Continuing our journey, we left these people to come on more slowly. We crossed Pheasant Plains and the Cut Arm Creek, and camped one evening on the high bank of the Qu'Appelle River, beside a spring. In the evening shade, as we were sitting beside our camp-fire, suddenly I heard a cry which thrilled through my whole being: "Whip-poor-will!" "Whip-poor-will!" came echoing through the woods and up the valley, and in a moment I was among the scenes of my childhood, paddling a birch canoe along the shores of the great lakes, rioting among the beech and maple woods of old Ontario. For years I had not heard a whip-poor-will, and now the once familiar sounds brought with them a feeling of home-sickness.
The next afternoon Ka-kake and I, leaving our companions to cross the Assiniboine above the mouth of the Qu'Appelle, detoured by way of Fort Ellice, and here also I had another memorable experience. Mrs. MacKay, the wife of the gentleman in charge of the Fort, very kindly invited me to have supper with them. As we would have plenty of time to rejoin our party afterwards, I gladly accepted, and what should be on the table but pancakes and maple syrup! I had not tasted maple syrup for four years, had not had a slice of bread for two years, had not even tasted anything cooked from flour for some time. No wonder I can never forget those cakes and syrup! Verily the memory of them is still sweet to my taste. Not that I am an epicure—by no means—but these were things I had been accustomed to, almost bred on, all my life previous to coming to the North-West.
We rejoined our companions at Bird Tail Creek, camping on the spot where now the town of Birtle stands. This was Saturday night, and during that Sunday camp on the bank of Bird Tail Creek I had my first and only difference with Ka-kake. Some hunters on the way out by Fort Ellice camped beside us, and from these Ka-kake learned that friends of his were camped about twenty miles farther on. About the middle of the afternoon, he and the two Indians from Whitefish Lake began to catch their horses, and make as if they were going to start. I asked what they meant, and Ka-kake told me that they were going on, and would wait for us in the morning. I said he might go on if he chose, but I would not consent to his taking the horses belonging to Mr. Steinhauer, as these were in my charge, and I did not intend to have them travel on Sunday. He was firm, but I was firmer; and finally Ka-kake turned the horses loose and gave it up.
I do not think I would be so hard now that more than thirty years intervene and my outlook is broader, and my thought more liberal; nevertheless, I believed I was right at the time, and therefore acted as I did.
CHAPTER XIII.
Fall in with a party of "plain hunters"—Marvellous resources of this great country—A "hunting breed"—Astounding ignorance—Visit a Church of England mission—Have my first square meal of bread and butter in two years—Archdeacon Cochrane—Unexpected sympathy with rebellion and slavery—Through the White Horse Plains—Baptiste's recklessness and its punishment—Reach our destination—Present my letter of introduction to Governor McTavish—Purchasing supplies—"Hudson's Bay blankets"—Old Fort Garry, St. Boniface, Winnipeg, St. John's, Kildonan—A "degenerate" Scot—An eloquent Indian preacher—Baptiste succumbs to his old enemy—Prepare for our return journey.
The next day Baptiste and I went ahead. We were now three-quarters of the way down, our horses had picked up well, and I wanted to hurry on so as to get through my business as quickly as possible, and give more time to the homeward trip, when we would have heavy loads. The first night we camped with a large party of plain hunters, on their way out for a summer hunt. These men were from all over the Red River settlement, from the White Horse plains, and Portage la Prairie. Their encampment was like a good-sized village. They must have had five hundred or more carts, besides many waggons. Then this number would be very much augmented from Fort Ellice and other points eastward.
Looking on one of these parties, and remembering that two such parties went out on the plains after buffalo every summer for the purpose of making dried provision; that some of these would make fall and winter forays for fresh meat; that this same thing was going on in the Saskatchewan country among the same class of people, and that from Texas to the North Saskatchewan many Indian tribes were living on the buffalo, winter and summer;—I say, that if one thought of all this, he would begin to have some small conception of the extent and numbers of the buffalo. Moreover, if he continued to think, he would wake up to the appreciation of a country that could in its crude and wilderness condition maintain such countless and enormous supplies of food, and that of the choicest kind.
These were the men who owned the rich portions of Manitoba, the Portage plains, and the banks of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers; but what cared they for rich homesteads so long as buffalo could be found within five or six hundred miles? These owners of the best wheat fields in the world very often started out to the plains and were willing to take their chance of a very risky mode of life, forsooth, because they came of a hunting breed, and "blood is thicker than water," and environment stamps itself deep upon the race. In going through the camps, eager as I was for eastern news, I could find none. What signified it to these men that the greatest of civil wars was then raging on the continent beside them? What thought they, or what did they know of the fact that they were on the eve of a great national and political change, and that the old life would soon have to give way to a new order of things? Their teachers either had not sought to enlighten them, or had failed to make them comprehend, if they did desire to do so. No wonder that in their ignorance they were led astray in 1869-70, and again in 1885. They could talk about horses and buffalo, and battle with the Sioux and Blackfeet, and count their beads and mutter prayers, but apparently were sublimely ignorant of all things else. Alas! that this should have been the case, for these men were and are full of fine traits of character. Kind, hospitable, chivalrous, brave, I have ever found them. Surely scores of years of preaching should have done something better for them.