Part 2 (2/2)

”_A plain, unvarnished tale, my dear Bellefeuille_,” wrote the mighty MacDonald of Garth in his eighty-sixth year for a son; but the old trader's tale needed no varnish of rhetoric. ”_Nearing the mountains we got scarce of provisions; ... bought horses for beef.... Here_ (at the Great Bend) _we left canoes and began a mountain pa.s.s_ (Yellow Head Pa.s.s).... _The river meanders much, ... and we cut across, ... holding by one another's hands, ... wading to the hips in water, das.h.i.+ng in, frozen at one point, thawed at the next, ... frozen before we dashed in, ... our men carrying blankets and provisions on their heads; ... four days' hard work before we got to Jasper House at the source of the Athabasca, sometimes camping on snow twenty feet deep, so that the fires we made in the evening were fifteen or twenty feet below us in the morning.”_

They had now crossed the mountains, and taking to canoes again paddled down-stream to the _portage_ between Athabasca River and the Saskatchewan. Tramping sixty miles, they reached Fort Augustus (Edmonton) on the Saskatchewan, where canoes were made on the spot, and the _voyageurs_ launched down-stream a trifling distance of two thousand miles by the windings of the river, past Lake Winnipeg southward to Fort William, the Nor' Westers' headquarters on Lake Superior.

Here the capture of Astoria was reported, and bales to the value of a million dollars in modern money sent east in fifty canoes with an armed guard of three hundred men.[22] Coasting along the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior, the _voyageurs_ came to the Sault and found Mr. Johnston's establishment a scene of smoking ruins. It was necessary to use the greatest caution not to attract the notice of warring parties on the Lakes.

”_Overhauled a canoe going eastward, ... a Mackinaw trader and four Indians with a dozen fresh American scalps_,” writes MacDonald, showing to what a pa.s.s things had come. Two days later a couple of boats were overtaken and compelled to halt by a shot from MacDonald's swivels. The strangers proved to be the escaping crew of a British s.h.i.+p which had been captured by two American schooners, and the British officer bore bad news. The American schooners were now on the lookout for the rich prize of furs being taken east in the North-West canoes. Slipping under the nose of these schooners in the dark, the officer hurried to Mackinac, leaving the Nor' Westers hidden in the mouth of French River.

William MacKay, a Nor' West partner, at once sallied out to the defence of the furs.

Determined to catch the brigade, one schooner was hovering about the Sault, the other cruising into the countless recesses of the north sh.o.r.e. Against the latter the Mackinaw traders directed their forces, boarding her, and, as MacDonald tells with brutal frankness, ”_pinning the crew with fixed bayonets to the deck_.” Lying snugly at anchor, the victors awaited the coming of the other unsuspecting schooner, let her cast anchor, bore down upon her, poured in a broadside, and took both schooners to Mackinac. Freed from all apprehension of capture, the North-West brigade proceeded eastward to the Ottawa River, and without further adventure came to Montreal, where all was wild confusion from another cause.

At the very time when war endangered the entire route of the Nor'

Westers from Montreal to the Pacific, the Hudson's Bay Company awakened from its long sleep. While Mr. Astor was pus.h.i.+ng his schemes in the United States, Lord Selkirk was formulating plans for the control of all Canada's fur trade. Like Mr. Astor, he too had been the guest at the North-West banquets in the Beaver Club, Montreal, and had heard fabulous things from those magnates of the north about wealth made in the fur trade. Returning to England, Lord Selkirk bought up enough stock of the Hudson's Bay Company to give him full control, and secured from the shareholders an enormous grant of land surrounding the mouths of the Red and a.s.siniboine rivers.

Where the a.s.siniboine joins the northern Red were situated Fort Douglas (later Fort Garry, now Winnipeg), the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Fort Gibraltar, the North-West post whence supplies were sent all the way from the Mandans on the Missouri to the Eskimo in the arctics.

Not satisfied with this _coup_, Lord Selkirk engaged Colin Robertson, an old Nor' Wester, to gather a brigade of _voyageurs_ two hundred strong at Montreal and proceed up the Nor' Westers' route to Athabasca, MacKenzie River, and the Rockies. This was the noisy, bl.u.s.tering, bragging company of gaily-bedizened fellows that had turned the streets of Montreal into a roistering booth when the Astorians came to the end of their long eastward journey. Poor, fool-happy revellers! Eighteen of them died of starvation in the far, cold north, owing to the conflict between Fort Douglas and Gibraltar, which delayed supplies.

Beginning in 1811, Lord Selkirk poured a stream of colonists to his newly-acquired territory by way of Churchill and York Factory on Hudson Bay. These people were given lands, and in return expected to defend the Hudson's Bay Company from Nor' Westers. The Nor' Westers struck back by discouraging the colonists, s.h.i.+pping them free out of the country, and getting possession of their arms.

