As the buffalo moved so did also the Indian camps, and gradually our meat trails went westward for the month of February. This trip it was fresh meat, and the next it would be a mixed load of pounded and dried meat cakes and bladders of grease and tongues, and as the distance was never more than a big day's run, we would put on tremendous loads, so that gradually our storehouse was being filled up.
Through storm and cold, and sometimes very heavy roads, or no roads at all, Joseph, Susa and myself kept at the work of providing for our mission party. Those at home in the meantime were constantly busy holding meetings, doctoring the sick, taking out timber, whipsawing lumber, or hauling hay and wood. Indeed, there was no time to become lonely or to think of the onions and garlic of the former Egypt. Our party knew it was out in a larger wilderness, but, full of Christian resolution, each one felt as did Joshua and Caleb.
The event of the winter was the arrival of the February packet from Fort Garry. A few letters from Eastern friends it might bring, with two or three newspapers several months old; but this was the one connecting link, and the dwellers in the Hudson's Bay posts and at mission stations in the North-West, though far apart, felt a common interest in this packet, for it not only brought news from the far East, but also from one another. For days before its expected arrival at the post or mission the packet was the chief item of conversation. Many an eye was turned to the direction whence it should come. Many a person the last thing at night would stand out in the cold and listen for the sound of bells which might indicate the approach of the eagerly looked-for mail. And when at last it came, how many were disappointed. The one lone chance, and still no news where so much had been expected.
And for the swarthy-faced, wiry-built, hardy men who brought this packet, as you looked at them you could see fifty miles a day stamped on their every move; fifty miles and more through deep snow, blinding storms and piercing cold. Picked men these were, and they knew it, and held themselves accordingly, heroes for the time being at every post they touched. Nor did these faithful fellows tarry long at any one place. Arriving in the morning, they were away the same afternoon. Coming in late at night, off before daylight next morning. This was the manner of their faithful service to the great Company which somehow or other had the faculty of inspiring its employees with splendid loyalty to itself.
CHAPTER III.
We visit Edmonton—Nature's grand cathedral—Adventure with a buffalo bull—A trip to Pigeon Lake—Racing with dog-teams—An infidel blacksmith—Old Joseph proves an unerring guide—Caching our provisions.
About the last of February father determined to visit Edmonton, and mother also went for a change. Father took Joseph's dogs, and drove himself. Peter, with the team Susa had been using, drove the cariole in which mother rode. I had charge of the baggage and camp equipage, the provisions, and the wood-work of a plough which we were taking to the blacksmith's to have ironed. We kept the river all the way and made the hundred or more miles in less than two days. It has always seemed to me in travelling, up or down our ice-bound northern rivers, either by night or by day, that a solemn, reverential feeling well befitted the scene. The long gentle sweeps, and the succeeding abrupt turnings of the river's windings; the high and sometimes precipitous forest-covered banks, always like great curtains casting shade and gloom and sombre colors; the fitful gleaming of sun or moon, or the brilliant flashes of the aurora light; the howling-of the timber wolf or the barking of a family of coyotes, sending echoes to reverberate through the canyons formed by tributary streams—all these could not fail to impress the traveller. To me, thoughtless and light-hearted as I was in those early days, there always came a feeling as though I were in the aisles of a tremendous cathedral.
