Rising Wolf, the White Blackfoot / Hugh Monroe's Story of His First Year on the Plains

by James Willard Schultz

"Why, if they wanted to, they could take this fort without any trouble!" I exclaimed.

"Take it! Huh! In just two minutes all would be over with us if they started in. These are the boys that keep them from doing it," he said, and patted the cannon beside him.

"You see that cottonwood tree out there, how its limbs are all splintered and dead?" said the other watch. "Well, we fired a four-pound charge of trade balls into it just to show them what it would do. There was a big crowd out there before the gate, as big as there is now, and when we touched her off you should have heard the women and children yell, and seen 'em run for cover. The men, most of them, jumped when the old gun boomed, but they stood their ground and stared and stared at the shower of leaves and twigs coming down. We then fired the other one, and down came about all of the rest of the tree-top. I bet you they said to one another: 'It's no use trying to take that fort; those big guns would cut us all down just as they did the tree-top!'"

"But we are taking no chances," said the other. "You see that little gate in the big gate? Well, when the Indians come to trade we let them in through it, a few at a time, making them leave their weapons outside, and just as long as the trade lasts we keep one of the cannon pointed to the door of the trade-room."

"And do you never leave the fort and the protection of the guns?" I asked, thinking how hard it would be for me to remain shut up in the fort, never to visit in the camps of the Indians, or hunt the game with which the country teemed.

"Oh, we go out whenever we want to," said one. "You see, they wouldn't pot just a few of us, for fear that they couldn't trade here any more, and they are crazy for our goods. No, unless they can kill us all and take the fort at one swoop, we shall never be harmed by them, and it is only at a time like this, when the trade-room is full of goods, that there is any danger. Anyhow, that is the way I look at it."

"And right you are," the other watch agreed.

Just then the factor called to me that it was dinner-time, and I left the bastion and followed him into a room where the cook, a French-Huron woman, wife of one of the employees, served us our simple meal. It consisted solely of buffalo meat and strong black tea, and the factor explained that he, as well as the employees, lived upon meat and the various fruits of the country, fresh and dried, the year around. Christmas was the one exception; on that day every one had a generous portion of plum pudding with his meat dinner! You can see how it was in those days. Freight was a year en route to that far place from Montreal, and every pound of it had to be merchandise for the Indian trade. At a rough guess I should say that every pound laid down at the fort was worth from three to twenty guineas per pound in fur. Copper wire made into bracelets and other jewelry, for instance, was worth a hundred guineas, a hundred beaver skins, per pound. Naturally, the orders from London were that factors and employees alike must be satisfied with the one big treat, plum pudding for the Christmas dinner! Well, it didn't matter. We became so accustomed to a meat diet that we gave little thought to other food. In summer, when in turn the service berries, choke-cherries, and bull berries ripened, we feasted upon them, and the women dried some for winter use, not enough, however, for more than an occasional dish, stewed, and without sugar, rather flavorless.

We finished our meal and some of the employees took our place at the table after we went out. Factors of the company did not eat with the men. In fact they did not associate with them. They held themselves aloof, and ruled their forts with stern justice. They generally issued their orders through their clerks.

After the men had finished their dinner, the great occasion of the year, the trade, was opened by a feast to the chiefs of the different tribes. They came into the fort followed by their women, staggering under loads of fur, and the factor sat with them while they ate, and smoked with them afterward. After the pipe had gone the rounds, the chiefs one by one made speeches, very badly interpreted by a man named Antoine Bissette, a French-Iroquois half-breed who had married a Cree woman who had some knowledge of the Blackfoot language, and through her had acquired a few words of it. Each chief made a long speech, and at the end of it the interpreter would say: "He says dat he is friend to whites. He say dat you his brudder. He say dat he give you hees pack of furs what hees woman she has dere!"