La Ronde came in on the 27th, and on the following day set out with Bruneau on their distant journey. They took with them two dog-sleighs, and the best trains of dogs to be obtained at Carlton. The provision they expected to bring was four sacks of flour and thirty or forty pounds of tea; and the journey of 600 miles and back would occupy at least two months. The snow was now so deep that a track would require to be trodden out with snow-shoes to enable the dogs to travel, and the undertaking was certain to be very laborious. The route they intended to take was by Touchwood Hills and Fort Pelly on to the Manitobah Lake, and thence to Fort Garry.
Cheadle, now left with only the Indian boy, went off into the woods to make another attempt to circumvent his ancient enemy, the wolverine. With pack slung on his back, gun on shoulder, and axe in belt, little Misquapamayoo stalked along to lead the way, with all the dignity and confidence of a practised hunter. No track or sign escaped his observant eye, and he made and set traps, arranged the camp, cut wood, and cooked meals, with the readiness and skill of an old trapper. The heavier work of wood-chopping and the weightier pack fell, of course, to Cheadle’s share; but Misquapamayoo was indefatigable in performing everything in his power, and this was by no means contemptible, for he could carry weights and use an axe in a manner which would have surprised an English boy of the same age. He assumed an air of grave superiority over his companion in all things relating to the hunter’s or voyageur’s craft which was very amusing, although certainly justified by the facts of the case.
The two spent their time in the woods merrily enough, for it was impossible to be dull with such a lively, light-hearted companion as Misquapamayoo. This may perhaps be thought strange when it is stated that Cheadle, when he set out, did not know more than two or three words of the Cree language. Yet this very circumstance was a prolific source of amusement, and nothing delighted the boy more than to instruct his companion, falling into fits of laughter at his mispronunciations and mistakes. The easy manner in which communication was carried on between the two, each ignorant of the other’s language, was very astonishing. But Misquapamayoo appeared to divine by instinct what was required, and it seemed difficult to believe at first that he really did not understand a word of English. The perceptions of an Indian are so nice, his attention so constantly on the alert, and his conclusions so rapidly formed, that he draws inferences from general signs with great readiness and accuracy.
The wolverine had renewed his visits along the line of traps, and broken all which had been reconstructed, devouring the animals which had been caught. Cheadle now adopted a device which he flattered himself would catch the enemy in his own toils. All the broken traps were repaired and set again, and poisoned baits substituted for the ordinary ones in the traps—not in every instance, but here and there along the line.
The forest in which we hunted commenced on the further side of our lake, stretching away to the north apparently indefinitely. This was broken only by numerous lakes and swamps, and patches of timber which had been burnt. The lakes are always sought by the trapper, not only because they enable him to travel more rapidly, and penetrate further into the less hunted regions, but also because the edges of the lakes, and the portages between them, are favourite haunts of the fox, the fisher, and the mink. On one of these lakes a curious circumstance was observed. The lake was about half a mile in length, and of nearly equal breadth, but of no great depth. The water had seemingly frozen to the bottom, except at one end, where a spring bubbled up, and a hole of about a yard in diameter existed in the covering of ice, which was there only a few inches thick. The water in this hole was crowded with myriads of small fish, most of them not much larger than a man’s finger, and so closely packed that they could not move freely. On thrusting in an arm, it seemed like plunging it into a mass of thick stir-about. The snow was beaten down all round hard and level as a road, by the numbers of animals which flocked to the Lenten feast. Tracks converged from every side. Here were the footprints of the cross or silver fox, delicately impressed in the snow as he trotted daintily along with light and airy tread; the rough marks of the clumsier fisher; the clear, sharply-defined track of the active mink; and the great coarse trail of the ever-galloping, ubiquitous wolverine. Scores of crows perched on the trees around, sleepily digesting their frequent meals. Judging by the state of the snow and collection of dung, the consumption must have gone on for weeks, yet the supply seemed as plentiful as ever.
This circumstance afforded an explanation of the fact that many of the rivers and fresh-water lakes in this country are destitute of fish, as all but the deeper ones freeze to the bottom, and therefore any fish they contained would be destroyed.
When the trappers turned homewards they found that the wolverine had followed them closely. On the ground which they had passed over on the previous day, every trap was already demolished and the baits abstracted. Cheadle fondly imagined that at last his enemy was outwitted and destroyed, but Misquapamayoo’s sharper eyes discovered each of the baits which had been poisoned, lying close at hand, bitten in two and rejected, whilst all the others had disappeared. The baits had been made with great care, the strychnine being inserted into the centre of the meat by a small hole, and when frozen it was impossible to distinguish any difference in appearance between them and the harmless ones. It seemed as if the animal suspected poison, and bit in two and tasted every morsel before swallowing it. The baits had purposely been made very small, so that in the ordinary course they would have been bolted whole. That the same wolverine had frequented our path from the first, we knew perfectly well, for he was one of unusually large size, as shown by his tracks, which were readily distinguishable from the others we observed from time to time.
On the 28th of December, Milton left Carlton, and resting one night at Treemiss’s hut, arrived the following day at La Belle Prairie. Cheadle and Misquapamayoo had come in just before, and a very pleasant evening was spent in talking over all that had happened during the separation.
Associating entirely with Indians until the return of our men, we rapidly picked up the Cree language, and in the course of a few weeks could speak it fluently if not grammatically. Nothing is easier than to get a decent smattering of Cree, although the construction of the language is extremely intricate. The name of many articles is the explanation of their use or properties, the word being a combination of a participle and noun, the latter generally the word gun, “a thing;” as parskisi-gun, a “shooting thing;” miniquachi-gun, a “drinking thing” or cup. This also appears in their proper names, which are generally descriptions of some personal peculiarity; as in the names Kekekooarsis and Keenamontiayoo, which have been mentioned before. The consonants d, f, and l are not found in the Cree alphabet, and the Indians find great difficulty in pronouncing the two first when trying to use English words. The appropriate gestures and expressive pantomime with which an Indian illustrates his speech, render it easy to understand. We soon learnt to interpret without much difficulty the long hunting stories with which Keenamontiayoo whiled away the evenings in our hut. The scene described was partly acted; the motions of the game, the stealthy approach of the hunter, the taking aim, the shot, the cry of the animal, or the noise of its dashing away, and the pursuit, were all given as the tale went on.
We had arranged with Keenamontiayoo to start with him in a few days for the plains, intending to pay a visit to a small camp of Wood Crees, who we had heard were hunting buffalo about eighty miles off. We were, however, astonished on the evening of the last day of the year, by the arrival not only of the Hunter, but Kekekooarsis also, with their wives, children, and relatives. They seemed very much delighted with themselves, and were very complimentary to us. All quietly settled down and began to smoke. It was plain they intended to stay some time with us. As our room was so extremely small, we found it inconvenient to accommodate so many visitors, but all our efforts to understand their explanations were in vain, and we had to make the best of it.