Читать книгу A Hatchet Mark in Duplicate - Rev. Alfred Campbell Garrioch - Страница 5

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In the year 1871, six years before my arrival at Fort Vermilion, placer gold-mining was flourishing along the upper part of the Peace River, and about two thousand miners were camped at or in the vicinity of Fort St. John’s.

When gold could no longer be filtered from the sand-bars in paying quantities, the miners dispersed, with the exception of two or three, among whom was Banjo Mike, an American, who bore the reputation of being an awful swearer. Then there was Nine-foot Davis, another American. Perhaps it was no great harm that Mr. Davis was uneducated, for thereby his kindness often got the better of his smartness. He was engaged in the fur trade during the entire period of my stay in the Peace River, and annually brought in an outfit of goods from British Columbia. Another live-wire relic of the St. John’s mining camp was Dan Williams, a negro who was familiarly known in the country as Nigger Dan. This man had taken up a squatter’s claim, over which there had arisen a dispute between himself and the representatives of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the latter claiming that it encroached upon the reservation which was allowed in connection with the fort by the Dominion Government, and the latter emphatically declaring, whenever he got a chance, that he was not going to be imposed upon by any blasted monopoly. He expressed a similar resolve by posting up a notice on a tree, which, standing conspicuously by the road, he selected as marking the dividing line between his land and that of the Company. The notice read thus:

Dan Williams

A Loyal British Subject

Who objects to be trodden upon

By any man except

Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.

The Story

The last of the St. John’s miners whom I am going to mention is Mr. Edward Armson, an Englishman. With his beautiful wife, who was of Blackfoot extraction, he came from the Saskatchewan to the Peace River via Lesser Slave Lake. My informants were an Iroquois named Bulldog and his Cree wife. According to the latter, they were passionately attached to one another, and physically and in other respects were a splendid couple. Mrs. Bulldog also said that before the dispersion of the miners Mrs. Armson met with an accident. One day, about July 1st, while felling a small dry tree for fuel, her hatchet slipped and landed on the second toe of her left foot, laying it open to the bone lengthwise and partly dividing the nail. With the application of simple but efficacious remedies the wound soon healed, leaving, however, a scar which extended to the nail in the form of a ridge along its centre.

In the autumn when Armson left St. John’s in a dugout, along with his wife, he gave out that he would trap during the winter to the south of the Peace River and in spring return to the Saskatchewan, going out as he had come in, via Lesser Slave Lake and the Athabasca River. But after leaving St. John’s they were never seen or heard from again, and for eighteen years their fate remained one of the mysteries of the forest.

In the meantime, try to understand what was my position among the Beaver Indians. I had been praying for well on to thirty years that God would be pleased to make “His ways known to all sorts and conditions of men, and His saving health unto all nations.” Visualize me, then, standing among them and saying, “Sa-o-ti-noo tsa-o-ti-na, my Beaver Indian friends, I have prayed thus and thus for such as you for nearly thirty years, and now I have come to you to show you how to obtain this saving health.” Had I gone on to say that I referred primarily to spiritual health, might they not have felt that my remarks were a travesty on their wretched physical condition? Indeed, I sometimes heard from some of them remarks which in fairness could be construed into a reply such as this: “After what we and our congeners have suffered from yours, don’t talk to us about spiritual health until you have applied an antidote to that ‘white peril’ which is carrying us off like rabbits.”

As a result of his visit to the Beavers in 1868 Bishop Bompas gave it as his opinion that no human power could save them from extinction, and when I arrived among them eight years later my observations very soon led me to the conclusion that he was right; but, mark you, the good Bishop only said that “no human power” could save them; and straightway I bethought me of what would happen if the Supreme “no-human-power” would be pleased to commandeer our resources—our philanthropy, our statesmanship, our science. Might it not then be permitted us to redeem the dying remnant of this tribe as some fitting amends for what we had taken from them? Were we to apply for their benefit that knowledge which we so assiduously apply in our own behalf? Might it not be possible even now so to cleanse their blood from scrofula that when a Beaver infant was brought into the world it would have a reasonable prospect of living out all its days?

I felt in my bones that here was a mighty problem, in the solving of which money was an important factor, and as I did not have enough of it to be able to sign cheques for the one-thousandth of what was needed, I resolved that, with the Bishop’s consent, I would have a go at the problem anyway, and collect enough to make a beginning, even if I did foresee a disagreeable notoriety.

