“But we can’t,” remonstrated Mac.
“Why not?” I whisperingly wanted to know.
“Because it’s Peter Hourie’s buckboard, and I told him I’d bring it back.”
“Oh, hang,”—I think that’s the word I used—“hang Peter Hourie’s buckboard.”
But Mac was obdurate and we mournfully and noiselessly moved on. Then came another glimpse of that camp fire, and the awful import of the old saying that silence is golden flashed upon me. Then I laughed again—heartily and boisterously. The confounded old camp fire we had conjured up was only the moon rising!
At three o’clock in the morning, we passed through a spot which I afterwards learned was to have been the gathering place of the rebels at that hour. Fortunately the meeting had not materialized through some providential misunderstanding in their orders.
As the sun’s rays came streaming from the east we reached the Northcote, only to be welcomed by the gruff demand as to what on earth—well, we’ll say it was earth—kept us so long, and that’s the sort of thanks Mac and I got for our trouble. Afterwards, my companion confided in me that, for some reason or other, he couldn’t see very well at night. Others told me he was blind as a bat in darkness. That was some consolation.
A Naval Battle in the West
The next day, orders were to start the steamer at 8 o’clock sharp and steam down the river. I was on the upper deck, indulging in a fragrant five cent cigar when I read a funny paragraph in a newspaper I had brought along. I went down to the barricaded lower deck to show it to Major Bedson, when the rebels opened fire upon us. That part of the Northcote was barricaded with bags of flour so arranged as to make port holes. My old friend, Hugh John Macdonald, was seriously ill, and I grabbed his gun and shoving it through the porthole, banged away, only to set fire to the bags. Quickly extinguishing the burning bags, I hastened to another porthole in the bow of the boat, not barricaded, and fired away, until a lot of splinters struck me in the face—the splinters being the outcome of a fairly well directed rebel shot. Discretion being the better part of valor, just then, I moved to another porthole, and a soldier came up and with his fingers easily picked a bullet from the tendrils of the wood, and quietly remarked, “Pretty close shave.” It was pointing straight for my heart. Then we struck the ferry cable which had been lowered for our especial benefit, and to avoid a rock, Capt. Jim Sheets, an experienced old Missouri steamboat man, in command of the Northcote, let the craft swing around, and we went down stream, stern foremost, with the current. In the meantime the Canadian forces engaged the enemy, an hour late according to schedule. The Northcote stopped a few miles below Batoche, where, ensconced behind a pile of mail-bags which made a splendid barricade, I kept up a steady fire at something unknown. I don’t know whether I hit any clouds or not, but I am assured of one thing: if any lead mines are ever discovered on the banks of the Saskatchewan, I should have a prior claim over anybody in their ownership. This was the first naval battle in the Canadian Northwest, and I imagine it will be the last. At any rate, it will be as far as yours truly is concerned.