From these people we learned that Mr. Steinhauer and his people, still at the Mission, contemplated a trip out to the plains for provisions, and that they and these were but awaiting the return of the hunters to this camp to decide from the report they would bring as to the direction of their trip. This determined father to hurry on to White-fish Lake, and catch Mr. Steinhauer at home if possible.
We spent about three hours with this camp, and had lunch in one of the tents, where we were the guests of Mrs. Hawke, who very kindly loaned father a fresh horse, a fine animal, to take him to the Mission.
Father held a short service, and late in the afternoon we started on, two of the patriarchs of the camp accompanying us to where we stopped for the night.
Many were the questions they asked, long was the talk father held with them, and it was late when we rolled into our blankets and went to sleep. Early next morning we parted company with our venerable friends and continued our journey.
Our course lay almost north-east. We were entering the fringe of the forest lands of the north country. We were going farther out of the course of the war-paths of the plain Indians. The more bush and forest, the less danger from these lawless fellows.
A plain Indian dreads a forest, does not feel at home in it, and this was the reason for the selection of White-fish Lake as a mission centre, a place where the incessant watchfulness and unrest (the prevailing condition of the times) on the plains south of the Saskatchewan might, for the time, at least, be largely laid aside. On into this thickening forest-land we trotted, a narrow bridle-path our road.
Water became abundant, and mud correspondingly so.
Within a few miles of the Mission we came to the thickly wooded banks of a stream where we had to swim our horses. Here we met some Indians who were starting out on a moose hunt, and, to my astonishment, one of them seemed to be speaking English—at least I thought so. He was shouting "Dam, dam," but like all men who presume on a too hasty judgment, I was mistaken, for the old fellow was only calling to his horse, "Tom, Tom," urging him to swim across the stream. With his accent, "t" was "d."
Resaddling and galloping on, early in the afternoon we came to the Mission, and found Mr. Steinhauer and family well; and as we had heard at Saddle Lake, Mr. Steinhauer and people were making preparations for a trip out to the plains for provisions.
As with everybody in the West in those days, their storehouse and market was the buffalo, which, after all, was exceedingly precarious, for pemmican, dried meat, or any kind of provision, and even fish, were alike at a premium when we arrived at White-fish Lake, and it behoved all parties, both residents and visitors, to move somewhere very soon.