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“Now separate them, lads.”
The bluejackets dashed into the crowd with a cheer, and good-humouredly flung themselves between miners and redskins, employing fists, shoulders, and, where necessary and practicable, the hilts or flats of their cutlasses. By the time Campbell came running up with his eight men, the wonder-stricken Indians had drawn back, and were meditating on the apparent illogicalness of their Queen’s warriors.
“Serve this lot the same as the others,” said Mayne; and those of the miners who had not fled were soon holding up their hands, while the grinning sailors crammed their haversacks with pistols and bowie-knives, or stacked rifles and pickaxes out of harm’s way.
The Indian guides now asked for their weapons and were curtly refused by Mayne, who, intimating to the miners that they were now under arrest, made them fall in, preparatory to a return to their own camp, which was but a few hundred yards away. While the indefatigable doctor was singling out the more sober and respectable of these to help him in an examination of the wounded of both parties, a German digger who had fled came running back to the camp, hysterical with fright.
“The Chippewyans!” he screamed, clutching at Campbell’s arm, and sobbing convulsively.
There was no need to ask what he meant, for the thunder of horses’ hoofs could already be heard, and, by the time the sailors were brought to attention, the wild war-whoop of a body of Indians was resounding over the slopes.
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“Our pistols. Give us our arms,” roared the terrified miners; and again the lieutenant found himself in an uncomfortable predicament. Only a minute before, he had been considering the advisability of disarming the redskins in case of a treacherous attack during the night. The new arrivals were mounted, and doubtless strong in numbers; and, backed by the forty or more Indians already present, they might easily be a more powerful force than he could deal with. Already the savages, seeing vengeance for their burning stacks within their grasp, had gathered together and were chattering and waving their war-hatchets.
“I can’t trust you with pistols,” he said coldly, and beckoned to him the most reliable of the Indian guides. “You must tell your people who are coming that the White Queen’s judges will punish these men. If they attempt to do it themselves, they also will be punished.”
The Indian hurried away to repeat the message to his chief, who appeared to be haranguing his warriors; while Mayne spoke a few cheery words of caution to the sailors.
A whistle from the doctor made him turn round. “Here they come. By George! how many more of them?”
In the shifting blaze of the stacks, the body of horsemen who suddenly shot from among the trees seemed to be at least a thousand; in reality, there were between eighty and a hundred; some belonging to this camp, but the majority of them braves from the Cascade or other mountains, whom the messengers had hurriedly collected. The unarmed miners huddled together, shivering or cursing; while the seamen, with their275rifles “shouldered,” stood in a single line between them and the advancing savages. At a sign from the chief, the horsemen drew up and a palaver began.
“Come on. You and I’ll take a hand in this,” said Mayne. “They seem to be in doubt. Where’s our interpreter?” He and the surgeon walked over to the chiefs, and, for some time, it seemed as though there certainly would have to be bloodshed; for the Indians who had come from a distance wanted value for their money, and were not disposed to hear reason. But presently the interpreter cut into the conversation, reminding the chiefs that the “warriors with no hair on their faces” had easily subdued a large body of white men; and that, only ten miles away, there were “braves in red coats, with hair on their upper lips,” as well as a large number of miners, who would take a speedy vengeance on them.
“Tell them, also,” said Mayne, “that unless they agree to keep the peace, I shall give the miners their weapons again, and we shall fight forthem.”
His heart was “in his mouth” as he uttered this high-sounding threat; for, of course, he no more dared do such a thing than he dared head a mutiny on board his ship. It was a chance shot; but it carried the day. A buzz of conversation arose among the Indians of the camp. Set those white fiends about their ears again? They would fight their own allies first. An agreement was speedily arrived at, and Mayne marched both sailors and prisoners back to the white camp.
But it was an anxious night for him. His wound, though only a flesh cut, was causing him great pain now that the excitement of the evening was over; his men276were getting hungry and sleepy, and the doctor—no less so—had his hands full with those whom the Indians had injured; there were not a dozen miners who, in their present condition, could be relied upon to fight if need arose; and the redskins, to whom treachery was as the breath of their nostrils, might, instead of keeping faith, swoop down on the camp at any moment. But sailors are used to short spells of sleep; sentries were relieved every two hours; there was no more disturbance, and by morning the diggers had come to a rational and penitent frame of mind. How the quarrel had begun was one of the things that will never be found out; when white men allow the beast in them to come uppermost, there is nothing to choose between them and savages of any other colour. Before the day was ended, Colonel Moody and a squad of soldiers had arrived; the ringleaders on either side were on their way to Vancouver for examination, and peace was once more restored.
277CHAPTER XXIITHE CHIPPEWYANS OF THE COLUMBIAN MOUNTAINS
In a former volume[4]the writer has related a hunting adventure which befell the late Lieutenant John Keast Lord; but, as the career of this intrepid traveller was so full of romantic and striking episodes, the reader may be glad to hear a little more about him.
