CHAPTER XX.
Victoria becomes a Hudson's Bay trading post—An adventure on a raft—The annual fresh meat hunt organized—Among the buffalo—Oliver misses his shot and is puzzled—My experience with a runaway horse—A successful hunt—My "bump of locality" surprises Peter—Home again.
The Indians, both Wood and Plain, pagan and Christian, were now flocking into Victoria in such numbers that the Hudson's Bay Company saw the necessity of establishing a trading post there. I was offered the charge of this, but father did not seem to relish the idea, so it dropped, and a Mr. Flett was sent to put up buildings and open trade with the Indians. Mr. Flett was a native of the Red River settlement, and thoroughly understood the Indians and their language. He was a warm friend of our mission, later on himself becoming an honored missionary of the Presbyterian Church to the Indians in another part of the country.
Victoria had now (in 1864) the beginning of a Christian mission and the starting of a Hudson's Bay post, and was becoming known as a place on the Saskatchewan. For the month or six weeks that the large camps were there, spring and fall, it was a busy point. Travellers, traders, hunters and freighters were coming and going every little while all through the year. Already this new place had become the nucleus of a Christian civilization. One Hudson's Bay packet once in the year, and an occasional budget of mail by some unexpected traveller, were our sole means of communication with the outside world. In this matter we were farther away than Hong Kong or Bombay.
As autumn merged into winter, the larger number of the Indians recrossed the Saskatchewan and struck for the buffalo. In the meantime some of us were busy getting out more timber and lumber. One night, when most of the Indians had gone, Peter, Oliver and I were coming down the river on a raft of timber. We had left early the previous morning, expecting to be back by evening, and therefore had not taken bedding with us. The carrying, rolling and handspiking of the timber to the water's edge, and the making of our raft, had kept us late, so before starting we put some earth on the raft, and throwing dry wood on this, as soon as the night grew cold we made a fire. When about half way home, while passing through a ripple, our raft grounded on the rocks, and do what we would in the night we could not get it off. Having neither provisions nor bedding, and our supply of wood on the raft but small, we concluded to wade or swim ashore. The river was broad, the distance to the shore long, and the depth uncertain.
"Tying our clothes in bundles above our heads,
we started into the ice-cold current."
Undressing, and tying our clothes in bundles above our heads, we started into the ice-cold current. Slowly we felt our way, for the bottom was full of boulders and stones, and irregular in depth. As I was the shortest of our party I came near having to swim. Down I went, and deeper still, until all but my head was submerged. Stepping slowly and carefully on my toes I made my way, longing for the shore. Many a river have I swam and waded in all kinds of weather, but that long, slow trip from raft to shore in the dark night, made darker still by the sombre shadows of the high wooded banks, I shall never forget. After an interminable time, as it seemed, we reached the shore and stepped out with bare feet and naked bodies on to the rough, stony beach, and into the keen, frosty air. But what a glow we were in when we did have our clothes on once more! We were in prime condition for a sharp run, and it did not take us long, inured as we were, to climb the steep bank and run the three or four miles to the mission house. The next day we towed a skiff to where our raft was, worked it off the rocks, and brought it down home.