Hudson Bay - Robert Michael Ballantyne (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📗

fret at its noisy occupants, fled in despair to another house, and thereby left room for the newcomers--or greenhorns, as they were elegantly styled by their more knowing fellow-clerks. Now, indeed, the corner of the fort in which we lived was avoided by all quiet people as if it were smitten with the plague; while the loud laugh, uproarious song, and sounds of the screeching flute or scraping fiddle, issued from the open doors and windows, frightening away the very mosquitoes, and making roof and rafters ring. Suddenly a dead silence would ensue; and then it was conjectured by the knowing ones of the place that Mr Polly was _coming out strong_ for the benefit of the new arrivals. Mr Polly had a pleasant way of getting the green ones round him, and, by detailing some of the wild scenes and incidents of his voyages in the Saskatchewan, of leading them on from truth to exaggeration, and from that to fanciful composition, wherein he would detail, with painful minuteness, all the horrors of Indian warfare, and the improbability of any one who entered those dreadful regions ever returning alive.

Norway House was now indeed in full blow, and many a happy hour did I spend upon one of the clerks' beds--every inch of which was generally occupied--listening to the story or the song. The young men there assembled had arrived from the distant quarters of America, and some of them even from England. Some were in the prime of manhood, and had spent many years in the Indian country; some were beginning to scrape the down from their still soft chins; while others were boys of fourteen, who had just left home, and were listening for the first time, open-mouthed, to their seniors' description of life in the wilderness.

Alas, how soon were those happy, careless young fellows to separate, and how little probability was there of their ever meeting again! A sort of friendship had sprung up among three of us. Many a happy hour had we spent in rambling among the groves and woods of Norway House: now ranging about in search of wild pigeons, anon splashing and tumbling in the clear waters of the lake, or rowing over its surface in a light canoe; while our inexperienced voices filled the woods with snatches of the wild yet plaintive songs of the _voyageurs_, which we had just begun to learn. Often had we lain on our little pallet in Bachelors' Hall, recounting to each other our adventures in the wild woods, or recalling the days of our childhood, and making promises of keeping up a steady correspondence through all our separations, difficulties, and dangers.

A year passed away, and at last I got a letter from one of my friends, dated from the Arctic regions, near the mouth of Mackenzie River; the other wrote to me from among the snow-clad caps of the Rocky Mountains; while I addressed them from the swampy, ice-begirt shores of Hudson Bay.

In the Saskatchewan brigade two young bisons were conveyed to York Factory for the purpose of being shipped for England in the _Prince Rupert_. They were a couple of the wildest little wretches I ever saw, and were a source of great annoyance to the men during the voyage. The way they were taken was odd enough, and I shall here describe it.

In the Saskatchewan the chief food both of white men and Indians is buffalo meat, so that parties are constantly sent out to hunt the buffalo. They generally chase them on horseback--the country being mostly prairie land--and when they get close enough, shoot them with guns. The Indians, however, shoot them oftener with the bow and arrow, as they prefer keeping their powder and shot for warfare. They are very expert with the bow, which is short and strong, and can easily send an arrow quite through a buffalo at twenty yards off. One of these parties, then, was ordered to procure two calves alive, if possible, and lead them to the Company's establishment. This they succeeded in doing in the following manner. Upon meeting with a herd, they all set off full gallop in chase. Away went the startled animals at a round trot, which soon increased to a gallop as the horse men neared them, and a shot or two told that they were coming within range. Soon the shots became more numerous, and here and there a black spot on the prairie told where a buffalo had fallen. No slackening of the pace occurred, however, as each hunter, upon killing an animal, merely threw down his cap or mitten to mark it as his own, and continued in pursuit of the herd, loading his gun as he galloped along. The buffalo-hunters, by the way, are very expert at loading and firing quickly while going at full gallop. They carry two or three bullets in their mouths, which they spit into the muzzles of their guns after dropping in a little powder, and instead of ramming it down with a rod, merely hit the butt-end of the gun on the pommel of their saddles; and in this way fire a great many shots in quick succession. This, however, is a dangerous mode of shooting, as the ball sometimes sticks half-way down the barrel and bursts the gun, carrying away a finger, and occasionally a hand.