I suppose I must have loved the Beaver Indians before I could have mustered hope enough to resolve as above, for we are told that “love hopeth all things”; but I do not go so far as to say positively that I did love them. The preliminary to that I always felt was a thorough wash for every one of them. However, taking them just as they were, I can honestly say that I liked them. Dirty they might be, and lazy, too, but I did not lose sight of the extenuating circumstances, and when one of them would come up to me, and, looking me straight in the eye, say, with child-like simplicity, “Nwas-tych, I like you,” when also I noticed that, sickly as they were, they lived up to a reputation acquired in better days, of being good fighters who would die game, I had to like them, and I did.

Even in those days the settling of Indians on reserves was considered advisable so as to save them from too intimate contact with the whites. Also the Industrial Indian Boarding School was coming into favour as an effective agency in the civilizing of the Indians.

There was, therefore, no reason to doubt the soundness of Bishop Bompas’s plan to establish a boarding-school on the Peace River or some other part of his diocese. Owing, however, to the difficulty of transport, the cost of establishing and maintaining such an establishment at that time was bound to be very heavy indeed; but I doubt if my good Bishop, son of Sergeant Buzfuz, bothered much about making an estimate. He was a man of faith, and I presume that in his experience he had found that the wherewithal to carry out his plans was always provided like so much manna in the wilderness.

With a faith doubtless less unworldly than this, I felt that the coming of the manna was likely to be more timely if somebody went after it, and forasmuch as I was beginning to feel the strain of solitude, I asked the Bishop for a year’s furlough, and also his sanction to collect funds for the proposed boarding-school. This he granted, and also commissioned me to engage a schoolteacher and a farmer.

By this time I had relinquished the ambition to be principal of an Indian boarding-school; but I still hoped that when one was established it might be in the district where I was working, and felt that the Peace River was well adapted for the purpose, because it had the soil from which could be extracted nearly all the necessary food; and to teach the young natives how this could be done, looked to me like putting into their hands the “staff of life,” of which none could be in greater need than they. I had a good precedent, and it is not to be wondered at that I was predisposed to work on these lines, since I had sat for twelve years under the preaching of Archdeacon Cochrane, who, of all our earliest missionaries in the Red River Settlement, was the most revered and successful, and whose policy in the evangelizing of the Indians, uniformly was to work the gospel and agricultural plows side by side.

To the best of my knowledge Bishop Bompas was in perfect accord with the late famous Archdeacon in this matter, and I was instructed to engage a farmer and also a schoolteacher, while away on furlough. As for the outlay for equipment which must necessarily be involved in the employment of two men for the positions named I received no definite instructions, and I was afraid to press him on that point or to submit for his inspection an estimate of the probable cost, lest he might be afraid and postpone the carrying out of the plan to a more convenient season; so I had to be satisfied with general instructions verbally given. However, I had this comforting reflection—even supposing I might find it necessary to draw rather heavily on such funds as the Bishop might have at his disposal, since I was going to collect funds for the school, the financial resources of the mission would not be likely to suffer at my hands.

The estimate which I should like to have submitted to the bishop would have called for an outlay of over five thousand dollars, but, in the absence of any explicit instructions from him regarding the matter, I determined to be on the safe side, so all that could be charged to mission account as outfit for either farm or school, in consequence of any action of mine, did not amount to over five hundred dollars, and I am glad to this day that my cautiousness got the better of my ambition.

During a part of the time that I was absent Bishop Bompas filled my place at Unjaga, which, so far as I know, is the nearest I ever got to becoming a bishop, unless when I filled his place for a time at Fort Simpson. I was very pleased to be able to leave behind me for his delectation a splendid garden just about fit to use at the time of my departure. I was also thankful to have been able to bark-roof the mission house before leaving, for in the previous autumn I had only got as far as covering the roof-poles with a mixture of clay and chopped hay. That worked all right during winter; but when spring came and with it a heavy rain at midnight, the roof leaked in a hundred places, and soon an admonitory drop hit me on the head, causing me to rise quickly and look for a dryer spot. Finding one that looked promising, I drew my table over it and underneath the table made myself a shake-down; but long before morning light appeared the extending puddles were beginning to interfere with my comfort.

I made the journey as far as Fort Chipewyan in a scow which the Company was sending there in charge of two men, one of whom was a negro, and the other a French half-caste. The negro had been a year at Fort Dunvegan and his fame as Nigger Tom had spread far and wide. Tom was a giant of a man and an extraordinary character. He had left South Carolina shortly after the abolition of slavery in 1862, and since then had been travelling northward, mostly on foot, working his way, but taking no money, because money, according to his lopsided view, brought little satisfaction to its possessor. He seemed to love work for its own sake, for one day when the wind was as strong as the current, so that we could not go forward, he built the walls and roof of a negro cabin, just to show me, he said, what one was like. That he was not making very good time on his erratic journey will be seen by the fact that it had taken him five years to cover the distance between South Carolina and the Peace River. He said his northern objective was Alaska, and that when he left there he would travel homeward, keeping west of the Rockies as far as he could.

