Part 14

“Oh,” replied St. Antoine confidently, “you do not have to buy or rent it, that land. There is no Hudson Bay Company to say where you shall live and where you shall not, and to charge you so many bushels of wheat a year. You find a place that you like and you build a house and plant your crops and it is yours. That is the way folk do on the east side of the Rivière Mississippi. On the west side the American government does not want people to settle. That is Indian country. You may live there if you are a trader. But there is plenty of land on the east side, fine land too. Some time I am going back there to stay,—when I get old and want to settle down.”

St. Antoine’s tales took hold of Mr. Perier’s imagination. The more he thought of that country to the south and east, the more he wanted to go there, and the less he wanted to return to Fort Douglas. He told Walter and Louis, and they too talked to St. Antoine, who fired their imaginations as he had fired the older man’s. It did not take Walter long to decide what he wanted to do. The question was how were they to get to the Mississippi. It would be a long journey, hundreds of miles, by cart and horseback through the country of the Sioux. But it could be done of course. It had been done a number of times. The previous summer’s threats of trouble with the Sioux had come to nothing. Yet the trip might be a dangerous one for a small party. At this point Louis had a suggestion to offer.

“The summer buffalo hunt will start in June,” he said. “It will go far to the south, perhaps near to the Lake Traverse. We can travel with the hunters at first. When we are near Lake Traverse,—or if the hunters go too far to the west,—we can leave them and make haste to the lake. There is a trading post there, so St. Antoine says, and another at the Lake Big Stone. Traders go back and forth along the Rivière St. Pierre to the Mississippi. There will surely be some party we can travel with.”

“You will go too, Louis?” Walter asked eagerly.

“But _certainment_. Do you think I would let you and M’sieu Perier and Ma’amselle Elise and the little Max go alone? No, no, I want to see that country too. And I think Neil MacKay will go also.”

“His people would never let him.”

“I am not so sure of that. M’sieu MacKay is not well pleased with the Selkirk Colony. He says if the grasshoppers come again, he will go somewhere else. I think he would not object to Neil’s going to see that country to the south.”

So, gradually, the plan took shape. It was Mrs. Brabant who made the strongest objections at first. But when Mr. Perier and Walter finally decided to go, and Louis insisted on going with them, she suddenly made up her mind, much to Raoul’s delight, that she and the children would go along. “And if we like that country, Louis,” she said, “we will stay. It may be there will be a better chance for you there. If we do not like it, we can come back when some party comes this way.”

Neil proved eager to go. After some argument, he got his father’s consent, with the provision that he was to return to the Red River colony at the first opportunity, before winter if possible. He must learn all he could about that Mississippi country, his father said. If the crops should fail again, it might be that the MacKay family would have to leave the Red River for good. The Northwesters could not drive the stubborn Scot to give up his land, but against the locusts he could not contend forever.

XXIX THE COMING OF THE SIOUX

Early in May the Perier family said good-bye to their countryfolk who were returning to Fort Douglas. Some of the Swiss tried to dissuade Mr. Perier from going farther into the interior. Others talked of following later if things did not turn out well in the Colony.

A short time after the Swiss left, something happened that threatened to upset all Mr. Perier’s plans. A party of men returning from a buffalo hunt brought disquieting news. They had met an Ojibwa scout who had told them that a large body of Sioux were on the march towards the settlement. Remembering the unfortunate affair at Fort Douglas the summer before, the people of Pembina feared the worst. Scouts were sent out to watch for the Sioux, guns were overhauled, and bullets moulded.

In the midst of the preparations for defence, two boats arrived from down river, bringing reenforcements. Rumors of the approach of the Sioux had reached the Governor, and he had sent a detachment of DeMeurons and voyageurs to meet the Indians and prevent them from going on to Fort Douglas. The Sioux were to be stopped by diplomatic methods if possible. Force was to be used only in case of necessity. With the party were Sergeant Kolbach and the Rev. Mr. West, the man who had befriended the Periers when their boat was wrecked on Lake Winnipeg. The clergyman greeted Mr. Perier cordially, but Kolbach favored his former guest with the stiffest and slightest of nods. Walter looked in vain for the red-faced DeMeuron with the sandy beard. Inquiry brought the information that Fritz Kolbach was not among the soldiers. Fritz was not in favor with the Company just then, having been accused of free trading with the Assiniboins, one DeMeuron told Walter.

