As the cold weather set in, it became necessary to organize for the "fresh meat hunt." In an isolated interior place like Victoria, where there are neither waggon nor cart makers, nor yet harness makers; where your wheels are wooden and your axles ironless, and wood grinds on wood; where your harness is of the skins of the wild animals around you, crudely and roughly home-made, it means something to get ready for a trip where you expect to find heavy loads and frozen ground, with winter perhaps setting in before you again reach home. To mend carts and harness, to hunt up horses and oxen, to transport your vehicles and equipment over a wide river in a small skiff, to swim your stock through the cold water—all of this takes some time and causes a great deal of hard work. But we must have the meat, and so in good time we are rolling south, hunters, running horses and cart drivers, all eager for the first glimpse of the buffalo.
This time our course was more westerly, and on the third day we had our first run, near the "cross woods," on the plain which stretches from within a few miles of Victoria to the Battle River. Our chief hunters were "Muddy Bull" and Peter. The rest of us were kept busy butchering and hauling into camp, moving camp, guarding stock, providing wood, etc. From before daylight until late at night we were all on the jump, Sunday being our only rest, and then we took turns in guarding our stock. To work hard all day, and then guard stock and camp all night, those long fall nights, made one very "gapish" the next day, and gave him sound sleep the following night. In all this father took his share, and upon him rested the chief responsibility of the expedition. On these trips as much haste as was consistent with the success of the object in view was made in order to be as short a period as possible away from the mission, which was during this time almost without any human protection.
My man Oliver, though a native of the Red River Settlement, and thus born in the great North-West, had never until now seen buffalo. In fact, all the experiences of this last summer had been new to him. We left him in charge of camp one morning, and went out some miles after buffalo. When towards evening I came in on a cart-load of meat, he exclaimed: "What kept you so long? I have been waiting to go for my buffalo."
"Where are your buffalo?" I asked.
"Oh! just over yon hill," he answered.
"How many have you?" was my next question.
"I don't know," was the answer.
"How is that?" I queried.
"Well," said Oliver, "a big band of buffalo came down to the creek near camp, and I jumped on the bay colt and charged them up yonder slope. There were hundreds of them, and just as they went over the ridge I fired into them, and I am sure there must be five or six dead buffalo lying over there."
"Did you see any dead ones?" I asked.