After his eventful mule-buying expedition into the States, he returned to British Columbia, where he was acting as naturalist to the Canadian Boundary Commission; but he had no sooner reached New Westminster than he found other instructions awaiting him; this time, to report on the fauna of the coast Ranges. This was in 1858, when already the Chippewyans and Kuchins had been unsettled and rendered ripe for assault and murder by the newly-arrived gold-diggers; and Mr. Lord wisely decided to take with him a bodyguard of half a dozen young Canadian hunters, whose bravery, judgment, and fidelity he had many times proved.
New Westminster was indeed new in those days; in fact, it was not a year old; and much of the ride from278there to the Cascade Mountains was a pathless, hilly waste, dotted with mountain-like rocks of granite, and occasionally varied by chasms and cañons; and in this cheerful neighbourhood many Indians who feared the vengeance of the Government, for some of their various crimes, had taken up their abode. The soldier-naturalist’s intention was to reach the seaward slopes of the range, which had been but very little explored, and were known to be covered to a great extent by dense forests.
By the second day of his journey he had begun to have serious thoughts of sending back at least three of his companions, realising that a troop of seven mounted men, fully armed, and accompanied by five baggage-mules, had very much the appearance of a punitive expedition on a small scale. Certainly this must have been the view of the first few parties of redskins with whom he met; for these either fled hastily as though to warn their friends, or else defiantly threatened the strangers with their bows or muskets. Lord’s absolutely perfect knowledge of the Athapascan tongue, and of the character and customs of the Chippewyans, was really the surest weapon of defence for him to rely on now; and, bidding his men conceal all arms but their rifles, and endeavour to look as much as possible like a peaceful hunting or travelling party, he resolved that, whenever they met with Indians, he would get in first blow with his tongue and conciliate the savages.
This very soon proved to be a promising plan; for on the third morning, not long after the little troop had begun its day’s march, a score of Indians burst out279from the shelter of one of the huge boulders and, in a chorus of wild yells, ordered the white men to throw down their rifles. Signing to his companions to stay where they were, Lord cantered across the strip of broken ground, and, with no sign of anxiety, pulled up before the noisiest of the Indians and gave him a laughing good morning.
“Have you not yet learned to distinguish between friends and enemies?” he asked. The redskins ceased their clamour and looked at each other in a puzzled manner. They had been prepared for violence on the part of the new-comers; or they would even have beheld their meek surrender without betraying great astonishment; but that the white leader should treat them and their demands as a huge joke, and further, should speak their tongue with an accent as pure and natural as their own, were facts not to be grappled with hurriedly. And, while they hesitated, Lord continued airily, “What do you fear, my brothers? We have not come to hurt you. Why did you beseech us to drop our guns?”
“You have tracked some of our tribe from the mines, have you not?” said the chief cautiously, and more, perhaps, to gain time than because he sought information.
“No; we have nothing to do with the mines, nor do we wish to poach on your hunting or your fishing. We are going to look for beasts in the forest on the distant slopes. If you will guide us to a place where we can cross the range with our horses and mules, we will pay you well.”
To do him justice, though the Indian may be280treacherous, he is seldom a liar; consequently he is less prone than the rest of the world to doubt another man’s word. From the chief’s increasing hesitation it was clear enough that he believed the Englishman’s statement, and was not unwilling to be friendly. All the same, Lord’s mind was not entirely at ease; none of the Indians had horses; few of them had firearms; and the covetous glances cast at his horse and his rifle showed plainly enough that at least the majority of his new neighbours would like the opportunity of robbing him and his men. Some of them began to consult in low tones, but he turned on these with a sudden severity, partly assumed and partly real.
“What?” he shouted. “Do you make a stranger ofme? Do you exclude from your palaver one who speaks your tongue; who has smoked the peace-pipe and hunted with your brethren everywhere, from the Nipigon Lake to these very mountains, and from the white man’s gold-camps to the country of the Apaches and the Navajos; who has taught even the wisest of your tribe; who can charm away pains in the jaws, and can put new life into horses and dogs and cattle when they are sick?”
The muttered conversation broke off abruptly, and, with some approach to deference, the chief explained that it only related to the price which they should ask for guiding the Big White Chief, and to the doubts that some of them had as to the good faith of his followers. The Big White Chief (he stood six feet four) answered curtly that he would be answerable for his men, and, by way of payment, would give a supply of tobacco and rum to each Indian, and a revolver, with fifty281cartridges, to the leader. The last item clinched the bargain in a moment, and the chief at once agreed to show the way to a gorge through which the travellers and their beasts could pass with ease to the other side. This, he said, was more than a day’s journey away; if the white braves would stay the night at his camp, which they would reach by sundown, he would undertake to bring them to the gorge by noon on the following day.