The relief force arrived on Friday, and Saturday passed without alarm. Sunday morning Mr. West held service at Fort Daer, and the Periers and Walter attended. Just at the close of the service scouts came hurrying in with word that the Sioux were approaching. Armed men began to gather at the fort, the plan being to make so strong a showing that the Indians would not dare attack. The women and children were to stay north of the Pembina, where carts and boats were in readiness to carry them to Fort Douglas if there should be trouble.

Walter took Elise and Max across the river to join Mrs. Brabant. Then he returned to Fort Daer where he found Louis just arrived. The MacKays had gone to Kildonan with other colonists who had wintered at Pembina. In June Neil was to return to go south with his friends.

“They are in sight,” shouted a man who was watching from the roof of one of the buildings.

The fort gates stood open, for the Company officers intended to maintain a friendly attitude as long as possible. With others, Louis and Walter ran out to watch the coming of the Indians. There they were, a band of mounted men approaching across the prairie from the south. Walter’s heart beat fast, but he was surprised to find that he was excited and eager rather than frightened.

“There are no _travois_, only mounted men, no women,” St. Antoine remarked. “That looks bad. Yet they come openly, in the daytime. They raise no war cry. But we cannot tell. The Dakota are treacherous.” He used the name by which the Indians of the prairies called themselves—Dakota. It was their enemies, the Ojibwa, who named them Sioux.

The Indians came on at an easy pace until they were a few hundred yards from the fort. There they halted, as if waiting to see how they were to be received. A small group of white men, among them Mr. West, went out on foot to meet the strangers. Suddenly, out from the fort gate darted a slender, bronze figure, a young Indian stripped naked and without weapons. Straight towards the Sioux he ran full speed.

“He has gone crazy,” gasped Walter. “They will kill him.” He knew the fellow, an Ojibwa hunter who had recently brought his furs to the post.

“He does it to prove his courage, to show that he is not afraid of the Sioux,” explained Louis. “But what use is it to a man to be called brave, after he is dead?”

As the young Indian drew near the enemies of his people, Walter held his breath, expecting every moment that a shower of musket balls or a cloud of arrows would put an end to the rash Ojibwa. But nothing happened. Whether from admiration for his reckless bravery or because they scorned to kill an enemy so easily, the Sioux let him come on uninjured. When he was almost up to them he paused, stood still for a moment, then turned and walked back towards the white men.

How would the party from Fort Daer be received? Was it to be peace or war? In silence, every nerve tense, the watchers waited to learn. The white men drew closer and closer, without pause or hesitation. The Indians were dismounting. The two parties were mingling. They were coming towards the fort, together. Only a few of the Sioux remained behind to watch the horses. Walter drew a long breath.

The Sioux were conducted straight to the open gates. They were to be treated as guests. This was Walter’s first glimpse of Sioux. He looked on with keen interest as they were ushered into the fort. They were manly looking fellows, these Dakotas. Most of them were rather tall, taller than the majority of the _bois brulés_. They were straight and slender, lithe and wiry rather than muscular in appearance. Their faces were intelligent for the most part, strong featured, and with a look of pride and fierceness very different from the stupid expression of the Crees he had seen at Fort York. All wore fringed leggings and moccasins. The bodies of some were bare to the waist, while others were clothed in shirts of deerskin or calico, or wrapped in blankets or buffalo robes. Their black hair, adorned with feathers, hung in braids over their shoulders. Every face and bare body was hideous with paint, in streaks, patches, spots, circles, and zigzags, the favorite colors being red, yellow, and black. They were all tricked out in their best finery, beadwork, quill embroidery, necklaces of animals’ teeth or birds’ claws, and trinkets bought from the traders.