In this way they soon killed as many buffaloes as they could carry in their carts, and one of the hunters set off in chase of a calf. In a short time he edged one away from the rest, and then, getting between it and the herd, ran straight against it with his horse and knocked it down. The frightened little animal jumped up again and set off with redoubled speed; but another butt from the horse again sent it sprawling. Again it rose, and was again knocked down, and in this way was at last fairly tired out; when the hunter, jumping suddenly from his horse, threw a rope round its neck, and drove it before him to the encampment, and soon after brought it to the fort. It was as wild as ever when I saw it at Norway House, and seemed to have as much distaste to its thraldom as the day it was taken.

As the summer advanced the heat increased, and the mosquitoes became perfectly insupportable. Nothing could save one from the attacks of these little torments. Almost all other insects went to rest with the sun: sand-flies, which bite viciously during the day, went to sleep at night; the large _bull-dog_, whose bite is terrible, slumbered in the evening; but the mosquito, the long-legged, determined, vicious, persevering mosquito, whose ceaseless hum dwells for ever on the ear, _never_ went to sleep. Day and night the painful, tender little pimples on our necks and behind our ears were being constantly retouched by these villainous flies, it was useless killing thousands of them-- millions supplied their place. The only thing, in fact, that can protect one during the night (_nothing_ can during the day) is a net of gauze hung over the bed; but as this was looked upon by the young men as somewhat effeminate, it was seldom resorted to. The best thing for their destruction, we found, was to fill our rooms with smoke, either by burning damp moss or by letting off large puffs of gunpowder, and then throwing the doors and windows open to allow them to fly out. This, however, did not put them all out; so we generally spent an hour or so before going to bed in hunting them with candles. Even this did not entirely destroy them; and often might our friends, by looking telescopically through the keyhole, have seen us wandering during the late hours of the night in our shirts looking for mosquitoes, like unhappy ghosts doomed to search perpetually for something they can never find. The intense, suffocating heat also added greatly to our discomfort.

In fine weather I used to visit my friend Mr Evans at Rossville, where I had always a hearty welcome. I remember on one occasion being obliged to beg the loan of a canoe from an Indian, and having a romantic paddle across part of Playgreen Lake. I had been offered a passage in a boat which was going to Rossville, but was not to return. Having nothing particular to do, however, at the time, I determined to take my chance of finding a return conveyance of some kind or other. In due time I arrived at the parsonage, where I spent a pleasant afternoon in sauntering about the village, and in admiring the rapidity and ease with which the Indian children could read and write the Indian language by means of a syllable alphabet invented by their clergyman. The same gentleman afterwards made a set of leaden types with no other instrument than a penknife, and printed a great many hymns in the Indian language.

In the evening I began to think of returning to the fort; but no boat or canoe could be found small enough to be paddled by one man, and as no one seemed inclined to go with me, I began to fear that I should have to remain all night. At last a young Indian told me he had a hunting canoe, which I might have if I chose to venture across the lake in it, but it was very small. I instantly accepted his offer; and, bidding adieu to my friends at the parsonage, followed him down to a small creek overshaded by tall trees, where, concealed among the reeds and bushes, lay the canoe. It could not, I should think, have measured more than three yards in length, by eighteen inches in breadth at the middle, whence it tapered at either end to a thin edge. It was made of birch bark scarcely a quarter of an inch thick; and its weight may be imagined when I say that the Indian lifted it from the ground with one hand and placed it in the water, at the same time handing me a small light paddle. I stepped in with great care, and the frail bark trembled with my weight as I seated myself, and pushed out into the lake. The sun had just set, and his expiring rays cast a glare upon the overhanging clouds in the west, whilst the shades of night gathered thickly over the eastern horizon. Not a breath of wind disturbed the glassy smoothness of the water, in which every golden-tinted cloud was mirrored with a fidelity that rendered it difficult to say which was image and which reality. The little bark darted through the water with the greatest ease, and as I passed among the deepening shadows of the lofty pines, and across the gilded waters of the bay, a wild enthusiasm seized me; I strained with all my strength upon the paddle, and the sparkling drops flew in showers behind me as the little canoe flew over the water more like a phantom than a reality--when suddenly I missed my stroke; my whole weight was thrown on one side, the water gurgled over the gunwale of the canoe, and my heart leaped to my mouth, as I looked for an instant into the dark water. It was only for a moment; in another instant the canoe righted, and I paddled the remainder of the way in a much more gentle manner--enthusiasm gone, and a most wholesome degree of timidity pervading my entire frame. It was dark when I reached