I call to memory his having almost cut off the index finger of his left hand, putting the axe right thru the knuckle joint. This bled profusely and he was on the sick list for a long while. I think the next accident very shortly after his hand healed, was to put the corner of his axe into the cap of his knee. This was more serious than the other and took weeks to get well. On the whole he was very fortunate not to have a stiff leg for the remainder of his life.
Another time he undertook to look for a man who was over-due at the post and was expected to come by a trail near the lake shore. This was a case of the biter being bitten, for the man turned up all right and had to join a party to hunt Ralson. As he told us afterwards he thought to improve on the trail by cutting curves. Dusk coming on he became hopelessly lost himself, neither being able to find the trail nor his way out of the forest. The search party only found him the following afternoon, tattered, hungry and generally woe-begone. A picture of him taken as he entered the square that day would have been interesting.
The chances are that he might never have been found and thus have perished, had a quieting effect on him for some days but the old restlessness got hold of him again, and he had to be away hunting up fresh trouble. This time he had a companion and they went in a canoe to hunt ducks. His companion (a half-breed) debarked on the river bank to crawl up to some birds and placed an injunction on Ralson to remain quietly seated in the canoe. When the half-breed returned to the river bank it was to find the canoe upset and Ralson sitting on the shore dripping wet. On comparing notes it was found a rifle I had lent him was at that precise moment at the bottom of the river in about ten feet of water.
It would never do to return to the post and report this mishap and the loss of the gun, so Ralson undressed and began to dive for its recovery. Robert, the man, told me, when describing the adventure, that he never laughed so much in his life as when sitting on the bank and watching Ralson making desperate and repeated efforts to recover the weapon. He was finally successful and exacted a cast iron promise from Robert not to inform the people at the post. A promise which Robert promptly broke.
An accident, however, which almost cost him his life, altho after he was safe at the post, caused us considerable merriment, came about in this way, and I expect he will remember it as long as he lives, if yet alive. We were sending an express canoe from the post to the nearest point on the frontier to mail dispatches to headquarters. The distance is about fifty miles over lakes, rivers and portages. The usual time for such a trip was three days for the round trip. Ralson begged to accompany the men, partly for an outing and partly to see the frontier village of Luqueville.
Their route lay thru a chain of small lakes on which I had a couple of bear traps set. To save me a trip to visit these traps I told Robert, the guide, to kill any bear he found caught and reset the traps, cache the meat and skin and bring it with them on their return journey. These instructions were simple enough and I was not anxious about Ralson. Ralson, however, changed all these plans for, when they reached the first trap, in which they found a bear caught and Robert had killed it, Ralson proposed he should stay behind, skin and cut up the meat and visit the second trap which was a short distance off the canoe route, and then he was to come home on foot by skirting the lakes along a sometimes used trail, taking the skin with him.
Robert thought this plan a good one as it would expedite matters for he and his companion to make a quick trip. When, however, he got back to the place after an absence of about forty hours and found the skin and meat lying where he had left them and no sign of Ralson, he was quick to understand that something had happened. What that something was, however, he was at a loss to settle in his mind. All at once, while standing there considering, the thought struck him that possibly Ralson was caught in the other trap. Such things had happened to men accustomed to trapping and how much more likely to a careless fellow like the missing man.
Giving expression to his thought Robert and his companion both hurried off towards the other trap, which was about a mile up the creek. When they came to a soft place on the trail and saw only the footprints of a man going and none returning, Robert was convinced the poor fellow was in the trap, whether alive or dead they refrained from contemplating. What a sight met their gaze when coming in sight of the bear pen! There was poor Ralson lying prone on his back motionless and to all appearances dead, the great, heavy mass of metal fast to his leg and his pocket knife with broken blade lying near at hand, evidently thrown there as useless. They saw how he had hacked at the strong birch drag to which the chain was fastened until his knife became useless and then given up in despair.
Ralson, upon examination, was found to be yet alive, but unconscious and covered with blue flies, his hands and face were swollen from the mosquito poison and covered with dirt he had scratched while trying to dig for water. He looked a frightful and pitiful object. Luckily the men who had found him were quick to think and in a remarkably short space of time they had the leg freed from its iron clasp. One ran for a pannikin of cold water while the other twisted a piece of birch bark into the shape of a horn, with the small end open just enough to allow the water to trickle thru gently into his throat.
Next they bathed and washed his face and hands and shortly had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes. Robert now held up his head and placed the remaining water in the pannikin to his lips. This he managed to drink and blessed, blessed water, it revived him completely. The other man was then sent back to the canoe for the tea kettle and provisions, Robert starting a fire during his absence. Tea and partridge broth made and administered in small quantities at first helped him to regain his strength. His youthful vitality soon asserted itself and after he was propped up and made comfortable he managed to feed himself with some of the shredded meat.