The flesh of many of the cows had been taken off, and was drying in the sun on stages near the tents to make pemmican. The odour was almost overpowering, and millions of large blue flesh-flies were humming and buzzing over the putrefying bodies.
After we had refreshed ourselves—as Fistycuff expressed a hope that we had done—with this spectacle, he begged that we would ride on to the new pound. It was formed in the same way. From it two lines of trees were placed, extending to a distance of four miles into the prairie, each tree being about fifty feet from the others, forming a road about two miles wide, all the mouths gradually narrowing towards the pound. Men had concealed themselves behind the trees, and the hunters having succeeded in driving a herd into the road, they rose and shook their robes on any attempt being made to break away from it. Now on came the herd rushing forward at headlong speed. Now an Indian would dart out from behind a tree and shake his robe as an animal showed an inclination to break out of the line, and as quietly again retreat. At the entrance of the pound there was a strong trunk of a tree about a foot from the ground, and on the inner side an excavation sufficiently deep to prevent the buffalo from leaping back when once in the pound. The buffaloes closed in one on the other, the space they occupied narrowing till they became one dense mass, and then, ignorant of the trap prepared for them, they leaped madly over the horizontal trunk. As soon as they had taken the fatal spring, they began to gallop round and round the ring fence, looking for a chance of escape; but with the utmost silence, the men, women, and children who stood close together surrounding the fence, held out their robes before every orifice until the whole herd was brought in. They then climbed to the top of the fence, and joined by the hunters who had closely followed the helpless buffalo, darted their spears or shot with bows or firearms at the bewildered animals, now frantic with rage and terror on finding themselves unable to escape from the narrow limits of the pound.
A great number had thus been driven in and killed, and we were about retiring from the horrid spectacle, at the risk of bringing on ourselves the contempt of our hosts, when one wary old bull espying a narrow crevice which had not been closed by the robes of those on the outside, made a furious dash and broke through the fence. In spite of the frantic efforts of the Indians to close it up again, the half-maddened survivors followed their leader, and before their impetuous career could be stopped they were galloping helter-skelter among the sand hills, with the exception of a dozen or so which were shot down by arrows or bullets as they passed along in their furious course.
In consequence of the wholesale and wanton destruction of the buffalo, an example of which we witnessed, they have greatly diminished. We were not surprised afterwards to hear the old chief say, that he remembered the time when his people were as numerous as the buffalo now are, and the buffalo were as thick as the trees of the forest. We spent two very interesting days with him, and then turned our horses’ heads towards the Red River, that we might prepare for a canoe voyage on the lakes and up the Saskatchewan, which we had resolved to make.
Chapter Seventeen.
High state of Cultivation of Settlements—Rupert’s Land—The Rapids—Lake Winnipeg—Our Bivouac—Peter nearly “drowned and dead”—How we caught Fish—The Swampies, and their mode of Fishing—An Ojibway Missionary Station—The Salt Springs—Pas Mission—Fort à la Carne.
As our object was to see as much as possible of Central British America, we sent John stalker with two of our carts laden with stores and provisions, on to Fort à la Carne, situated near the junction of the two branches of the Saskatchewan River, there to await our arrival, while we travelled back to Red River, there to embark in our canoes, and to voyage in them through Lake Winnipeg and up the North Saskatchewan. Travelling as we did with an abundance of food, and without any fear of knocking up our animals, we made rapid journeys, and were soon again at Red River. I will not stop to describe the really comfortable dwellings, the wheat-producing farms, the herds of fat cattle, and the droves of pigs we met as we approached the settlement. Neither Trevor nor I had any idea that a spot existed, so remote from the Atlantic on one side, and the Pacific on the other, containing a community possessed of so many sources of wealth. All the farmers we spoke to explained to us that they only wanted one thing, and that was a market, or in other words, settlers who would come and buy their produce.