The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains

The music was worthy of the dancing, for the appointed performer had, owing to some occult cause, failed to turn up, and a volunteer had taken his place with another fiddle, which was homemade, and which he did not quite understand. A small pig with feeble intellect and disordered nerves might have equalled—even surpassed—the tones of that violin, but it could not hope to have beaten the volunteer’s time. That, performed on a board by the volunteer’s foot, automatically, beat everything that we have ever heard of in the musical way from the days of Eden till now.

Only four members of the two households failed to take a violently active part in that festive gathering. Jessie Davidson had conveniently sprained her ankle for the occasion, and thus was set free to sit between the wheeled chairs of the two Duncans, and act as a sympathetic receptacle of their varied commentaries. Her mother, being too stout for active service, sat beside them and smiled universal benignity. Her little maid, Louise, chanced to be ill. Peter Davidson’s case, however, was the worst. He had gone off in company with Okématan to visit a camp of Cree Indians, intending to be back in time, but his horse had gone lame while yet far from home, and as it was impossible to procure another at the time, he was fain to grin and bear it. Meanwhile Antoine Dechamp had been pressed into the service, and took his place as best-man to Fred Jenkins—a position which he filled to admiration, chiefly owing to the fact that he had never served in such a capacity before.

Late on the following evening La Certe sat by his own fireside, somewhat exhausted by the festivities of the day before, and glaring affectionately at Slowfoot, who was stirring something in a pot over the fire. The little one—rapidly becoming a big one, and unquestionably by that time a girl—crouched at her father’s side, sound asleep, with her head resting on his leg. She no longer cried for a pull at her father’s pipe.

“Have you heard that Kateegoose is dead?” asked Slowfoot.

“No—how did he die?”

“He was met on the plains by enemies, killed, and scalped.”

“That is sad—very sad,” said La Certe.

“The world is well rid of him,” observed Slowfoot; “he was a bad man.”

“Yes,” responded her lord; “it is necessary to get rid of a bad man somehow—but—but it is sad—very sad—to kill and scalp him.”

La Certe passed his fingers softly among the locks of his sleeping child as if the fate of Kateegoose were suggestive! Then, turning, as from a painful subject, he asked—

“Does our little one never smoke now?”

“No—never.”

“Does she never wish for it?”

“Slowfoot cannot tell what our little one wishes,” was the reply, “but she never gets it.”

La Certe pondered for some time, and then asked—

“Does my Slowfoot still like work?”

“She likes it still—likes it better.”

“And she does it—sometimes?”

“Yes, often—always.”

“Why?”

“Because Mr Sutherland advises me—and I like Mr Sutherland.”

“Does my Slowfoot expect me to like work too, and to do it?” asked La Certe with a peculiar glance.

“We cannot like what we don’t like, though we may do it,” answered the wife, drawing perilously near to the metaphysical, “but Slowfoot expects nothing. She waits. My François is not a child. He can judge of all things for himself.”

“That is true, my Slowfoot; and, do you know,” he added, earnestly, “I have had hard work—awfully hard work—killing work—since I have been away, yet it has not killed me. Perhaps you will doubt me when I tell you that I, too, rather like it!”

“That is strange,” said Slowfoot, with more of interest in her air than she had shown for many a day. “Why do you like it?”

“I think,” returned the husband, slowly, “it is because I like Dan Davidson. I like him very much, and it was to please him that I began to work hard, for, you know, he was very anxious to get home in time to be at his own wedding. So that made me work hard, and now I find that hard work is not hard when we like people. Is it not strange, my Slowfoot?”

“Yes. Your words are very like the words of Mr Sutherland to-day. It is very strange!”

Yet, after all, it was not so very strange, for this worthy couple had only been led to the discovery of the old, well-known fact that— “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”

There was yet another of those whose fortunes we have followed thus far who learned the same lesson.

About the same time that the events just described took place in Red River, there assembled a large band of feathered and painted warriors in a secluded coppice far out on the prairie. They had met for a grave palaver. The subject they had been discussing was not war, but peace. Several of the chiefs and braves had given their opinions, and now all eyes were turned towards the spot where the great chief of all was seated, with a white-man beside him. That great chief was Okématan. The Paleface was Peter Davidson.