One day I said to him, “Have you a wife, Tom?”

“Oh, yes,” said he. “I have a wife.”

“What do you suppose will become of her while you are tramping over the world after this fashion?”

“Ha, ha, ha-a-a! She can look after herself better than I can.”

“A case of separation, was it?”

“Well, no, not quite that. I just said to her, ‘bein’ I ain’t a slave no mo’, Mirandi, I goin’ to enjoy ma liberty. I goin’ to travel.’ ”

“And what did she say?”

“She say, ‘Aw-a-right, Tom. Hab a good time when yo’ can, an’ I’ll do the same, an’ if yo’ eva come back any mo’ you jis’ take a chance of what yo’ fine.’ ”

“And I suppose you gave her a great hug and came away?”

“Yo’ jis’ said it! Hah ha-a-a!”

John Bushie was the name of the other man. He also was a big man, but not nearly as entertaining as the negro. In the matter of religion they were at opposite poles, Bushie being a Roman Catholic, while Tom was a Methodist. And I may say that on this journey he was more of a chaplain to Bushie than I was, due to the fact that my mess was separate from theirs, as I found it wise to respect in this matter the custom of the Company’s officials and my fellow missionaries.

Perhaps it did not necessarily follow that because we had two messes we should have two graces, but that is what did follow. When everything was ready, Tom and John sat cross-legged facing each other. Then the former heaved a great sigh and, rolling his eyes towards the heavens, he seemed to sense a presence there as he said in a loud voice, “Oh, Lord!” and then went on with his grace, which never took less than a minute in the delivery; and in the meantime, with eyes not quite closed, I noticed that the Frenchman, with his mouth wide open, was staring at his companion with an awesome, mystified expression which remained there until Tom had finished his grace. Perhaps it was drawing the colour line rather severely; but I always had another grace in silence after Tom was through. As Tom prayed three times daily and prayed aloud, I got to know a number of his favourite petitions—this one in particular:

“O Lord, thou knowest that I am but a poor coloured man who can neither read nor write; but I’m resolved that I’ll do right, and say my prayers at morning, noon and night.”

As showing that no person was likely to live long in the North without getting a chance to meet Bishop Bompas, I may say that this negro had met him. And it turned out that in a discussion about prayer the Bishop had told him that his prayers were likely to be just as effective if he said them in silence.

“And what did you say?” I asked.

“I said that I felt that my loud prayers were my best, and that my best were none too good for the Lord, and that sometimes it might help a fellow when he heard another fellow speaking to the Lord.”

Until the last day of our journey Tom conducted himself in the exemplary manner which was to be expected of a converted person; but on that particular day the emissaries of the Arch Fiend would seem to have discovered the weak spot in his spiritual armour.

Late in the evening we had reached the Quatre Forche River, which encloses one side of a delta and connects at its north-west end with the Peace River and at its south-east end with the Athabasca Lake. On examination of the Quatre Forche we found that it had no current, showing that the Peace River and Athabasca Lake were at this time at the same level, and showing also that we were going to have a very hard time to reach Fort Chipewyan the next day. All the provision that we had for the said next day was about a pound of dried pounded fish and flour with which Tom said he would make us “a sma’ mush in de mawnin’.”

After discussing the situation Tom proceeded to get out some fish hooks on the chance of getting a fish during the night. The hooks and string were badly entangled, and the mosquitoes were in swarms. Tom did the best he could, I doubt not, and he endured it for a time; but at length the “old man” had to have his fling, and he let himself go, and in language which will not bear repeating he denounced the mosquitoes and consigned them to that bad place from which—he expressed the opinion—they must have originated.

Next day we arrived at Fort Chipewyan, having left the scow at the south-east end of the Quatre Forche, and with a dugout which we secured there, crossed over to the fort.

I found the mission there evidently making progress. Beside the little shack which I had built in 1874, there stood a mission building which was much more pretentious in style and dimensions. The scholastic work commenced by me had been going on steadily ever since, and I could see that my old pupils were being well equipped morally and intellectually to discharge the duties of life.