Miles MacDonell, formerly of the King's Royal Regiment, New York, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Douglas, at once issued proclamations forbidding Indians to trade furs with Nor' Westers and ordering Nor' Westers from the country. On the strength of these proclamations two or three outlying North-West forts were destroyed and North-West fur brigades rifled. Duncan Cameron,[23] the North-West partner at Fort Gibraltar, countered by letting his _Bois-Brules_, a ragged half-breed army of wild plain rangers under Cuthbert Grant, canter across the two miles that separated the rival forts, and pour a volley of musketry into the Hudson Bay houses. To save the post for the Hudson's Bay Company, Miles MacDonell gave himself up and was s.h.i.+pped out of the country.

But the Hudson's Bay fort was only biding its time till the valiant North-West defenders had scattered to their winter posts. Then an armed party seized Duncan Cameron not far from the North-West fort, and with pistol c.o.c.ked by one man, publicly horsewhipped the Nor' Wester.

Afterward, when Semple, the new Hudson's Bay governor, was absent from Fort Douglas and could not therefore be held responsible for consequences, the Hudson's Bay men, led by the same Colin Robertson who had brought the large brigade from Montreal, marched across the prairie to Fort Gibraltar, captured Mr. Cameron, plundered all the Nor' Westers'

stores, and burned the fort to the ground. By way of retaliation for MacDonell's expulsion, the North-West partner was s.h.i.+pped down to Hudson Bay, where he might as well have been on Devil's Island for all the chance of escape.

One company at fault as often as the other, similar outrages were perpetrated in all parts of the north fur country, the blood of rival traders being spilt without a qualm of conscience or thought of results.

The effect of this conflict among white men on the bloodthirsty red-skins one may guess. The _Bois-Brules_ were clamouring for Cuthbert Grant's permission to wipe the English--meaning the Hudson's Bay men--off the earth; and the Swampy Crees and Saulteaux under Chief Peguis were urging Governor Semple to let them defend the Hudson's Bay--meaning kill the Nor' Westers.

The crisis followed sharp on the destruction of Fort Gibraltar. That post had sent all supplies to North-West forts. If Fort Douglas of the Hudson's Bay Company, past which North-West canoes must paddle to turn westward to the plains, should intercept the incoming brigade of Nor'

Westers' supplies, what would become of the two thousand North-West traders and _voyageurs_ and _engages_ inland? Whether the Hudson's Bay had such intentions or not, the Nor' Westers were determined to prevent the possibility.

Like the red cross that called ancient clans to arms, scouts went scouring across the plains to rally the _Bois-Brules_ from Portage la Prairie and Souris and Qu'Appelle.[24] Led by Cuthbert Grant, they skirted north of the Hudson's Bay post to meet and disembark supplies above Fort Douglas. It was but natural for the settlers to mistake this armed cavalcade, red with paint and chanting war-songs, for hostiles.

Rus.h.i.+ng to Fort Douglas, the settlers gave the alarm. Ordering a field-piece to follow, Governor Semple marched out with a little army of twenty-eight Hudson's Bay men. The Nor' Westers thought that he meant to obstruct their way till his other forces had captured their coming canoes. The Hudson's Bay thought that Cuthbert Grant meant to attack the Selkirk settlers.

It was in the evening of June 19, 1816. The two parties met at the edge of a swamp beside a cl.u.s.ter of trees, since called Seven Oaks. Nor'

Westers say that Governor Semple caught the bridle of their scout and tried to throw him from his horse. The Hudson's Bay say that the governor had no sooner got within range than the half-breed scout leaped down and fired from the shelter of his horse, breaking Semple's thigh.

It is well known how the first blood of battle has the same effect on all men of whatever race. The human is eclipsed by that brute savagery which comes down from ages when man was a creature of prey. In a trice twenty-one of the Hudson's Bay men lay dead. While Grant had turned to obtain carriers to bear the wounded governor off the field, poor Semple was brutally murdered by one of the Deschamps family, who ran from body to body, perpetrating the crimes of ghouls. It was in vain for Grant to expostulate. The wild blood of a savage race had been roused. The soft velvet night of the summer prairie, with the winds crooning the sad monotone of a limitless sea, closed over a scene of savages drunk with slaughter, of men gone mad with the madness of murder, of warriors thinking to gain courage by drinking the blood of the slain.

Grant saved the settlers' lives by sending them down-stream to Lake Winnipeg, where dwelt the friendly Chief Peguis. On the river they met the indomitable Miles MacDonell, posting back to resume authority. He brought news that must have been good cheer. Moved by the expelled governor's account of disorders, Lord Selkirk was hastening north, armed with the authority of a justice of the peace, escorted by soldiers in full regalia as became his station, with cannon mounted on his barges and stores of munition that ill agreed with the professions of a peaceful justice.

The time has gone past for quibbling as to the earl's motives in pus.h.i.+ng north armed like a lord of war. MacDonell hastened back and met him with his army of Des Meurons[25] at the Sault. In August Lord Selkirk appeared before Port William with uniformed soldiers in eleven boats.

The justice of the peace set his soldiers digging trenches opposite the Nor' Westers' fort. As for the Nor' Westers, they had had enough of blood. They capitulated without one blow. Selkirk took full possession.

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