After his return, Keenamontiayoo went out into the woods to hunt moose. For several days he had no success, and came back to perform a solemn invocation to the “Manitou”[5] to bless his next attempt. Drums were brought out, and rattles made of bladders with pebbles in them, “medicine” belts of wolf skin donned, and other “medicine,” or magic articles, such as ermine skins, and musk-rat skins covered with beads. The Hunter and his father-in-law drummed and rattled, and sang songs, finishing, after some hours, by a long speech which they repeated together, in which they promised to give some of the best meat to the Manitou if he granted success, and to compose a new song in his praise.
Before daylight Keenamontiayoo started, and at night returned in high glee, for his prayer had proved very efficacious, and he had killed two moose. The moose is a sacred animal, and certain portions of the meat—such as the breast, liver, kidneys, and tongue—must be eaten at once, and the whole consumed at a single meal. Women are not allowed to taste the tongue, and all scraps are burnt, never given to the dogs. The Hunter had brought the best part home with him, and Milton had the pleasure of joining in a great feast. Tit-bits were cut off and cast into the fire, as the promised offering to the Manitou, the men chanting and beating drums and rattles the while. Then all feasted to repletion, and Milton was kept from sleep by the persistency with which Keenamontiayoo sang the new song he pretended to have composed for the occasion, which he continued to sing over and over again without cessation till nearly daylight. As he had been out hunting all day, and busily engaged ever since his return, it is shrewdly suspected he attempted to impose upon his Manitou, by making shift with an old hymn, for he certainly could not have had much opportunity for composing the new one he had promised.
Cheadle had remained at the Fort to await the arrival of the winter express from Fort Garry, which comes once a year, bringing letters for Carlton, and the more distant forts. Dog-sleighs arrived from all quarters—Edmonton, La Crosse, Norway House, &c.—bringing letters for England, in return for those brought for them by the Red River train. It was a time of great excitement at the Fort, and when the tinkling of sleigh bells gave warning of an arrival, all rushed out to greet the new-comers and hear the latest news. We naturally expected a large batch of letters, the arrears of all sent from home since we left, for we had as yet received none. Dreadful was the disappointment, therefore, when the Fort Garry express came in, and the box of letters was seized and ransacked, to find not one for any of us. The only hope left was that La Ronde might bring some when he returned.
Cheadle was now anxious to return as soon as possible, although without the pleasant intelligence he had expected to carry with him. But there was some difficulty in finding the means of transport, and the cold was now so great that it would have been dangerous to cross open country without a sleigh on which to carry an ample supply of robes and blankets. At last an English half-breed, named Isbister, volunteered to accompany him with his train of dogs, if he could travel rapidly, so as to allow him to return to the Fort within three days, in order to join a party of hunters going to the plains.
The offer was gladly accepted, and at noon the two set out. The north wind blew very bitterly, the thermometer being down to thirty degrees below zero. The track was tolerably good, although not firm enough to allow snow-shoes to be dispensed with, and now rapidly drifting up. Away went the dogs with the lightly-laden sleigh, and Isbister and Cheadle strained their utmost to keep up, tearing along on their snow-shoes, with a motion and swinging of arms from side to side, like fen-skaters.
In spite of all this exertion, a very great many flannel shirts, a leathern shirt, duffel shirt, and thick Inverness cape over all, Cheadle was frost-bitten in many places—arms, legs, and face; and when they pulled up to camp for the night in a clump of pines, he was quite unable to strike a light, and even Isbister with difficulty accomplished it. With a roaring fire, sleeping fully clothed, with the addition of two buffalo robes and two blankets, it was impossible to keep warm, or rest long without being admonished, by half-frozen toes, to rise and replenish the fire. The dogs crept shivering up and on to the bed, passing, like their masters, a restless night. The thermometer on this night went down to thirty-eight degrees below zero, the greatest cold which was experienced during this winter—the lowest ever registered being forty-five degrees below zero.
The following morning they set forward again at a racing pace, and reached the hut before dark—very fast travelling indeed on snow-shoes, on a trail that was not in first-rate order. A man can, indeed, walk much faster on snow-shoes, with a fair track, than on the best road without them; but when the trail is frozen perfectly hard, the voyageur casts them off, and runs behind the dogs, who are able to gallop at great speed along the slippery path; and in this manner the most extraordinary journeys have been made.
On entering the hut it proved to be empty, Milton being still at White Fish Lake. They had observed strange footmarks leading to the hut as they crossed the lake, and were puzzled whose they could be. Some one had evidently visited the house that day, for the chimney was not yet cold, nor the water in the kettle frozen.
After feeding the dogs, and making a hasty supper on raw pemmican and tea, Isbister set to work to convert the sleigh into a rude cariole, or passenger sleigh. Then wrapping himself in robe and blanket, he seated himself therein, and in two hours after his arrival was on his way back again to Carl ton. The dogs ran in with him by eleven o’clock on the following morning, having accomplished upwards of 140 miles in less than forty-eight hours, and the last seventy without stopping for rest or food.
Cheadle meanwhile remained a prisoner at Fort Milton, being so stiff and sore from his unusual kind of exercise, and so lame from using snow-shoes, that he crept about slowly and painfully, to perform the necessary duties of cutting wood and cooking. As he sat over the fire in the evening, alone, in somewhat dismal mood, the door opened, and in walked a French half-breed, of very Indian appearance. He sat down and smoked, and talked for an hour or two, stating that he was out trapping, and his lodge and family were about five miles distant. In due time Cheadle produced some pemmican for supper, when the visitor fully justified the sobriquet which he bore of Mahaygun, or “The Wolf,” by eating most voraciously. He then mentioned that he had not tasted food for two days. He had visited our hut the day before, lit a fire, melted some snow in the kettle, and waited for a long time, in the hope that some one might come in. At last he went away, without touching the pemmican which lay upon the table ready to his hand. The story was, doubtless, perfectly true, agreeing with all the signs previously observed, and the fact that the pemmican was uncut.