Rising with the dignity that befitted his rank, Okématan, in a low but telling voice, delivered himself, as follows:

“When Okématan left his people and went to live for a time in the wigwams of the Palefaces, he wished to find out for himself what they wanted in our land, and why they were not content to remain in their own land. The answer that was at first given to my questions seemed to me good—a reply that might have even come from the wise heads of the Cree Nation; but, after much palaver, I found that there was contradiction in what the Palefaces said, so that I began to think they were fools and knew not how to talk wisely. A Cree never reasons foolishly—as you all know well—or, if he does, we regard him as nobody—fit only to fight and to die without any one caring much. But as I lived longer with the Palefaces I found that they were not all fools. Some things they knew and did well. Other things they did ill and foolishly. Then I was puzzled, for I found that they did not all think alike, as we do, and that some have good hearts as well as good heads. Others have the heads without the hearts, and some have the hearts without the heads—Waugh!”

“Waugh!” repeated the listening braves, to fill up the pause here, as it were, with a note of approval.

“The Palefaces told me,” continued Okématan with great deliberation, as if about to make some astounding revelations, “that their land was too small to hold them, and so they came away. I told them that that was wise; that Cree Indians would have done the same. But then came the puzzle, for they told me that there were vast tracts of land where they lived with plenty of lakes, rivers, and mountains, in which there was nobody—only fish and birds and deer. Then I said, ‘You told me that your land was too small to hold you; why did you not go and live on these mountains, and fish and shoot and be happy?’ To this they answered that those fine lands were claimed by a few great chiefs, who kept them for their own shooting and fishing, and drove out all the braves with their wives and families and little ones to crowd upon the shores of the great salt-water lake, and live there on a few fish and shells—for even there the great chiefs would not allow them to have all the fishing, but kept the best of it for themselves! Or, if they did not like that, the poor braves were told to go and live in what they called cities—where there are thousands of wigwams crowded together, and even piled on the top of each other,—but I think the Palefaces were telling lies when they said that—Waugh!”

Again there were many “Waughie” responses, mingled with numerous “Ho’s!” of astonishment, and a few other sounds that seemed to indicate disbelief in Okématan’s veracity.

“What,” continued Okématan, with considerable vehemence, “what would my braves do if Okématan and a few of the Cree chiefs were to take all the lands of Red River, and all the buffalo, and all the birds and beasts to themselves, and drive the braves with their families to the shores of Lake Winnipeg, to live there on fish, or die, or leave the country if they did not like it! What would they do?”

Okématan’s voice increased in fervour, and he put the finishing question with an intensity that called forth a chorus of “Waughs!” and “Ho’s!” with a glittering of eyes, and a significant grasping of scalping-knives and tomahawks that rendered further reply needless.

“Would you not scorn us,” he continued, “scalp us, tear out our eyes, roast us alive?—but no—the Cree Nation loves not cruelty. You would merely pat us on the head, and tell us to go and make moccasins, and boil the kettle with the squaws!

“Then, when I began to know them better, I found that all the Paleface chiefs over the great salt lake are not greedy and foolish. Some are open-handed and wise. I also found that there is a tribe among them, who lived chiefly in the mountain lands. These are very kind, very brave, very wise, and very grave. They do not laugh so loud as the others, but when they are amused their eyes twinkle and their sides shake more. This tribe is called Scos-mins. I love the Scos-mins! I lived in the wigwam of one. He is old and fierce, but he is not bad, and his heart is large. In his house were some other Scos-mins—braves and squaws. They were very kind to me. This is one of them.”

The flashing eyes of the entire party were turned upon Peter Davidson, who, however, had presence of mind enough to gaze at the cloudless heavens with immovable solemnity and abstraction.

“There are two others, whom I look upon as sons. One is named Arch-ee; the other Leetil Beel. Now,” continued Okématan, after a pause, “my advice is that we should teach the Paleface chiefs over the great salt lake a lesson, by receiving the poor braves who have been driven away from their own lands and treating them as brothers. Our land is large. There is room for all—and our chiefs will never seize it. Our hearts are large; there is plenty of room there too.

“The Great Spirit who rules over all inclines my heart to go and dwell with the Palefaces until I understand them better, and teach them some of the wisdom of the Red-man. I shall return to Red River to-morrow, along with my Paleface brother whose name is Pee-ter, and while I am away I counsel my braves and brothers to dwell and hunt and fish together in love and peace.”

How it fared with Okématan on his self-imposed mission we cannot tell, but we do know that from 1821—the date of the auspicious coalition before mentioned—the sorely tried colony began steadily to prosper, and, with the exception of the mishaps incident to all new colonies, and a disastrous flood or two, has continued to prosper ever since. Civilisation has made rapid and giant strides, especially during the later years of the century. The wave has rushed far and deep over the old boundaries, and now the flourishing city of Winnipeg, with its thousands of inhabitants, occupies the ground by the banks of the Red River, on which, not many years ago, the old Fort Garry stood, a sort of sentinel-outpost, guarding the solitudes of what was at that time considered a remote part of the great wilderness of Rupert’s Land.

The End