“Her fate among the Indians would have been terrible, but it would be almost as bad were we to leave her among the rough characters hereabouts,” observed Uncle Donald. “As none of her friends can be found, I will be her guardian, and, if God spares my life, will bring her up as a Christian child.”
It was many a long day, however, before Rose recovered her spirits. Her mind, indeed, seemed to be a blank as to the past, and Uncle Donald, afraid of reviving the recollection of the fearful scenes she must have witnessed, forbore to say anything which might recall them. However, by the time we reached Fort Edmonton, where Hugh McLellan had been left, she was able to prattle away right merrily. The officers at the fort offered to take charge of her, but Uncle Donald would not consent to part with his little “Prairie Rose,” as he called her; and after a short stay we set out again, with Hugh added to our party, across the Rocky Mountains, and at length arrived safely at Clearwater.
Corney and Pierre remained with us, and took the places of two other men who had left.
Hugh McLellan was a fine, bold little fellow, not quite two years my junior; and he and I—as Uncle Donald had hoped we should—soon became fast friends.
He had not much book learning, though he had been instructed in the rudiments of reading and writing by one of the clerks in the fort, but he rode fearlessly, and could manage many a horse which grown men would fear to mount.
“I want you, Archie, to help Hugh with his books,” said Uncle Donald. “I believe, if you set wisely about it, that he will be ready to learn from you. I would not like for him to grow up as ignorant as most of the people about us. It is the knowledge we of the old country possess which gives us the influence over these untutored savages; without it we should be their inferiors.”
I promised to do my best in fulfilling his wishes, though I took good care not to assert any superiority over my companion, who, indeed, though I was better acquainted with literature than he was, knew far more about the country than I did.
But there was another person in the household whose history is worthy of narration—the poor Indian woman—“Madge,” as we called her for shortness, though her real name was Okenmadgelika. She also owed her life to Uncle Donald.
Several years before this, she, with her two children, had accompanied her husband and some other men on an expedition to trap beavers, at the end of autumn, towards the head waters of the Columbia. While she was seated in her hut late in the evening, one of the men staggered in desperately wounded, and had just time to tell her that her husband and the rest were murdered, when he fell dead at her feet. She, instantly taking up her children—one a boy of six years of age, the other a little girl, an infant in arms—fled from the spot, with a horse and such articles as she could throw on its back, narrowly escaping from the savages searching for her.
She passed the winter with her two young ones, no human aid at hand. On the return of spring she set off, intending to rejoin her husband’s people far away to the westward. After enduring incredible hardships, she had been compelled to kill her horse for food. She had made good some days’ journey, when, almost sinking from hunger, and fearing to see her children perish, she caught sight of her relentless foes, the Blackfeet. In vain she endeavoured to conceal herself. They saw her and were approaching, when, close to the spot where she was standing, a tall white man and several Indians suddenly emerged from behind some rocks. The Blackfeet came on, fancying that against so few they could gain an easy victory; but the rifles of the white man and his party drove them back, and Uncle Donald—for he was the white man—conveyed the apparently dying woman and her little ones to his camp.