“Go on, then,” said the Englishman. “I will inform my men and we will follow you”; and in a very few words he explained the situation to the Canadians, warning everyone to be on his guard.
The Indians, though laden with the spoils of a brief hunting expedition, set off at a rapid jog-trot, seeming quite heedless of the broken and ever-rising ground, over which the white men’s horses had much ado to keep pace with them. At times this difficult road gave place to a winding but well-worn track that seemed as though it would eventually lead, corkscrew fashion, to the summit of a mountain nearly ten thousand feet high.
Some distance up this, Lord called a halt for dinner, and, when it was ended, he had one of the mules disburthened, and, with much show of friendly condescension, insisted upon placing it at the chief’s disposal for the remainder of their climb. By this means he gained as it were a hostage in case of treachery; for it would be easy for one or other of his party to place himself between the now mounted chief and the rest of the Indians, with whom he had for a long time been carrying on a mysterious and disquieting conversation in an282undertone. Lord was a poor hand at playing eavesdropper, even had his life or liberty depended on that form of acquiring information; but, from odd syllables he had overheard from time to time, it had not been difficult to gather that his guides had become two factions, the one strongly disagreeing with the policy of the other.
Late in the afternoon the path wound suddenly into a thick grove of red and yellow cedars and Douglas firs; and the half-muffled sounds of life in the distance told the travellers that the Indian camp, or some other, could not be far away. The sounds soon separated themselves so that the barking of dogs, the blows of an axe on a tree-trunk, etc., could easily be distinguished; then lights peeped out among the trees, and the chatter of women and screaming of babies grew plainly audible.
Since he had been compelled to ride among the white men, the chief had become more and more moodily silent and ill at ease; and now the Indians ahead were throwing apprehensive glances back, and renewing their whispered arguments.
“What is it? What do they fear?” asked Lord of the chief, who was then riding abreast of him.
He answered nervously, “I will not deceive my great brother. They fear lest you or your companions should tell other white men what you will have seen at our camp.”
“And if we did?”
“You would no longer be the red man’s friend. If harm should come to us through any of you, my tribe would take a fearful vengeance.”
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The big veterinary surgeon laughed negligently, and remarked that the chief need not be uneasy. Whatever curiosity he might feel was soon to be satisfied; for one more twist of the path brought them on to a large clearing, dotted everywhere with fires and wigwams. Lord had half expected to see a considerable reinforcement of Indians here; and was much relieved to find the camp guarded only by women and six or seven elderly men.
The guides separated, each going to his own wigwam, and the chief signified that the strangers would be expected to share a banquet with him over his particular fire. The food was good, the chief and his own special cronies who sat with him very hospitable and entertaining. Bed-time came, and two tents were placed at the guests’ disposal, Lord, of course, arranging a system of “watches” to guard against surprise. But no surprise came; the night passed quietly and peacefully, and the Englishman was at a loss to understand the fears and suspicions of the Indians. But while he was washing at a stream close at hand, one of the Canadians joined him.
“I’ve got at their mystery, I think,” he said in a whisper.
“Ah?”
“Chinese prisoners; three of ’em. I’ve been talking to one while you were having your breakfast. I take it that this is a refuge-camp for all the rascality of the neighbourhood. John Chinaman tells me that the whole crew are ‘wanted’ at Vancouver for sundry attacks on the mining camps. Why, these are some of the varmints who burnt Thomson’s store last year.”
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Lord finished his ablutions and sat down to discuss the position, which was certainly not a pleasant one. In a sense, he was on his honour not to betray his entertainers; yet, as a Government servant, it seemed to be his duty either to arrest the chief or else lay information against him. Moreover, though the few Chinamen he had met had not impressed him favourably, his blood boiled at the notion of slavery on British soil, and of the unnameable cruelties to a captive of which the redskins were capable. Before he could arrive at any decision, however, a terrible scream resounded through the camp, and both men rushed towards the wigwams.
On the ground lay a Chinaman, pierced by an arrow, and Lord saw at a glance that he was dead.
“The brutes,” muttered his companion. “That’s the poor beggar’s punishment for breaking out and speaking to me.” Lord called to his men and then rounded on the chief, who was hurriedly approaching.
“Where are the other two prisoners?” he said. “You must hand them over to me. I am a warrior of the White Queen’s, and can have every one of you hanged.—No, no; I’ll have no secret discussions. If you disobey the Queen you are no longer my friends. (Look out, you fellows!)” In another moment he had pulled a revolver from his pocket and was covering the chief. “I give you one minute in which to bring out the other prisoners.”
Bows or muskets were hastily raised, but the Canadians had unslung their rifles like lightning, and were grouped behind Lord ready to fire on the first man who dared to aim at him. The chief shrugged his285shoulders, smiled, and ordered the prisoners to be produced. They soon appeared, unbound but strongly guarded, and, in pidgin English, told how, a few days before, their camp near the sea had been raided, their employers put to flight, and themselves brought away to slavery.
