"I headed her out again into the lake."
Fording the Little Saskatchewan, we continued our journey. One day we stopped for noon on the shore of Shoal Lake, and here while our stock were resting I made an experiment. We had brought with us from the mission a fine strong mare about seven years of age, which had never been broken to either drive or ride, and was very wild. She would follow the carts and stay with our horses, that was all. My plan was to take her out into the lake and break her there. We made a corral with the carts, and I lassoed the mare, and haltering her, stripped off my clothes and swam out into the lake with her, then quietly slipped on her back. She gave a plunge or two, but only succeeded in ducking herself, and then settled down to straight swimming. After a while I headed her for the shore, but as soon as she got squarely on the bottom she began to buck, so I headed her out again into the lake, and presently I could take her out on the beach and canter up and down as nicely as with an old saddle-horse. Then I dressed, and putting a saddle-pad on, rode her all the afternoon. Rolling on as well as we could, heeding but little the mud and mosquitoes and pelting rains, in good time we reached the Assiniboine. We were two days rafting that stream, and the large part of another in doubling and portaging up the big sand hill which forms the north bank of the Assiniboine at this point.
Leaving my party in camp on the bank of the Qu'Appelle, I forded this stream and rode over to Fort Ellice, hoping to secure some dried meat or pemmican, as we were living now entirely on flour and milk, and I wanted to use the flour as little as possible. On my way through the woods which thickly covered the hill between the Qu'Appelle and Fort Ellice, I met four white men on foot, carrying new flint-lock guns. The guns and their appearance branded them as belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, and being "green hands," as all the newly received employees were called, I enquired of them where they were going. One of them answered, "The Lord knows, for we don't." My next question was, "What are you looking for?" and they answered in chorus, "Our supper." "Why," said I, "are there no provisions in the Fort?" "None," they answered; "we were given these guns and some shot and powder, and told to hunt for our suppers." This was poor encouragement for me in my quest for provisions. I had noticed that the leader, while he had a new gun on his shoulder, did not have any flint in the dog-head. "Well, my friend," I said, "you will never kill your supper with that gun you carry." "Why," he asked, "what is the matter?" I pointed out to him what the matter was, and then all began to look at their guns, and I went on, for about the most dangerous place you can be in is where a number of tenderfeet are handling guns.
I confess I was disappointed about the provisions, and felt that it would be too bad to have to use up the little flour I was taking home, for it was three hundred miles to the next Fort on our way. However, being young and of a sanguine turn of mind, I galloped on to the Fort, and again called on Mrs. McKay, who corroborated what the men said, telling me that the Fort was in sore straits for food; but that she expected soon to hear from Mr. McKay, who had gone on to the plains. Fortunately for me, while we were talking a party drove into the Fort with several cartloads of provisions, and thus I secured both pemmican and dried meat, and those, poor "green hands" did not go supperless to bed that night. My two men and I went breadless to bed instead, and for many subsequent nights also, for I was determined to save the flour for mother and the others at home.
Steadily we pushed our way westward, some days, when cool and cloudy, making good time, then, when it was hot, going more leisurely. Travelling early and late, we would keep at the long trail. Then an axle would break, and this would bring us up standing. Sometimes a dowel-pin snapped, or a felloe split, and mending and lashing still we rolled toward the setting sun. Once we lost one of our cows, and I had to retrace our way some miles in looking for her. The country we were passing through was dotted with dense brush, and as the "bull-dogs" were bad, the cow had gone into a clump of trees to rid herself, if possible, of her enemies, whose name truly was legion. Now, to gallop back farther on the trail would in all probability be futile in finding the cow. So I went to work on the detective plan, and first sought for a clue. This I got from Oliver and Jim, my men, who were positive as to when they had seen the cow last. So I went back on one side of the road, carefully watching for the track, and coming to the spot where the boys had seen the truant last, I then crossed the road, and keenly looked for a track on the back trail, but found none. I was now pretty sure that the cow was between me and the carts, and on the other side of the road from that I had come on. So, keeping a little way out from the road, I followed up the carts, and by-and-bye came to the track of the cow. She had turned out from the trail and gone into a thicket, and I had to leave my horse at its edge to follow her track into it; but keeping on the trail, I at last found her, almost enveloped in the foliage, and in the shadiest spot she could find.
The next morning, while the others were supping their tea or drinking the new milk, I took some dried meat, and with this skimmed and ate the cream on the milk in the pail I had hung under the cart the night before. Dried meat and fresh cream might not be a "dainty dish" for an epicure, but then one must not forget the exquisite relish we had around us in our perfect freedom of out-door life; in our solid beds, wet or dry, on the bosom of "mother earth," under the carts; the pure atmosphere, the beautiful sunrise and sunset, the lovely undulating, park-like country we were travelling through, giving us constant change of scene; the many gems of lakes and lakelets we skirted, the superb health we generally enjoyed—each and all of these were the best of tonics, and under such conditions even hard grease pemmican was good.