The Sioux proved restless and uncomfortable visitors. They pried into every corner of the fort. They appeared to be suspicious and acted as if they were looking for trouble. The Company officers fed them and treated them to tea, tobacco, and some liquor. That was a dangerous thing to do, Walter thought, to give them liquor, for all were armed with guns, bows, knives, or tomahawks. But the refusal to give them drink might have been taken as an insult. The Chief insisted on crossing the river to the Company fort, and the trader in charge thought it best to let him go. But he managed things so that only a few of Chief Waneta’s followers accompanied him. As soon as possible they were conducted back to Fort Daer.

All the rest of that day the Sioux lingered at Fort Daer. When night came they showed no intention of leaving. They had brought nothing to trade, but they expected all sorts of gifts. Most of the _bois brulés_ had gone back to their families, but Mr. Perier and Walter were allowed to remain at the fort with Mr. West. It was a night of anxiety and alarms. Drink had made the savage guests touchy and quarrelsome. Several times shots were fired in threat or sport, but luckily no one was hurt. The arrival of three Assiniboins, who said they had come to smoke the peace pipe with their ancient enemies, did not help matters any.

About eleven o’clock shouts and war whoops from outside the walls roused everyone. Thinking that the attack had begun, Mr. Perier and Walter rushed out of the house where they had withdrawn to keep out of the way of quarrelsome Indians. They found that the Sioux, instead of attacking, were leaving the fort in haste. There had been a fight between a Dakota and an Assiniboin. The Dakota had shot the Assiniboin and scalped him, the fallen man’s two companions had fled, and some of the Sioux had started in pursuit.

Chief Waneta had been overbearing and truculent enough himself, but he apparently did not want a general fight. Waneta was no fool. He probably realized that the white men and _bois brulés_ of Pembina were too strong for him in numbers and too well prepared for trouble. With unexpected promptness he gathered his followers together, and started for home. Before midnight the whole band had disappeared in the darkness, riding south.

XXX WITH THE BUFFALO HUNTERS

If the visit of the Sioux had resulted in hostilities, Mr. Perier would have been forced to give up the trip to the Mississippi. As it was, the fact that the only hostile act committed had been against the Assiniboins, and that Waneta and his braves had departed at peace with the white men, went far to convince the Swiss that his little party would have no trouble with the Indians unless they sought it. Louis did not wholly agree with that idea, but he was young, eager for travel and adventure, and willing to take what seemed a rather remote risk. His mother was more doubtful, but if the others were going, she did not intend to stay behind. At first Elise had dreaded a new journey into strange country, but when Mrs. Brabant decided to go, she no longer felt afraid. She did not want to return to Fort Douglas, and she had grown very fond of Mrs. Brabant.

Already the _bois brulés_ of Pembina were growing restless. The coming of spring had stirred the wild blood in them. They were eager to be up and away. Those who had not taken service with the Company to go as voyageurs to Fort York, neglected their primitive gardening to prepare for the great buffalo hunt. They mended harness, repaired old carts by binding the broken parts with rawhide, patched hide and canvas tents, cleaned guns, moulded bullets, made stout new moccasins, packed their wooden chests, and overhauled gear of all kinds. The ground around every cabin was strewn with odds and ends.

On the first day of June Neil arrived full of enthusiasm, and the little party was complete. A spot on the open prairie to the southwest of the junction of the two rivers had been chosen as a gathering place for the hunters. Early in the morning of the appointed day, the people began to leave the settlement. Most of the hunters were taking their entire families along. The clumsy, squeaking, two-wheeled carts, drawn by wiry ponies, were crowded with black-haired, dark-skinned women and children or piled high with household gear and equipment. Louis’ one horse and cart were not enough for the Brabant-Perier party, so he and Walter had built another vehicle. Neil furnished two ponies, and Louis had traded his toboggan and Gray Wolf for a fourth. Askimé was to go with him. He would not part with the husky dog.

