Captain Mugford: Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The best man of our number was John Bar, and a fine Christian, cheerful-hearted fellow he was. Although differing so widely from Guyon Vidocq, he, without any effort to do so, and indeed unconsciously, disputed the palm of popularity with him. He was an active, powerful man too, and though terribly pockmarked, had a most agreeable countenance. He could troll a pleasant stave, and loved, when off hunting or at work with his axe sometimes, to sing one of our C— Sunday hymns, and whenever there was a respectable party in the evening, instead of the usual rioting set, he would willingly give them “The Fireside at home,” “Merrily row, the Boat row,” or any of the good old-fashioned songs, pure and inspiriting. Not another of us was so cheerful and industrious as John Bar. Drinking, gambling, or swearing, he was never guilty of, and when the evening orgies commenced he generally spoke to me, and we went off together to visit at the other cabin, or, if they were as bad there, find a warm corner with our blankets in the log barn, and there chat away the hours until our companions had calmed down and turned into their bunks. John Bar was not a meddler, nor what is contemptuously called, in such reckless societies as ours was, “a preacher;” but as he was loyal to his country, and loyal to his parents, he was far more loyal to his God. It would madden any man to hear his mother’s name profanely used; it made John Bar’s heart sick—yes, and I have seen him tremble with rage—when the name of his Saviour was taken as an oath. Sometimes then, and at other times when the wickedness in camp was rampant, he would break out in words of fire—words of fire that soon mingled with, and at last wholly changed to, words of love and entreaty. The others never resented these attacks, these living sermons that his overpowering sense of duty and outraged feeling made him speak. They felt the power of his influence, and acknowledged his goodness, for it was full of charity. Even Guyon Vidocq resented not John Bar’s corrections. He laughed, uttered another oath, and took himself away. But, alone, his face grew dark and angry, for he feared the power of John’s goodness, and hated him.

My turn as hunter did not come until December 18, and my companion from the other house was an old acquaintance of mine in C—. We had been schoolmates and near neighbours when boys, but since that he had been away at sea. He was a quiet, amiable young man, and one of the steadiest in our camp.

Sometimes such an expedition kept the hunters away for the entire week, and sometimes they would get separated. In either case the night’s shelter was a rough one, and dependent for safety and comfort upon the man’s ingenuity and hardihood. But where two could keep together, both the labour and danger of those night camps in the snow were lessened. As game was killed, it was stowed away in what hunters call a cache—that is, a hole for hiding and securing what we wished from the depredations of wolves and other wild animals; and then the ox-cart, when it was practicable—but generally, in winter, a sled drawn by hand—was sent out to bring in the game. My companion, Maine Mallory, and I started together up the frozen river; we agreed to keep together, if possible, and for that reason I carried a rifle and he a double-barrelled shotgun of large bore for throwing buckshot. We were dressed as warmly as our exercise would allow, and had, strapped on our backs, blankets and snow-shoes. Besides which, each one’s wallet held five pounds of bread, pepper and salt, powder, shot, and bullets, and pipe and tobacco, not forgetting the most important of all, flint and steel. We proposed to follow up a branch of the Ottawa to a lake south-east of Mount K—, and there hunt with a party of very friendly Indians, who had a most comfortable camp in a spot near the lake. They were collecting winter skins to send down by us in the spring for sale in Montreal. Our first day’s journey was about twenty miles on the hard frozen river, covered with a crust of snow so stiff as to render snow-shoes unnecessary; but it was hard work, for the weather was bitterly cold. We shot—that is, Maine Mallory did—a couple of partridges and a rabbit for our suppers, and halted early in a hemlock wood, where there was a northerly shelter of rocks; indeed, a crevice in the rocks was almost a cave for us, a cave where we gathered quantities of hemlock for bedding, and built at its entrance a huge fire, which, by night—when we had cut wood enough to last until morning, and had cooked and eaten our game—had made a deep hot bed of ashes. It was so cold, though, that we feared to sleep much; each took a turn at napping whilst the other fed the fire. The wood was as quiet as the grave; not a breath of wind; no night-bird nor prowling animal; nothing but the fine crackling of the cold. When I watched, I almost wished to see a wolf or bear—something to come in on the ghostly, silvered circle that the firelight illumined; something to start my congealing blood with a roar or spring. In the morning we took to the river course again, and went on, but resolved to try as hard as we could to reach the Indians’ camp before another night. It was twenty-seven miles, we calculated, but we did it; and about nine o’clock heard the yelping of the Indian dogs that sounded our approach while we were yet half a mile from the camp. We knew the five Indians there; two came out to learn who drew near. Worn out and benumbed with cold, we gladly gave ourselves into their hands to be warmed and fed. They were well provided against severe cold, and soon made us comfortable; but we were too wearied the next day to do any hunting.