“Can you guide us to the sea?” asked Lord. Yes; they could. It was but a few miles distant. “Very well, then,” he continued, turning to the chief. “If you will give me these men, and will swear by the Great Spirit that you will not again trouble the white men’s camps, we will promise not to betray your hiding-place.”
A rapid exchange of glances took place between the Indians, and then the chief said emphatically:
“I give up the prisoners, and I swear that my tribe will keep faith with yours.” Lord then swore to his part of the bargain, and, anxious to escape from the Indians at once, paid the guides and set off immediately in the wake of the liberated prisoners.
“What do you think about it?” he asked the eldest of the Canadians, when they were well on the road through the wood.
“I think they were a sight too ready to give way. We haven’t seen the last of ’em, I reckon.”
“Well; we shall be in open country directly, according to the Chinamen,” said Lord. He was disposed towards a hopeful view, the more so that he had given the Indians plainly to understand that they would pay dearly for any attempt at treachery. Once or twice, on looking back, he perceived men walking slowly behind them, but as these were only armed with bows, and286made no pretence of secrecy, he took little notice; and, in another hour, the wood came to an end. But where was the promised gorge? The only path he could see was a granite ridge, which on one side was bounded by a stretch of rough rising ground, and on the other became a precipice. The guides, however, remained confident, and, after hinting that it would be bad for them if they led him wrong, he followed them.
“What’s that?” he cried suddenly, when they had travelled about half a mile along the ridge in single file. All reined up at a sound similar to that of a “moose-trumpet,” or bark horn. Then they saw that three Indians had appeared from the wood behind them, had come to a stop on the edge of the cliff, and were looking across the chasm towards a precipice twice the height of that on which they stood. Evidently their trumpeting was intended to rouse somebody across the chasm, for two or three indistinct figures soon appeared on the farther cliff. Then one of the Indians who had followed Lord’s party raised his arms and began to make signs to those on the other side.
“Signalling, eh?” said one of the men. “Can you read it, Mr. Lord?”
The redskin was, in fact, transmitting a message across the chasm, employing a system of telegraphy similar to that used in Japan, or among our own sailors: a form of “deaf and dumb alphabet” not uncommon among the Indians of the hills and prairies.
“I can read enough to see that these rascals are warning someone to stop us,” said Lord. “Though how they reckon to do that remains to be seen. Let’s get on as fast as possible.”
A Primitive System of TelegraphyThe Indians are able to transmit messages by movements of their arms and fingers at greater distances than the voice would carry. In this case the question is “Who are you?” The answer “Pani,” transmitted from the lofty crags of a wide gorge.
A Primitive System of TelegraphyThe Indians are able to transmit messages by movements of their arms and fingers at greater distances than the voice would carry. In this case the question is “Who are you?” The answer “Pani,” transmitted from the lofty crags of a wide gorge.
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They moved swiftly up the ridge, till the ground began to slope downwards again, and very steeply; then a final bend brought them almost opposite the mouth of the long looked-for gorge, which was wide enough for all the horsemen to ride abreast in comfort. The road was now beautifully level, and but that the Chinamen would not risk their necks on mule-back and knew nothing about horses, the whole party could have galloped. The gorge proved to be some six miles in length, and, at the end of a couple of hours, the travellers knew that they had come to the outlet.
The fact was made known in a not very pleasing manner, for all at once two musket-shots echoed down the ravine, and the Chinamen, who were some ten yards ahead of the horsemen, fell prostrate.
“Charge for it,” shouted Lord, though he could not as yet see the mysterious assailants. “Don’t give ’em time to load or aim”; and the seven men, pistol in hand, galloped to the mouth of the gorge.
Here they were greeted by a flight of arrows, launched so hastily that no one was hit. The ambush consisted of a dozen redskins, who, in obedience to the signalling, had hastened round the head of the chasm, easily arriving in time to cut off the more slowly moving party. Fortunately, only two of them had firearms; and the majority, seeing at once what chance they would stand against mounted men who were desperate and well armed, fled like chamois down the slopes. Three of the party were, however, speedily stopped by revolver-bullets from the horsemen, and so rendered an easy capture.
Then the truth, or something like it, came out. The288Chinamen were gold-thieves who had escaped from the mines and had fallen into the hands of the Chippewyans, who cared nothing for their stolen gold but a good deal for the labour which they would have been able to extort from them. Lord had neither time nor inclination to sift the matter. Finding that the Celestials were not so badly injured but that they could ride back to prison, he had them bound on to baggage-mules, made the three wounded Indians mount behind three of his men, and so conveyed all the prisoners in triumph to the coast, where he handed them over to a military picket for a journey to Vancouver jail.
