Rob Nixon, the Old White Trader: A Tale of Central British North America

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Tom rolled about as if he was drunk, hardly able to keep his feet. The rough ground hurt us, and we were every instant knocking our toes and shins against stumps and fallen branches. We both of us sat down ready to cry. ‘How shall we ever get along?’ asked Tom. ‘We shall get accustomed to it,’ I answered; ‘but it does make me feel very queer.’ We found a good supply of provisions in the canoe, and we loaded ourselves with as much as we could carry, and we then had the sense to lift our canoe out of the water, and to carry her some way till we found a thick bush in which we hid her. ‘If they find out we got away in the canoe they’ll think we are drowned, and not take the trouble to look for us,’ observed Tom, as we turned our backs on the spot. We were pretty heavily laden, for we didn’t know where we might next find any food; and as we walked on we hurt our feet more and more, till Tom roared out with pain, and declared he would go no further. ‘Then we shall be caught and flayed alive, that’s all, Tom,’ said I. ‘But let us see if we can’t mend matters; here, let us cut off the sleeves of our jackets and bind them round our feet.’ We did so, and when we again set off we found that we could walk much better than before. We hadn’t been so many years at sea without learning how go steer by the stars. What we wanted was to get to the east; as far from the sea and our hated ship as possible: that one thought urged us on. Through brushwood which tore our scanty clothes to shreds, and over rough rocks which wounded our feet, and across marshes and streams which wetted us well nigh from head to foot, we pushed our way for some hours—it seemed to us the whole night—till we got into an Indian track. We didn’t know what it was at the time, but found it was an easy path, so we followed it up at full speed. On we ran; we found that it led in the right direction, and that’s all we thought of. Unaccustomed to running or walking as we were, it seems surprising how we should have held out; but the truth is it was fear helped us along, and a burning desire to be free.

“Daylight found us struggling up a high hill or ridge, rather running north and south; we reached the top just as the sun rose above a line of lofty and distant mountains. We turned round for a moment to look on the far-off blue waters which lay stretched out below us, and on which we had spent so large a portion of our existence. ‘I’ve had enough of it,’ cried Tom, fiercely shaking his fist; and then we turned along again, and rushed down the ridge towards the east. It was the last glimpse I ever had of the wide ocean. Still we did not consider ourselves safe. We should have liked to have put a dozen such ridges between our tyrants and ourselves. On we went again till at last our exhausted strength failed, and we stopped to take some food. Once having sat down it was no easy matter to get up again, and before we knew what was happening we were both fast asleep. We must have slept a good many hours, and I dreamed during that time that the mate, and cook, and a dozen seamen were following us with flensing-knives, and handspikes, and knotted ropes, shrieking and shouting at our heels. We ran, and ran for our lives, just as we had been running all night, but they were always close behind us. The mate—oh! how I dreaded him—had his hand on my shoulder, and was giving a growl of satisfaction at having caught me, when I awoke; and, looking up, saw not the mate, but the most terrible-looking being I had ever set eyes on, so I thought.

“I had, to be sure, seen plenty of savages who came off to the ship from the islands at which we used to touch, but they were none of them so fierce as he looked. I won’t describe him, because he was simply a redskin warrior in his war paint and feathers. It was his hand that was on my shoulder; his grunt of surprise at finding us awoke me. I cried out, and Tom and I jumped to our feet and tried to run away; a dozen Indians however surrounded us, and escape was impossible. ‘Let us put a bold face on the matter, Tom,’ I sang out; ‘I don’t think they mean to kill us.’ Our captors talked a little together and they seemed pleased with the way we looked at them, for they showed us by signs that they meant us no evil. They were a portion of a war party on their way to destroy the pale-face settlement on the coast. They guessed by our dress and looks, and from our clothes being torn, that we were runaway English seamen; and, knowing that we should not wish to go back to our ship, considered that we should prove of more value to them alive than our scalps would be if they took them. We understood them to say that they wanted us to go with them to attack their enemies, but we showed them by our feet that we could not walk a step, and as they were not ill-tempered people they did not insist on it. After a talk they lifted us up—two taking Tom, and two me between them—and carried us along at a quick rate for some miles to their camp; there we saw a large number of Indians collected, some armed with bows, and some few with fire-arms.

