Now we made a strong "log cache," and stored our fish in it, putting tent and nets and everything with the fish; and having finished our dog-sleighs, or toboggans, we contemplated starting in the morning for home, though there was as yet no snow. As it was moonlight, I proposed to Neils that we start at once.
So we loaded up, hitched our dogs and set out. What a time we had—bare ground, fallen timber, stumps and hills; and, to make matters worse, while we were making a fire about midnight to cook our last duck, which we had saved for days for this very purpose, the dogs stole it, and our disappointment was bitter. We had cleaned that duck, and had it all ready to cook, and looked forward to picking its bones ourselves. We craved the change in diet, even if it was only from fish to a fishy duck; but just as we had the prize, the contemptible dogs stole it, and though it is now thirty-two years since this happened, I can still very strongly sympathize with Neils and myself.
We thawed and roasted a fish, and started on, and about two o'clock in the morning came upon a solitary lodge right on the road. This proved to be a wood Stoney, Peter Pe-kah-ches. He and his family were starving. There was no snow, and everything being crisp with frost, he could not approach game. Peter was a renowned hunter, but the season was against him, and thus he was starving. We gave him part of our fish, and received the heart-felt blessings of the whole family, who hardly waited to thaw some of the fish until they ate them.
This lightened our hearts and our loads also, and we went on and reached home before daylight.
CHAPTER XLI.
Mr. O. B.—The murderer—The liquor keg.
In the meantime an old wandering-Jew kind of man, one of those human beings who seem to be trying to hide away from themselves, had turned up, and was domiciled with Mr. Woolsey. He had come across the plains from Fort Garry with a party of white men, who grew tired of him and dumped him at Fort Carlton, where I saw him when I landed from the boats in the summer. He had come on to Edmonton with the Hudson's Bay Company's carts, and there was thrown out by a rule made by the Hudson's Bay Company's Governor, Dallas, that no Hudson's Bay officer should allow any stragglers to stay around the post. The penalty for doing this was a fine upon the officer in charge of ten shillings sterling per day. Someone suggested Mr. Woolsey, and Mr. O. B. (for that was his name) came by first opportunity to Mr. Woolsey.
An Indian was returning to Fort Pitt, and he was persuaded to bring Mr. O. B. to Mr. Woolsey; and when the two were starting, total strangers to each other, and not understanding each other's language, some heartless fellow whispered to Mr. O. B, "Watch that fellow, for he is a murderer." And so he was said to be, having been bribed (so the story went) to kill another man because the briber wanted the other's wife. Whether this was exactly true or not, poor Mr. O. B. had an awful time of watching his companion and guide, and was a very grateful man when he came to our home safe. He was an educated man, and should have been a gentleman in every sense. He also was a victim of the liquor curse. His was another life blasted with this demon from the bottomless pit. In rummaging around our quarters, he found a keg which some time or another had held liquor. I saw him smell this, and then fill it with water and put it in the cellar; then every little while he would go down and shake this keg. One day I heard him say, "It is getting good," so I thought I would make it better, and I took the keg and emptied it, and and filled it with fresh water. Mr. O. B. took great satisfaction in drinking this, though the taste must have become very faint indeed.