Several boats left for Methy Portage two days after my arrival. Thanks to the friendship and influence of Mr. McFarlane, the arrangements made for my journey as far as Fort Garry were all that I could have desired. I was introduced to a Mr. Thomas Spence, a Hudson’s Bay officer who was going out on furlough. He was my senior by a good many years, and had lived in the North five times as long as I had. He extended to me the usual courtesies permitted by the Company to missionaries travelling by their boats. He proved an agreeable and interesting companion. He was Scottish and had known some Garriochs in the Old Country and pronounced my name as a tri-syllable—long, broad and guttural, thus, Ghar-ri-ohck.

While the fur-laden boats were being towed up the Athabasca River at the rate of four miles an hour, he often found a useful topic of conversation in some object on the bank or in the appearance of the banks themselves, or in the character of the country lying farther back as far as he knew it from observation and enquiry.

He became particularly eloquent as we approached the junction of the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers where the banks of tar-sand rise to a height of several hundred feet.

“Mr. Ghar-ri-ohck,” said he, “we Canadians have a grand heritage right here in this north country, don’t you think? I believe that the day draws near when the development of the natural resources of this country shall begin in earnest; and then the opinion now advanced only by the daring and optimistic few shall be demonstrated as perfectly sound—the opinion that we have here a country so roomy, a soil so rich, a climate so salubrious, if somewhat stern, as to be capable of providing comfortable homes to a population of millions. You think so don’t you? Eh? Eh?

“Then shall many a hill and many a valley, in response to the miner’s pick and shovel, his drill and explosives, give up their secrets of fabulous wealth which they have so successfully concealed for ages. And the hills and valleys, the plains and forests which in these days we comb out for food so diligently and yet so unsuccessfully that at times they barely yield us the means of existence, shall in those days laugh and sing as they respond to the arts of husbandry and those of many other callings. When those days come, Mr. Ghar-ri-ohck, you won’t have to fry a rabbit or a flap-jack. Will you? Eh? Eh?

“A precious gold mine is about to be discovered, and the gold of that mine is good, for it will be found in the fields of golden grain that shall ripple and sway in summer and autumn breezes, and the swish of the grain as it sways this way and that shall whisper to the listening ear sweet assurance of comfort and plenty when sterner winds shall blow. Don’t you think so? Eh? Eh?

“I can foresee that before very long these great rivers will be spanned by wonderful bridges beneath which steamers will pass to and fro, freighted with the grain, fish, salt, oil, coal and other products of the country; and these signs of commercial prosperity will be largely due to the districts of which we hear very little to-day, as well as those beautiful places which have evoked our admiration—those ideal spots where the lay of the land with its disposition of hill and dale, prairie and bush, and a gurgling, sparkling stream meandering through it all, puts the thought into one’s head of throwing all other prospects to the winds in order to take the chances of the squatter before it is too late. We have both felt that way, I know. Eh? Eh?

“And doubtless many of the places to which we now apply the name of fort or depot or post or landing will have grown into towns or cities of considerable importance. And whereas now you poor missionaries are ready to go through fire and water, and are at your wits’ end to obtain funds wherewith to build one Indian industrial school, the funds would be forthcoming wherewith to finance a half-dozen palatial ...” There Mr. Spence came to a dead stop because the tracking line had caught on the branch of a tree lying out in the river, and a young Scotsman, Sandy by name, had gingerly walked out on the offending log and in co-operation with a man on land had swung the line clear of all obstructions; but, alas, with the swing he overbalanced and came down flop into the river, thereby interrupting Mr. Spence’s eulogies of the Peace River, because every one except Sandy was giving way to uncontrollable laughter.

A little later some one asked Sandy why he had not joined the others in the laugh.

“Augh,” he replied. “You don’t catch me laughing at any such dry jokes.”

“Now where was I when the accident occurred?” queried Mr. Spence.

“Palatial was the last word,” I answered, and, continuing, I said, “Your views, Mr. Spence, respecting the future of this country pretty well coincide with my own; but I could not help thinking that in your prognostications you did not voice the opinions of the Hudson’s Bay Company.”

“Well, you see, since the Transfer the climate has been warming up northwards in the van of civilization, and the Company’s agents not being unobservant of the fact, their opinions have changed in accordance. Nevertheless, they were just as sincere in their previous opinions as in those of the present. I suppose that’s reasonable. Eh? Eh?”

