I slipped once badly, and gave myself a wrench, the effects of which I felt at times for many a long year.
After stopping for lunch on an island, we pushed on, and, climbing the hill at the mouth of Sturgeon River, found the country bare of snow, and after going two or three miles in this way, I concluded to camp, and strike back for the river in the morning.
If we could have gone on, we would have reached Edmonton the next day before noon.
Mr. Woolsey was astonished at our progress. We had come full eighty miles, although the latter part of our road was very difficult to travel, the glare but uneven river ice being very hard on both dogs and men.
We camped on a dry bluff. What a revelation this country is to me! This is now the 22nd of December, and the weather, while crisp and cold, beautifully fine—no snow—and we having to use exceedingly great caution in order not to set the prairie on fire.
That night Mr. Woolsey, while rubbing some pain-killer into my sprained leg, told me about his life at Edmonton; how one day a Blackfoot came into his room, and was very friendly, and told him that he (the Blackfoot) was a very religious man; also that he loved to talk to the Great Spirit himself, would do so right then, thus giving Mr. Woolsey the benefit of his prayer. Mr. Woolsey sent for an interpreter, and the Blackfoot went on very much like the Pharisee of old. He was not as other men—the Cree, or Stoney, or even ordinary white men—he was a good man; his heart was good; he was thankful to meet this "good white man." He hoped their meeting would be blessed of the Great Spirit, and now that he had seen and spoken to this "good white man," he trusted that the Good Spirit would help him against his enemies, and aid him in his war expeditions, and thus he would bring home many horses and scalps. Above all things, the last was his strong desire.
Mr. Woolsey also told me of a slight misunderstanding he had with a priest. Mr. Woolsey did not understand French, and the priest did not understand English. The cause of their trouble was about asking a blessing and returning thanks at the Hudson's Bay Company's mess table. The priest was a thorough monopolist. The officer in charge would say, "Mr. Woolsey, please ask a blessing," or "Mr. Woolsey, please return thanks;" but the priest would immediately begin a Latin grace or thanksgiving, and thus Mr. Woolsey was cut off before he could begin. At last his English blood could not stand it any longer, and one day he stopped the priest after the others had gone out of the room, and said to him in broken Cree: "You no good; you speak one, that good; you speak two, that no good." This, though spoken in the soft Cree, was emphasized in a strong English manner, and the little priest, becoming alarmed, ran for the gentleman in charge, who explained matters, and also sided with Mr. Woolsey, and this monopoly was broken up.
No; from my two years' intimate acquaintance with Mr. Woolsey, he was not the man to stand any mere pretensions of superiority.
The next morning we struck straight across country for the river, and kept the ice thence on to Edmonton, which, because of the windings of the stream, we did not reach until evening. We found the fort full, trappers and traders having returned from their long summer's journeyings; but we also found provisions scant, and Mr. Christie, the gentleman in charge, anxious as to the future. The buffalo were far out; the fisheries were not very successful.
Here we met with clerks and post-masters from the inland and distant posts, and we and they but added to the responsibilities of the head officer, having so many more mouths to feed. Then there were all the dogs, and these were simply legion, as most of the winter transport and travel of those days was done with dogs, and their food supply was a serious question.