“There were a few women, in whose charge we were placed. We could not make out whether we were considered prisoners or not; at all events, we could not run away. Leaving us, the whole party set forth towards the west on their expedition. Two days passed, and then, with loud shoutings, and shriekings, and firing of muskets, the party appeared, with numerous scalps at the end of their spears, and some wretched captives driven before them, I remember, even now, how I felt that night, when the war-dance was danced, and the prisoners tortured; how fearfully the men, and even the women, shrieked, and how the miserable people who had been taken, as they were bound to stakes, writhed under the tortures inflicted on them. While we looked on, Tom and I wished ourselves back again, even on board the ship, thinking that we ourselves might next be treated in the same manner. At last the savages brought fire, and then, as the flames blazed up, we saw three people whom we knew well,—the captain, and mate, and one of the men, who had been among the worst of our tyrants. Though their faces were distorted with agony and horror, as the light fell on them, there was no doubt about the matter. They might have seen us. If they did, it must have added to their misery. They had come on shore to visit some of the settlers, we concluded, and, at all events, were found fighting with them. We got accustomed, after a time, to such scenes, and learned to think little of them, as you doubtless do, friend Peter; but at that time, I went off in a sort of swoon, as the shrieks and cries for mercy of the burning wretches reached my ears. The Indians had got a great deal of booty, and having taken full revenge for the injury done them, and expecting that they would be hunted out if they remained in the neighbourhood, they judged it wise to remove to another part of the country. Our feet had sufficiently recovered during the rest of two days to enable us to walk, or I am not certain that we should not have been killed, to save our captors the trouble of carrying us. It took us a week to reach the main camp, where most of the women and children were collected. We limped on, with difficulty and pain, thus far concealing our sufferings as much as we could. We could not have gone a mile further, had not the tribe remained here to decide on their future course. The rest, and the care the women took of us, sufficiently restored our strength to enable us to move on with the tribe to the new ground they proposed taking up. Your Indian ways, friend Peter, were very strange to us at first, but by degrees we got into them, and showed that we were every bit as good men as the chief braves themselves. Whatever they did, we tried to do, and succeeded as well as they, except in tracking an enemy, and that we never could come up with. They, at first, treated us as slaves, and made us work for them, as they did their women; but when they saw what sort of lads we were, they began to treat us with respect, and soon learned to look upon us as their equals. We both of us became very different to what we were at sea, Tom especially. There we were cowed by our task-masters, here we felt ourselves free men; and Tom, who was looked upon as an arrant coward on board ship, was now as brave as the bravest warrior of the tribe. We were braver, indeed; for while they fought Indian-fashion, behind trees, we would rush on, and never failed to put our enemies to flight.

“We were of great service to our friends in assisting them to establish themselves in their new territory, and to defend themselves against the numerous foes whom they very soon contrived to make. Still we held our own, and our friends increased in numbers and power. Our chief was ambitious, and used every means to add fresh members to his tribe, by inducing those belonging to other tribes to join us. His object, which was very clear, excited the jealousy of a powerful chief, especially, of the great Dakotah nation, inhabiting the country north-east of our territory. He, however, disguised his intentions, and talked us into security by pretending the greatest friendship. Through his means, our other enemies ceased to attack us, and we began to think that the hatchet of war was buried for ever. Tom and I had been offered wives—daughters of chiefs—and we had agreed to take them to our lodges, when we both of us set out on a hunting expedition, to procure game for our marriage feast, and skins to pay for the articles we required. We had great success, and were returning in high spirits, when night overtook us, within a short distance of the village. We camped where we were, as we would not travel in the dark, hoping to enter it the next morning in triumph. About midnight, both Tom and I started from our sleep, we knew not why. Through the night air there came faint sounds of cries, and shrieks, and shouts, and warlike noises. We thought it must be fancy; but presently, as we stood listening, there burst forth a bright light in the direction of the village, which went on increasing, till it seemed that every lodge must be on fire. What could we do? Should we hasten on to help our friends? It was too late to render them any assistance. We must wait till daylight to learn what way the foe had gone, and how we could best help our friends; so we stood watching the flames with grief and anger, till they sunk down for want of fuel. We had not lived so long with Indians, without having learned some of their caution; and concealing our game and skins, as soon as it was dawn we crept on towards the village. As we drew near, not a sound was heard—not even the bark of a dog. We crept amid the bushes on hands and feet, closer and closer, when from a wooded knoll we could look down on the lately happy village, or, I should say, on the spot where it lately stood.