“Certainly, Mr. Spence. And it is clear to me that the representatives of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Garry were justified in the adverse opinions they held with respect to the adaptability of this country for wheat growing purposes, forasmuch as the settlers beside them on the banks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, after their experiences of June and August frosts, with a rare exception, came to the conclusion that the wheat line lay near whereabouts they were located, and so uncomfortably near that sometimes they had reason to think that they might be on the wrong side of it. Besides all this, I do not lose sight of the fact that although the band of adventurers who came out to the Hudson’s Bay in 1670 came out as fur-traders and not as grain growers, they nevertheless later aided those who were raising grain by providing them a market which was reasonably well up to their powers of production. In this respect I may say that three generations of Garriochs have benefited, beginning with that of my grandfather, Mr. William Garrioch, who came to the country in the service of the Company and during the last twenty years of his life was a settler at Middle Church. For myself, after having had ample opportunity of studying the Company’s policy, sometimes at very close quarters, as at present, I can say without hesitation that in its dealings both with the whites and the Indians, that policy has always been considerate, fair and paternal.”

“While listening to you, Mr. Garrioch, it has occurred to me that all the Hudson’s Bay Company need to do, to come into its own, is that which, no doubt, you have often seen its officials do in the North—put on a good fire in the chimney, get the pipe going nicely, tilt the babiche bottom chair back, stick the feet upon the table, and smoke and smile in peace. It has no need to worry. In due time it will be admitted, on the authority of tongues and pens which function to the dictates of cool heads and warm hearts, that the Company ruled circumspectly, barring, perhaps, a few misrepresentatives. Eh? Eh?”

Arriving at Fort McMurray we stopped only long enough to climb the lofty bank and to admire Mr. Harry Moberly’s splendid garden; then once more the crews bent their backs to the tracking line, this time in the ascent of the Clearwater River, which proved so shallow in places that occasionally both poles and tracking line had to be used.

Two days later we arrived at Methy Portage and camped at the north end. Next day we “went over the top,” so to speak, by going over the contiguous rims of two of the largest basins in the world—those of the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie rivers. This portage is twelve miles long and transportation over it was by means of oxen and carts. We walked over and made better time than the oxen.

Having now crossed what the voyageurs sometimes referred to as “the hate-a-land” (height of land), we were to travel down-stream all the way to Lake Winnipeg; a fact over which expressions of satisfaction were to be heard on all hands as positions were taken up in the York boats which ply to and from the south end of Methy Portage. These boats were manned almost entirely by Crees from the Cumberland and Pas districts.

We had delightful going over the La Loche River and lake, over Lac Ile à la Crosse and over the first part of the English River; then we came to a number of bad rapids, at some of which the cargoes had to be carried over a portage, although at others neither passengers nor cargoes had to be landed. For an exhilarating experience put me in a boat which has to fly down a long rapid under the control of an expert steersman, or let me stand on terra firma and witness a similar performance with an additional slice of danger to those in the boat, for, then, as the poet says, “distance lends enchantment to the scene.”

There was one steersman in particular whose performance it was a pleasure to watch, from a safe position on land. He was a Cree half-caste, tall, straight and supple, who, when about to negotiate one of these dangerous places, tied a bright red handkerchief folded into a band around his head, ostensibly to prevent his long hair from getting into his eyes, but, in reality, I believe, to make his appearance more picturesque, for when the boat went flying down-stream, the two long ends of the red handkerchief floated straight out behind. If he felt proud over his achievement as his boat glided into smooth waters I did not blame him, and in the sigh which I threw in his direction, envy and admiration struggled for the mastery.

I expect our unfortunate steersman, Simon, felt that way about it, too, for while not nearly as striking in appearance as the other man, he was more striking in the matter of hitting stones, and in his last performance of this kind subjected us to a hair-raising experience when he struck a boulder in mid-stream, thereby causing a plank to be staved in and the boat to be held fast, and although it soon floated clear and the crew pulled furiously for the shore, just as the prow touched land the rest of the boat went down, submerging the valuable cargo of some thirty or forty packs of fur. Orders then flew thick and fast from others besides Mr. Spence, and among them this one, “Boy, look out for the pemmican!”

Fortunately, the accident occurred where there was a suitable place for spreading out the furs to dry, and the day also being favourable, this was done at once; but time could not be spared and when early the next day the boat had been repaired, the furs, poorly dried and rebaled, had to be replaced in the boats.

On the night following our arrival at Stanley Mission there was a dance, and when the voyage was resumed the next morning there was to be noticed a buxom Indian lass sitting near the prow of the boat. The uninformed might have supposed that one of the crew had picked up his wife in passing.

When we landed at the next portage Simon came to me trying to look sad and serious; but with an ill-suppressed grin which belied his sincerity. “That fella’ Barnum,” he said, “he’s not a good fella’. He bring away that gal with not a thing. Not right, and I blamed sure because um steersman. What kun I do to-night? I speak to him jis now and he only laugh and say, ‘A-yun-i-ha-i-yi-nio, the praying man. You get him to splice us.’