At the women’s suggestion, the Brabant, Perier, and Lajimonière families selected a spot a little distance from the main camp. There they unhitched their ponies, and stretched their tent covers from cart to cart.

“There will be much drinking in the camp to-night,” Louis explained to Mr. Perier, “to celebrate the beginning of the hunt, and much noise and gaming, and probably fighting. Since we do not wish to take part in all that, we will camp by ourselves. This is a better place for the women and children.”

The wisdom of this plan soon became evident. Long before midnight the big camp had grown uproarious. When an unusually loud outburst of noise was followed by the sound of shots and frantic yelling, Mr. Perier raised himself on his elbow to listen. He was sleeping on the ground underneath one of the carts.

“I’m afraid we have made a mistake,” he said anxiously to Walter lying next him. “We cannot travel with that wild crew. It will not be safe for the children.”

Louis, on the other side, overheard the words, and hastened to reassure the Swiss. “You need not fear, M’sieu Perier. They will be all right after the liquor is gone. I think they will finish it to-night. They cannot get more till they return. Our people are seldom quarrelsome except when they have liquor. Once the hunt makes a start, the leaders will keep good order. The rules are very strict. They are rough and wild, my people, but they are not unkind. Ma’amselle Elise and my little sisters will be quite safe.”

The hilarity continued through most of the night, but before sunrise quiet had descended on the circle of carts and tents. Flasks and kegs were empty, and most of the roisterers were sleeping. They remained in camp all that day. By the time the caravan was in motion the following morning, all were sober and more than ordinarily quiet. Some had good reason to be morose, having gambled away their guns, horses, and carts while under the influence of liquor. Several had received knife or gunshot wounds in the quarrels that resulted.

“It is always so that the hunt begins,” said the Canadian Lajimonière, with a shake of his head. “Liquor and gambling, they are the twin curses of the _bois brulé_. Those two things are the cause of most of his troubles.”

It was surprising how quickly camp was broken and the long train got under way at the cries of “_Marche donc!_” The guide rode ahead. His household cart, following close behind, bore a flag made of a red handkerchief attached to a pole. The lowering of that flag was the signal to stop and make camp.

In single file the long line of creaking, jouncing carts stretched far across the prairie. Where a man had to drive two or more vehicles, he tied one horse to the tail of the cart ahead. Loose ponies for buffalo hunting or to replace those in the shafts, ran alongside. Most of the men and some of the women rode horseback or went afoot, while the children were now in, now out of the carts, according to their inclination. The bright colors of the _bois brulés’_ dress, and the red and yellow ochre with which many of the carts were painted, gave a gay appearance to the cavalcade, but the screeching and groaning of the ungreased axles was anything but a merry sound. The discordant rasping and squawking tortured Elise’s ears and set her teeth on edge.

Because they had camped separately, the Brabant-Perier party was at the very end of the train. Mr. Perier was mounted on one of the four horses, while Walter, Neil, and the two Brabant boys took turns riding another. Most of the time Louis walked beside the front cart or sat on the shafts, one of the other boys accompanying the second. Mrs. Brabant, her two daughters, Elise, and Max rode in the carts, getting down now and then to walk for a while. The rate of travel was slow, less than twelve miles being made the first day. Thereafter the day’s march averaged nearly twenty.

It was with some apprehension that Mr. Perier watched Louis and Neil wheel the two carts into the place assigned them in the circle that night. Walter, who had lived longer among the _bois brulés_, was less troubled. Louis had assured him that everything would be all right, and Walter did not doubt his friend’s judgment. Everything, but the mosquitoes, was all right, that night and every night that the Brabants and Periers camped with the hunt. Rough and noisy the hunters and their families were, but good natured and kindly enough. They shouted, laughed, and sang, fiddled and danced, told stories, played cards and other games by the light of their fires, but there was little quarreling and no fighting. Within two hours after sunset, all had settled down for the night, and the camp lay quiet and sleeping.