The Indians said the weather was growing colder every day, and the head-man, a middle-aged chief, called Ollabearqui, or Trick the Bear, told with an ominous grunt, that when the cold “grow bigger and bigger and the winds stay asleep, then Ollabearqui is afraid.”

On the second morning of our stay among the Indians four of us went out after moose. Two, Mallory and an Indian, were to go around a mountain to the eastward, and Ollabearqui and I were to follow a valley which would bring us to the foot of the same mountain on the farther side, where we agreed to meet the others. A large, gaunt, savage-faced hound followed my Indian companion. He and I had each a rifle. We went quickly and silently through the white-clothed forests for about four miles. At length, where the small fall of the valley stream was held in great ice-shackles by the severe cold, and only a little pool of six inches diameter kept alive just beneath the icicles, we came out of the woods to a rocky, bushy foot and projection of the bare, stone-marked mountain. We had advanced to follow its base a short distance when my Indian companion, who had grown more careful and earnest lately, turned suddenly one side to a stiffly frozen covert of low bushes. The dog, before this most dull and dejected in his walk at his master’s heels, now sprang ahead and into the bushes. In a moment he came out again with his nose close to the snow, and as he emerged raised his head and gave one short, fierce howl. Ollabearqui spoke to him in the Indian tongue, and the dog renewed his search, going back again to the little spring. The Indian at the same time pointed to the ground for me to see a track, but no mark of any kind was visible to my eye—not a scratch or impression on the hard snow-crust. Now the dog left the trees again and led us up the steep, rough side of the mountain—a most difficult path to climb, frozen as it was. One hundred and fifty feet or more up, the dog stopped before a mass of wildly piled rocks, and there barked loudly and angrily. We reached the spot, Ollabearqui some minutes before me, and discovered the narrow mouth of a cavern, at which the hound was furiously digging. The Indian cocked his rifle, saying, “Panther! Look out!” In a few moments the dog had made the hole big enough to admit his head and fore paws, and he attempted to crawl in, but at the same moment we heard a rumbling growl, like an infuriated cat’s, but twenty times as strong, and the dog came out with a deep gash on the side of his head, cutting the mouth back a couple of inches. Again his master ordered him in. This time he entered entirely, and then we listened to the furious noises of the two beasts, in a desperate struggle evidently. In ten minutes the commotion ceased, but the hound did not return. I peered into the cavern, but could see nothing. As I rose to my feet after the attempt, I saw Ollabearqui, who had jumped to a point somewhat above the cavern’s entrance, with his rifle at his shoulder. I looked where it pointed, and saw a tremendous panther-cat springing up the mountain-side—it had probably crawled out from some other opening of the cave. At the same moment I heard a report, and saw the beast roll forward on its breast, but as quick as a flash it rose again and dashed at the shooter. It was all done in a second, but I could see Ollabearqui trying to draw his knife. The panther struck him, and he lost his footing and rolled backwards from the ledge on which he stood; the panther saved itself from the fall, but bounded back, from the mere force of the spring, I suppose, to the other side of the rock. The savage beast was not more than twelve yards from me, but seemed to be unconscious of my presence. Stunned by the heavy fall, Ollabearqui did not rise, and I saw the panther crawl around the ledge to spring on his prostrate foe. I brought up my rifle, and took deliberate aim at the animal’s shoulder. I fired. The panther made one tremendous leap, and fell with a dying yell on Ollabearqui’s breast. I ran up, and, as I supposed, found the Indian only bruised and stunned by his tumble. As I removed the dead beast from his body, Ollabearqui grunted and uttered a laconic “Good!” He then rose somewhat lamely, and he and I set about digging at the cave. Soon we managed to pull out the dog, which was dead, and then, pushing the panther’s corpse into the cavern, we stopped up both ends with heavy stones and went on, descending to a track through the forest again.