“Then I goes to Julie and I tells her what Barnum he says, and she says, ‘Yes, that’s what Barnum he says last night, and that’s why I came away this morning.’

“What you say, sir?”

In the North I had heard the name Jonah jocularly applied to a minister when anything went amiss with the boat in which he was taking passage, and it occurred to me that this was a case in which the proper thing for Jonah to do was to tackle the whale, so I said to Simon, “All right, I don’t like it very much, but I’ll marry them.”

“That’s good, sir. It will make it look much better.”

Had I told Simon what I thought I might have told him, that Julie had evidently decided to let looks go by the board when she consented to mate with such an ugly scamp as Barnum; instead, however, I said, “Simon, you are right. This thing has to be attended to to-day. You arrange the time and place and leave the rest to me.”

Accordingly, while he was running the rapid, I had Barnum and Julie, Mr. Spence and another witness assemble under the shade of a jack-pine, and there the ceremony was duly performed. I cannot remember whether the “bride looked charming,” but I distinctly remember that there was not a single kiss and, vividly, that there was no fee.

Soon after this we were joined by Mr. Willoughby Clark of Winnipeg, who had been freighting supplies to Moose Lake in connection with the Indian treaty. Receiving from him the offer of a passage to Winnipeg, I accepted on finding out that by doing so I would reach Winnipeg a few days earlier.

In passing St. Peter’s I called on Archdeacon Cowley, who was looking hearty as ever, and he surprised and pleased me by asking about my dog, Floss.

I spent part of a day in Winnipeg, paying my respects to friends in the old haunts at St. John’s, Point Douglas and Fort Garry. At this last-named place I invested in a pair of shoes as I had noticed so many people glancing at my moccasined feet.

On the following day I was once more at the old home at Portage la Prairie, which at this time was still the home of nearly half of the family, viz. my father and mother, my three younger sisters, Jessie, Maria and Winnie, and my younger brother, Scott. The house was the one which had been occupied by the rest of us before we went off on our respective ways. It was known as Glen Cottage and was the second built by my father on this squatter’s claim in Portage la Prairie. The first was built in 1854 and Glen Cottage was built in 1866, when I, being then eighteen years of age, was sufficiently a man to take part in its construction. In this house I rested for a month, feeling that there was indeed no place like home. Then I resumed my journey to Montreal.

Characters introduced here which are common to both

Story and Narrative

At this time a stage-coach line was in operation between Winnipeg and Grand Forks, connecting at the latter place with the Great Northern Railway. Seven others besides myself had booked passage on the stage, and hardly had the wheels commenced to revolve behind the tightening traces of four splendid horses when one of the male passengers looked at me and pleasantly remarked interrogatively, “Mr. Garrioch, a missionary lately from the great Peace River country?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied. “Your information, from whatever source derived, is quite correct.”

He replied, “I have the good fortune to be acquainted with your friends, the McDonalds of Point Douglas, who told me of your being the bearer of news from their brothers in the North, and the name on your suitcase told me the rest.

“Perhaps a few more introductions would not be amiss, and I may say that my name is Ernest Vining—that I am an American engaged in the real estate business, that the lady beside me is Mrs. Vining, who persists in retaining her Canadian citizenship, and that this seven-year-old young lady is our daughter.” The child thus referred to was a beautiful little girl, a brunette, with particularly lovely eyes. Indicating a gentleman sitting beside a lady, he introduced the two as Mr. and Mrs. C——, of St. Paul, and he added, “Should any of you gentlemen be stopping off at St. Paul, and want a clean and comfortable hotel, let me recommend the one owned by Mr. C——, in the management of which he is charmingly assisted.” Mrs. C—— bowed, laughed, and said, “Thank you.”

The remaining passengers then introduced themselves by name. They were Canadians, surveyors, and on the younger side of middle age. They had been surveying in the North-west and were returning to Eastern Canada.

At the first stopping-place Mr. Vining handed round some bread and cheese while the horses were being changed. The cheese had green streaks, and mites also were easily discernible. Mrs. C—— gave her portion careful inspection, then gave a polite shriek and said, “Mr. Vining, please, please, thank you all the same!” and handed it back. The others pronounced the article first-class; but owing to the mites I cannot say that I enjoyed it any more than I did Too-nih-ka’s horse.

