After the braves had gorged themselves for ten days on stolen victuals, keeping up their war spirit by frenzied dances, they laid siege to Fort Pitt. There was no lack of courage in the garrison. Even the girls, daughters of the Hudson’s Bay factor, William MacLean, shouldered rifles with the men. But when MacLean went out to parley with the Indians, they would not let him return; they only promised to protect the white civilians if the Police cleared out of the fort. MacLean had such confidence in his Company’s favor with the Indians that he sent a letter telling his wife and children to come into camp, with several other white and half-breed families; and he advised the Police to leave, as the Indians had got fire-arrows ready to burn the fort down.
Big Bear’s Demand for the Surrender of Fort Pitt
His advice was taken. The civilians put themselves at the Indians’ mercy, and the Police made their way painfully down the river, amid masses of floating ice, [a]An Army from the East] in an ancient leaky scow. Battleford welcomed the two dozen extra appetites with self-forgetting heartiness; and two days later, on the 24th of April, this modern Lucknow was relieved by an expedition which had come two thousand miles to save it.
“Would you like to go out as our war correspondent?” the editor of the Montreal Daily Witness asked me when telegrams were pouring in from the West begging the Government to hurry up troops or no one would be left alive to rescue. The editor spoke with hesitation. He had a tender heart and lively conscience, and hated the idea of sending a young fellow off “perhaps to be killed.”
The young fellow laughed, and jumped at the adventure—it was well worth the risk. A few hours later, with a knapsack for baggage, he was rolling along through the States, as that was before the Canadian Pacific was finished and the only railway connection between Eastern and Western Canada was still by way of Chicago.
Canada’s problem, to save the people of the West, was a hard one indeed. We had no regular army, beyond a few companies at Infantry Schools and an occasional battery of artillery. The rescuing must be done by volunteers, who were certainly keen enough, but had little or no experience of war. Moreover, the troops were not allowed to go through the States, as I had done.
The Government apparently thought they would have to send the force up through the Great Lakes by steamer, as there were four unbuilt gaps in the railway north of Lake Superior, and no passenger cars on the three disconnected sections of track between the gaps. But spring navigation was not yet open, and every day’s delay might mean sentence of death to hundreds of peaceable [a]Over the Unfinished Railway] folk in the West. Van Horne, the manager of the Canadian Pacific, went to Sir John Macdonald, the Prime Minister, and offered to take the troops up at once in spite of everything.
“How can you carry the men without a railway?” said Sir John. “It’s impossible.”