The sun rose early those June mornings, but before it appeared above the horizon, the camp was astir. In an astonishingly short time the train was in motion again. The route was to the west of the Red River in what is now North Dakota. There were swampy stretches to cross, still wet enough to make traveling difficult, then drier ground and better going. On every side lay flat, open country, broken here and there by small groves or thin lines of trees along the streams. The prairie was green with new grass, and dotted everywhere with the pink and white and yellow and blue of wild flowers growing singly or in masses. Elise and the Brabant and Lajimonière girls delighted in picking the sweet, pale pink wild roses and decorating themselves and the carts. Mrs. Brabant warned them to look out for snakes and Louis armed each with a stout stick. At the warning rattle, Marie Brabant and Reine Lajimonière would search for the snake and kill it. But little Jeanne and Elise, who had not grown used to prairie rattlesnakes, ran back to the carts in fright.

Snakes were not plentiful, however. Far more troublesome were the mosquitoes that rose in clouds after the sun went down. On still nights the buzzing, stinging insects were a continual torment. Smudges were kindled everywhere within the circle of carts, but Elise and Max could find little choice between the stinging pests and the choking smoke.

Mr. Perier and Walter marveled at the control the leaders of the hunt exercised over the wild crew. The hunters had chosen a chief and several captains, who formed a governing council, and each captain had a number of men under him to act as guards and police. When the guide lowered his flag, every cart took the place assigned it in the circle, shafts outward. The captain and men on duty were responsible for the order and good behavior, as well as the safety, of the camp.

The rules adopted by the council were much the same on all the hunts. Scouts were sent out each day to look for buffalo, but must not frighten them. No one was allowed to separate from, or lag behind the main party without permission, or to hunt buffalo independently. The most serious offences were thievery and fighting with guns or knives. Punishments ranged from cutting up a man’s bridle or saddle, if he had one, to driving the guilty person from camp. Knowing that the penalty would be swift and severe, even the boldest seldom ventured to break the laws.

For several days no buffalo but a few scattered individuals were seen. When the beasts caught scent or sound of the caravan, they were off at an awkward gallop. They seemed to move slowly, but really made good speed. It was Elise’s first sight of live buffalo, and she thought them very ugly creatures, with their great shaggy heads and clumsy movements.

Late one afternoon the line of carts wound down the bank of the Turtle River to a ford. Long before the rear of the caravan reached the stream, exciting news had been carried back from mouth to mouth.

“There are buffalo ahead,” one of the Lajimonière boys called to Neil, who was driving the first of the Brabant-Perier carts. “A great band has been across the ford, and not long ago, they say.”

A great band it must have been. The hunting party had left a plain and well-trodden trail down the bank, and roiled, muddy water at the crossing. But no cart-train running wild could have so ravaged the country. Far on either side of the ford, the willows and bushes were torn and trampled. From many of the trees the bark was rubbed off or hanging in shreds. The grass was worn away. The mud along the margin was trodden hard by thousands of hoofs. The devastation was fresh.

Would the hunters chase the buffalo that night? Walter hoped so, though the sun was setting when the last cart crossed the ford. The chief of the hunt said no, however. Any attempt to pursue buffalo in the darkness would probably result merely in frightening them away. Moreover the horses, even those that had been running loose, were weary from a twenty-mile march. Real buffalo country had been reached. If the hunters missed this particular band, there would be others.

So camp was made as usual, but the horses were picketed within the circle, instead of being hobbled and turned loose to feed. Time would be saved by having the mounts handy in the morning. There was another reason for keeping close watch of the ponies that night. Where there were buffalo there were likely to be Indians. South of the Turtle River was debatable ground between Sioux and Ojibwa, and the Sioux were notorious horse thieves.

It was plain that the buffalo were not many miles away. All that night their lowing and bellowing could be heard almost continuously.

“The country must be full of them,” Walter whispered to Neil, as they lay side by side.

“Aye, it’s a big band. There’ll be grand sport in the morning,” was the sleepy reply.

XXXI THE CHARGING BUFFALO