After having been thus induced to give ourselves away—that is to say, to be introduced—we went on following Mr. Vining’s lead by showing a friendly interest in the general conversation which followed. And coming as I did from a country of which at that time little was known beyond its happy name, Peace, I soon had to answer many questions about its inhabitants, soil, climate and general characteristics, and when I had done so to the best of my ability there followed a discussion as to whether the coming of the whites to the Indians was really the blessing to the latter which some claimed it to be. In the course of this discussion one of the surveyors remarked that at any rate the whites had shown a fine sense of the fitness of things in that, while they were spoiling the Indians’ country, they sent them missionaries to tell them how they might obtain a better: “To say to them,” said the other surveyor, “we have both lost paradise, but we may both regain it.” And I added, “Yes, in that way we refine instead of destroying their faith in a happy hunting ground.”

When still some miles from Emerson, the international boundary line furnished a new topic of conversation, for, as we all knew from experience, the forty-ninth parallel was no imaginary line. I had crossed it myself in 1868, at which time, as I remembered, two American officials had met the brigade of Red River carts along with which I travelled, and had smilingly asked a number of questions before permitting us to pass on to the land of the stars and stripes. On that occasion I learned a little about “the customs” and I learned a good deal more on this occasion as I listened to sane and friendly arguments for and against reciprocity.

Mr. C——: “I look upon the policy of protection as fostered by the suspicion that your neighbour will do you up if you give him the chance, and that it therefore becomes necessary to study how to prevent it.”

One of the Surveyors: “Well, assuming that free trade is the better policy, and perhaps it is, how should the United States and Canada go about introducing it?”

Mr. Vining: “I think many Americans have asked that question honestly. What I would like to see would be a proposal from the American Government to the Canadian Government, to give reciprocity a trial for one year, or even two, and were this done I feel confident that it would work out in the interests of both nations.”

Canadian No. 2: “At any rate, it would be a famous experiment. And supposing it worked out all right, what a scrapping of tariff machinery would follow!”

Mrs. C——: “Then just think of how much more truthful and honest the two peoples would become if they did not have to run the gauntlet of the customs, a pretty hard thing to do successfully these days with crinoline and padding gone out of fashion.”

Mrs. Vining: “My American husband tells me that many Canadians have asked the question honestly: ‘How is reciprocity to be brought about?’ My answer is this—by reciprocity between the two governments in acts of courtesy on all possible occasions plus a square deal. We are both proud of our international boundary because its sole protection is a friendship more invulnerable than a Chinese wall; but isn’t it about time that we got beyond nice speeches about the secret of our undefendedness. And I think if two great nations such as ours were to enter into rivalry with each other in the matter of giving rather than getting a square deal, reciprocity would very soon come; in fact, it could not be prevented. And I think it is up to the Americans to take the lead in bringing about so practical an achievement, for in our relationship to the motherland America is the older son, and naturally the younger son looks to the older for an example, and if the past be wisely remembered the example should be a good one, for both Canada and the motherland have ever shown a willingness to go at least half-way in their dealings with America. To mention just one instance—the concession made to America in the settlement of the dispute over the Oregon territory.”

Mr. C——: “Well, Madam, I’ll admit that we Americans have been rather hard on the good old mother; but let me say this, that although there are Americans of a certain stripe who cordially hate her, we of the old stock can never forget from whence we sprang. Why should we not wish only good to the Britishers since we are bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh? And if ever Great Britain has her night of peril, we’ll be there to stand by her till the morning.”

Mrs. Vining (with tears in her voice): “Thank you.”

The stage was timed to make connection with the train at Grand Forks, which it did; and our party went forward undivided and without delay. At St. Paul, however, the two surveyors went on, while the others, myself included, took the bus for Mr. C’s hotel.

The Vinings’ own place was rented, but they pressed me to be their guest at the hotel, and I accepted, partly because I had taken a liking to them, and partly because I wanted to learn about the Americans at home, and felt that I could do so to advantage under the friendly auspices of the Vinings. My wish seemed to have been anticipated, and I was introduced to some very nice people, and spent two pleasant evenings in American homes, which, I was assured, were typical of the rest. And after this insight into American home life, I must say that I thought more highly of the American people, which is not strange, since my previous knowledge of them was derived mainly from sources which, I have since thought, were not immune from prejudice.