289CHAPTER XXIIITWO DAYS IN A MOHAWK VILLAGE
A very voluminous writer, and an explorer of no small repute in Germany—Johann Georg Kohl—has drawn up, from personal experience, as exhaustive an account of the Mohawk section of the Iroquois Indians as Surgeon Bigsby gave of the Huron and Cherokee branches of that once powerful family. Herr Kohl spent the years 1859-60 in travelling about the north-eastern portion of the United States and Southern Canada, and thus was able to gather some interesting and valuable information concerning the tribe, which the writers of story-books seem to have maligned very much. He shows us the Mohawks of Quebec as hard-working farmers, respectable traders in fur, bold hunters, and pious Christians; and he reminds us that there is nothing extraordinary in all this if we take into account a century and a half of French influence at its best, together with the splendid labours of the Jesuit missionary heroes.
From Lake Champlain, Herr Kohl travelled across the boundary in a Canadian farmer’s waggon, which eventually set him down at an Indian village that290stood on the verge of an immense pine-forest. To be “dumped” down suddenly in a place where there is not a single white person would be disconcerting enough to any but a man of inquiring and adventurous disposition; but Kohl, on learning from his companion that here was a purely native population, eagerly jumped out of the cart with his gun and his luggage and bade the farmer drive on. Of course, he was stared at; but so he would have been in an English or German village; with this difference: that these Mohawk women and children possessed a native politeness and readiness to oblige that few English and fewer Germans can muster up. Kohl spoke encouragingly to the starers; was there an inn in the place? he asked in French. No; there was not. Where could he get a night’s lodging then? Anywhere in the village; perhaps the gentleman would like to see the chief’s house, as being the largest and most fitting for his reception. A neat little old woman called a youth who was repairing a timber-trolley.
“Go, my son; carry the gentleman’spaquetand show him the chief’s house.”
The idlers drew back, and though they continued to stare, made no attempt to follow the stranger. He began to ask questions. Where were all the men? The men were at work, a few in the fields, but most of them in the forest—hunting, wood-lumbering, or clearing the traps set for foxes, squirrels, etc.; many of them would be home by sundown.
The German looked curiously up the little street; nearly all the houses were on one side of it; on the other291there were but four buildings; the church, which—said the lad—was visited three times a week by a Frenchcuréfrom a neighbouring town; the school, the chief’s dwelling, and the “assembly house”—a long wooden shed where public functions took place; e.g. certain games and sports, the entertaining of chiefs from a distance, tribal discussions, etc.
“This is where the chief lives, Monsieur,” said the Indian lad, pointing to a wooden hut about thirty feet square, painted a dull red, with a bright yellow door. The place was not architecturally beautiful, to be sure; but it was the residence of the ruler of the place; and, as the lad tapped at the door, the traveller began to experience the same diffidence that a stranger in London might feel in asking for a night’s lodging at Buckingham Palace.
A buxom serving-woman opened the door, and, on the boy’s explaining the visit, bade him bring the luggage in and courteously asked the German to follow her into the chief’s presence. Kohl gave the lad about a shilling’s-worth of coppers, whereat both he and the servant exclaimed. The man must be a prince! A halfpenny would have been thought a more than sufficient tip for such a task as the Indian boy had performed.
The woman led the way through the house—which was so ill-lighted, that anyone coming in from the bright sunshine could at first see nothing—and out by another small door to a huge space which seemed to be cornfield, garden, meadow, and orchard all in one. The back of the house was as tasteful as the front was grotesque; the porch was covered with honeysuckle,292now in full bloom, and all kinds of creepers ran over the blank wall. In the middle of the garden a man was digging early potatoes. He looked round as the two walked up the path, and, to Kohl’s surprise, the woman introduced the potato-digger as the Mohawk chief. When she had gone, the intruder entered into explanations to which the chief—a bright-eyed, gentle-looking old man—listened with polite attention.
“You are very welcome,” he said. “We country people are always glad to see visitors and learn all their news; strangers seldom come this way now; they go over there instead—they travel by thechemin de fer”; he pointed westwards, where, fifteen miles away, ran a line of railroad. “But—it must be an awful thing to go about the country like that, sir. I myself have never been in a train, thank God.” He spoke the ordinary Canadianpatois, though he evidently understood Kohl’s Parisian French quite well.
“You do not travel far, I suppose?” said the white man gently.
“No; I am over eighty years of age. But in my time I have been far, very far. I have traded and fought with theInwi” (Eskimos); “I have guided white hunters through Ungava; I have seen steamboats and railway trains.”
While he was speaking the old gentleman shouldered his fork, picked up his potato-basket, and turned towards the house.
“You will like some refreshment. We do not dine till my sons return.”
