before to have the newest baby christened by Father Provencher, the priest. Behind the Lajimonières, the train stretched out across the plain, the two wheeled carts piled with baggage and household belongings or occupied by the women and children sitting flat on the bottom, their heels higher than their hips. The drivers sat on the shafts or walked alongside. The Swiss men and boys went afoot, but some of the Scotch and Canadians rode wiry ponies and drove a few cattle. The riders used deerskin pads for saddles and long stirrups or none at all. Spare cart horses ran loose beside their harnessed companions.
Not all of the Swiss were in the party. Several families, taken into the cabins of the DeMeurons, had been allowed to remain. Matthieu and his wife also stayed behind. The baby was ill and Matthieu himself scarce able to travel. The Colony had started a new industry, the manufacture of cloth from buffalo hair, and the weaver was to be given employment. When Walter learned that Matthieu was to remain, the boy entrusted to him a letter for Mr. Perier, explaining how he had been forced to go on to Pembina.
Leaving Point Douglas, the cart train turned southeast, traveling a little back from the west bank of the river, along a worn track across open prairie. Beyond the narrow valley, scattered cabins could be seen among the trees on the east side.
“That is St. Boniface settlement,” Louis told his companion. “Père Provencher is building a church there.”
About a mile south of Point Douglas, the carts approached the junction of the Assiniboine River with the Red, the place Louis called Les Fourches, the Forks. On the north bank of the Assiniboine stood a small Hudson Bay post, and not far from it were piles of logs for a new building or stockade.
“The Company is going to make a new fort,” Louis explained. “M’sieu Garry and M’sieu McGillivray chose this spot. There was an old Northwest post, Fort Gibraltar, here, but five years ago M’sieu Colin Robertson, a Hudson Bay man, seized it, and Governor Semple had it pulled down. The logs and timber were taken down river to Fort Douglas. Fort Gibraltar had been here a long time, and so has this trading house. Les Fourches is an old trading place. Men say there was a fort here a hundred years ago, when all Canada and the fur country were French, but nothing is left of those old buildings now.”
The cart train halted near the trading post, as some of the men had business there, and Louis asked Walter to go with him to see the Chief Trader. “At Fort Douglas I told a clerk how our pemmican disappeared and about le Murrai’s package of trade goods. Le Murrai had received his pay and had left the fort. The clerk knew not where he had gone. He told me to report the affair to M’sieu the Chief Trader here. Come with me, and we will tell what we know.”