CHAPTER XVIII A LETTER FROM MAJOR EGERTON TO HIS FRIEND ARTHUR DONCOURT, ESQ.
MY DEAR DONCOURT:
You ask me to tell you some of the circumstances underlying the Imbrie murder case of which you have read the account in the annual report of the R.N.W.M.P. just published. You are right in supposing that a strange and moving tale is hidden behind the cold and formal phraseology of the report.
The first Imbrie was the Reverend Ernest, who went as a missionary to the Sikannis Indians away back in ’79. Up to that time these Indians were absolutely uncivilized, and bore a reputation for savage cruelty. I suppose that was what stimulated the good man’s zeal. He left a saintly tradition behind him. The Sikannis live away up the corner of British Columbia, on the head-waters of the Stanley River, one of the main branches of the Spirit River. The Spirit River, as you may know, rises west of the Rocky Mountains and breaks through. There is not a more remote spot this side the Arctic Circle, nor one more difficult of access.
The missionary brought with him his son, John Imbrie, a boy just approaching manhood. Very likely the danger of bringing up a boy absolutely cut off from the women of his race never occurred to the father. The inevitable happened. The boy fell in love with a handsome half-breed girl, the daughter of a wandering prospector and a Sikanni squaw, and married her out of hand. The heartbroken father was himself compelled to perform the ceremony. This was in 1886.
The Imbries were so far cut off from their kind that in time they were forgotten. The missionary supported himself by farming in a small way and trading his surplus products with the Indians. John turned out to be a good farmer and they prospered. Their farm was the last outpost of agriculture in that direction. From the time he went in with his father John did not see the outside world again until 1889, when he took his wife and babies out, with a vain hope, I think, of trying to educate the woman. Most of these marriages have tragic results, and this was no exception. During all the years in her husband’s house this woman resisted every civilizing influence, except that she learned to deck herself out like a white woman.
She bore her husband twin sons, who were christened Ernest and William. They bore a strong resemblance to each other, but as they began to develop it appeared, as is so often the case in these mixed families, that Ernest had a white man’s nature, and William a red man’s. When the time came they were sent out to Winnipeg to school, but William, true to the savage nature, sickened in civilised surroundings, and had to be sent home. On the other hand, Ernest proved to be a sufficiently apt scholar, and went on through school and college. During the whole period between his thirteenth and his twenty-fourth year he was only home two or three times. William remained at home and grew up in ignorance. John Imbrie, the father, I gather, was a worthy man, but somewhat weak in his family relations.
Ernest went on to a medical college with the idea of practising among the Sikannis, who had no doctor. During his second year his father died, long before he could reach him, of course. He remained outside until he got his diploma. Meanwhile his mother and brother quickly relapsed into a state of savagery. They “pitched around” with the Indians, and the farm which had been so painstakingly hewn out of the wilderness by the two preceding generations grew up in weeds.
Ernest had a painful homecoming, I expect. However, he patiently set to work to restore his father’s work. He managed to persuade his mother and brother to return and live in white man’s fashion, but they made his life a hell for him, according to all accounts. They were insanely jealous of his superior attainments. Neither did the Sikannis welcome Doctor Ernest’s ministrations. Since the death of the missionary they had been gradually slipping back into their ignorant ways, and now they instinctively took the part of the mother against the educated son. One can imagine what a dreary life the young medico lived among these savages. He has been described to me as a charming fellow, modest, kindly and plucky. And, by the way, I have not mentioned that these young fellows were uncommonly good-looking. William, or, as the Indians say, Hooliam, was one of the handsomest natives I ever saw.
Meanwhile that remote country was being talked about outside on account of the gold deposits along the upper reaches of the Stanley—largely mythically I believe. However that may be, prospectors began to straggle in, and in the summer of the year following Ernest’s return from college, the government sent in a surveyor, one Frank Starling, to survey the claims, and adjust disputes. Starling brought with him his daughter Clare, a young lady of adventurous disposition.