“What can he mean by bally, Cora?”
“Perhaps he means barley.”
“Ho!” exclaimed the Indian, with emphasis, by which he meant, “You’re right.”
But Elsie had no barley to give him. She tried to find out what he wanted to do with the barley, but Peegwish was not communicative. The gleam of cunning faded from his mahogany countenance, and he relapsed into a state of impenetrable wisdom, in which condition he retired, and betook himself to the upper part of the settlement, near Fort Garry, in quest of “bally.” Here he found the people in a state of considerable excitement owing to the sudden and unusual rise of the river.
At Fort Garry the Assinaboine River joins the Red River, and flows with it into Lake Winnipeg. At the period of which we write, (the month of May), both rivers were yet covered with the icy garment—between four and five feet thick—under which they had gone to rest five or six months before. The vast accumulation of snow which had fallen that winter was melted so fast that the Red River had risen with terrible rapidity, and it was obvious, from the ominous complainings of the “thick-ribbed ice,” that a burst-up of unwonted violence was impending. The strength of the ice, however, was so great that it rose with the swelling waters without breaking until nearly on a level with the top of the river banks. In some places, where the banks were low, the pent-up floods broke forth and swamped the land, but as yet little damage had been done.
Of course the alarm of the settlers was considerable. Rumours of former floods which had devastated the surrounding plains were rife, and those of the people whose houses stood on the lower grounds began to remove their goods and chattels to higher places. Others delayed doing so in the belief that the river would not rise much higher, at all events that it would subside as soon as the ice broke up and cleared away to Lake Winnipeg. Some there were whose dwellings stood on high ground, and who professed to have no belief in floods at all.
In other circumstances Peegwish would have noted the state of things that prevailed, but at that time his faculties were steeped in beer. For some days past they had been in this condition, but his supply was exhausted, and people who knew his propensity refused to give him more. Peegwish, therefore, being a somewhat resolute savage, resolved to adopt a course which would render him independent. Chuckling to himself at the depth and cunning of his intended course of action, he went among the farmers begging for “bally”! Some to whom he appealed treated him facetiously, others turned him away from their doors, being too anxious about the impending flood to listen to him. At last he found a soft-hearted soul in the person of Michel Rollin’s mother, old Liz, who dwelt in a very small log-hut on a knoll at a considerable height above the river.
“What d’ee want wi’ the barley?” demanded old Liz, who, besides being amiable, had a feeling of kindness for the man with whom her absent son had for years been in the habit of hunting.
“To heat ’im,” replied the Indian.
“To eat it,” echoed the sturdy little woman; “weel, come in. I can spare some, but dinna mak’ a noise, Daddy’s sleepin’.”