The luck was all mine that day, for when we had nearly reached the point where we were to meet our fellow-hunters, we heard, at a long distance beyond, a noise that the Maine hunter knows well—a dull, clacking noise, like the regular blows in a blacksmith’s shop ever so far away. It was the trot of a moose. When at a slow pace they always strike their hoofs together in that way, as a horse overreaches. We drew behind some large trees, and, after ten minutes of anxious waiting, discerned a very large bull moose coming on a waddling trot towards us. He had probably been started by our companions, for he had his ears pointed back, and turned his neck every few minutes as if to catch some sound behind. He passed near Ollabearqui first, at about eighty yards. There was only a click! Ollabearqui’s rifle had snapped. The moose, alarmed by the noise, increased his pace greatly, but came directly towards me, so that when I pulled trigger he was not farther off than twenty-five feet. He fell dead, a bullet right through his heart. My companion was not envious because of my good fortune. He scolded the erring rifle in his own language, and then said to me, “Good! good! You white-man very big shoot—ugh!” We joined Mallory and the other Indian soon after. They had only killed a fox. Together we made two sled-drags of the thickest, heaviest hemlock boughs, and loading the game—the panther-cat and fox on one sled, and the moose on the other—pulled them to the Indian camp.

The weather was too bitterly cold for hunting. Even the wild animals seemed not to go about any more than their wants required. So Mallory and I decided to buy some more meat from the Indians, and get them to go with us back to our lumbering station and help to carry the game on hand-sleds, which we could do with comparative ease on the river. The bargain was made, and Ollabearqui and two other Indians started with us the next morning, that we might reach our camp on the twenty-fourth, or on Christmas morning. No doubt the hope of getting whisky from our men induced the Indians to assent so readily to the proposition. The sled enabled us to take plenty of heavy furs and blankets for protection against the intense cold. Mallory and I also made a gallon of strong coffee before leaving the Indian camp; that we were able to heat three or four times a day, and would prove the greatest ally against the cold.

We made a long march the first day—nearly thirty miles—but suffered greatly from the unusually severe weather; and if our red friends had not taken us to an Indian mound to pass the night—which we used as a hut, packing all our furs against its stone sides and keeping up an immense fire in the centre, the smoke escaping where we removed a stone on the top—and had we not had the coffee to heat and drink continually, I really believe we should all have been frozen to death that terrible night. As it was, I remember it as the most painful and comfortless night I ever passed.

The morning came, and we could stir about; but the sun seemed to give no warmth, and a light wind was blowing to make the cold more searching. For some reason I could not explain to myself, I felt strangely anxious to get home. In the fitful naps I had caught during the night I had suffered from most painful dreams; but all I could remember of them were the faces of Guyon Vidocq and John Bar, and no sight of the camp or of the other men, only heaps of cinders where the log-houses stood. As soon as we had had our breakfast I urged my companions to get under way quickly. To my astonishment the Indians answered, “Us no go—us go back—so cold, ugh!—pipe of the Great Spirit gone out—us go back!” To our questionings and urgings they only grunted, shook their heads, and answered as before. So all Mallory and I could do was to let the fellows take their way. We packed the game in the stone mound, and piled stones and brushwood against its entrance and smoke-hole; and then with our guns, and the jug of what was left of the coffee on a sling between us, we started on our way.

That day’s journey is a distressing remembrance. Despite the cold, we advanced briskly enough until noon. Then the wind grew stronger, whilst we got weak from the exposure. The cold increased. A numbness of mind and body was creeping over us, and our limbs were heavy to move. At about three we stopped, and in what shelter we could find, built a great fire; and heating the coffee as hot as we could swallow it, drank nearly all that remained, and ate a dinner. That strengthened and warmed us up enough to help us along until sunset. We were then only four or five miles from camp; but had not the wind gone down with the sun, we must have perished before reaching home, for from that time our sufferings increased, and both of us grew drowsy. Several times Mallory’s halting steps stopped entirely, and he would have gone into the fatal sleep which precedes death from freezing, had I not shaken him and pushed and urged him. To me it was like walking in a sleep.