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They entered the house again, and, as soon as Kohl’s eyes were accustomed to the gloom, he saw that it was simply one large room. The floor was of planks, beautifully clean; and the walls were almost entirely hidden by the skins of various animals; these certainly made for snugness in winter, stopping the draught that otherwise would have come through the chinks; but the effect was more startling than artistic, for some ambitious soul had dyed or painted most of them, a magnificent elk-hide being daubed with alternate stripes of green, red, and yellow, while a black bear-skin had little yellow crosses painted all over it. Two of the walls were partitioned off into a sort of loose-boxes, each six feet wide; these were the bedrooms; the light came through a hole in the roof (which was also the chimney) and from two small windows, where a clumsy attempt had been made at fitting ready-made sashes into openings that were anything but “true.” Near the door hung a crucifix and holy-water stoup, not ill-carved in wood; but this was the only attempt at civilised wall-decoration.
The woman whom Kohl had imagined to be a servant came bustling forward with a platter of cakes and a basin of cider, which she pressed on the visitor.
“This is my youngest son’s wife,” said the chief. “I have three sons, and they and their wives live with me.”
“And their children?” asked Kohl.
“Only one girl; all the others are married; and she is to be betrothed to-morrow. To-morrow we keep holiday; there will be much dancing and ball-play and feasting.”
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Then they fell to talking of the old man’s early days. He could remember the time when it was still quite a new thing for the English to be regarded by the French colonists as anything but tyrants; he had heard his father talk of seeing the white soldiers of General Wolfe; he himself had fought against the Sioux many times. Bah! the Sioux were bad men; cruel men, who would not keep faith.
His reminiscences were so engrossing, that Kohl lost all count of the time, till the sound of footsteps, voices, and horses’ hoofs past the house told him that the men were returning from their day’s work. The eldest son, the future chief of the tribe, now entered. He was a very tall, lithe man, between fifty and sixty, less formal in his manner than his father, but quite as modest and agreeable. He had been superintending the carting of the hay from some distant meadows which he owned; and Kohl could not refrain from smiling at the talk that went on between father and son. He had come out here prepared to see bloodthirsty robbers and torturers and bear-slayers; and behold, the chief dug potatoes, and the chief’s son performed his ablutions in a bucket of water, and talked of the hay-harvest and the amount of cider consumed by the mowers that day, as if he were in Kohl’s native Bavaria. He was now almost ready to see a telegram or a Munich newspaper brought to the door.
As soon as the other sons returned from their hunting, two of the women dragged a deal table from one side of the room, and all sat down to supper. This was the first time that Herr Kohl had seen the295women sit down with the men; here it seemed a recognised thing. The unmarried granddaughter—a pretty girl of seventeen—did most of the waiting, and that by helping an enormous stew of onions, beef, chickens and hare from the pot on to wooden platters, and handing them round. Forks were not used.
After supper they all adjourned to the benches outside the house. The visitor had brandy and cigars in his portmanteau; and, while he handed these delicacies round, another surprise greeted him; the chief was a teetotaller! and even the sons partook very sparingly of the brandy, though they appreciated the cigars as having a flavour of town life. He was beginning to understand now why there was no inn in the place. The street was the village public-house. Men sat and smoked outside the huts, or strolled up and down in twos and threes; some even squatted in the middle of the road. To-night, as there was a stranger in the place, a knot of Indians stood looking on from a respectful distance at the chief’s party; and presently, most of the elders of the tribe came and sat or lounged near the chief. Each of these greeted the stranger with a guttural “Bon soir, M’sieu’” (one or two of them promoted him to “Monseigneur”). Had they forgotten their own language even? For a while the talk was of the morrow’s festivity, and a tall young brave, whose face was indistinguishable in the twilight, was introduced to Kohl as the future bridegroom; but this topic soon flagged, and the traveller guessed, from the general turning of faces towards him, that it was “news” that everybody wanted.296Before he had talked many minutes he had become a personage; for he had read and travelled widely, and had the rare knack of being able to suit himself to whatever company he happened to be in. He could tell the redskins nothing of Quebec City, for he had not been there; but what pleased them more than anything else was his talk of England; he had once stayed in London; had even seen their White Queen. They wanted no fresher news than that, though it was more than three years old; and they let him talk till his head was nodding with sleep.
After a night passed in one of the loose-boxes and between two bear-skins, he rose early and started off to the woods with the three sons of the house, who had to clear some traps a few miles away. For some time their talk mystified him, for they continually spoke of the animal for which the snares were set asle chat. He knew that wild cats were almost unknown so far north, and the tame ones could scarcely be so plentiful in a pine-forest as to need trapping. He asked for an explanation, which his companions laughingly gave.
“We call him that because it is easier to say thanle loup cervier; many of the French trappers call himle lynx. It is only lately that we have taken the trouble to catch him.”
“How is that?”
“We must catch what the fur-dealers ask us for, sir. Just now, they tell us, the white people in the towns are very fond of wearing lynx-skin as part of their dress.”