Lily Vining, a Leading Character in the Story

Before the Vinings and I parted at St. Paul they took me into their confidence about Lily Vining, informing me that she was not their own child, but only adopted as such. And that she had been turned over to them by a free trader at Edmonton, according to whose account she was a piece of flotsam and jetsam from the Peace River. This information led me to look with fresh interest at the beautiful child; and when Mr. Vining told me at parting that his business would probably take him again before long to the north-west, when, unless I were too utterly inaccessible, he would look me up, I gave him a hearty and pressing invitation to return my visit, or at least give me a chance to renew our acquaintance: for even at that time I felt a mysterious prompting to learn all I could of the history of Lily Vining, in spite of the fact that I considered myself indifferent to a fault regarding the private affairs of everybody but myself, I now found myself anxious to find footprints of a little lamb—whose fleece, I felt sure, would always be as white as snow—leading all the way from the valley of the Peace River to that of the Mississippi.

Not until I reached Montreal did I realize the magnitude of the work ahead, which I had either offered to undertake or had been asked to undertake in the interests of the mission. It was the voluntary or self-imposed part which bothered me most, and although I did not look back, I’ll admit that I looked every other way. I looked for friends and I found them. First among them was the one person in Montreal with whom I was personally acquainted, viz. Mrs. Bompas, who, as stated in the previous chapter, was my hostess during the winter I spent at Fort Simpson. I had last met her in Holy Trinity Rectory, Winnipeg, on my arrival from the North. She was then the guest of Archdeacon and Mrs. Fortin. In Montreal I found her in the General Hospital, where she was taking up a course in nursing. At this time she was over fifty years of age and far from robust, and as I looked upon her frail body I felt pity, but when I reflected that “measured by her soul” she was a heroine, my pity gave place to admiration.

Of the Montreal Anglican clergy I can say that it was not very hard to love the lot of them; and that I could not help it in the case of such men as Bishop Bond, Canon Dumoulin, Archdeacon Evans and Archdeacon Lindsay.

I found friends among the laity as quickly as among the clergy. It came about in this manner. When making the trip over the prairies in ox carts, as already described, stopping at Fort Ellice for lunch, I met there Andrew Maxwell, a young architect from Montreal, also my sister, Flora, who was visiting there. This meeting between these two young people later culminated in marriage, and thereby I virtually secured a passport to the good graces of the large and influential family of Maxwells in Montreal.

On consulting Bishop Bond about a schoolteacher, he referred me to Professor Hicks, principal of the normal school; and calling upon the professor I found that there would be no trouble in executing that part of my commission. Professor Hicks particularly recommended a Mr. E. J. Lawrence, of whom he said, “He is a man, who, in any community of which he becomes a member, will make himself felt.” This interview I at once followed up with a visit to Mr. Lawrence and his family, and after obtaining satisfactory references, I entered into an agreement with him, according to which in the following spring he and Mrs. Lawrence, who also was a schoolteacher, with their three young children, were to be given a passage to Fort Chipewyan, where they were to receive instructions from Bishop Bompas as to their future movements.

In my quest after a farmer I was aided by Miss Bompas, a sister of the Bishop. She was an elderly spinster and so friendly and sensible that it was a pleasure to meet her. She lived at Lennoxville and had recommended a Mr. Martin of that district to the Bishop. On visiting Mr. Martin, with whom I stayed for two days, I found him a thoroughly competent man; but as he did not feel justified in accepting the position at the salary which I was authorized to offer, we did not enter into any arrangement.

In the matter of collecting funds for the proposed Industrial Indian Boarding School I met with but poor results, so poor that after canvassing four months I had collected less than six hundred dollars.

My lack of success I attribute first of all to an uncompelling personality; secondly, to the fact of my not being a bishop, but only the humble deputy of a bishop, and he, as I too well knew, though overflowing with missionary zeal, lacking in zeal as a money-getter. These facts were ever present with me, and the recollection that in giving me his permission to collect he had not done so with the enthusiasm or decisiveness which go so far to inspire confidence and ensure success; and, lastly, it is only comparatively true that “the oftener you milk a cow the more milk you will get,” and the Montreal missionary cow had evidently been milked pretty dry by Bishop McLean of Saskatchewan before I came along, for he was a man of compelling personality—a man physically and mentally of the size which cannot be looked down—a man in whose uncommon eloquence there seemed to be something of hypnotic influence, so that when a tight-wad loosened up to the extent of one hundred dollars, he was liable later on to ask himself why he had done it. Had Bishop McLean returned, no doubt the missionary cow would have submitted to another milking; but to poor me it refused to let down, squeezed I never so hard.

Before leaving Montreal I consulted several of the leading physicians respecting the scrofulous condition of the Beaver Indians, asking them if anything could be done to save the tribe from extinction. The consensus thus obtained might be expressed in the one word—hopeless. Therefore, when I went back to the Peace River, it was with the opinion confirmed, that my work there so far as the Beavers were concerned lay chiefly in the amelioration of their hard lot.