“By the grey light of the morning a scene of desolation and bloodshed was revealed to us, which, in all my experience of warfare, I have never seen equalled. Every lodge was burnt to the ground; here and there a few blackened posts alone remaining to show where they once stood: but a burnt village I have often seen. It was the sight of the mangled and blackened bodies of our late friends and companions thickly strewed over the ground which froze the blood in our veins. For some moments we could scarcely find breath to whisper to each other. When we did, we reckoned up the members of the tribe, men, women, and children, and then counting the bodies on the ground, we found that our foes had killed every one of them, with the exception of perhaps a dozen, who might have been carried off. This told us, too correctly, how the event had occurred. In the dead of night the village had been surrounded, torches thrown into it, and, as the people rushed out confused, they were murdered indiscriminately—old and young, women and children. Were our intended wives among them? we almost wished they were; but we dared not descend to ascertain. The place was no longer for us. ‘I wish that I was back in England, Tom,’ said I. ‘So do I, Bill, right heartily,’ said he. ‘East or west, Tom?’ said I. ‘Not west! no, no!’ he answered, with a shudder; ‘we might be caught by another whaler.’ ‘East, then,’ said I, pointing to the rising sun; ‘we may get there some day, but it’s a long way, I’ve a notion.’ ‘If we keep moving on, we shall get there though, long as it may be,’ said Tom. So we crept back to where we had left our goods, and having taken food for a couple of days, we went and hid ourselves in some thick bushes, where we hoped our enemies would not find us. For two days and nights we lay hid, and on the third morning we agreed that we might as well chance it as stay where we were, when the sound of voices, and of people moving through the woods reached our ears, and, peeping out, we saw several warriors passing along at no great distance. From the way they moved we knew that they were not looking for any one, nor believing that any enemy was near; but still, should any one of their quick eyes fall on our trail, they would discover us in an instant. I never felt my scalp sit more uneasy on my head. Suddenly they stopped and looked about; I thought that it was all over with us; the keen eyes of one of them, especially, seemed to pierce through the very thicket where we lay. We scarcely dared to breathe, lest we should betray ourselves. Had there been only five or six we might have sprung out and attacked them with some chance of success, but there were a score at least, and more might be following, and so the odds were too great. They were most of them adorned with scalps—those of our slaughtered friends, we did not doubt, and we longed to be avenged on them. On they came, and just as we thought that we had seen the end of them, more appeared, and several of them looked towards us. How we escaped discovery I do not know. Long after the last had passed on into the forest we came out of our hiding-place, and gathering up all our property, prepared to commence our journey. We pushed on as fast as our legs would carry us, every moment expecting to come upon some of our enemies, or to have them pouncing out upon us from among the trees or rocks. All day we pushed on, almost without stopping, and for several days resting only during the hours of darkness, till at last we hoped that we had put a sufficient distance between our enemies and ourselves to escape an attack. We now camped to catch more game, and to make arrangements for our course. We had got some little learning at school, though most of it was forgotten; but we remembered enough to make us know that England was to the north-east of us, and so we determined to travel on in that direction. I won’t tell you now all about our journey. We had not got far before we found the country so barren that we were obliged to keep to the north, which brought us into the territory owned by the Dakotah people. We knew nothing of the way then, except from the accounts picked up over the camp fires of our former friends, and we had managed hitherto to keep out of the way of all strangers. We were ignorant, too, of the great distance we were from England; and of another thing we were not aware, and that was of the cold of winter. We were still travelling on, when the nights became so cold that we could scarcely keep ourselves from freezing, though sleeping close to our camp fires. It got colder and colder, and then down came the snow, and we found that winter had really set in. To travel on was impossible, so we built ourselves a lodge, and tried to trap and kill animals enough to last us for food till the snow should disappear. They became, however, scarcer and scarcer, and we began to fear that the supply of food we had collected would not last us out till summer. We had, however, a good number of skins, and though we had intended to sell them, we made some warm clothing of them instead.

“We had too much to do during the day in hunting and collecting wood for our fire to allow of the time hanging very heavy on our hands. At first we got on very well, but our food decreased faster than we had calculated; and then Tom fell down from a rock, and hurt himself so much that I could scarcely get him home. While he was in this state I fell sick, and there we two were, in the middle of a desert, without any one to help us. Tom grew worse, and I could just crawl out from our bed of skins and leaves to heap up wood on our fire, and to cook our food. That was growing less and less every day, and starvation stared us in the face. Our wood, too could not hold out much longer, and though there was plenty at a little distance, I was too weak to go out and fetch it and cut it up, and poor Tom could not even stand upright. Day by day our stock of food decreased. All was gone! There was wood enough to keep our fire alight another day, and then we knew that in one, or, at most, two days more, we must be starved or frozen to death. Tom groaned out that he wished we had but a bottle of rum to keep us warm, and drive away dreadful thoughts. So did I wish we had. That was a hard time, friend Peter.”

“Fire water! was that all you thought of? Did you never pray? Did you never ask God to deliver you?” inquired the Indian in a tone of astonishment. “No! What had God to do with us poor chaps in that out-of-the-way place? He wouldn’t have heard us if we had prayed; and, besides, we had long ago forgotten to pray,” answered the old man in an unconcerned tone. “Ah! but He would have heard you, depend on that. The poor and destitute are the very people He delights to help,” observed the Indian. “Ah! old friend, you little know what God is when you fancy that He would not have heard you.” As he spoke he produced a Testament in the Ojibway tongue, from which he read the words, “God is love,” and added, “This is part of the Bible, which your countrymen, the missionaries, have translated for us into our tongue.”

“Ay! maybe,” remarked the old man, after considering a time; “I remember about the Bible when I was a boy, and it’s all true; but I don’t fancy God could have cared for us.”