There are many surprises for a tenderfoot or greenhorn in the wild, but the name given to one of these very-much-to-be-pitied parties in the bush country from the Labrador to Lake Superior is mangers du lard. This is the universal cognomen by which a stranger in the north country is known. I found by tracing back that this soubriquet was first given by the French courriers du bois to a new hand entering the back country for the first time.
It is said that in those early days the French youths, from which new hands were recruited, lived at home on very scanty food, and when they got away working for the fur company, where pork was, comparatively, in abundance, they let their young appetites loose and ate the flesh of swine in prodigious quantities, whereby they became known as mangers da lard, i. e., pork eaters, and this denoted a stranger or greenhorn, the tenderfoot of the Western prairie.
I was somewhat of a greenhorn myself and suffered thereby by catching the deer-sickness. Like a good many other bad knocks that a beginner has to endure, this bit of sickness had an abiding effect on me and was never repeated.
My experience came about in this wise. I had accompanied a family of Indians to a deer battue, and after the general slaughter was over I was allotted the duty of following up a wounded deer; by the word deer I mean a wood caribou.
This particular buck had been shot at close quarters, the ball going clear through its stomach. While the shot had the effect of bowling the deer over it had not touched a vital spot, and during the excitement of the other shooting the animal got up and traveled away unobserved. The snow was pretty deep, nevertheless the further the deer went the better he appeared to get along. When this fact became evident to me, who was following his track, literally with my nose to the snow, I put on a greater spurt to try and end the jig. The deer by this time had become cognizant of being followed and he also increased his pace.
I now became aware of a weakness in my limbs, a nauseating smell in my nostrils and a faint and giddy sensation in my head. This uncomfortable feeling grew worse, and at last to save myself from falling I had to lean against a tree and wipe my brow with a handful of snow.
This had a momentary good effect. I saw clearly once more and pushing ahead redoubled my efforts to come within shooting distance of my deer. But I had not gone far before I felt a relapse coming and in a few moments I was in worse distress than ever. The last I remember was seeing a whirl of trees going around me. It was the last conscious moment before I fainted dead away and fell in my tracks in the snow.
Luckily the chief had sent his two boys to follow me up, not that he anticipated this ending, but for the purpose of skinning and cutting up the deer. It was providential he did, for otherwise I would never have awakened in this world. As it was, the cold had thoroughly penetrated my body and it was only after drinking a quart or two of hot tea that circulation resumed its functions.
After I had come around to the youth's satisfaction the eldest one started off after the cause of all my trouble, leaving his younger brother to replenish the fire and attend to my wants. The elder boy returned after an hour or two, having killed the deer, the proof, the split heart tucked in his belt. Darkness was then setting in, but the boys made ready to start for camp. What had taken me hours of toil to cover, they passed over in a very short time; in fact, we only saw my trail once or twice on the way out to the lake.
That night, after supper the chief told me of the "deer-sickness," and warned me against persistently following the trail. He continued and told how the Indians did and in after years I saw their mode and practiced it myself. He explained to be that a pungent odor exuded from the deer's hoofs when they were pursued and it was this that caused my weakness and distress.