Читать книгу Mine Inheritance - Frederick Niven - Страница 12

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It was near where Assiniboine joins Red River that we were to meet the Hudson’s Bay Company’s prairie officers, Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Heney, who each summer came there in their carts to get incoming goods and to hand over outgoing bales of furs.

All did not go ashore at once—only the Governor and one or two of his officers. From the boat we watched them greet those who came down not over eagerly to meet them. And soon, though we could not hear a word spoken, we realised that something was amiss. We could see it by Captain Macdonell’s pose. He raised his head; he thrust his chin out at the two to whom he spoke there. Mr. Hillier, formerly a lieutenant of the navy but at that time in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, stood beside him. He had come all the way with us from across the Atlantic formally, at the appointed place, to hand over to our Governor the lands that the Earl of Selkirk had purchased for the Settlement. We saw Mr. Hillier shrug his shoulders and then nod his head up and down. It was as good as hearing him say, “Well, there it is—and it cannot be helped!”

Soon, with disgust in face and bearing, Miles Macdonell and his companions came down the bank again. By their orders the boats were rowed to the east side of Red River, opposite the mouth of Assiniboine, and there we made camp looking across at the North-West Company’s fort, Fort Gibraltar.

There was no secret regarding what the officers had heard on arrival. They discussed it frankly, and at times with profanity because of their annoyance, before us. Orders had been sent by the Company in London, as far back as three years earlier, for a supply of pemican, the staple food of the country—dried and pressed buffalo meat which, so treated, keeps almost indefinitely—to be laid in store there against the coming of Selkirk’s people. The order had been entirely ignored.

“It is not only ourselves,” I heard Captain Macdonell say, “that we have to think of. We may have a party of settlers here almost on our heels because of our delay at Hudson Bay.”

“We can only hope,” remarked Hillier, “that their ships will be held back as ours were and that they also will have to spend a winter at the Bay. They can be fed there on Company’s stores.”

“And so increase his lordship’s account!” ejaculated the Governor. “It is worse than what is called gross carelessness. It is gross heedlessness. These men had no excuse to offer even—no explanation. It was just, No, they had none. All that interests them is getting their trade goods in and their bundles of pelts out to York Factory, utterly uninterested in us. What can we say about it?”

“We can only say damn ’em and hope, as I remarked, that the immigrants will have to stay at the Bay for the winter and give you a chance to prepare for their arrival next spring.”

“Oh, well,” sighed Macdonell, “we have met the Hudson’s Bay Company’s officials in their camp here, and now we shall have to go and make a duty call on the North-Westers at their fort over there—pay our respects. We shall hardly find them less interested in our welfare.”

“You may be able to buy pemican from them if they have a store.”

“We shall see. Here are some Indians coming. They may help to provide. We may enlist them as hunters and fishermen.”

Several Indians appeared close by, in the Indian manner as though suddenly created there. One of them drew nearer.

“How-do? Bo’-jour,” said he, as though to let the white man know he was tri-lingual—had at least salutations of two white races as well as his own speech. He was attired in white men’s apparel but his hair was in plaits on either side of his head and he wore moccasins. In his ears were shell rings.

“How-do? Bon jour,” replied Macdonell, and held out a hand to his visitor. At the post of Jack River on the way he had engaged a Mr. Ishman as interpreter, he knowing both the Cree and Saulteaux tongues, but to have called upon his services then, I realised, would be to insult this linguist.

“You Boston men?” asked the Indian, meaning American as I quickly learnt.

“No!” replied the Governor very definitely with his antipathy to those he still thought of as the rebels. “Not Boston men.”

The Indian nodded.

“You Nor’-West?” he inquired.

“No.”

“You King George men?”

“Yes, King George men,” replied Captain Macdonell.

To our visitor there was evidently a difference between a Boston man and a King George man but a difference also between a Nor’-Wester and a King George man for he remarked: “King George man more good than Nor’-West.”

The Governor, I surmised by his expression, did not know whether that was inquiry or statement, and later I heard him say that he wondered if the fact that the North-Westers had followed the old French trade routes made them seem to the Indians, though talking English, less truly King George men than those of the Hudson’s Bay Company. But—“Oh, yes,” said he, warmly.

“You go far?”

“We stop here.”

“Huh!” What that meant neither the Governor nor any of us, listening, could guess. “Maybe your people trade me. What you want? You want fur? You want robe?”

Macdonell wanted neither furs nor buffalo hides then.

“Some pemican,” he said. “We want food—eat.”

“Plenty whitefish now,” answered the Indian, cheerfully.

“That would be good. Whitefish to eat now and maybe you make pemican by and by?”

“Maybe. I not know,” and the Indian smiled. Then, as if dismissing all that, he added: “How old you?”

Captain Macdonell must have met Indians before, both in the Canadas and in New York State, and already had noticed, no doubt, what I was to notice later—that after a man has passed his youth they are wontedly curious regarding his age.

“Me forty-three snows,” he answered.

The Indian frowned and thought a long while, muttering to himself, “Forty-three—forty-three.” Then: “My name Peguis,” he announced. “You pass my people’s village near lake,” and he pointed north.

“I saw tepees, wigwams, but no people,” said the Governor. “My name Macdonell.”

At that Peguis held out his hand again, considering our Governor with a level appraising gaze. With another of these Indian sounds in his throat he turned suddenly and departed.

“What about the possible pemican? What about the whitefish?” demanded Hillier.

“We’ll leave it as it stands, as it lies,” replied Captain Macdonell. “He won’t forget. He’ll be back with some of his people and the whitefish—whitefish, anyhow, I expect to begin with. There they all go off together, talking. He’s telling them about us.”