When they arrived at the line of traps the Bavarian perceived that the Mohawks’ progressive notions extended297even to these, for they were steel gins bearing the trade-mark of a Montreal hardware firm. In all, ten well-grown lynxes were taken from the traps, which were reset and baited with fresh meat. Then the four hungry men sat down to their breakfast of cold meat, barley bread, and cider, and chatted gaily over it, finding far more rational matter that they could discuss in common than the average English gentleman would often find in conversation with three average English peasant-farmers. Yet Kohl, who had a healthy admiration for the fighting-animal in man, was becoming conscious of a certain melancholy as he looked at his companions. Of course, a Mohawk who went to church, paid his taxes, and sent his children to school was a more desirable neighbour than one whose merits were reckoned according to the number of human scalps in his possession; still, one could almost have wished——
He got no farther with these reflections, for, just then, something happened that upset all his fine theorising, and proved conclusively that there is something in the old saying about scratching a Russian and finding a Tartar. All in a moment the Indians dropped their cider-horns and sprang to their feet, shouting:
“Musquaw! Musquaw!”
It was almost the first native word he had heard, and it meant a black bear. Peering among the trees, he at length caught sight of a large animal hastily turning his back on them and preparing to beat a retreat. The Mohawks ran in pursuit like deerhounds, though all of them were over fifty years of age. Their298rifles—modern breech-loaders—lay to hand ready charged, but they left them behind; those were all very well for money-getting, but just now it was sport that they wanted. Kohl picked up his own gun and hastened after them. They were shouting at the top of their voices—and in Iroquoian; reviling the bear, daring him to turn on them, and taunting him with his cowardice; in a word, hunting as their fathers and grandfathers had done before them. Each had slipped a formidable-looking hatchet from his belt, and now, as they came up with the fugitive, the youngest brother dealt him a blow across the haunches that made him stop and bellow with pain.
As a rule, themusquawis a perfectly harmless beast if left alone; but, when he turns to bay, he is as ferocious and almost as strong as a grisly. Maddened and almost maimed, the great brute now reared, and so suddenly, that the eldest Indian, who had been aiming a similar blow to his brother’s, lost his balance and fell with his head actually touching the beast’s back as he rose on his hind feet. But this was only matter for laughing; he was up again in a second, and striking for the back of the bear’s head, while his brothers sprang backwards or sidewards with terrier-like activity, dodging his outspread claws and awaiting an opportunity to bring him down with a blow across his snout.
Kohl had now reached the scene of the combat, and took up a position whence he could easily cover the enemy with his rifle, which he had just loaded with ball. But the Mohawks wanted no such help as that.
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“No; don’t fire, we would kill fifty like him,” screamed André, the second brother; and, as he spoke, his hatchet fell, cleaving the forepart of the great creature’s skull. The blade stuck fast, and it was only by letting go of the haft and taking a tremendous backward spring, that he saved himself from the paw that struck out at him almost automatically. The bear was tottering now, and another blow on the back of the head from the Indian behind brought him down, stone-dead. Other redskins, attracted by the shouting, had now left their traps and come up, and to these was given the task of flaying the carcase and bringing home the skin; while the chief’s sons, happy as a boy who has killed his first rabbit, went back for their guns.
When they reached the village again, they found iten fête. On the wide space between the chief’s house and the church, all the inhabitants had collected to do honour to the hero and heroine of the day; and, coming out from the house, were the chief, a French priest, and all the womenfolk of the family.
“Come along,” cried the old man gaily to his youngest son; “we are only waiting for you.”
Then ensued a quaint mingling of ancient and modern Mohawk custom. Much of the success of Catholic missions probably lies in the fact that the clergy have never opposed those traditions and customs of savages which were in themselves innocent; here was an instance. A girl was about to become engaged to her future husband, and there was no difficulty in grafting on to the Indian ceremony the mediæval religious rite of betrothal.
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The chief’s youngest son, the girl’s father, approached the lover, carrying a bow and four arrows.
“My brother,” he said solemnly; “you have asked to have my daughter for your wife. But, before you can take the bird to your own nest, you must catch her.”
He fitted an arrow to his bow and shot it so that it stuck in the ground about a hundred yards away. Then, amid dead silence, he stuck a second arrow in the turf at the young man’s feet, and, taking his daughter’s hand, led her to where the first arrow had dropped. He shot a third arrow, this time high in the air, and it fell about twenty yards away from where the girl was standing.
“Will you try to catch my bird?” he shouted to the bridegroom-elect; and of course received “yes” for an answer.
“Then fly,” and he shot his fourth arrow as a signal for the start.
It was queer handicapping—a hundred yards start out of a hundred and twenty—but the girl had doubtless made up her mind beforehand. After hurrying off at full speed, in coquettish pretence of wishing to escape, she contrived to stumble, fell on her face, lay there till the happy man was within a yard or two of her, and allowed herself to be caught before she reached the goal. Of course, the ceremony was a survival from a time when an Indian girl received no other intimation of the wishes of the man who wanted her for his wife, and might reasonably wish to bestow her hand on some other suitor—in which case here was an escape for her; but the result of the race301was received with as much applause as though everything had been real earnest.
Immediately afterwards, everyone went into the church; the lovers stood at the altar, and the priest read the short betrothal office (Fiançailles) which had been introduced by the early French settlers. Games and dancing followed; not the genuine Indian dancing which Kohl had hoped to see, but a rough imitation of the French peasants’ dance; and the day ended with a great feast in the assembly house.
Kohl was obliged to proceed on his way in the morning, but he made many subsequent visits to this queer little community, and always found himself treated like an old friend.
A Novel Bridal CeremonyAmong the Mohawks a suitor must pursue and capture his bride. She is given a start, and if her lover captures her before she reaches a certain point she becomes his wife, and to bring about this happy result she coquettishly trips, or gets exhausted.
A Novel Bridal CeremonyAmong the Mohawks a suitor must pursue and capture his bride. She is given a start, and if her lover captures her before she reaches a certain point she becomes his wife, and to bring about this happy result she coquettishly trips, or gets exhausted.
302CHAPTER XXIVCANADIAN LAKE AND RIVER INDIANS
The Athabaskan or Athapascan family of Indians may be found anywhere between Alaska and Manitoba, and some of the more unsettled or enterprising tribes have even wandered as far as the Mexican boundary. In Southern and Western Canada they are principally represented by the Kuchins and Chippewyans, hardy hunters, canoemen, and fighters, many of whom are to this day very unsophisticated in their views and habits. In the ’sixties, Canada still knew little about railways; lakes and rivers were the recognised highways of travel, and the Eastern Chippewyans made a steady income as carriers, boatmen, and guides; to which occupations, says the Rev. C. Colton, they applied the same combination of energy and deliberateness that their tribe has always displayed in its hunting or its warfare.
Mr. Colton was rector of an Anglican Church in New York, and, in 1860, he set out to visit some friends who lived on the Saskatchewan River—a journey similar in point of distance to that from London to Moscow, or Palermo to Dublin. After a stay at the famous Niagara Falls, he embarked at Buffalo for Detroit, which meant303a three-hundred-mile run across Lake Erie; then made his way to Port Huron, whence a little steamer would carry him to Port Arthur, Ontario.
The morning before the boat came in sight of this place, he observed quite a swarm of Indians on the near bank, leaping into their canoes in the greatest excitement; none of them had guns or bows, but—which looked neither promising nor peaceable—every man had, either beside him or in his hand, a long, barb-headed spear. Indians had, on many occasions, paddled out to the steamer, but it had always been with the sole object of selling fruit or furs or fish, and this was the first time that Mr. Colton had seen them carrying weapons of any sort.
He asked the master of the boat what it meant; but neither he nor the engineer could account for the demonstration; and the four negroes who formed the crew showed by their restless motions and their inattention to everything but the three or four dozen canoes that were flocking towards the launch, that they were considerably alarmed. The only passengers besides the clergyman were three ladies, and a Canadian journalist named Barnes, who was returning to the British Columbian gold-diggings, and who, like the rest, did not know what to make of the sudden and rapid approach of the Indians.
“They’re Chippewyans,” he said. “And, by the look of it, they mean to board us. Have you got a ‘gun’? Then take this one; I’ve another in my bag.”
“Look out for yourselves and your baggage, gents,” cried the Yankee skipper, producing a six-shooter.304“They mean to hold us up. Ladies, please go into the cabin.”
Mr. Colton was dumbfounded. One minute they had been gliding easily along with no more thought of piracy or highway robbery than you have when on a Thames penny steamer; the next, a revolver had been thrust into his unskilled hands with the recommendation to “look after himself.” It was too absurd, yet decidedly awkward; and it would not be a mere case of driving off the canoes by a distribution of grapeshot, but—unless their engine was more powerful than Chippewyan paddles—of being outnumbered by about ten to one and robbed of every cent and every thing they possessed, even if not killed.
And worse was behind all this. Why on earth was the boat stopping instead of steering out? Stopped it certainly had, and a cursing match was in progress between the infuriated master and the engineer. In their excitement they had, between them, managed to run the steamer on to a pebble-bank. A yell of delight arose from the Indians; their paddles flashed through the water with greater rapidity than ever, and in another minute the canoes were round the steamer’s bows, the paddles dropped, and the spears picked up.
Colton had never fired a pistol in his life, but, like many of his cloth, he had a very pretty notion of using his fists when need arose, and he took his stand fearlessly by the side of the journalist, determined to sell his life dearly. Barnes regarded the matter coolly; he had had many a brush with Indians, and had more than once “stripped-to” and thrashed an offensive digger.